Newspaper Page Text
10A
April 26, 2007
Mother
Continued from page 1A
“They just kept telling
[Woods Sr.] to get back, get
back, then [Woods Jr.] col
lapsed. They moved him
from the street to the curb.
Still no one was doing any
thing, they were just stand
ing around.”
&annonicr said the con
vulsions started after both
volice officers slammed the
Landcuffcd Woods' head
down on the police car.
“My baby’s eyeés went up in
his head, blood jumped
everywhere, he fell on the
ground." she said.
A Black police officer came
up. | guess she observed
yvlhat_wa.s going on and real
ized it was serious,” Maxie
said. “She got her gioves
and put them on.” Maxie
said that as the female ofhi
cer approached the scene,
she ordered the handcuffs
to be removed. Woods Sr.
and one of the other officers
carried him from the street
to the grass between the
curb am? sidewalk. Uncon
Bealing: “There's no quick fix
Continued from page 2A
“You want to know what
their understanding is,
you want to know how
they're understanding it,
you want to know what
they're feeling and so the
first thing you do is ask
them. You don't even
have to mention the spe
cific incident. Just asked
. if they've h:ar&i anything
2ton tht néws' Tavely tifar
might be bothering
them. You want to get to
where they are and then
help them to process the
information.’
When processing, chil
dren, at home or at
school - need to be reas
sured, she said. ‘They
need to know that they
are safe. It is important
for parents and teachers
to let them know that
there is a safety plan
whatever it is so that
Deputy
Continued from page 3A
Nuwaubian beliefs. Galis
ruled that a superior officer
could have taken action
against Dixon but did not.
Galis ruled March 23 that
although Dixon violated
two jail policies, he should
be disciplined, not fired.
County Human
Resources Director Harry
Owens said Dixon served a
10-day suspension without
pay and was allowed to
return to work last week.
Despite reinstating
Dixon, Galis upheld the
decision to fire two other
deputies.
Galis upheld one depury’s
termination, finding that
William York tried to
manipulate a polygraph test
and could not be reached
while on paid administrative
leave.
The hearing officer also
upheld the firing of Antho
ny Montgomery, saying he
flagrantly disregarded jail
policy by writing to Dwight
York.
A fourth former deputy
has an appeal hearing
scheduled for June 12.
They started beating him...
scious, Woods went into
another convulsion.
“I saw him hitting his face
on the concrete ground
during his convulsion and
said "Scooter needs help,’
“said Hall. “The female
officer told me to shut up.
Blood was coming out of
his face and they never did
help him at anytime.”
Both of Woods™ parents felt
that he was not breathing.
A passerby called 911 for an
ambulance, which came
about 20 minutes later,
according to the witnesses.
“When tfi‘mc picked him up
and broug?n him over to
the street curb, the officer
ut his hand on the side of
fiis stomach,” Hall said.
“The officer dropped his
head and 1 told my mother
‘Scooter’s dead right now.’
They kept saying that para
mcc{i,cs were coming but
they never called. They
were wrong, they didn't
have to treat him like that,”
he continued. “He wasn't
resisting arrest. How can
i'ou whgn you're already
handcuffed?
they can have some sense
of normalcy in terms of
their emotions.’
Ironically, crisis coun
selors say that the same
comforts that children
need in times of crisis,
adults also need. When
students, staff and facul
ty returned to classes at
Virginia Tech on Mon
day, they first held an
assembly during which
they released 33Li)alloons
in ‘reménmbrance ' of ‘the
victims and Cho. Coun
selors were on hand for
anyone who needed to
talk or needed help with
understanding.
Losing a loved one to a
violent crime takes time,
experts say, particularly
when the crime happens
in a place where it is reast
expected.
‘ln Blacksburg, vio
lence is an anomaly,
which means when vio
lence does occur, it tends
Innocence
Continued from page 1A
gests as many as one hundred
thousand falsely convicred pris
oners. Other reports place the
figure higher. In most cases,
the wrongfully accused are
black.
As of April 22, 2007, two
hundred defendants previously
convicted of serious crimes in
the United States had been
exonerated by DNA testing,
the so-called proving ground
for the La Crosse players.
Almost all of these convictions
involved some form of sexual
assault.
Jerry Miller is just one of the
two hundred current examples
of persons convicted wrongly
that have been DNA deared.
He is a black man accused of
assault who was exonerated in
Chicago after serving twenty
four years for a crime he did
NOt COmIMIL.
Please rest assured that this
desk, from experience, is a con
cerned about justice being
brought to the Lacrosse players
at Duke University as much as
anyone on the face of this
earth; but this story under-
T
Roks: K ]
wrongful experience thar
AUGUSTA FOCUS
“They were just sitting
there, they werent even
worried about him,” Ruval
caba said. “It took them like
10 1o 20 minutes to call the
ambulance. Everybody was
screaming to call the ambu
lance.”
Woods was taken to Baylor
Hospital, where he was placed
on life support in the intensive
care unit. Woods died April 12
at 8:05 am.
Reports from Dallas Mom
ing News, written the moming
following the incident
described Woods as a suspected
drug dealer, but Cannonier
described her son as a gving
man.
“My baby would have given
his heart to you. If he got it,
you got it. He never tried to
hurt anybody.”
Woods, in fact, was a regular
source of support for his par
ents, who both are on Social
Security.
“When both his daddy and
me were sick, he would come
in and pay the bills,” she said.
to have much more of a
devastating affect on the
people because it’s unex
pected,’ says says Merlin
R. Langley, a clinical
psychologist and profes
sor in the Department of
Social Work at Florida A
& M. University.
“They're shocked, they're
bewildered, their basic
sense of safety has been
disrupted and under
mined.’
“*Therefore, ‘there is no
uick fix," says Jones,
‘(Lu( healing will come.’
He conc%udcs that
mourners must not feel
guilty about going on
with their lives, in part,
because that's what the
lost loved one would
have desired. ‘You must
live your life to the
fullest. Realize all your
dreams so that the
dreams that they did not
realize will somehow be
fulfilled.’
caused the white media to
groan so mournfully for per
sons of their color. When a
black is convicted, they seem to
switch their mindsets to an
entirely different affect. Asone
law enforcement official said
recently, when a black male is
accused of anything, especially
rape, he has his innocence to
prove. When a white male is
accused of the same type of
crime, his innocence is auto
matically asumed from the
very beginning, This is a mat
ter of justice not plumbing the
line. Rather it seems like justice
in the USA is as race sensitive as
the milieu in which it resides. It
always has, and continues to do
so, sway away from blacks.
This is precisely why over four
thousand black men have been
snatched from their families in
the middle of the night and
hanged - without a hearing,
investigation, trial or the slight
est intervention of justice.
Whar kind of system do we
have when the media laments
so over three and patently
ignores hundreds of thousands
of innocent black victims? It is
called a sick and evil system of
injustice, plain and simple.
Comell West is still on targer;
Race continues to matter,
Although Woods did serve
three years in prison on a drug
possession charge several years
back, those who knew him
didnt feel he was involved in
drugs as the police suspected.
Cannonier stated police had
searched the truck and found
no drugs the day Woods died.
They did find a sum of money
in Woods truck, which Can
nonier said the police confiscat
ed.
Woods made a living repair
ing cars bought at auctions and
reselling them. He had just sold
a car the day of his death and
had about S3OO on his posses
sion, both family and neigh
bors said.
A neurologjst at Baylor told the
family Woods died from the
lack of oxygen going to the
brain, then his heart, which
may dispute daims by the offi
cers that Woods' trying to swal
low drugs might have been a
factor behind his convulsions.
“Woods death was caused
by lack of air going to the brain.
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That can be done by three dif
ferent ways: choke the man to
death, hiting the man and
knocking the wind out of him
or hitting his head up against
the police car,” said Rev.
Ronald Wright, interim presi
dent of the Southern Chnistian
Leadership Conference. “It was
the lack of air going to the brain
as well as the response time to
call the MES, which was 15 o
20 minutes. They never tried to
do CPR, until 10 or 15 min
utes later, after he was having a
seizure. They were negligent all
the way around. The swallow
ing of drugs would not stop
oxygen from going to the
brain.” Several witnesses said
they awempted to get the police
officers’ names and badges, but
the officers only laughed at
them.
Additionally, the police
report reviewed by The Dallas
Examiner did not contain the
names of the officers involved
in the inadent.
“They dont respect us; they
walk crazy to us,” said Afrique
Lashan Hawkins, Woods' ex
wife. “If they pull you over for
any reason, the majority of
them are going to treat you as if
youve already done something
wrong rather than [say], let me
uy and help you and assist
you.”
A group of community lead
ers representing the NAACP
SCLC, UQJ, the Nation of
Islam and the New Black Pan
thers Party gathered for a press
conference where the fatal inci
dent occurred.
“A Dallas police officer has
never been indicted in the his
tory of the aty for the death of
a Black man,” Johnson stated.
“This is a message that ics
alright to do it. They don't have
to worry about being indicted
or convicted.”
“If the facts come out, we
dont want his hands
slapped, we want him tried
for murder and sent to
prison, if not worse,”
Muhammad said.