Police Shoot Unarmed African American Mother and Infant

 
What is going on with the police in Ohio? From the looks of things with the shooting deaths of John Crawford and 12-year-old Tamir Rice, you would think that the state recently lost its mind. But if the FBI’s recently-released report on the rampant corruption of the Cleveland Police Department is any indication, dirty cops shooting innocent, unarmed people in Ohio is far from new.

Some stories make national headlines, but many do not. One of those that was swept under the rug and ignored by almost all of the national mainstream media, was the shooting of 26-year-old Tarika Wilson and her 14-month-old infant child. Now, community activists are calling for this case to be reexamined and brought into the national spotlight on police brutality and extrajudicial killings.

“This thing just stinks to high heaven, and the police know it,” Jason Upthegrove, the president of the Lima chapter of the N.A.A.C.P. said. “We’re not asking for answers anymore. We’re demanding them.”

That was 7 years ago to the month. No answers ever came, in spite of the demands. So much of the corporate media ignored this blatant story of police abuse and murder. But with many high profile cases like those of Crawford and Rice at the tip of the nation’s collective tongue, some believe that maybe now the rest of the country will listen about this assassination that was carried out by Ohio police officers.

Back in 2008, a SWAT team showed up at Wilson’s house in Lima, Ohio’s Southside neighborhood. It was early in the evening on January 4th. The warrant the SWAT cops had was part of the failed so-called “War on Drugs.”

But it was not Wilson who was named on the warrant, it was her companion Anthony Terry. Without any warning, officers smashed her door down and entered with machine guns drawn, according to neighbors who witnessed the raid.

In just seconds, SWAT officers shot and killed Wilson, 26, and wounded her 14-month-old son.

The shooter, Sgt. Joseph Chavalia, a 31-year veteran of the Lima police force, was placed on paid administrative leave.

The New York Times reported that “Black people in Lima, from the poorest citizens to religious and business leaders, complain that rogue police officers regularly stop them without cause, point guns in their faces, curse them and physically abuse them.

“They say the shooting of Ms. Wilson is only the latest example of a long-running pattern of a few white police officers treating African-Americans as people to be feared,” the paper added.

“There is an evil in this town,” C. M. Manley, 68, pastor of New Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church told reporters. “The police harass me. They harass my family. But they know that if something happens to me, people will burn down this town.”

As you might have expected, an internal investigations said that they found “no evidence of police misconduct,” according to Chief Garlock.

Junior Cook, a neighbor of Tarika Wilson, said that he saw the whole thing from his front yard, as he raced over. He watched police emerge from the house carrying the bleeding infant.

“The cops in Lima, they is racist like no tomorrow,” Cook said. “Why else would you shoot a mother with a baby in her arms?”

That’s a good question. So far, the police have provided no answers and no justice for this crime. If you believe that it is past time for there to be justice for Tarika Wilson, then help us SPREAD THE WORD!

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AdobeCS4 said:

**** 12.

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RIP sleazyy said:

 

AdobeCS4 said:

**** 12.

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Truth-Serum said:

Waiting for the usual suspects to come and defend the cops...

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KingdomFlatbush said:

I don't doubt that this happened, but I need a link to an article from a reputable source instead of an op-ed copied and pasted into NT

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[h1]  Police Shooting of Mother and Infant Exposes a City’s Racial Tension[/h1]
By CHRISTOPHER MAAG

Published: January 30, 2008

LIMA, Ohio  — The air of Southside is foul-smelling and thick, filled with fumes from an oil refinery and diesel smoke from a train yard, with talk of riot and recrimination, and with angry questions: Why is Tarika Wilson dead? Why did the police shoot her baby?

Tarika Wilson

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[img]http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/01/30/us/30limaDOOR.190.jpg[/img]
J. D. Pooley for The New York Times

Residents of Lima, Ohio, posted a sign at the house where Ms. Wilson, 26, was killed and her 14-month-old son was injured.
 
“This thing just stinks to high heaven, and the police know it,” said Jason Upthegrove, president of the Lima chapter of the N.A.A.C.P.  “We’re not asking for answers anymore. We’re demanding them.”

Some facts are known. A SWAT team arrived at Ms. Wilson’s rented house in the Southside neighborhood early in the evening of Jan. 4 to arrest her companion, Anthony Terry, on suspicion of drug dealing, said Greg Garlock, Lima’s police chief. Officers bashed in the front door and entered with guns drawn, said neighbors who saw the raid.

Moments later, the police opened fire, killing Ms. Wilson, 26, and wounding her 14-month-old son, Sincere, Chief Garlock said. One officer involved in the raid, Sgt. Joseph Chavalia, a 31-year veteran, has been placed on paid administrative leave.

Beyond these scant certainties, there is mostly rumor and rage. The police refuse to give any account of the raid, pending an investigation by the Ohio attorney general.

Black people in Lima, from the poorest citizens to religious and business leaders, complain that rogue police officers regularly stop them without cause, point guns in their faces, curse them and physically abuse them. They say the shooting of Ms. Wilson is only the latest example of a long-running pattern of a few white police officers treating African-Americans as people to be feared.

“There is an evil in this town,” said C. M. Manley, 68, pastor of New Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church. “The police harass me. They harass my family. But they know that if something happens to me, people will burn down this town.”

Internal investigations have uncovered no evidence of police misconduct, Chief Garlock said. Still, local officials recognize that the perception of systemic racism has opened a wide chasm.

“The situation is very tense,” Mayor David J. Berger said. “Serious threats have been made. People are starting to carry weapons to protect themselves.”

Surrounded by farm country known for its German Catholic roots and conservative politics, Lima is the only city in the immediate area with a significant African-American population. Black families, including Mr. Manley’s, came to Lima in the 1940s and ’50s for jobs at what is now the Husky Energy Lima Refinery and other factories along the city’s southern border. Blacks make up 27 percent of the city’s 38,000 people, Mr. Berger said.

Many blacks still live downwind from the refinery. Many whites on the police force commute from nearby farm towns, where a black face is about as common as a twisty road. Of Lima’s 77 police officers, two are African-American.

“If I have any frustration when I retire, it’ll be that I wasn’t able to bring more racial balance to the police force,” said Chief Garlock, who joined the force in 1971 and has been chief for 11 years.

Tarika Wilson had six children, ages 8 to 1. They were fathered by five men, all of whom dealt drugs, said Darla Jennings, Ms. Wilson’s mother. But Ms. Wilson never took drugs nor allowed them to be sold from her house, said Tania Wilson, her sister.

“She took great care of those kids, without much help from the fathers, and the community respected her for that,” said Ms. Wilson’s uncle, John Austin.

Tarika Wilson’s companion, Mr. Terry, was the subject of a long-term drug investigation, Chief Garlock said, but Ms. Wilson was never a suspect.

During the raid, Ms. Wilson’s youngest son, Sincere, was shot in the left shoulder and hand. Three weeks after the shooting, he remains in fair condition, said a spokeswoman at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus.

Within minutes of the shooting, at around 8 p.m., 50 people gathered outside Ms. Wilson’s home and shouted obscenities at the police, neighbors said. The next day, 300 people gathered at the house and marched two miles to City Hall.

Many protesters believe they saw snipers atop police headquarters. The men on the roof were actually photographers, Chief Garlock said.

“The police can say whatever they want,” Tania Wilson said. “Even before they shot my sister, I didn’t trust them.”

Smaller marches have continued every week since the shooting. The N.A.A.C.P. will hold a public meeting on Saturday to air complaints about police brutality. The group will soon request that the Department of Justice investigate the police department and the Allen County prosecutor’s office, Mr. Upthegrove said.

Junior Cook was a neighbor of Tarika Wilson. He says that he watched from his front porch as the SWAT team raced across his front yard, and that seconds later he watched a police officer run from Ms. Wilson’s house carrying a bleeding baby in a blanket.

“The cops in Lima, they is racist like no tomorrow,” said Mr. Cook, 56. “Why else would you shoot a mother with a baby in her arms?”

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VICTOR PAGE said:

"let's wait for all the facts to come out"

"she had a plastic knife in an instagram picture...she was no angel"

"she reached in the baby's pocket for something...she shouldn't have"

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[h1]  Five years later: Friends, family of Tarika Wilson say nothing has changed[/h1]
LIMA — A sorrowful requiem rang out as night faded on 218 E. Third St. Friday evening. Five years later, all was eerily quiet as friends and family huddled to mourn the loss of Tarika Wilson, a death that has caused controversy and a massive community discussion about race relations and the justice system in the city.

“I feel like she did die in vain,” said Ivory Austin, Wilson’s father. “For me, the hurt will never go away. I will always feel that I lost a child.”

On Jan. 4, 2008, a Lima police officer shot and killed a 26-year-old Wilson, and also shot and injured one of her six children, Sincere Wilson, one-year-old at the time, resulting in protest marches and a SWAT team veteran found not guilty and cleared of wrongdoing.

Sgt. Joe Chavalia, who had been with Lima Police Department for 31 years, was the officer who shot and killed Wilson. Race was immediately injected into the situation, with a white officer shooting the biracial girlfriend of a suspected drug dealer. Community anger boiled at meetings with City Council and other organizations.

Anthony Terry, the man police were focused on in that raid, eventually pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges and was sentenced to seven years in prison. Chavalia was charged with, and later acquitted of, two misdemeanors, negligent homicide and negligent assault. Again race entered the conversation, when an all-white jury took three hours to return a not guilty verdict.

But despite the public outcry that followed her death, her family is still waiting for change to come in the Lima Police Department, they said Friday.

“It’s the same thing. The police still interact when they shouldn’t and they take things a little too far,” said Tarika Wilson’s stepsister, Lisa Moore. “It leads to things like her death. It’s not going to change unless something happens with the city. Police they just aren’t doing their jobs. They’ve got to do more.”

Tarika Wilson’s mother, Darla Jennings, said she feels if anything, the police are harsher now.

“They can just pull you over for anything now. I’ve had a couple family members that have been pulled over for no reason. Just because the police thought they were somebody else and they wasn’t,” Jennings said. “They should spend their money getting the real thieves instead of just pulling people over for no reason. It just don’t make no sense.”

Out of a large community focus group session effort, the Citizens Review Board formed in 2010. The group is tasked with investigating and seeking action on complaints against local police agencies in wake of Tarika Wilson’s death. But that may have not been enough. The group has never taken a case.

“I don’t think justice was served,” Austin said. “It hasn’t solved anything. The same things are still going on.”

Lima Police Department declined to comment on Friday.

To remember her on the fifth-year anniversary, friends and family of Tarika Wilson huddled on the porch of the house where the fatal incident happened. What has the aftermath of her death been like for her family?

“Hell. Pure hell,” said Jennings, tearing up. “There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about her.”

Family described her as a stay-at-home mother, a loving caretaker, a sweet soul, someone who would do anything for anyone.

Sincere, now 6, garbed in a blue puppy hat and checkered heavy winter coat, clung to his grandmother as the group prayed in remembrance of his mother. Austin said Sincere still has scars on his torso and he is missing a finger as a result of the shooting.

“He remembered everything. I didn’t think he would, but he remembered everything,”Jennings said. “He sees that man’s picture right now and he says, ‘That’s the white man that did it. He killed my mom and shot me.’”

Lima Mayor David Berger said he believes the police are doing the best they can.

“I believe that the Lima Police Department has worked hard to create relationships with law abiding citizens in our community and continues to try to find creative ways to do that,” he said on Friday. ” I think for the long-term, it’s that kind of engagement with the community that will make a difference.”

Moving forward, her family said they hope things will change in Lima.

“Start standing up. Start standing up against the crooked police,” Jennings said. “Out of every bushel, there is a bad apple. Not saying a whole lot of the police department is wrong, but in this situation he was.”

Even though Moore said she couldn’t really say whether she forgives Chavalia or not, she said all the family can do is hope.

“That’s all we can do. We can’t really specify things will ever change,” she said. “It’s within the system. If they really want something to change, they have to do it. These things aren’t going to change by themselves.”

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Cedric Ceballos said:

however i won't partake in putting them on a pedestal either and act like their lives are more valuable then any regular citizens life is. 

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Cedric Ceballos said:

however i won't partake in putting them on a pedestal either and act like their lives are more valuable then any regular citizens life is. 

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