I could write another book on just the many instances of anger that have been surfacing and resurfacing from the time of the notification of Leslie’s death until this very day. I sincerely hope that the anger will subside one day, because anger consumes a lot of energy and obstructs peace of mind. Sometimes it occurs in the strangest places, at the most awkward of times. Anger has surfaced while attending weddings, because Leslie had not experienced marriage. When I am around the grandchildren of others, I think about how there is no potential to grandparent Leslie’s children. Somehow, I experience anger during the changing of seasons. My thoughts are “This is another spring that Leslie won’t experience.” I especially fight feelings of anger during holidays, on Leslie’s Christmas Eve birthday, and when I visit his grave. When the jazz artists Leslie loved release songs, I get angry because I want him to hear these new works.
From talking to other mothers of sons killed by the police, I know that many are struggling with the same kind of anger. Marcia Riley continued to express anger about the death of her unarmed son. She was determined to get more mothers involved in this fight for justice. Marcia’s dream of justice ended with her death in 2016. I know that the mothers of Derek Hale and Brandon Miller were angry about police killing their sons. And the anger is heightened by the lack of accountability for these homicides.
After fighting charges in the shooting death of unarmed Walter Scott, former police officer Michael Slager finally entered a guilty plea in federal court in Charleston, South Carolina. Two years earlier, Slager had shot Mr. Scott several times in the back while the victim was running away from him. Slager had stated that he feared for his life, but on May 2, 2017, Slager finally admitted that was not true. Mr. Scott’s family responded to the announcement, “We can now begin to heal, because the truth was told.”24
Families want justice, but they are usually overpowered by a system that is reluctant to bring criminal charges against police officers in these homicides. Usually, the only recourse for the family is to engage an attorney to file a wrongful death lawsuit in civil court. Even then, there is no guarantee that there will be a ruling in favor of the family. Whatever the outcome, the family is still the big loser, because nothing can replace the life that was taken.
Immediate family. Front row, left to right: Dwight A. and Loretta Prater. Back row, left to right: Leslie and Stefan Prater.
Courtesy of Author
Left to right: Louise Arnold, aunt of Leslie Prater, and Leslie.
Courtesy of Author
Happier times at Stefan’s wedding in 2000. Left to right: Stun Easley, Rick Bakewell, Stefan, and Leslie.
Courtesy of Author
Happier times: Leslie’s graduation
Courtesy of Author
The last picture of Leslie with Stefan, a week before Leslie’s death. Taken in December 2003, Atlanta, Georgia.
Courtesy of Author
A view of a Prater protest march in downtown Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 2004.
Courtesy of Author
Leslie’s gravesite
Courtesy of Author
Leslie’s baby picture
Courtesy of Author
Left to right: Lezley McSpadden, mother of Michael Brown, and Loretta Prater.
Courtesy of Author
Left to right: Loretta and Connie Hale. Connie is the mother of Derek Hale.
Courtesy of Author
6
To Settle or Not to Settle in Wrongful Death Cases Involving Police Officers
If anyone had told me that I would be in the middle of a legal battle with a police department and the city of my birth, I would have immediately said, “No way.” After all, I am a law-abiding citizen, with friends and relatives who are police officers. At the time of Leslie’s death, I was an academic dean, leading a college that included a Department of Criminal Justice and Sociology and the Regional Police Academy. I was instrumental in the employment of faculty who researched criminal justice issues and taught hundreds of students about those matters. I was a champion for criminal justice instruction and recruiting future professionals to enter careers in law enforcement. I approved requests for faculty to continue their professional development by attending national and international criminal justice conferences. Also, while living in Chattanooga for fifty years, I was significantly engaged in numerous civic relationships and boards. Some of those activities were connected directly to the police department.
For most of my life, I believed in the expression “We are the police and we are here to help you.” That was my introduction and early interaction with police. When Leslie was killed, I was thrust into circumstances that forced me to reevaluate my idealistic beliefs. Consequently, I shifted from trust to mistrust and from respect to disrespect and disappointment in the Chattanooga Police Department and some other members of the judicial system. With some initial difficulty, I came to realize that there is a dark side of policing.
My introduction to police officers began as a six-year-old in the first grade. The stories in our early readers were mostly about white families and others in their community. A police officer was among those always pictured as a neighborhood staple, sort of akin to the roles portrayed on Sesame Street. The residents were characters that were predictable and easy for children to remember. In those early readers, the police officer was always a white male, never a male of any other identity or a policewoman. He was always friendly, helpful, well liked, and respected. Often the policeman was pictured assisting children to cross the street en route to and from school. Through those readings, I developed a very positive attitude about police officers. At that time, I had never met a police officer.
In 1948, seven black police officers were hired to walk beats in black neighborhoods in Chattanooga, but I don’t recall ever seeing them. It was not until 1960 that black officers could patrol all neighborhoods and even arrest white citizens. Chattanooga is credited with integrating its police department decades earlier than most departments in the South.1 That is amazing, because 1960 doesn’t seem to be very long ago.
I don’t recall having any direct interactions with police officers prior to adulthood. I did see police officers on local television. I would sometimes see officers cruising through communities in their cars or on foot patrol in commercial areas. Also, the fathers of some of my classmates from school were police officers, but I didn’t know them personally. In adulthood, I became acquainted with police officers mostly through church, civic, or professional situations. There were police officers as members of our church. Some of my high school classmates joined the Chattanooga Police Department. I had relatives and neighbors who became law enforcement officials. I greatly respected police officers and the sacrifices they made as public servants. I want to be very clear that, before Leslie’s death, direct interactions between police officers and me had been positive.
The majority of my positive associations with officers occurred during my professional role as an educator. As a teacher in junior and senior high schools, police officers were often invited into my classroom, depending on the subject discussed. As a teacher of family and consumer sciences, there were opportunities to discuss security and safety topics directly impacting families. “Just Say No” drug education programs were popular during that time. One comical situation occurred when an officer presented a talk to my students about the dangers of drugs. He brought an educational kit with him that contained a number of drug samples. When he burned the marijuana sample to illustrate the smell, one of the assistant principals frantically raced down the hall in search of the student culprit whom he believed was smoking marijuana in the building. My classroom was directly across the hall from the boys’ bathroom.
After fourteen years of classroom teaching in secondary schools, I accepted a position as the first administrator of Chattanooga Public Schools’ Drug Free Schools federal progra
m. In that role, I experienced numerous other opportunities for positive interaction with police officers. I served with them on various committees, including the Operation Prom/Graduation Committee. We were charged with providing education and safe strategies targeted to the issue of teenagers’ illegal use of alcohol and other drugs, and the occurrence of date rape among that population. For example, the California Coalition against Sexual Assault found that approximately 50 percent of reported date rapes occurred among teenagers, and the high levels of alcohol consumed on prom night increased these odds.2 The combination of graduation celebrations and alcohol consumption also leads to the likelihood of increased motor vehicle accidents. I spent many hours with dedicated and respected police officers working on those issues.
While employed in that administrative position, the most significant interaction with police officers resulted from my role as Chattanooga’s cofounder of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, more commonly known as DARE. I worked closely with Ralph Cothran, Chattanooga’s first African American police chief. He served admirably until his death from cancer in 1995. Chief Cothran often referred to me as Chattanooga’s “Mother of DARE.” I was instrumental in selecting the urban schools that would implement the program. I interviewed prospective DARE officers, forwarded my recommendation to the chief, and interacted closely with those police officers after the program’s implementation. I worked with DARE until I left the school system to accept a position at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. DARE was ended in 2005, after Chief Parks read an article questioning the effectiveness of the program.3
Police departments have existed for decades; yet people still commit crime. Should we get rid of police departments and conclude that those social service agencies are not working? No, we do just the opposite. We employ more police officers and continue to increase budgets for law enforcement efforts, including correctional facilities; yet crime continues. Ironically, 75 percent of public funds for incarceration are from budgets originally intended to fund health care, housing, public assistance, and education.4 Where are our priorities? We continue to report that prevention is the best course of action to address social problems, yet we continue the same failed strategies. I have heard that insanity is the expectation of a different outcome while continuing the same behavior. In addition to drug abuse education and strategies to avoid negative peer pressure, one of the most positive outcomes from DARE is the positive relationship developed between elementary school students and police officers. Today, the media outlets are flooded with inquiries about how police can regain trust and respect in urban communities. From direct observations between police officers and youth in DARE programs, I witnessed the development of friendship, trust, and respect that students held for DARE officers. DARE is a worthwhile component of community policing. I continue to stress that attitudes are formed early.
When I moved from Chattanooga to become an administrator at Eastern Illinois University, I connected with the Charleston, Illinois, police department. In response to their chief’s request, I became a volunteer consultant. In that role, I conducted a series of workshops for parents who were court-ordered to participate in parenting workshops. I continued my relationship with that department until we moved from Illinois to Missouri. I was recruited as the Dean of the College of Health and Human Services (CHHS) at Southeast Missouri State University. As previously discussed, that administrative position was significantly intertwined with criminal justice initiatives. Also, during my time as dean, the Cape Girardeau police chief served a term as the president of the college’s advisory council. My many situations of direct contact with police and other law enforcement officers were positive experiences.
Prior to Leslie’s death, I could have easily led a fan club for police departments. My experiences with police officers supported the belief that, collectively, officers upheld the law and were law-abiding citizens themselves. For the most part, I had stereotyped current police departments as positive, different from the days of Jim Crow in the South, when a racial caste system of government-sanctioned racial oppression made it common for police to be involved in assaulting or killing black people.5 They covered up their crimes and the actions of others involved in similar crimes. Now, we are being told that there is a new Jim Crow, characterized by more black people being killed by police officers than during the times of the first Jim Crow.6 How could I have been so blind?
In more modern times, I was totally aware that there were a few “bad apples,” but I felt that those officers would be disciplined or fired, depending on the violation. In fact, I had known of situations in which officers accused of theft or insubordination were subjected to disciplinary action, sometimes leading to termination. I was mostly unaware that officers could kill unarmed citizens who were of no obvious threat to their safety without any consequences. Also in 2004, technology was unavailable to readily record those incidents in real time, and social media was in its infancy. Because of my ignorance of the far-reaching “Blue Wall of Silence” and my blind trust of officers I knew personally, I was shocked by the immediate response of the Chattanooga Police Department. It was as though I was hit by a bolt of lightning that thrust me into another world, the world of reality.
On January 1, 2004, I was a friend of the police, and after January 2, 2004, I was treated as an enemy. How could this have happened overnight and through no fault of my own? Within days, my trust and respect for officers and administrators of my hometown police department dissolved and vanished. The real police department, free from all of my perceptions and those of others, was revealed to me. Those imperfections had been there all the time, but I didn’t see them; my view was clouded by seeing only what I wanted to see. From that day forward, our family was in a battle like no other we had ever experienced, or anticipated.
When engaging in a battle, one does not go forward without preparation. We had no experience, training, or armor for what we were about to face. Dwight had been in the air force during the time of the Vietnam War, but even his military experience could not help us. Dwight, Stefan, and I had love and support from family and friends, educational credentials, good jobs, a spiritual foundation, a respect for the law, and no record of illegal infractions. Those were the only resources we initially had to take to the battlefield. We were the underdog David and the police officers and the system of law enforcement were collectively Goliath.7 They had the police union, a system of protective devices couched within the judicial system, a staff of taxpayer-funded attorneys, a lot of experience avoiding accountability in wrongful death accusations, the support of public opinion of those who believe that the police could do no wrong, and the established connection to media outlets. To us, it seemed as though they had all of the advantages. What they did not have was our passion for seeking truth and justice at all costs. They didn’t have our spiritual foundation and belief that God would help us. They didn’t have the love for Leslie or the memories we shared with him. Also, we had the unwavering belief that Leslie was a homicide victim.
Given our limited resources in comparison to those of the police department, where was our help? Where did we need to start? What should be our next move? These were some of the questions that were tormenting us during our sleepless nights. It was clear that the police department would be of no help to us. Their energies were consumed with spreading lies, engaging in cover-up activities, and profiling Leslie as a monster. I always thought that in a homicide case, especially as determined by the autopsy reports, the office of the district attorney would be of help to the victims, rather than the perpetrators. Support was denied our family. We discovered that if the accused are police officers, there is a completely different set of rules and procedures. We were very disappointed that the district attorney, a former police officer and son of a former local judge, would not even take the case before the grand jury. In fact, he never made any direct contact with the family. In my opinion, he joined others in the role of our enemy and
the friend of the police. Our experience with the Chattanooga Police Department was that existing laws applied to others, not to their police officers. There was only one time that any degree of sensitivity was extended to us from the district attorney’s office. Years after Leslie’s death, an attorney from that office attended one of our memorial services. My impression was that she was representing herself, as a compassionate citizen, rather than representing the district attorney. After the service, she introduced herself to me and personally expressed her sympathy. In fact, I’m not even sure her boss knew that she attended Leslie’s memorial service. I was glad when that district attorney later retired.
Initially, our help came from friends and relatives. One of our friends and church members was a longtime community advocate. Johnny suggested to us that we needed to seek advice from an attorney. He knew of one who had a reputation for representing persons with complaints against police officers. Because of the social justice focus of his cases, this attorney was disliked by officers and the local police union. With our approval, he facilitated a meeting between us and attorney John Wolfe. As you might imagine, most attorneys “run away” from these cases. They want to maintain a positive relationship with the police department, rather than participate in situations that could potentially create a wedge between them and police officers. They anticipate their need of officers’ cooperation in winning their future cases. In other words, they don’t want to “rock the boat,” and they will avoid controversial lawsuits against police officers. Because Mr. Wolfe had previously angered Chattanooga police officers, he did not appear intimidated by the police union. The perception communicated by the attitude of the police union is that police officers are right and everyone else is wrong, regardless of the facts. Even now, with all of the video evidence of excessive force, the union is fierce in support of police officers in cases of police killings of unarmed citizens. For example, in the well-known case of the death of Eric Garner in New York, there were no criminal charges filed.8
Excessive Use of Force Page 16