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Little By Little

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In the age of ICE, new Richmond police Hispanic liaison Kenia Marte Santana attempts to bridge the gap between the department and the city’s Hispanic community.

Kenia Marte Santana stands dressed in a dark, almost black police uniform, with a blue badge featuring lady justice on her left shoulder. She smiles while waiting patiently for those who are running late to the night’s event. It’s Thursday, November 29, 2018, and Santana is preparing to host the Richmond Police Department’s 24th Latino Police Academy graduation ceremony.

On her right, a man dressed in a light grey suit with a blue shirt talks with her. He is Officer Juan Tejeda, Hispanic liaison for Richmond Police Department from 2011 until last October, when Santana took his position. Even though he has hosted the Latino Citizens Academy for many years, his successor is already stealing some of his spotlight.

The room inside Ramsey Memorial United Methodist Church is big, with blue walls and many windows, obscured by pale yellow curtains. The place is lit with white, fluorescent lights. Eight long tables with white tablecloths and grey plastic chairs facing the front fill the place. At the end of the room, two tables covered with white and black tablecloths hold diplomas and medallions.

The academy is led by police officers. They teach citizens about their constitutional rights, dangers of drugs and tobacco, and what it’s like to work in law enforcement. This past November, seven adults graduated, along with four middle school girls, but Tejeda and Santana hope the effect can reach beyond the people in the room.

“My message to you,” Tejeda told the graduates, “is everything that you learned here, to take it to the community — bring it to the community. And more importantly, that you enforce it.”

Santana with graduates of the Latino Citizens Police Academy. Photo via Richmond Police Department/Facebook

Tejeda has built trust with this community. As the new Hispanic liaison, Santana wants to continue that work. She immigrated from the Dominican Republic herself in 2010, speaking no English at the time. She understands the importance of having police who can communicate effectively with the growing immigrant community in South Richmond. 

However, this may be an upward battle in the age of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, more commonly known as ICE. The changes to immigration laws under the current administration have made it more difficult to seek asylum in the U.S. There are few protections for undocumented persons when they report crimes, and ICE has a presence in Richmond, even if local police deny working directly with them.

Father Jack Podsiadlo oversees the Sacred Heart Center, an organization that offers support and adult education for Richmond’s Latino community. He says his organization doesn’t work with police, “because we are wise.”

“It is more in the last couple of years, under the Trump administration, that we had to pull away,” he said.

Immigrant communities often don’t report to the police for fear of deportation, even if local law enforcement want to help. Many of the families who move to Richmond are undocumented, or have deep-seated distrust of police due to experiences in their home country. 

Tejeda worked as the Hispanic liaison for seven years and became a recognizable, trustworthy face for some in South Richmond’s Hispanic community. Santana, age 24, became a police officer two and a half years ago. Patrolman Jesus Deras, her occasional partner, described her as “perfect for the job,” because of her friendly and outgoing personality. However, in the current climate, immigrant fear of law enforcement goes beyond her position.

The Department and the Community

Richmond’s second police precinct covers the city’s most densely populated region for immigrants from Central America, South America, and Mexico. Hull Street cuts through the center of this area, which includes the Southwood Apartments, often referred to as “La Mancha” by locals because of its large Spanish-speaking population.

This is where Tejeda has focused his efforts since working as Richmond Police’s Hispanic liaison. Tejeda organized police department soccer games with community members, ran the Latino Citizens Police Academy, and started the Miss Hispanidad Virginia Pageant. He runs the Hispanic American School for Advancement (HASA) outside of his duties as a police officer. After feeling like he was falling behind, he decided to step down from the liaison position and make way for Santana.

“Between HASA and that position [Hispanic liaison], I had no personal life,” Tejeda said. “HASA takes 80 to 90 percent of my free time.”

Tejeda with McGruff the Crime Dog in 2017. Photo via Richmond Police Department/Facebook

Besides just Tejeda’s personal efforts, the department has held more Spanish courses for English speaking officers and has hired more native Spanish speakers. He estimates that ten or fewer officers could speak Spanish a decade ago, but they’ve since nearly doubled that number, though they could still use more.

Deras patrols the second precinct 3 p.m. to 3 a.m. most nights and said he is often the only Spanish-speaking officer on duty for the entire area.

“I have to go all the way to the other side [of the precinct] just to translate something basic,” he said. “And then sometimes we go to a situation that we don’t know what is happening beforehand.”

Even with the language barrier between most officers and Hispanic immigrants, Tejeda believes that he has the trust of the community, and that the relationship is better now than it was just a few years ago. More crimes are reported now, he said, showing a greater willingness to call police to help with problems.

Despite the challenges that still face the Richmond Police Department’s Hispanic liaison, Tejeda feels that Santana is well-suited for the job.

“It’s a big position,” Tejeda said. “It’s a lot of responsibility, but she is a good public speaking person. She has a heart for the community. Her biggest challenge is to have the community trust her the same way that they trust me.”

Challenges for Santana

Earlier last summer, Santana walked into a small apartment with one extra-wide king-size mattress. A family of five lived there together, and the three children, ages 4, 8, and 12, all slept in the same bed as their parents. Santana went to this apartment because she had received a call about domestic abuse and sexual assault from the mother there. Her oldest son told Santana that his father beat him for smoking cigarettes, and that his father was sexually abusing his mother in the bed while they all tried to sleep at night.

Santana was appalled, but there was little she could do for the woman, because she didn’t want to file an official police report. Santana ordered the husband to leave, and said he was “sick,” but he just laughed at her.

“I had to leave because I was way too upset,” she said. “You can’t get a restraining order if you don’t have a report.”

The father was back the next week when she followed up, but there was no way to arrest him without a victim willing to testify against him.

Nonetheless, domestic violence is one of the most difficult crimes for people to report, and happens in all communities, Richmond-based immigration lawyer Alina Kilpatrick said, but it disproportionately affects undocumented immigrants because they are not protected by the law.

“They don’t want someone taken away and never seen again,” said Kilpatrick. “No matter how badly they’re being mistreated, because that person might be the primary breadwinner for the entire family.”

A visa with greater protections for victims may take four or more years to acquire, Kilpatrick said, and would take hiring a lawyer, requiring time and expense that many in that community cannot afford. This issue is also affected by President Donald Trump’s recent policy change to remove domestic violence as a reason to seek asylum, which undermines any message from the police encouraging people to report these types of crimes.

Santana tries to meet as many people in the Hispanic community of South Richmond as she can. She has an iPhone from the department set aside for citizens to call her directly. She has a Facebook page where people frequently message her, and she can answer questions or give advice related to constitutional rights, crime reports, and where to find good English language classes. She says people can recognize her car, displayed on the banner of her Facebook page, which features a purple “Domestic Violence Prevention” ribbon decal on its hood. 

Santana believes, “little by little,” she can reach the entire Hispanic community in her precinct through the Latino Citizens Academy. 

“Because it’s big families,” she said, and went on to describe two sisters who just graduated that live in a house with seven other family members: children, husbands, and siblings. “So I think in a year or two, it could be possible.”

Officer Kenia Marte Santana. Photo via Richmond Police Department/Facebook

The community Santana describes is growing quickly, and she’s seen it. At a recent trip to Greene Elementary School to talk to children about police duties and the dangers of tobacco and alcohol, Santana noticed that out of the 74 students, over 50 were Hispanic. She wants to be a role model for those students, focusing mostly on the youth, because, she said, the trust has already been built with Hispanic adults who have lived in Richmond for some time.

She had good mentors herself when she moved to Richmond at age 16. She passed her English as a Second Language exam at Huguenot High School after only three months of learning the language, so she could take classes that would give her credit to graduate on time.

She became a police officer because she wanted to be a mentor and help her community, in the same way that people had pushed her in high school to stay on the right path. 

“I thought to myself, ‘Police officers here and social workers are like the same thing, when you think about it,’” she said.

Disconnect within the Community

The Sacred Heart Center is one of the major cultural and educational hubs for the Hispanic community. It provides the Hispanic community with diverse programs related with citizenship tests, literacy, kids programs and English language classes. According to Father Jack, this is the only center that focuses on the Latino community in Richmond.

“We are here to give a voice to the voiceless,” Father Jack said. “To teach them how to speak up for what are their rights and their needs, so they are not just in the shadows, but they are taking a seat in the table where decisions are made.”

Most members of the Hispanic community who he interacts with are undocumented, Father Jack said. That makes them particularly vulnerable, because everything they do is illegal. They can buy a car, but they can’t get a drivers license. Without legal status, they can’t get health insurance. They can’t work without being paid under the table. Many members of the community are being abused at their jobs, because they are afraid of filing a complaint. Hispanic immigrants often carry large amounts of cash with them, because they are afraid that if they put their money in a bank and they get caught, they would lose access to it. 

Father Jack Podsiadlo of Sacred Heart Center. Photo by Carlos Bernate

According to Father Jack, one of the greatest fears members of this community have is being deported. Being caught by ICE is the biggest nightmare for most undocumented people. At the Sacred Heart Center, they learn how to protect themselves.

“The first thing you always are taught is that you don’t give out any information,” Father Jack said. 

They teach people not to open the door when ICE agents knock unless there is a warrant from the judge. They also tell them not to provide ICE officers with information such as their full name or country of origin, “because they will know that if you are from Mexico, or South America, pretty much, you are undocumented,” Father Jack said.

He describes the relationship between the Sacred Heart Center and the police department as “minimal.” “We have to play that really carefully,” he said. “Because the general impression that people have is that the police department is working with ICE very closely.”

Santana said that Richmond police do not collaborate with ICE, but she admits ICE has access to national databases. When a person is arrested and fingerprinted, that data becomes accessible to the federal government.

“They are working closely with ICE, even when the government says that that is not happening” said Carlos Bernate, an interpreter for immigration lawyers in the city. “I know from the community that some people that were detained, were detained by the police, and then ICE took them.”

Santana explained that when they arrest someone, the sheriff’s dept is the one that contacts ICE, not the Richmond Police Department. “We don’t have direct contact with ICE,” she said.

However, tension between Richmond Police and the Latino community and its advocates has built over the last couple of years under the Trump administration. Because of “the spirit of this time,” Father Jack said, Sacred Heart decided it was better to “pull back.”

“There was a time when we used to collaborate with one of the precincts,” Father Jack said. “They were doing some good things in the community. They understood that they were to keep the neighborhood safe, not to be doing the job of the federal government.”

Now, though, Bernate doesn’t see the same level of understanding from the city’s police force.

“They come to an event and take a picture and that’s it,” he said. “I don’t think that is actually coming to the community, where there is a lot of crime, a lot of ICE raids.”

Sacred Heart Center (Photo by Carlos Bernate)

For Father Jack, the only way a relationship between the Hispanic community and the police department can exist is if the police make it clear that they will not purposefully collaborate with ICE. “And it has to come from the head — the police chief,” he said.

According to Santana, former Richmond Police Chief Alfred Durham stated at the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in 2018 that the department does not collaborate with ICE.

“Little by Little”

Back in the big room with blue walls and pale yellow curtains, Rachel de la Cruz has just received her diploma as one of the graduates of the citizens academy. At 13 years old, she has seen many of her family members deported or put in jail. She wants to go to Harvard and become an immigration lawyer, so she can help her community, especially those people who don’t know much English. Santana understands her desire.

“I wanted to be an immigration lawyer in high school,” Santana said. “You see people needing help and you just want to help.”

“I had a lot of experiences in the past with my friends doing bad things,” Rachel said. “My friends would get into drugs and alcohol, and I didn’t want to go that path.”

“I started smoking cigarettes when I was in high school,” Santana said. “Thank God I quit, because I was trying to fit in.”

Joining the academy helped Rachel to understand the police’s perspective. “I have always been scared of the police,” she said. “They’d take family members away, or scare me in general with their weapons.”

However, she felt like she could relate to officer Santana, because she is a Latina. “She is a very kind person and very giving person,” Rachel said. “She doesn’t think of herself as an officer that you have to be scared of. She is just another person, and she is just protecting you.”

Even Santana knows that area police have a long way to go where relationships with Richmond’s Hispanic community. Six months ago, she was driving through Chesterfield when she was stopped by two Chesterfield police officers. In order to prove a theory, she pretended not to speak any English, assuming the police stopped her because of the way she looked.

“Immediately [the officer] was just saying flat out, ‘I’m gonna give her a ticket — she probably doesn’t even have a license,’” Santana said. “Already assuming I didn’t have a license because I was Hispanic.”

“There’s still a wall, but the wall is slowly coming down,” Rachel said. “[The police] were so kind. Even when they were mad at us for being bad, they still cared, and really showed a lot of passion for us to be better people.”

Santana, Tejeda and other RPD officers pose with graduates of the Latino Citizens Academy (Photo by Silvia Serrano)

After all the graduates get their diplomas, Santana urges people to ask the photographer for photos with their families, offering to print them out and bring them copies.

Santana believes that it’s this kind of one on one interaction that is going to allow police to connect with the Hispanic community. She believes that she can play an important role in making it happen, one person at a time.

“Little by little,” she said.

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Top Photo by Silvia Serrano. Written by Silvia Serrano and Conner Evans.

Silvia Serrano is a writer and journalism student at the University of Richmond from Madrid, Spain. She has a special interest in environmental issues, although she also enjoys writing about social and cultural topics.

Conner Evans is studying English and journalism at University of Richmond. He is also the music director at WDCE 90.1, and he’s a member of the improv team, STC.

Op-Ed: True Equity For Richmond Must Include Law Enforcement

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One year after the death of Marcus-David Peters, Chelsea Higgs Wise says that if Richmond wants to talk about equity in matters involving the budget, the city must also talk about equity in matters of law enforcement.

It’s been one year since Marcus-David Peters became the first Richmonder turned into a hashtag after he was shot to death by a Richmond police officer. #marcusdavidpeters. Yet, in a city where the word “equity” was present in every budget conversation over the past month, Richmond has yet to use this same language in reforming our community policing. In a city where we can admit that we have racial inequities within education, transit, housing, and health, admitting that our police department is also in need of a transformation seems to be painfully impossible for city officials.

Since before the death of #MarcusDavidPeters, the Richmond Transparency Accountability Project (RTAP) has been working to advocate for transparency in police practices in RVA. After New Virginia Majority outreach found that over-policing was a high threat to public safety, RTAP began asking questions about the frequency and nature of arrests in Richmond. After two years of RTAP pushing for the release of this data, RPD released information in March of this year that proved disproportionate rates of Black Richmonders are stopped for so-called field interviews, RPD’s rebrand of stop-and-frisk, validating RTAP’s case for an increase of transparency. Due to the continued community mobilizing for transparency in use-of-force data, RPD has since attempted to maintain their records, and, after a decade, promising to update the date from the current system for public record.

Dr. Liz Coston of RTAP urges the community to question the administration’s decisions about policing our minority-majority city, such as their new contract with Soma Global. “Soma Global markets themselves as being a provider of predictive policing technologies,” said Coston. “They argue that those technologies reduce crime. We know from the implementation of those technologies from other communities that they disproportionately harm black and Hispanic communities.” The Harvard Civil Rights Civil Law Review reports that “Algorithms make predictions by analyzing patterns from an initial data set and then look for those patterns in new data. Police data aren’t collected uniformly, and initial data sets fed into algorithms will reflect institutional racial and income bias.” In a city supposedly committed to racial equity, it’s disturbing that Mayor Stoney would choose such a technology, which will clearly increase the already disproportionate rates of Black Richmonders having to endure police field interviews.

Richmond Police Chief Alfred Durham retired this past December, reflecting on May 14, 2018, “What really took its toll on me this year was the shooting death of Marcus-David Peters.” The ongoing chief selection process has proved less than thoughtful, due to poor advertisement of community-input meetings, less-than-appropriate facilitation within these meetings, and finally, a Police Chief job description that did not, as previously promised, reflect the input from those community meetings.

RTAP’s engagement also put the group in conversation with the Human Resources office to participate in the new RPD Chief selection. RTAP attended all of the gatherings, taking notes in order to monitor the input included in the job description. However, adding insult to injury, the city’s latest move was to rescind RTAP’s invitation to participate in the process of the Chief selection, explained Kim Rolla of Legal Aid Justice Center on the May 8th episode of Race Capitol.

The death of #MarcusDavidPeters brought another intersection to the public safety issue — the Crisis Intervention Training that is provided for Richmond Police. While we as a city dramatically discussed this year’s budget, the question of how RPD is using the funds allocated to maintain the safety of those in a mental health crisis was absent from the conversation. Therefore, we can expect the same self-preservation priority from the department: Officer Safety First and Always.

To truly see the full impact of policing in Richmond, though, we must look even wider when discussing police interventions in the capital city. Within Richmond sits Virginia Commonwealth University, a public research university with the largest campus police force in the Commonwealth. With 99 sworn officers that have the same powers as a Richmond Police officer, VCU Police recently had its jurisdiction expanded into Richmond’s Black communities. In some areas, it will be possible for Richmonders to be patrolled by RPD, VCUPD, and the Capitol Police, according to Ord. No. 2018-336, which shows the approved jurisdiction expansion for VCU Police.

While Dr. Michael Rao, VCU President, boasts in public speeches about the university’s commitment to diversity and equity, and refers to VCU as “the place to achieve the American dream,” police with VCU printed boldly across their uniforms gear up to add to the patrolling of Black Richmond neighborhoods. One year ago, VCU graduate #MarcusDavidPeters was murdered by RPD, and most recently we had an unnamed Richmond Police Officer threaten Albert Hill middle school students (the officer still refuses to publicly apologize). Meanwhile, this is how Richmond leaders such as Dr. Rao and Mayor Stoney take action to uplift and center the communities they claim to represent — by increasing the number of police in those communities.

A student movement called No Policing in Mental Health wants VCU to replace police officers with mental health clinicians when doing wellness checks on students. When VCUPD Chief John Venuti was asked what qualifies the officers to attempt to interact with individuals going through a mental health crisis, he stated that VCUPD utilizes the same Crisis Intervention Training that RPD officers use. Michael Nyantaki, the Richmond officer who shot and killed #MarcusDavidPeters, was also trained in CIT. On May 14, 2018, even after Officer Nyantakyi acknowledged that he was monitoring someone undergoing a crisis, he still proceeded to escalate the interaction, leading to him killing #MarcusDavidPeters.

When RPD Chief Durham referred to CIT, he stated, “We give 40 hours, and people expect us to get it right,” implying that even he sees the training as inadequate for his team. After the shooting of #MarcusDavidPeters, local community organizers were promised a meeting with Mayor Stoney and Chief Durham about crisis approaches with Richmonders. A year later, this meeting has yet to happen. Whether or not you agree with the RPD’s justification of the shooting, we should all acknowledge that CIT failed that day. And as a city, we should focus on the urgency of getting it right.

In the last month, RVA City Council has heard several examples of the way Richmond loves to speak in terms of “equity” for the city, so I feel it’s important to define what seems to be the word of our time. According to Race Forward, “Equity means fairness and justice, and focuses on outcomes that are most appropriate for a given group, recognizing different challenges, needs, and histories. It is distinct from diversity, which can simply mean variety (the presence of individuals with various identities). It is also not equality, or “same treatment,” which doesn’t take differing needs or disparate outcomes into account. Systemic equity involves a robust system and dynamic process consciously designed to create, support, and sustain social justice. See Racial Justice.”

Yet when it comes to policing, our Richmond City Council and City Administration are silently violent, neglecting to apply the same equitable lens many of the individuals involved claim to champion. So let’s take the advice of Race Forward and also refer to the definition of Racial Justice: “The systematic fair treatment of people of all races, resulting in equitable opportunities and outcomes for all. Racial justice — or racial equity — goes beyond “anti-racism.” It is not just the absence of discrimination and inequities, but also the presence of deliberate systems and supports to achieve and sustain racial equity through proactive and preventative measures.”

Preventative measure require deliberate behavior. In the former capital of the confederacy, still a minority-majority city, resisting police transparency is simply an act of denying the racial inequities. The city acknowledges that living in Westover Hills neighborhood predicts a Richmonder lives 20 years longer on average than a Richmonder living in Gilpin Court. Imagine what this same map would show about rates of entry into the criminal justice system. What does over-policing do to a Richmonder’s life expectancy when it is already the lowest in the city? Rather than avoiding the uncomfortable conversation of a community-informed RPD system transformation, we should commit to focusing on removing the white hood of Richmond’s past for an equitable lens into our future.

Note: Op-Eds are contributions from guest writers and do not reflect RVA Magazine editorial policy.

Written by Chelsea Higgs Wise with Monica Kelley and Nathan Land. Top Photo: RVA Mag file photo by Landon Shroder

OP-ED: Help Not Death; Marcus-David Peters And The American Mental Health Crisis

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It’s been five months since Marcus-David Peters was gunned down on Interstate 95/64.

Richmond officer Michael Nyantakyi shot Peters twice, after his taser failed to subdue Peters. The entire event came to an end in only 18 seconds. In August, it was ruled that Peters’ death was justifiable homicide. The past few months have not been easy for Peters’ family, nor for those in the community who believe his death was an injustice.

I want to start my commentary by saying that I don’t know. I don’t know what I would have done if I was in Officer Nyantakyi’s shoes. We all like to imagine our own actions in the scenario, but we don’t have the answers, and I’m not a police officer. But I do know that in 18 seconds, a young man’s life was over, and he needed help — not death.

“Help not death” has been the rallying cry of Peters’ family. Peters’ sister, Princess Blanding, has been at the forefront of protests demanding justice for her brother’s death.

There are many shades of gray when we look at this situation, and it’s important to note that the case isn’t black and white — literally. Peters was black; Officer Nyantakyi is black too. But in a  system of law that perpetuates racism and white supremacy, this is still an issue of police brutality.

Mappingpoliceviolence.org shows that 852 people have been killed so far in 2018. In 2017, police killed 1,147 people. Black people made up 25 percent of those killed, despite representing only 13 percent of the population. Less than one percent of officers were charged with a crime.

Last month, Chicago officer Jason Van Dyke was finally convicted of second-degree murder, over four years after fatally shooting 17-year old Laquan McDonald. Timothy Loehmann, who gunned down 12-year-old Tamir Rice, was hired afterward by a police department in rural Ohio. The juxtaposition of these two events show the rarity of cops being held accountable for their actions.

Black people are statistically more likely to be killed by cops than any other race, and the reasons behind this epidemic have deep roots. They stem from a system of oppression that has spanned hundreds of years, and continues to disproportionately affect black citizens.

When a black person encounters the police, they’re often not given the same benefit of the doubt a white person would. Many cases have shown that under similar circumstances to those in which black citizens are killed, white suspects are spared their lives.

For example:

  • Nikolas Cruz, who murdered 19 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last February, was arrested without incident.
  • Dylann Roof was brought into police custody, without any fuss, after murdering nine innocent black churchgoers during a prayer service.
  • Lance Tamayo pointed his pistol at police officers and children in a park. It took the police over an hour to get Tamayo to put his gun down. Officers eventually shot him, but not lethally — and he was given only a three-month sentence.
  • 19-year-old Austin Harrouff killed two strangers, and was found by police biting the face of one of his victims. Police used stun guns and a dog to try and subdue him. When those methods didn’t work, they physically pulled Harrouff off the victim.

In all of these situations, and many more, white people were subdued by police while committing dangerous crimes. Instead of resorting immediately to fatal weapons, officers tried alternative methods to spare the suspects’ lives.

In body cam footage from officers on the scene, Peters is heard saying, “I’m going to fucking kill you” to Officer Nyantakyi — and while Nyantakyi rightfully felt his life was in danger, I still have to wonder why Peters was killed when confronted with similar (and greater) threats by white citizens, police have repeatedly found ways to let them walk away with their lives.

Consider the case of Joseph Houseman, an open-carry advocate, compared with Richmond’s Marcus-David Peters.

During his encounter, Houseman said to police, “I can threaten you. I can threaten your family. I didn’t threaten your family, I said I could.”

The confrontations were similar — both raising threats to law enforcement — but the outcomes for these white and black citizens were not. Houseman failed to comply with officers, and refused a breathalyzer test. Houseman was armed, and threatened officers; he was disarmed, then let go, with his gun returned. Peters was both unarmed and naked, and threatened officers; he was killed on the spot.

Then there’s mental health, cited by families of victims in many cases. In a Washington Post study, it was found that in the first half of 2015, 25 percent of people killed by police were identified as mentally ill.

While the media tends to label white killers as lone wolves with mental health problems, black and brown people’s mental health isn’t brought into the picture. More than 16 percent of the black population has a diagnosable mental illness. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), black folks are 20 percent more likely to experience serious mental health problems.

But America isn’t talking about mental health in the black community. In cases like that of Somali-American Shukri Ali Said, reaching out for help can actually cost their lives: when Ali Said’s parents called the police seeking help for their daughter, she was shot and killed by Georgia officers.

In Virginia, police are offered crisis intervention team (CIT) training, which was designed to give officers tools and information for encountering, dealing with, and helping citizens with mental illnesses. But to be helpful, the police have to actually join the program: As recent as this July, only about 65 percent of Richmond’s officers have chosen to participate (or 490 officers, out of the city’s total 750).

While officers deal with mental health, they are not trained therapists or psychiatrists — but how can they be expected to de-escalate these situations when CIT training is only an option, not a requirement?

Marcus-David Peters was not given a means to obtain help; instead, the first solution police attempted was his death. This was not just “a tragic situation for all parties,” and it shouldn’t be buried along with Peters. It’s time to consider police interactions with people of color, and the implications when mental illness is also involved.

De-escalation and diversity training is not enough. These systems that are killing our citizens need to be confronted before they can be changed.

The Justice and Reformation For Marcus-David Peters movement is proposing the creation of a “Marcus Alert,” to call on mental health professionals as first responders when community members are in crisis. This idea could shape the future of policing, and potentially save lives — the state of things isn’t changing until measures are put in place to start. These structures go back to slave patrols in the 1700’s, and Americans should not forget that the South’s police force was born from slavery preservation. Richmond created its first full-time police force after Gabriel Prosser led a slave uprising in 1800.

Looking into the origins of policing is imperative for change to happen: From Emmett Till, to Trayvon Martin, to Michael Brown, to Eric Garner, to Sandra Bland, to Tamir Rice, to Philando Castile, to Marcus-David Peters.

It’s easy to sweep these instances under the rug. It’s easy to turn a blind eye when it doesn’t affect you personally. It’s easy to dehumanize a stranger — especially when they’re in a cemetery, and can’t defend themselves in court. It’s easy to view the black body as a symbol of threat in a society that has pushed it as such since long before racist 1915 film The Birth of a Nation was screened in the Woodrow Wilson White House.

I’m not pointing fingers or jumping to conclusions without citing facts. I’m asking for empathy towards the black experience — something non-black people will never be able to know firsthand.

I’m asking people to consider that when black people are staring down the barrel of a gun with a cop on the other end, they aren’t given the benefit of the doubt. I’m asking them to ask why we justify the deaths of black children armed with toy guns, like 12-year-old Tamir Rice, but don’t think twice when white children are taught to shoot real weapons at the same age.

I’m asking them to consider why it was that convicted rapist Brock Turner was referred to as “a former Stanford student and star swimmer,” while Trayvon Martin’s high school suspensions were used as justification for his murder.

I’m asking them to realize that black people can no longer “comply” and “follow the rules” when white people are calling the police and having us shot in our own homes. I’m asking them to understand that race-based traumatic stress is real, and that, while black people do persevere and conquer, we’re still out here dying.

This is bigger than one black life lost at the hands of police brutality.

Note: Op-Eds are contributions from guest writers and do not reflect RVA Magazine editorial policy.

Top Image by Lindsay Eastham

National March for Justice and Reformation Honors Marcus-David Peters

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Clad in maroon, hundreds of supporters gathered in Richmond today for the National March for Justice and Reformation. The march, planned on the birthday of Marcus-David Peters, was according to the event organizers a way to hold “elected officials and police departments accountable.”

Peters, a VCU graduate and a local high-school biology teacher, was killed by the Richmond Police Department (RPD) in May of this year at the intersection of highways 64 and 95. Experiencing a mental crisis and naked at the time of the shooting, Peters’ death was eventually ruled an “act of justifiable homicide” by Richmond Commonwealth’s Attorney Michael N. Herring: a claim consistently refuted by his sister, Princess Blanding, who leads the Justice and Reformation For Marcus-David Peters movement.

Gathering at VCU’s Siegel Center, the march organizers (including Monica Kelly, who leads the university’s Amnesty International chapter, and Rev. Antonio Redd from Second Baptist Church West End) led the crowd in chanting “help, not death” and “justice and reformation” — both of which have become a rallying cry of the Justice and Reformation movement.

March Organizer Monica Kelly

Speaking first, Kelly questioned why the city has not implemented the Marcus Alert. The alert is one of the core demands of the movement, which would allow a mental health professional to act as a first responder to a person in mental health crisis, reducing the chance for violent escalation with the police.

Redd spoke after Kelly, proclaiming, “We are gathered to march for what is right,” and also acknowledging that Peters cried out for help, but “help was not found.” Addressing the lack of response from VCU, Richmond’s mayor and city council, and the Jefferson Hotel, where Peters worked, Redd claimed that their “silence was complicit” in the circumstances which led to the biology teacher’s death.  He finished by saying it was time to put the city’s elected officials on notice, and that the message they were sending was not an “empty threat.”

Rev. Antonio Redd

Taking to the streets after the initial speeches, the marchers maneuvered down Broad Street before turning onto Belvidere, chanting “shut it down” and “help, not death,” eventually stopping in front of the Jefferson Hotel. Before he was killed, Peters stopped at the hotel and was seen on video acting erratically with other hotel employees. On a platform in front of the hotel, Rev. Lacette Cross from Restoration Fellowship RVA addressed the crowd, calling for “accountability of police and elected officials,” a theme that was consistent throughout the day’s speeches, but not before reminding the crowd that there is “no such thing as a single-issue struggle.”

Rev. Lacette Cross

Before the crowd continued their march towards the RPD Headquarters, poet Rob Gibsun took to the stage. In a powerful address, he spoke about the “undue response” from the university (VCU) where Peters was an alumni, the retreat to our individual “comfort zones,” and the role in the “killing of brown and black people.”

Eventually coming to a stop in front of RPD headquarters, Dr. Ravi Perry, a political science professor from VCU, took to the platform. Acknowledging the complexity of modern law enforcement and how that intersects with the death of Peters, Perry said, “The justice system has impacted our lives, both good and bad,” calling for a greater police accountability that is “seemingly absent.” To make his point further, he told the crowd a story about how he was victimized by police in his native Ohio, being taken out of his parents’ car and held at gunpoint for 20 minutes because he “fit the description” of a drug dealer. “Its a day that reminds me every day that I’m a black man,” he said, after reminding the crowd that police have already killed 852 people in 2018 alone.

Dr. Ravi Perry

Princess Blanding spoke last, thanking the crowd for their continued support and solidarity. Addressing the marchers, she asked why tax dollars pay for the police to have tasers, batons, and pepper spray, but are so quick to use lethal force. “I’m not anti-police,” she said, “I’m pro-black lives matter. I’m pro-brown lives matter. I’m pro-immigrant and I’m pro-LGBTQ.” Calling out the city’s leadership, Blanding said, “We voted them in, we’ll vote them out,” finally demanding that the city implement the Marcus Alert and a civilian review board to oversee the police.

Princess Blanding Addressing the Crowd in-front of RPD HQ

The march ended with Redd leading the crowd in singing happy birthday for Peters in front of the RPD — he would have been 25 years old today.

Some of the best photos from the National March for Justice and Reformation can be found below:

Marching Down Broad St

Marching Towards RPD HQ

Clad in Maroon

Marching Down Broad Street

In Front of the Jefferson Hotel

Poet Rob Gibsun

Marchers at RPD HQ

Listening to Speakers at RPD HQ

*Photos by Landon Shroder

Richmond’s Homeless Groups Speak on Monroe Park, Its Future, and Their Work

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Monroe Park saw its official reopening ceremony last Thursday following months of renovation. The fairly rainy event was attended by Mayor Levar Stoney and representatives from Virginia Commonwealth University, the Monroe Park Conservancy, Richmond City Council, along with a crowd of dozens — and one lone critic of the entire affair.

“Virginia Beach built a $29 million facility to help house homeless people. The city here does nothing,” said Thomas Alleman, chief facilitator of the Richmond chapter of the international Food Not Bombs collective.

Carrying a protest banner soaked from the rainwater that poured during the ceremony’s speeches and ribbon-cutting, Alleman was very critical of the event, the park redesign, its architects, and how it spoke, in his view, to the continuous changes Richmond has seen over the years.

It’s changing all right — but for what and for who?

Nearly two years after work on the park closed off a well-known hub for Richmond’s homeless and the organizations that aim to aid them, the way homeless outreach has changed in the city and Virginia is a question with a wide gulf of responses for groups that share a common cause and focus on this issue.

For Michael Rogers, a former member of CARITAS and Community Engagement Manager for Homeward, the current state of homeless outreach is a very positive one. Aided by staff tasked to connect with, check in on, inform and build relationships with the homeless, the group’s efforts have continued with little obstacles to hinder them.

This is important for the work they do, especially the annual Point-In-Time count, as Homeward’s ability to document the homeless people of the Commonwealth is critical to ensuring federal funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). As such, the work the group does involves not just networking with similar organizations throughout Virginia, but broad cooperation with local officials and law enforcement agencies to ensure proper support for all of Virginia’s homeless people.

“It’s grown a lot, but we’re getting participation across sectors and across organizations,” Rogers said of Homeward’s recent efforts.

Alleman has a more mixed take, owing in part to the disruption in service and outreach Food Not Bombs experienced following the park’s closing. As a result, after 25 years in the city, the group was faced with the hard work of reestablishing their organizing connections with a homeless population left scattered. Eventually, Food Not Bombs set up in Jackson Ward’s Abner Clay Park, with the help of Richmond’s homeless, though with a noticeable decrease in numbers.

This skeptical view of the situation extends to the renewed presence of law enforcement in the area, including the Richmond and VCU police officers stationed at the Checkers House near the park’s center, in addition to the new camera system. Ultimately, Alleman disputes the notion that Monroe Park is for Richmond’s city residents.

“They put a police station where this gazebo and bathrooms used to be. What does that really say? Instead of helping us and working with us to help these people, they do things like this, I think, to kind of dissuade us,” Alleman said.

In a statement, RPD 4th Precinct Officer Lt. James Roberts explained that the Richmond Police Department will be covering primary patrolling responsibilities in the park, with VCU’s police officers serving as support.

“The objective of the Richmond Police Department is to implement public safety strategies that will allow all park patrons to lawfully utilize the park,” Roberts said. “Enforcement action will be taken when appropriate, however, our overall strategy is to engage the community and our partner organizations in non-enforcement efforts to ensure all lawful activity is protected.”

“Homeless outreach groups will continue to be welcome in Monroe Park as they are in other city parks, as long as their activities are lawful.”

In contrast to Food Not Bombs’ struggles, Homeward was seemingly well prepared when news of Monroe Park’s closing reached them. Though Rogers was still part of CARITAS at the time, the usage of a coordinated communication plans for a network of case managers for emergency shelters, outreach workers, and law enforcement on alternative locations for shelter and aid helped some homeless outreach groups immensely in the time before and during Monroe Park’s closure.

This continued good fortune extends to Homeward’s interactions with HUD. In contrast to general operations and policy initiatives within the Trump administration and even from top HUD officials, Homeward’s work with the staff members of its homeless division is as professional as ever, if not better, according to Rogers. With applications for a $5.4 million federal grant and additional funds for homeless domestic violence survivors still pending, that relationship will be key for how Homeward operates in the future.

“I can’t speak for all of HUD, but in homeless services, it’s remained consistent, and we’ve even seen an increase in support,” Rogers said.

That support seems especially vital in a fall season that’s seen extreme and rare weather occurrences touch down in Richmond, including tornadoes generated in Hurricane Florence’s wake that claimed the lives of two people in Virginia.

Homeward opted to tackle the problem with a system of public communication, online resources and overtime work to bring the public into greater connection with both the city’s homeless and the kind of outreach work necessary when a potential hurricane could reach its streets.

Recalling the large amount of effort taken to ensure the safety of Richmond’s homeless people, Rogers said, “It was just kind of working diligently to make sure that everyone, including the general public, knew what resources were available; so that anyone who was sleeping outdoors, we could connect with them and offer those kind of services.”

On this topic, Alleman strikes a similar, more condensed tone: “Even if there was a tornado, we would still be here. We are dedicated.”

Judging by Alleman’s and Rogers’s statements, both organizations are still undecided on how they’ll utilize Monroe Park as part of their efforts, now that fences have come down.

Rogers and Homeward remain observant, waiting to get the full scope of the new rules and guidelines for the park, which includes a 6 o’clock closing time and new rules for lawn reservations and charitable food distribution. For now, they’re focused on connecting and expanding the capacity to aid.

“We will support and push people towards creating and expanding indoor meal programs, particularly for people who are sleeping outdoors,” Rogers said.

And for Food Not Bombs, who are deep in discussion among themselves and other groups? “We still want our presence in this park,” Alleman said. “It’s not like Food Not Bombs is just this bunch of punk kids making food. It’s the idea that we have to show people that there are other people in this city that need help.”

Despite his misgivings about the park, Alleman remains open to the possibility of greater homeless aid coming from Richmond officials.

“I do hope that we can work out something with the city to get people into some sort of shelters,” Alleman said.

While the gap in Alleman’s and Rogers’s outlook on Monroe Park is clear, equally clear is that both men — and the groups they work with — remain steadfast in their commitment to helping Richmond’s homeless.

Photos by George Copeland Jr.

After Deplatforming the Alt-Right, is Police Reform the Next Challenge?

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Last month marked the one-year anniversary of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. Between the overwhelming images of riot police and confederate flag insignias, it’s easy to get downtrodden and feel like no progress has been made.

However, after talking to a local activist, who goes by Goad Gatsby, and remembering that only 20 came in support for this year’s Washington, DC repeat of the Unite the Right rally (as opposed to the 400 that Jason Kessler pulled from his ass), it’s clear that anti-fascist activists have had success.

The small showing at Kessler’s rally suggests that something has changed since last year’s gathering. Gatsby pointed to the willingness of activists to name and shame racist activists, even telling their employers about participation in rallies like Unite the Right. When you tell your boss, Gatsby said, “You’ve given a very good case for this person to no longer be working alongside with you. They have to reevaluate their resources if they’re going to continue what they’ve done.”

After acknowledging the success of deplatforming, Gatsby pivoted quickly to what he sees as the next battleground: police reform.

“When counter-demonstrations show up, the police are always going to have their weapons out, looking at the counter-demonstrations instead of the white nationalists,” Gatsby said. “[Those who] have come out to say they are going to commit violence, who have a violent ideology who are just waiting for the opportunity. There is a huge disconnect within the police system.”

Gatsby said the important question was who the police are there to protect; who do they see as needing their support? As a recent parade of police lip sync challenges, including local forces, have spread over social media, Gatsby noted that the timing coincided with the death of Marcus-David Peters.

“It is absolutely no coincidence that the lip sync videos came out at the same time as the Marcus Peters investigation,” Gatsby said. “They are a PR department, of course, this is something they would intentionally want to do. Richmond Police [Department] has always done something to make them look like the good guy.”

Gatsby recalled public meetings he attended where members of the community would raise issues they’d thought the police department was working to address, only to find out that nothing had happened. “That’s the problem with the Richmond Police Department,” Gatsby said, adding, “No matter how well-meaning your intentions may be, they’re always dodging what the community really wants.”

While deplatforming has removed neo-Nazis and retrograde racists from public speaking positions, such as former Trump adviser and Richmonder Steve Bannon, Gatsby maintained that there is much more to do. He said part of the problem was generational, pointing to a sharp divide between younger and older people.

“What can we do for a generation that isn’t listening?” Gatsby “There’s one side, we’ve looked at the facts, we’re willing to make a compromise. Then there is another side that says ‘Fake news, not going to listen to you.’ It’s an older generation that has decided to believe a conspiracy theorist over the lived experiences of children. That’s just where we’re at.”

From the activist side, there isn’t any one answer, but rather a series of steps in the ongoing fight for the safety and dignity of people who are targeted for oppression. While deplatforming counts as a success, the role of law enforcement remains a serious challenge to people who push back against marginalization and oppression.