Three Cops Versus An Entire Community

Nearly a year ago, on March 30, 2007, when a 17 year-old black youth was stopped in Douglass Park, pepper sprayed, and sent to the hospital by Champaign police, it put the issue of police brutality in the spotlight just two weeks before an election for several seats on the Champaign City Council. The incident occurred down the street from the home of Gina Jackson, the only African American on City Council member and representative from the Douglass Park district, who was holding a Democratic Party social that fateful Friday night. She as well as City Council member Michael LaDue saw the aftermath of the event.

The incident was quickly swept under the rug by the local media, assisted by the comments of Jackson herself who at the City Council meeting following the incident stated, “racial profiling exists. It always has and it always will.” During the election on April 15, Latino Councilman Giraldo Rosales, who had been pushing for a police review board in Champaign, was voted out and the City Council shifted to the right. Three months later, the Champaign City Council voted down any future discussion about a police review board, against the recommendations of their own Human Relations Commission.

The trial of Brian Chesley, the 17 year-old charged with two misdemeanors for resisting and obstructing a peace officer, began on March 25, 2008 and ended four days later with a guilty verdict on both counts. A rotating group of 40-50 community members sat through portions of the trial in support of Chesley. Attorneys Bob Kirchner and Ruth Wyman took the case pro bono. They called 14 witnesses, most of them youth from ages 9 to 18, and all of them African American. The trial depended on who a jury would believe—three Champaign police officers or an entire community.

The trial started with the selection of an all-white jury. Of 46 potential jurors, only one was African American. During the questioning of jurors, attorney Ruth Wyman asked each individual what kinds of social groups and organizations they were members of and if they had any contact with African American youth. Most all of the white prospective jurors said they had no such interaction. It was predictable whose story they would believe.

The Police

First to testify for the prosecution was Andre Davis, the Champaign police officer who first attempted to stop Chesley. He was questioned by Assistant State’s Attorney Rob Scales, representing the office of Julia Rietz, up for re-election in November 2008. Officer Davis, a African American officer who has been with the Champaign Police department for three years and served seven years in the U.S. Navy, explained his reasoning for stopping Chesley. He said he parked in the circle drive in front of the Douglass Park library and gymnasium at approximately 8:30 p.m. to sort out some paperwork. Davis testified that he saw no one else, just two subjects walking through the park (the second individual he never identified). The park closed at dusk and he said he could have arrested them for trespassing. He also said he was not aware of any activities taking place at the gym that night.

Davis exited the vehicle, shined a flashlight on the two, and asked them to stop. According to Davis, Chesley said, “Fuck y’all. I ain’t got to do shit. You ain’t running me. I just left the open gym,” and accelerated his pace. Davis radioed for back up. After Chesley had crossed the street and was on the sidewalk, officers Justus Clinton and Shannon Bridges pulled up and confronted him. Davis saw the two officers struggling with Chesley and joined them in handcuffing him. Afterwards, when Chesley had to be taken to the hospital, Davis rode with him in the ambulance and, without an attorney present, asked Chesley why he didn’t he stop. Chesley said he was pissed off because he was hit in the face at the gym.

Under cross-examination by Bob Kirchner, officer Davis admitted that he had been instructed during police briefing to stop individuals, obtain their information, check for warrants, and enter the incident into a database. Davis said this was a “customary practice,” he had the right to stop “anyone” in the North district, and this was not based on color or nationality. Kirchner questioned Davis why he did not write anything about trespassing in his police report. Davis admitted that he never told Chesley he was trespassing and that he stopped Chesley because, “I wanted to know why he was in the park.” When Kirchner attempted to ask Davis whether the police were maintaining a database on African American youth, Judge John R. Kennedy, who denied the wide majority of Kirchner’s motions, refused this line of inquiry.

Witnesses would later testify that the gym was open until 11 p.m. and that there were people coming and going from playing basketball. They described approximately 50-60 youth inside the gym. It was one of the first warm nights of spring and there were 15-20 kids in the park that night in front of the library, on benches, and on the outdoor basketball court. Kirchner pressed Davis as to why he selectively stopped Chesley. The question went unanswered. How were youth expected to leave the gymnasium if all of the surrounding park area was closed at dusk?

Officers Shannon Bridges and Justus Clinton, both white, followed Davis on the stand. They detailed how they drove up 5th Street in a squad car and turned onto Tremont, where they saw Chesley on the sidewalk, across the street from the park. Bridges got out of the car and asked Chesley to stop. Chesley refused to stop and continued walking. Bridges then grabbed Chesley’s right arm and put it behind his back in a move called a “chicken wing.” According to her, Chesley “squared up” and took a defensive stance. Speaking in euphemisms, she said that she “secured” Chesley on a fence, but he fought back. By that time, officer Clinton had grabbed his left arm. Next, Bridges described officer Clinton putting Chesley in a “bear hug” and “assisting” him to the ground—the middle of Tremont street approximately 10 feet away. Bridges also confirmed that, due to recent criminal and drug activity, police were instructed to check IDs on individuals who had not committed, were not committing, and were not believed to be about to commit any crimes, and enter them into a database.

The Community

The African American youth who were in the park that night gave a different account of what happened. Due to their fear of retaliation from the police, we have chosen not to publish their full names. Among them were: Miguel, JJ, Jeremiah, Kermaine, Reyanna, Tashonda, Devon, Paris, Alicia, Alinda, Naysa. Community leaders Terry Townsend and Patricia Avery, also testified. As attorney Ruth Wyman stated in her opening argument, this trial pitted those who were professional witnesses against ordinary people who were “not polished, because they are not.”

Miguel, who was 15 at the time, and J.J. who was 8 years old, both testified on the stand that they were playing basketball with Chesley at the Douglass Park gymnasium as part of a Mission 180 program that was held every Friday night until 11 p.m. The three of them were leaving the gym to go to the “Arab,” a convenience store at 4th and Tremont, and then take little J.J. home. They said police stopped Chesley, pushed him into a fence, picked him up, and slammed him face first onto the concrete in the street. Chesley was not fighting back. They didn’t know what he was being arrested for.

While officer Bridges described Chesley as being “assisted” to the ground, others who testified said that police: “jumped him,” “tackled him down,” “piled up on him,” “stacked on top of him,” “were brutally beating him,” “whooping him,” and “manhandling him.” Two witnesses said police pepper sprayed Chesley three times. Another said the smell of pepper spray was “real strong.” All heard Chesley screaming out repeatedly that he couldn’t breath, but said police would not get off of him. Young J.J. said that his friend Brian, “looked dead.” Miguel thought the same until police picked him up. “He was wobbling,” Miguel described, “he couldn’t hold himself up.”

All the defense’s witnesses, children and adults, said Chesley was bleeding from his nose and mouth. Patricia Avery was at the Democratic Party social and went outside after one of the neighborhood kids ran to Gina Jackson’s house. Upon arriving, she saw Chesley bleeding, a large crowd with people taking pictures, and police forming a barricade around him.

Upon rebuttal by prosecutor Scales, Champaign City Council member Gina Jackson was called to testify. Jackson, a retired military officer, said what she saw was only mucous, not blood. In his closing argument, Scales used her comments to discredit the testimony of numerous others who said they saw blood, repeatedly referring to her as “Councilwoman Jackson.” It was dark, said Scales, and people were mistaken. Judge Kennedy nodded in agreement.

Friends who knew him described Chesley as a good kid, never involved in fights, and always playing basketball. Reyanna said he was “pretty cool.” Paris said he was friends with everybody, he had “no mouth, never fights or argues.” His girlfriend at the time said, “He don’t start nothing.”

Chesley decided to take the stand and testified that he heard Davis instruct him to stop, but told the officer, “I didn’t do nothing wrong.” He described getting his hoodie stuck on the fence when he was thrown against it. In reaching to get his hood unstuck, it appears police thought he was fighting back. Chesley described being “lifted up” and slammed to the ground with his chest and face hitting the pavement. He said his arm was pinned underneath him and he couldn’t move it because police had a knee in his back. He said he was never told that he was under arrest or what he was being arrested for.

Throughout the trial, Judge Kennedy overruled many of the defense’s objections, but the judge’s biases were most apparent in his severe limiting of the instructions given to the jury. Claims of racial profiling, selective enforcement of law, insufficient evidence for a Terry stop, all these were denied. Kirchner claimed he was left with virtually no defense, that he must be able to argue that the stop was not an authorized act.

Barred from considering the basis of the stop, the jury returned after three hours of deliberation with a guilty verdict.

A Broken System

Before the trial, Judge Kennedy ruled against a motion by Kirchner that the public could freely come and go from the courtroom. Such a motion should not be necessary because the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to a public trial. Kennedy denied the motion and ruled that only during recess or between witnesses could the public enter the courtroom. Subsequently, numerous individuals were turned away by bailiffs. The public was denied access to a public trial. Judge Kennedy repeatedly referred to Chesley’s supporters as “spectators,” a term which Dr. Evelyn Underwood, president of the Ministerial Alliance and associate minister of Free Baptist Church, took offense at. “I’m tired of being called a spectator,” she said. “The government works for us. This is my judicial branch.”

Reverend Jerome Chambers, president of the Champaign County chapter of the NAACP, said, “My disappointment is largely in the travesty of a broken system that is in dire need of repair.”

Those who worry about the impending police state in the wake of the Patriot Act and “total information awareness,” should be more concerned about its arrival in black neighborhoods. Already given orders to stop, identify, and enter into a database anybody on the street, police now have a carte blanche to interrogate us all. Of course, so long as it is not youth in lily-white suburbs or students in parades of public drunkenness like the U of I’s unofficial St. Patrick’s day who receive such treatment, things will remain the same.

On Wednesday, April 9, at noon, CU Citizens for Peace and Justice is hodling a protest outside the courthouse. Kirchner and Wyman plan to file a motion for a new trial which will be heard on May 9, 2008 at 9:00 a.m. in Courtroom E.