Sentencing of Brian Chesley
Upon the recommendation of Assistant State’s Attorney Rob Scales, Judge John R. Kennedy agreed to a sentence of 100 hours community service for Brian Chesley. Chesley was convicted by an all-white jury of obstructing and resisting a peace officer. On March 30, 2007, he was stopped by Champaign in Frederick Douglass Park after leaving the gymnasium, attacked by three officers, pepper sprayed, and sent to the hospital.
At the hearing Friday morning, May 9, 2008, Chesley’s Attorneys Bob Kirchner and Ruth Wyman submitted a post-trial motion to overturn the guilty verdict. Among several errors cited, they questioned the basis of the stop, claiming that Champaign police officer Andre Davis was not authorized to stop Chesley, and that doing so was “selective enforcement of the law.”
Prosecutor Scales said that Davis did have a “reasonable and articulable suspicion” to stop Chesley because the park was closed at dusk. He said that by Defense Attorney Wyman’s explanation, officers could not stop anybody. He gave the example that if police saw someone breaking a car window, they could not question that individual whether the car was theirs or not.
Scales also said there was no evidence that Chesley was stopped solely because he was African American. If the judge ruled that it was, it would mean officers could never stop individuals in African American neighborhoods because it could be a result of race.
Of course, Chesley was not breaking any car windows that night, but simply walking his eight year-old friend home after playing basketball. Most likely, he would not have faced this situation if he was a white youth walking in a white neighborhood.
Judge Kennedy, who throughout the trial proceedings had shot down almost all of the defense’s challenges, denied the post-trial motion.
During sentencing, Brian Chesley’s mother testified to her son’s good character, and Chesley himself gave a statement. He was given 100 hours community service, which has to be completed in ten months, and has to pay court fines.
Attorney Kirchner says he plans to appeal the case.
For a full account of the trial see “Three Cops Versus An Entire Community” at:
http://www.ucimc.org/node/2743
Let Patrick Go!
Don’t forget the third trial of Patrick Thompson begins Monday, May 12, at 1:30 pm in Courtroom A.
BD
Police State vs the Constitution
It's rather obvious that in Champaign County preserving the prerogatives of the police state are more important than the Bill of Rights.
"Halt! Let me see your papers!"
Then you're to submit to authority, no matter how unjustified. Anything else and you'll be treated as an enemy of the state.
A state like that should have ALL it's citizens as enemies until it's brought under control of the people.
The local daily? They're more interested in grandstanding about freedom of speech than in calling the daily acts of repression practiced against large numbers of our citizens into question.
a citizen's responsibility
Whether or not this fine young man was doing anything wrong at the time he was walking in the park isn't the point. When a police officer stops a person on foot or in a car, it is the citizen's responsibility to cooperate. After the stop, if the police is then not respecting the person or making a false accusation, then there should be a protest and support of that person and outrage that the police officer isn't serving the public.
Can you imagine what it be like if I were driving and saw red flashing lights and decided not to stop because I wasn't doing anything wrong? If I were going the speed limit and my headlights were working. Can you imagine people fleeing police cars all over town?
What are you teaching the young people today with not addressing the fact that a citizen must respect authority? That is why when a teacher asks a student to respect other students in a classroom or respect a teacher, a student mouths off to the teacher. How are we helping youth to become productive and contributing members of society?
Stop using this fine young man as a posterchild. Respect him and support his right to a productive life.
If You Want Respect for a Police State
Move to Myanmar. Or New Orleans. Or...
Nevermind, you're right, we do live in a police state and we should just learn to respect it when it sends its minions out to demand our papers.
NOT!
It's the Police Who Should Start Respecting
Respect is a two-way street.
How about the Champaign Police Department respect the north district neighborhoods and NOT demand to see everyone's identification for the mere purpose of putting the information in the A.R.M.S. database? (as was the testimony of Officer Andre Davis and Officer Shannon Bridges)
How about the Champaign Police Department NOT throw people who don't want to be put into the database against a fence? (as was the testimony of Chesley and the two witnesses who were walking next to Mr. Chesley)
How about the Champaign Police Department NOT body slam someone face first into the concrete? (as was the evasive testimony of Officer Justus Clinton, Officer Bridges, and the forthright testimony of the two witnesses who were walking with Mr. Chesley)
How about the Champaign Police Department NOT drive their knees into the back of someone's neck, lower back, and legs to the point the person can't breathe? (as was the testimony of about a dozen witnesses and the officer themselves)
How about the Champaign Police Department NOT pepper spray someone in the face? (undisputed testimony from just about all the witnesses)
How about the Champaign Police Department NOT lie in court about the reason for the stop was a trespassing? (trespassing does not appear in Officer Davis' police report and the state's attorney's office did not charge Mr. Chesley with trespassing because had park district officials been called to testify, a trespass to the park as the basis for the stop would have been blown out of the water)
How about the Champaign Police Department NOT lie in court about not being aware the Champaign Park District had been having a late-night open gym program at Douglass Park? (Officer Davis' claim he didn't see about 20-30 other youth in the park and that he didn't know the gym had been open is very doubtful. Mission 180 had been going on for at least a month.)
How about the Champaign Police Department NOT lie in court with claims that Chesley clenched his fist at Officer Shannon Bridges? (the two witnesses walking with Chesley never saw Chesley do what Officer Clinton claimed in his testimony)
How about the Champaign Police just own up to the fact they were following an unConstitutional policy and used excessive force to enforce it?
How about urbanacitizen actually go to a trial and not rely on the assumption that "activists" are "using" somebody for posters and that the police are right once again?
The PosterChildren in this case are Officers Davis, Clinton, Bridges, and Griffet who are the new breed of police officers who take names and kick ass- and do so when in black neighborhoods.
Chesley should respect authority. I should respect authority. You should respect authority. But to do so requires the authorities should stop abusing their authority.
Checking I.D.'s for a database, pummeling people who walk away from unreasonable demands, and a prosecuting office that flips the script and manipulates a verbal puppet show to say Chesley committed the crime are not reasons to respect anything.
I can't blame Chesley or anyone else in the Douglass Park area for mouthing off to officers. The police have started the bad relationship with their policies and practices.
It has been very disingenuous of the polite white middle class to assume black youth should always be cooperative in the presence of police. Local black youth are routinely stopped, searched, privacy invaded, subjected to drug dogs, and asked to be snitches for police. We should not be surprised by Chesley's or anyone else's disrespect for police when police disrespect them first, and have so for decades.
The grown-ups at the Champaign Police Department fail to communicate with black residents in advance when designing agreed-upon police patrol techniques; and instead, ask the State's Attorney's office to protect them from their own screw-ups.
The fact is, the black community has grievances to address over this matter. If the Champaign Police Department is sincere that the Chesley case can be explained, and if the police truely seek resolution and understanding with the black community, then let's see them hold a public forum to discuss the Chesley case. You know, out of respect.
Local I agree
I agree with all that you said regarding all that the police should not do. Maybe they wouldn't have done any of those terrible things had the young man stopped and was courteous.
"It has been very disingenuous of the polite white middle class to assume black youth should always be cooperative in the presence of police. Local black youth are routinely stopped, searched, privacy invaded, subjected to drug dogs, and asked to be snitches for police. We should not be surprised by Chesley's or anyone else's disrespect for police when police disrespect them first, and have so for decades."
I do not live in a cave and I know about how local black youth and ADULTS are routinely stopped, searched, or followed and presumed guilty. But even the head of the NAACP is trying to change responses so this horrible event isn't repeated to anyone at anytime for any reason. Both sides have to change.
-
"Most likely, he would not have faced this situation if he was a white youth walking in a white neighborhood."
Last time I checked people weren't selling drugs or carrying guns in Cherry Hills.
"Peaceful" Cherry Hills
"Last time I checked people weren't selling drugs or carrying guns in Cherry Hills."
Last time I checked, people were having underage drinking parties in Cherry Hills and a mother stabbed her two children with a kitchen knife, killing one. Last time I checked, plenty of households in the Cherry Hills area were using drugs discreetly behind the friendly confines of their fine suburban homes.
Profile that aaaaaa.
Again, the stop of Chesley was claimed to be a trespass. Now aaaaaa wants to say the stop was because of a "bad" neighborhood. That puts aaaaaa more in line with what the briefing was at Police Headquarters that night of Mar. 30, 2007: stop everyone and check I.D.'s.
This notion that blacks do all the crimes really is getting tiresome.
Guns in Cherry Hills & Bad Neighborhoods
Did anyone ever find the gun that Officer Al Johnston managed to lose? He also happens to live in Cherry Hills and news reports indicated a concern due to the proximity of the neighborhood to Barkstall Elementary School.
Recently I asked a graduate student in Urban Planning about the number of calls that are received by Metcad. According to this particular source of information the majority of 911 phone calls come from the University of Illinois campus area. Perhaps we should start entering the names of students, faculty, and employees of the University of Illinois into a mystery database....after all dangerous areas need to be controlled.
Officer Al
I saw Officer Al Johnston this week, husband of our current State's Attorney,
and I asked if he had found his pistol yet.
His answer was no.
He confirmed that the fire department was out hosing down the snow to melt it
so they could find his gun, to no avail.
He told me that was Champaign's call.
I asked who made the call to keep this story out of the media
just days before the primary in which his wife was being challenged by attorney Alfred Ivy
but he didn't answer my question.
BD
ps Let Patrick Go!