Police Shooting of Mother and Infant Exposes a City’s Racial Tension

[larrymeyer]

I must have been absent the day they said to disregard the traget and just spry everything

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/30/us...THEADLINES_NAT

Police Shooting of Mother and Infant Exposes a City’s Racial Tension

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

J. D. Pooley for The New York Times

Residents of Lima, Ohio, posted a sign at the house where Ms. Wilson, 26, was killed and her 14-month-old son was injured.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[ChamberedRound]

Moving to News.

[sjl127]

Further aggregates my opinion about police. I just don't trust them.

[elston32]

Originally Posted by larrymeyer

I must have been absent the day they said to disregard the traget and just spry everything

First, let me extend my condolences to the Wilson Family on the loss of Tarika and the injury to her son Sincere.

Right is right, and wrong is wrong.

It is extremely regrettable that the innocent sometimes get punished with the guilty.

However as the saying goes "if you lie with dogs, you'll get up with fleas."

The deceased knew enough right to forbid drug trafificking from her home; knew enough right to attemt to give her children a disciplined upbringing.

But she did wrong in selecting mates. She did wrong in bringing a criminal into her home as a lover and father figure to her children.l

And, unfortunately for her and her family, all the right things she did could not prevent her from suffering the consequences of the wrong choices she made.

Is Lima, Ohio a racist town? I do not know.

Are there racist members of Lima Police Departmemt? Possibly.

Should the S.W.A.T. Team have exercised better fire discipline and restraint in storming Ms. Wilson's home to apprehend her drug dealing companion? Definitely.

However, had Ms. Wilson made the right choices when it came to choosing a mate and father-figure for her children, noone would have to answer these questions.

Because of her wrong choices her children are now motherless, and her parents have to bury their daughter.

Ms. Wilson made some wrong choices and paid the price.

My prayers go out to the Wilson Family and the town of Lima, Ohio.


---elston

[Philadelphia]

I've seen this type of thing happen before and I agree with elston32 with a slight twist,

Lie down with drug dealers, get shot.

Whatever the investigation might reveal, the mother should be prosecuted for endangering the children.

[elston32]

Originally Posted by Philadelphia

I've seen this type of thing happen before and I agree with elston32 with a slight twist,

Lie down with drug dealers, get shot.

Whatever the investigation might reveal, the mother should be prosecuted for endangering the children.

Philadelphia, the mother is dead.

Stay well.

---elston

[fultonCoShooter]

only a handful of people really know what happened in there


the police arnt talking until they are done investigating

[elston32]

Originally Posted by fultonCoShooter

only a handful of people really know what happened in there the police arnt talking until they are done investigating

Quoted from th NYT article:

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

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

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

Where there's smoke there's fire.

Stay well.


---elston

[Autonomous]

Originally Posted by Philadelphia

I've seen this type of thing happen before and I agree with elston32 with a slight twist,

Lie down with drug dealers, get shot.

Whatever the investigation might reveal, the mother should be prosecuted for endangering the children.

We will never know what happened inside that house. There will be more facts that come out after the investigation. If there were no drugs found in the house and the mother did not know of the warrant for her drug dealing boyfriend then she committed no crime. Association is no justification for a extra judicial killing. We are all innocent until proven guilty. So if the boy friend was innocent until proven guilty (unless he was being arrested for violating parole then he has already been proven guilty) then what does that make the young mother who was killed? Even if there were drugs in the house the last time I checked the penalty was jail not a casket.
I also do not understand why they were raiding the house in the middle of the night. Why not monitor the house for activity. Learn the schedule. Scoop the BG when he driving down the road, or if he does not drive then hit him when he is walking down the street or in a friends car. People are prone to habit, learn the pattern and exploit it. If you have a warrant for the house then search it when kids are at school or the mom leaves to go out. The instinct of a mother to protect her children is strong especially in the middle of the night. If that mother is not the subject of the warrant then do all you can to spare the children the danger of a police raid.
The mother of these children made some really bad choices. Exposing her children to moron drug dealers is dangerous. That is no justification for killing her.
-A

[Brown-Bear]

Well seeing as this story cAme from the NY Times I' sure they left out the part about the mother having a gun and how she's been arrested before, and has a history of violence. That Liberal rag has always been worth nothing but an alternativeto charmin for me.

I like how the supposed peaceful pastor threatens the burning down of the town if anything happens to him.

BB.