St. Pete Police Aim to Provoke Another Rebellion Police attack child; arrest parents for protecting him!

BY SATEESH ROGERS

ST. PETERSBURG, Fl — On Monday, April 14, the St. Petersburg Police Department attacked 13 year-old Elijah Harrison near the corner of 14th Street and 7th Avenue. After the attack, the police brutalized and arrested his parents, Tammie Harrison and Kenneth Nichols for trying to protect their child.

Since Mayor Rick Baker took office in 2000, police attacks against the African community have been on a steady rise. The city is attempting to bring back the brutal terrorist policies that led to the police murder of TyRon Lewis in 1996 and sparked righteous rebellions. However, the African community grows increasingly intolerant of the city’s activities, carried out in the name of preserving peace for the white community at the expense of every African man, woman and child in St. Pete.

African parents brutally attacked in attempt to protect son from police harassment
The police initiated the dispute when they stopped 13 year-old Anthony Haygood for "running a stop sign on a bicycle," according to police and witness accounts. Though there was no stop sign in the direction the child was headed, the police felt it necessary to harass this young man.

While police were questioning Anthony, 13 year-old Elijah, who was walking home after being let off the school bus, was also attacked in plain view of his father who waits every day in front of his house for his son’s return from school.

"I saw Officer Barber shove my son and I didn’t understand why. He’s just walking home," said Kenneth Nichols. So as any loving and concerned parent would do, he went over to see why a grown man with a badge would be attacking his son. Mr. Nichols asked Officer Barber, "Why did you put your hands on my son?" Barber replied, "You don’t have anything to do with it."

Being that Elijah is his son — and a minor — Nichols had everything to do with it. So he took Elijah’s hand, turned around and was going to take him home.

"Then someone yelled, ‘Watch out!’ and Barber said that I was under arrest," Nichols explained. He asked what he was being arrested for but no one would tell him.

By this time, Ms. Harrison had already come out of her kitchen, where she was busy preparing dinner for her family. She came to protect her son who, by the time the police were done with their attack, had been shoved to the ground and had had his lungs severely bruised.

Ms. Harrison described the situation. "I stepped in front of Kenneth because I just didn’t understand why they would attack my son and fiancée for no reason. I tried to ask what was going on. I just wanted to know what was going on."

Officer Barber told Elijah’s mother, "Mind your business. This doesn’t concern you." But any parent reading this knows that if that was your child, it definitely would concern you.

Ms. Harrison let Officer Barber know, "This is my son." With that, Ms. Harrison was shoved out of the way by Officer Barber, who, at this point, was going to try and arrest Mr. Nichols. At the same time, a crowd of more than 30 people began to swell, watching in anger as the family was attacked.

Mr. Nichols initially dodged Officer Barber, causing the officer to fall on his face. Then Ms. Harrison told him, "Kenneth, don’t run, you haven’t done anything." With that, he stood still and was slammed to the ground and arrested. He was later charged with obstruction of justice.

"I was crying as I screamed to Elijah, ‘Run home baby, just run home!’ Then I grabbed the fence," Ms. Harrison tearfully recalled, "and said, 'I’m not running away, I haven’t done anything.'"

That is when the police slammed her to the ground and dragged Elijah’s mother more than 15 feet, causing her breasts to be exposed and her legs "cocked wide open for the world to see", according to Ms. Harrison. "It was so humiliating, they wouldn’t even let me adjust my clothes."

African community challenges police attack
Meanwhile, the crowd swelled and as the police, becoming more and more nervous that the people would enact justice right then and there, pushed their panic button. Squad cars soon scrambled to the scene from every direction.

It was during this time that two African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) organizers saw the onslaught of police who were driving so recklessly to the scene that they almost injured several pedestrians.

One of the organizers recalls, "The way the police were responding, you would have thought there was some sort of terrorist attack. We followed the squad cars to 14th and 7th. When we got there, we realized there had just been a terrorist attack – the police were the terrorists."

All this took place as Tammie Harrison’s son cried out, "Why are you doing this to my mom?!" It was at this point that Officer Barber pushed Elijah for the third and final time to the ground before Barber took Ms. Harrison and Mr. Nichols away. It is likely that this third and final attack resulted in Elijah’s bruised lungs and increased respiratory problems.

After being arrested, Ms. Harrison was forced to endure several body searches on the side of the road and on her way to jail. For this incident, she was placed in maximum security surrounded by males. "I was crying as I was forced to lift my breasts and bend over and part my {buttocks} and cough over and over", Ms. Harrison said as she described how the police in C-1 Max examined her anal and vaginal cavities.

"One shower had no curtain at all and the other had one made of clear plastic, so a man could walk by and see me naked in the shower— so I couldn’t wash myself."

This must have been especially difficult considering the filth she was surrounded by in the cell, that she characterized as being unfit for even an animal. "I will never ever forget this as long as I live. I know now what it feels like to be raped and lynched. These are things I used to cry about when I heard about them on television and now it has happened to me. I would never wish this on anyone. It was like I was back in the 1930s or something."

Police Chief Chuck Harmon responded to the situation by stating that, "It doesn’t raise any concern with me."

Well, Chuck, why should you be concerned? After all, these are the type of practices that you have helped to make routine in the African community. It is a war against African people, in which the police troops will murder, brutalize and detain in concentration camps (prisons) anyone in the African community at any time — with or without reason.

Police protect imperialist system that exploits Africans
When the police are in our community you would have to be more than a little dumb to seriously believe that they are there to protect the interests of the African community. They are there however, to "protect and serve" the interests of the State and the white power system at large. Africans and other colonized people inside this country are a particular threat to these interests because they depend on our exploitation for their very existence.
The police are protecting the same system that built itself by bleeding dry the masses of Africans through centuries of slavery.

It is the same system that murdered millions of Native Americans and then stole all of their land.

It is the same system that stole the land of the Mexican people in 1848.

It is the same system that is in Iraq now, stealing their oil and trying to position itself to be the number one slave-master in the world.

It is the same system that floods your streets with drugs, but can’t produce a drip-drop of a job.

It is the same system that killed Tyron Lewis.

It is the same system the Uhuru Movement had to file a lawsuit against for its attempted murder of our organizers in November of 1996 during the rebellions.

It is the same system that locks up African people for more than a quarter century for "stealing a slice of pizza," or a half of a century for “stealing a golf club”, so that there will be slave labor and containment of Africans — forever.

So, what is the point here? The point is that the United States, the "good old" red white and blue, made itself the power that it is by making everyone else in the world powerless and destitute at the point of a gun.

In this way, it has made itself "oppressed people’s public enemy number one." Look around the world and what do you see? Look down your block and what do you see - a whole lot of poor, hungry, landless, struggling people.

Wealth of imperialism came at expense of African people
Now look at Europe and the U.S. and what do you see? You see all of the riches, food, land and wealth that have been taken from you. Conspiracy, one may say, but it is hardly that. All you have to do is open your eyes and look, for it is as clear as the ground you walk on.
In order for this handful of white people to be wealthy, the overwhelming majority must starve and die. If you’ve got a problem with that, the police troops are there to help you either find a cozy bed in a concentration camp, or a nice six-foot pile of soil.

It has always been this way and will always be this way as long as this social system, known as "imperialism" is intact. This is the current order of the world that domestic police troops and international police troops (military) maintain by any means necessary.

When the police brutalize an entire family, like they did the Harrison’s, this is the order that they are protecting. They are protecting and expanding the parasite’s relationship that keeps everyone in the world, including right here in St. Petersburg, in misery, poverty and bondage. That is their job. That’s what the troops are doing in Iraq, and in St. Pete, in Colombia and Chicago.

African community must organize for independence
Police Chief Harmon was quoted in the St. Petersburg Times on Saturday, April 19 as stating that African people are happy with this relationship -- that this is a "single situation" and that he didn’t "want people to get the perception that this is a continual occurrence."
It stands to reason that if he really believes that, then he must be getting high on his own supply of narcotics that he helps to push in the African community and that he himself should be under investigation for drug use.

Every African in this country can bear witness to the continual violence we face at the hands of the State every day in one form or another. Just ask around. It seems as though everyone has his or her own personal terror story.

Our freedom will not come simply because we wish it so. It will come as a consequence of our day-to-day struggle to make our freedom manifest. Billions of people around the world share the same problem. We must organize to win our independence, self-determination and national liberation.

Organize, Resist and Defeat U.S. Imperialism!
Defend all African Mothers, Fathers and Children; End Police Occupation.
Join the Uhuru Movement.
Self-Determination and National Liberation for Africans and all Oppressed People!
Defeat the War in Iraq and Defeat the War in the African Community.

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