Sept. 17, 2009
From a Mother’s Perspective… Mom Called EMS to Pullman Square After Asthmatic Juvenile Daughter Pepper Sprayed
Hearing Next Week at Cabell County Courthouse
By Tony Rutherford
Huntingtonnews.net Reporter
Huntington, WV (HNN) – On Saturday night, September 5, the arrest of two African American teenage juveniles has prompted an outcry from some members of the African American community as to the handling of the incident by Pullman security and/or other law enforcement officers.
Air Force Veteran Sharon Jackson is the mother of Diane Jackson, one of the two juveniles arrested. Sharon Jackson, who is white, has four children, including three who are now adults. Her daughter, Diane, is the youth President of the Huntington Weed and Seed Program. According to her mom, Diane, a to be watched basketball player at Huntington High School, may now resign from the Weed and Seed program due to its location at Barnett Center, 1524 Tenth Avenue, which is also the location of a police subdivision.
Diane has been charged with disorderly conduct, which her mom claims originated from her expressing emotion about the earlier arrest of her cousin. Her cousin faces three charges: Disorderly conduct, obstruction and battery on a police officer. Their hearing will be September 22 at the Cabell County Courthouse. Ironically, the West Virginia Supreme Court will be sitting at the same time at Joan C. Edwards Performing Arts Center to hear an appeal of an incident at Charleston Town Center involving the arrest of two male juveniles and a determination of racial discrimination and damage awards by the West Virginia Human Relations Commission.
An article appearing September 6 in the Herald-Dispatch described that pepper spray was used by guards and/or HPD during the incident. After the two juveniles were arrested and handcuffed, they were taken to a holding cell at HPD, and appeared before Magistrate Johnny McAlister at about 1:15 a.m. Sunday morning, Sept. 6, according to Ms. Jackson.
Due to various previously related contradictions of what happened by the numerous involved individuals , we present this interview, as much as possible, in the mother’s own words. Ms. Jackson during the interview paraphrases statements attributed to her daughter during the altercation.
HNN: What was happening when you arrived at Pullman Square, Saturday night September 5?
SHARON JACKSON: When I got there , my daughter was already [under arrest and in the police transport vehicle], I asked [a police officer], “Did anybody call an ambulance?” They said, “Why?” “My daughter has asthma pretty bad and I know she does not have her inhaler and I don’t have it with me because I wasn’t prepared to have to go through this. He just looked at me. I said, “I’ll go ahead and call them [EMS]. I called them and told him “they are on their way. ” This was a police officer but I could not tell you which one.
About two minutes later, police cars started leaving, “Where are they taking them?” He [the officer] said to the police station. I said, “I just told you I called EMS. I want her checked out, that’s my daughter.” He didn’t say anything else. I asked, “Where are they going?” He said, “to the police station.” So I went to the police station.
I called EMS back and told them, “I called you all to come to Pullman to check my daughter because she was maced a couple of times and she’s got asthma. She [the 911/EMS operator] said, “They don’t have that equipment there.” I said, “Well, they evidently don’t give a … they went ahead and left with the girls, after I told them I wanted her checked out.”
She [the operator] said, “We’ll go ahead and reroute them to the police station.”
“I’m on my way to the police station,” Ms. Jackson continued. “She said, ‘call me when you get there.’ I called them back and said I’m in the front of the police station but cannot get in. She said, ‘I’ll go ahead and radio them and let them know that you are out there.’
“Whether she did or not, I don’t know, but no one ever came out and talked to me. I was there from [about] ten o’clock until 15 till twelve and they did not bring them to the courthouse until 1:15 a.m. …
Whenever I had EMS reroute up to [the police station], he [EMS worker] came out and talked to me. “It’ll be about 24 hours. It will be easier for her. Do you have an inhaler?”
The next morning I had to take her to Cabell [Huntington Hospital] to get her an inhaler. He [the doctor at Cabell] said she had contusions on her back, bruises on her arm, a big scrape on her shoulder where they threw her on the ground, I guess, like, a concrete burn. He asked ‘does she normally talk like that?’ I said, ‘no,’ and he [the CHH doctor] said , ‘it’s from the chemicals where she was sprayed in the mouth.’
HNN: You daughter was …
SHARON JACKSON: Diane
HNN: Was she the first or second juvenile arrested?
SHARON JACKSON: The second one.
HNN: Do you have any idea what took place PRIOR to her arrest?
SHARON JACKSON: I met with Chief [Skip Holbrook] Monday. [When the incident began] Diane was not [at Pullman] yet. She was at Taco Bell. She went to a Huntington High game, then, she went to Taco Bell, I gave her $20, I didn’t know my son had already given her $10, or she’d probably would not have gotten the twenty, that’s the way they do, her bigger brother is 27. They were going to a movie that started at 9:50 p.m. Well, I thought it was at 9:30, so at 9:28 p.m., I got it on my phone where I texted her, ‘where you at?’ She called and said, ‘we are at Taco Bell.’
I said, “You’re going to miss the movie.”
She said, “It doesn’t start until 9:50 p.m. , mom.”
So between the time I talked to her and ten o’clock, all this took place and she was in a police car. I got down there at five after [ten].
RESTROOM USE DENIED
What the police chief told me Monday, he said there was a group of kids around nine or 9:15 p.m. that went into Starbucks to request to use the bathroom, like they have been doing. All of a sudden, they told them if they are not patrons, they did not want them going in there because they did not want the bathrooms disrupted. The kids started being irate and Starbucks called security. Then, security makes them all go outside. They are all sitting around there by the tent and one little girl had called her mother to come and get her because she could not see the movie , it was sold out. Diane got there about 9:45 p.m. The movie was sold out, so they were all outside talking. Security came over and told them they had to leave.
Ms. Courts had already left her house as her daughter had called her. She was on her way to pick her up. That’s how she [Ms. Courts] got there before Diane got arrested. [Editor’s Note: The Herald Dispatch previously identified Marie Courts as the mother of the first teen arrested.]
Meantime, one of the security guards maced Diane. That made her a little irate. She said, they [the security guards] told them to get on the bus. It was standing room only on the bus so she decided to walk home. We just live right under the viaduct at Tenth Street and Ninth Avenue. The bus would have taken her to 20th Street. She would have had to walk from 20th Street to Tenth Street.
She gets off the bus , and getting ready to proceed across the street, she turns around to say something to her cousin and a police officer is swinging her [cousin] by one arm. [Diane in Ms. Jackson’s words said to her mom], “I don’t know what [my cousin] said or did, but police told her to take her ass down the street. She kept trying to tell them she was waiting on her mom. They did not want her sitting there waiting on nobody; they wanted her to leave.
VERBAL PANIC… ‘YOU CAN’T DO THAT’
Diane hears ‘my mom’s coming, my mom’s coming’ and runs back and tells them [officers] , ‘she’s fifteen; you can’t do this, she’s a little girl.’
Diane starts panicking ; it’s her cousin who is about nine or ten months younger. That’s after police were called. The police are the ones who slammed her around, not security. They get [her cousin] up against the car and handcuff her. [Her cousin] slid out of the handcuffs and dropped them on the sidewalk. I guess that really made them mad. They picked the handcuffs back up and got her by one arm and handcuffed her [again].
Meantime, security is still spraying people. Diane is still trying to come to [her cousin’s] aid. She didn’t know what to do. She was trying to help [her cousin] out [telling an officer],‘she’s 15, you can’t do that to her.’
WATCH
One of the officers said, “Watch.”
[Her cousin] swung her [free] arm around trying to get them to not be able to catch her arm and they said she assaulted, you know, battery on an officer.
[Editor’s Note: Diane was let go that morning; her cousin was taken to a juvenile facility.]
HNN: When were you finally able to ask about the charges and what happened?
SHARON JACKSON: They said, ‘disorderly.’ I said, ‘she was leaving. What did she do?’ They said, the officer kept telling her to leave and she would not leave. I said, she was leaving with a bunch of other kids when they got off the bus. When she turned and saw her cousin being slammed around, she panicked. She tried to go to [her cousin’s] aide. Her being fifteen and never seen nothing like that before, it’s automatic.
When [Diane’s cousin was arrested], she ran up to Marie [Courts] and she tried to tell her what the police did to [her daughter]. Then , they maced her for the last time. [Diane] said something about why the officer’s keep macing me and that’s when someone thought she was tasered because she fell to the ground and started throwing up, spitting up or something again. I think that’s when they really got it in her mouth.
AMOUNT OF FORCE UNNECESSARY, MOM SAYS
HNN: You did not see Diane arrested. You are relying upon what Marie Courts described. So, what happened, next?
SHARON JACKSON: Marie Courts said, someone got behind her and grabbed her by the arm, pulled her to the ground, and handcuffed her. I’ve heard so many stories… I did [also] hear that after they got on the bus, an officer got on and told them to get off.
HNN: You object to the way Diane was arrested?
SHARON JACKSON: Unless a child stabs somebody or does something really horrendous, I could understand them taking a person down. But they are trained to take down 250 pound men , why can they not handle a 150 pound girl? It wasn’t necessary. They should have told [her cousin], ‘you sit your butt down right here and if you mom is not here in five minutes then you are gone.
HNN: You waited a couple hours or so at the police station.
SHARON JACKSON: This is another thing that made me mad... The police told me at 11:45 p.m. that they were still doing paperwork. I told [the police] that it has been two hours , you’ve had people in here in handcuffs and back out on their way to Western Regional and those girls are still in there? What’s taking you so long? He said , ‘give us another ten or fifteen minutes and we will be at the courthouse.’
I told the officer, ‘I thought they closed at 12 o’clock [midnight] at the courthouse.’ He said, ‘if we have juveniles and it’s 3 a.m., they have to come out.’
Jan Courts [the other juvenile’s grandmother] and I were in the alley waiting on the girl’s to come out. Her mother and other grandmother were at the courthouse in case they tried to take them out another door.
Later, we were at the courthouse taking to Magistrate Johnny McAlister and he said, ‘they’ve got juveniles?’
Yea, two of them. They said they called you. He called them … and they didn’t show up until 1:15 a.m., an hour after [the magistrate] called.
They told me I could take her home but to keep her under control. I said, ‘sure, she’s always under control.’
MONEY MISSING FROM POCKET and NO FEMALE TO SEARCH
HNN: Before you left the courthouse, you learned something from your daughter?
SHARON JACKSON: Then, Diane said, ‘mom, my $25 is gone.’ So, I go back in and they are talking about [her cousin] and an officer said, ‘oh, are you back?’
Yes, I’m back. I want to know where her money is at. She had $30 but she went to Taco Bell. She didn’t eat $30 worth of food. She was going to a movie, but it was sold out. Now, she has no money in her pocket. Why did they even go in her pocket? They have no business searching her, PERIOD. They don’t search a little girl.
He said, ‘I don’t know anything about that.’
“I’m sure you all don’t. I knew I was wasting my time coming back in here… I don’t care if it was five dollars or five hundred, they had no business going in her pocket. She is a female, and there were no female police officers down there at Pullman. And, there was none that took her to jail.
HNN: Are you stating she told you during the two to three hour period in the holding cell , no female officers were present?
SHARON JACKSON: There was one woman [officer] in there because Diane had a set of dice. They were in there joking , playing and rolling the dice around on the table…. Three hours she is in there and she asks for drinks of water and they would not give her anything to drink. They refused her water.
They did not give those dice back either. All they gave her back was their lip chap, her little bottle of cologne and a phone that belonged to a little boy. They did not give back the $25 that was really mine. They didn’t search her back pocket; they went in her front pocket. They should not have searched you period. They had no business searching you at all. [Editor’s Note: Jackson told HNN that EMS told her they washed Diane’s face, but she lost her contacts because her eyes watered so much. ]
GUARDS MACED CROWD, MOM SAYS
HNN: Did anyone tell you what initially prompted the guards and/or officers to use mace and/or pepper spray?
SHARON JACKSON: I don’t understand what happened either. She walked in to whatever happened. She wasn’t there when the Starbucks incident happened. When she arrived from Taco Bell, that’s when she learned the movie was sold out. She sits with the kids already out there [by Starbucks]. Starbucks called security because they did not want the kids around there. Security comes and told the kids they had to leave. I guess the kids thought security is not a police officer, you can’t tell us what to do. They sit there. Then, security called the police. When the police came, the kids started leaving.
NOBODY TOUCHED ANYBODY BEFORE THE SPRAYING
HNN: Reports I read stated security use the mace and/or pepper spray…
SHARON JACKSON: Security is the one who maced Diane first. He was holding it up to her face and she had never seen a mace [dispenser ] before . She said it looked like a gun. She said, ‘what are you going to do, shoot me?’ He turned it sideways and sprayed it in her face.
[After her cousin’s arrest and Diane complained about it,] security started macing the whole crowd. A lot of people came walking over. Diane got it again. It’s all over her shirt.
HNN: From what you have explained, the first use of pepper spray and /or mace resulted from VERBAL statements and not a PHYSICAL confrontation with Pullman guards?
SHARON JACKSON: Nobody touched anybody. Nobody had done anything. [After the arrests and mass spraying], the kids were out there crying.
HNN: Could their eyes have been watering from the spray?
SHARON JACKSON: Right, but the kids were watching . The last time he pepper sprayed Diane, he had no business doing it. She was talking to her cousin’s mom, telling her what was going on and why they arrested her cousin. The Chief said it was security that came over and told Diane to shut up and maced her again. Then, somebody runs up behind her, grabs her by her arms, throws her to the ground and cuffs her.
HNN: I believe an officer pulled on her pants belt loop…
SHARON JACKSON: Well, her shirt’s all tore up. She does wear a belt. But, if I had done that to my own child, I’d be getting ready to go to court. But they can do it.
HNN: You have complained about other incidents where you live?
SHARON JACKSON: My daughter has been [youth] president of the weed and seed program since they started it. She’s really active on a dance group and teaches autistic children at HHS… in the spring, she was leaving Rite Aid to go to Barnett and an officer pulls up in the Rite Aid parking lot and grills her. Wants to know her name, her age, where she lives, where she’s coming from, where she’s going… since she’s [youth] president of the Weed and Seed program, they should know her. If they are interactive with the people at Weed and Seed, they would have known her. She tells them all this and [the officer] said , ‘you fit the description of a girl on 23rd Street selling drugs.’
That’s just something he has made up to stop you. That’s all it is. [In another separate incident, she was stopped] because she fit the description of an elderly lady with plaid shorts. What was that all about? Where is the elderly lady? She put them shorts on to go play ball. Why didn’t he call 911 back [for a more thorough description]?
[Jackson tells of Diane outside her home waiting for her mom’s out of town guest to arrive before 1 a.m. ] … I put the pit bull out back, all of a sudden I hear a knock at my door. Diane was outside. She was walking up and down the sidewalk , pacing. She was on the phone. The police pulled up. I said, ‘what’s going on?’
He said, ‘Do you have a daughter, Diane?”
“She’s out front.”
“Can you come outside,” the officer said.
“What did she do, she was standing out there on the phone?”
He said, “We were asking her questions…”
“Why did you stop her… why is she in handcuffs?”
He said, “Curfew is at 11 p.m. She’s not under arrest but she was trying to walk up to the house.”
“What you could have done when she said she lived here, instead of [handcuffing her], is to knock on the door. You don’t handcuff her, frisk her, and tell me her curfew is at 11 p.m. [Her curfew] is 4 a.m., if I say it is 4 a.m. because she is in FRONT of my house. I’m waiting for someone to come in from out of town…then there’s a message on my phone, Diane was talking to me and an officer came out and took her phone.
You wonder why they run. If they stand still, they don’t know what’s going to happen.
HNN: You have also alleged that a white woman with black people in the car will be stopped?
[She tells of police stopping her own vehicle]
SHARON JACKSON: I turned down 17th Street , well, I have Kentucky tags. He looks over at me, goes to the alley and gets behind me…when I start to go through the green light at Ninth Avenue, his lights come on. I pull over at U-Haul. I gave him all my information. He looked at my two kids [in the car], my children are black… I asked, why did you pull me over? [The officer said] because you were weaving. I was sitting at a stop sign; I was not weaving.
In February, I got stopped on Artisan Avenue , it was about eleven degrees, and I was giving a girl a ride home. They swarmed me like I robbed a bank. What was this all about? It’s all because I had her in my car. I told her, ‘if I see you walking any more, you’re going to have to walk home.’
You cannot be white and have somebody black inside your car, especially if you have out of state tags.
HNN: Have there been other incidents at Pullman?
SHARON JACKSON: When the black kids go down to Pullman Square, I don’t think it’s a racial thing. If anybody goes down there, they are in a group. They all live in this end of town and go to school together. And, probably 80% are related. Where else can they go and meet? They go to a movie, go outside and sit and talk. They are not any louder than any band you go there and listen to. What are they doing wrong? Security does not want them gathered in one place. If they are sitting outside in chairs or tables, what are they doing wrong?
Share This Story:
Make HNN Your Homepage (IE Users Only)
From a Mother’s Perspective… Mom Called EMS to Pullman Square After Asthmatic Juvenile Daughter Pepper Sprayed
Hearing Next Week at Cabell County Courthouse
By Tony Rutherford
Huntingtonnews.net Reporter
Huntington, WV (HNN) – On Saturday night, September 5, the arrest of two African American teenage juveniles has prompted an outcry from some members of the African American community as to the handling of the incident by Pullman security and/or other law enforcement officers.
Air Force Veteran Sharon Jackson is the mother of Diane Jackson, one of the two juveniles arrested. Sharon Jackson, who is white, has four children, including three who are now adults. Her daughter, Diane, is the youth President of the Huntington Weed and Seed Program. According to her mom, Diane, a to be watched basketball player at Huntington High School, may now resign from the Weed and Seed program due to its location at Barnett Center, 1524 Tenth Avenue, which is also the location of a police subdivision.
Diane has been charged with disorderly conduct, which her mom claims originated from her expressing emotion about the earlier arrest of her cousin. Her cousin faces three charges: Disorderly conduct, obstruction and battery on a police officer. Their hearing will be September 22 at the Cabell County Courthouse. Ironically, the West Virginia Supreme Court will be sitting at the same time at Joan C. Edwards Performing Arts Center to hear an appeal of an incident at Charleston Town Center involving the arrest of two male juveniles and a determination of racial discrimination and damage awards by the West Virginia Human Relations Commission.
An article appearing September 6 in the Herald-Dispatch described that pepper spray was used by guards and/or HPD during the incident. After the two juveniles were arrested and handcuffed, they were taken to a holding cell at HPD, and appeared before Magistrate Johnny McAlister at about 1:15 a.m. Sunday morning, Sept. 6, according to Ms. Jackson.
Due to various previously related contradictions of what happened by the numerous involved individuals , we present this interview, as much as possible, in the mother’s own words. Ms. Jackson during the interview paraphrases statements attributed to her daughter during the altercation.
HNN: What was happening when you arrived at Pullman Square, Saturday night September 5?
SHARON JACKSON: When I got there , my daughter was already [under arrest and in the police transport vehicle], I asked [a police officer], “Did anybody call an ambulance?” They said, “Why?” “My daughter has asthma pretty bad and I know she does not have her inhaler and I don’t have it with me because I wasn’t prepared to have to go through this. He just looked at me. I said, “I’ll go ahead and call them [EMS]. I called them and told him “they are on their way. ” This was a police officer but I could not tell you which one.
About two minutes later, police cars started leaving, “Where are they taking them?” He [the officer] said to the police station. I said, “I just told you I called EMS. I want her checked out, that’s my daughter.” He didn’t say anything else. I asked, “Where are they going?” He said, “to the police station.” So I went to the police station.
I called EMS back and told them, “I called you all to come to Pullman to check my daughter because she was maced a couple of times and she’s got asthma. She [the 911/EMS operator] said, “They don’t have that equipment there.” I said, “Well, they evidently don’t give a … they went ahead and left with the girls, after I told them I wanted her checked out.”
She [the operator] said, “We’ll go ahead and reroute them to the police station.”
“I’m on my way to the police station,” Ms. Jackson continued. “She said, ‘call me when you get there.’ I called them back and said I’m in the front of the police station but cannot get in. She said, ‘I’ll go ahead and radio them and let them know that you are out there.’
“Whether she did or not, I don’t know, but no one ever came out and talked to me. I was there from [about] ten o’clock until 15 till twelve and they did not bring them to the courthouse until 1:15 a.m. …
Whenever I had EMS reroute up to [the police station], he [EMS worker] came out and talked to me. “It’ll be about 24 hours. It will be easier for her. Do you have an inhaler?”
The next morning I had to take her to Cabell [Huntington Hospital] to get her an inhaler. He [the doctor at Cabell] said she had contusions on her back, bruises on her arm, a big scrape on her shoulder where they threw her on the ground, I guess, like, a concrete burn. He asked ‘does she normally talk like that?’ I said, ‘no,’ and he [the CHH doctor] said , ‘it’s from the chemicals where she was sprayed in the mouth.’
HNN: You daughter was …
SHARON JACKSON: Diane
HNN: Was she the first or second juvenile arrested?
SHARON JACKSON: The second one.
HNN: Do you have any idea what took place PRIOR to her arrest?
SHARON JACKSON: I met with Chief [Skip Holbrook] Monday. [When the incident began] Diane was not [at Pullman] yet. She was at Taco Bell. She went to a Huntington High game, then, she went to Taco Bell, I gave her $20, I didn’t know my son had already given her $10, or she’d probably would not have gotten the twenty, that’s the way they do, her bigger brother is 27. They were going to a movie that started at 9:50 p.m. Well, I thought it was at 9:30, so at 9:28 p.m., I got it on my phone where I texted her, ‘where you at?’ She called and said, ‘we are at Taco Bell.’
I said, “You’re going to miss the movie.”
She said, “It doesn’t start until 9:50 p.m. , mom.”
So between the time I talked to her and ten o’clock, all this took place and she was in a police car. I got down there at five after [ten].
RESTROOM USE DENIED
What the police chief told me Monday, he said there was a group of kids around nine or 9:15 p.m. that went into Starbucks to request to use the bathroom, like they have been doing. All of a sudden, they told them if they are not patrons, they did not want them going in there because they did not want the bathrooms disrupted. The kids started being irate and Starbucks called security. Then, security makes them all go outside. They are all sitting around there by the tent and one little girl had called her mother to come and get her because she could not see the movie , it was sold out. Diane got there about 9:45 p.m. The movie was sold out, so they were all outside talking. Security came over and told them they had to leave.
Ms. Courts had already left her house as her daughter had called her. She was on her way to pick her up. That’s how she [Ms. Courts] got there before Diane got arrested. [Editor’s Note: The Herald Dispatch previously identified Marie Courts as the mother of the first teen arrested.]
Meantime, one of the security guards maced Diane. That made her a little irate. She said, they [the security guards] told them to get on the bus. It was standing room only on the bus so she decided to walk home. We just live right under the viaduct at Tenth Street and Ninth Avenue. The bus would have taken her to 20th Street. She would have had to walk from 20th Street to Tenth Street.
She gets off the bus , and getting ready to proceed across the street, she turns around to say something to her cousin and a police officer is swinging her [cousin] by one arm. [Diane in Ms. Jackson’s words said to her mom], “I don’t know what [my cousin] said or did, but police told her to take her ass down the street. She kept trying to tell them she was waiting on her mom. They did not want her sitting there waiting on nobody; they wanted her to leave.
VERBAL PANIC… ‘YOU CAN’T DO THAT’
Diane hears ‘my mom’s coming, my mom’s coming’ and runs back and tells them [officers] , ‘she’s fifteen; you can’t do this, she’s a little girl.’
Diane starts panicking ; it’s her cousin who is about nine or ten months younger. That’s after police were called. The police are the ones who slammed her around, not security. They get [her cousin] up against the car and handcuff her. [Her cousin] slid out of the handcuffs and dropped them on the sidewalk. I guess that really made them mad. They picked the handcuffs back up and got her by one arm and handcuffed her [again].
Meantime, security is still spraying people. Diane is still trying to come to [her cousin’s] aid. She didn’t know what to do. She was trying to help [her cousin] out [telling an officer],‘she’s 15, you can’t do that to her.’
WATCH
One of the officers said, “Watch.”
[Her cousin] swung her [free] arm around trying to get them to not be able to catch her arm and they said she assaulted, you know, battery on an officer.
[Editor’s Note: Diane was let go that morning; her cousin was taken to a juvenile facility.]
HNN: When were you finally able to ask about the charges and what happened?
SHARON JACKSON: They said, ‘disorderly.’ I said, ‘she was leaving. What did she do?’ They said, the officer kept telling her to leave and she would not leave. I said, she was leaving with a bunch of other kids when they got off the bus. When she turned and saw her cousin being slammed around, she panicked. She tried to go to [her cousin’s] aide. Her being fifteen and never seen nothing like that before, it’s automatic.
When [Diane’s cousin was arrested], she ran up to Marie [Courts] and she tried to tell her what the police did to [her daughter]. Then , they maced her for the last time. [Diane] said something about why the officer’s keep macing me and that’s when someone thought she was tasered because she fell to the ground and started throwing up, spitting up or something again. I think that’s when they really got it in her mouth.
AMOUNT OF FORCE UNNECESSARY, MOM SAYS
HNN: You did not see Diane arrested. You are relying upon what Marie Courts described. So, what happened, next?
SHARON JACKSON: Marie Courts said, someone got behind her and grabbed her by the arm, pulled her to the ground, and handcuffed her. I’ve heard so many stories… I did [also] hear that after they got on the bus, an officer got on and told them to get off.
HNN: You object to the way Diane was arrested?
SHARON JACKSON: Unless a child stabs somebody or does something really horrendous, I could understand them taking a person down. But they are trained to take down 250 pound men , why can they not handle a 150 pound girl? It wasn’t necessary. They should have told [her cousin], ‘you sit your butt down right here and if you mom is not here in five minutes then you are gone.
HNN: You waited a couple hours or so at the police station.
SHARON JACKSON: This is another thing that made me mad... The police told me at 11:45 p.m. that they were still doing paperwork. I told [the police] that it has been two hours , you’ve had people in here in handcuffs and back out on their way to Western Regional and those girls are still in there? What’s taking you so long? He said , ‘give us another ten or fifteen minutes and we will be at the courthouse.’
I told the officer, ‘I thought they closed at 12 o’clock [midnight] at the courthouse.’ He said, ‘if we have juveniles and it’s 3 a.m., they have to come out.’
Jan Courts [the other juvenile’s grandmother] and I were in the alley waiting on the girl’s to come out. Her mother and other grandmother were at the courthouse in case they tried to take them out another door.
Later, we were at the courthouse taking to Magistrate Johnny McAlister and he said, ‘they’ve got juveniles?’
Yea, two of them. They said they called you. He called them … and they didn’t show up until 1:15 a.m., an hour after [the magistrate] called.
They told me I could take her home but to keep her under control. I said, ‘sure, she’s always under control.’
MONEY MISSING FROM POCKET and NO FEMALE TO SEARCH
HNN: Before you left the courthouse, you learned something from your daughter?
SHARON JACKSON: Then, Diane said, ‘mom, my $25 is gone.’ So, I go back in and they are talking about [her cousin] and an officer said, ‘oh, are you back?’
Yes, I’m back. I want to know where her money is at. She had $30 but she went to Taco Bell. She didn’t eat $30 worth of food. She was going to a movie, but it was sold out. Now, she has no money in her pocket. Why did they even go in her pocket? They have no business searching her, PERIOD. They don’t search a little girl.
He said, ‘I don’t know anything about that.’
“I’m sure you all don’t. I knew I was wasting my time coming back in here… I don’t care if it was five dollars or five hundred, they had no business going in her pocket. She is a female, and there were no female police officers down there at Pullman. And, there was none that took her to jail.
HNN: Are you stating she told you during the two to three hour period in the holding cell , no female officers were present?
SHARON JACKSON: There was one woman [officer] in there because Diane had a set of dice. They were in there joking , playing and rolling the dice around on the table…. Three hours she is in there and she asks for drinks of water and they would not give her anything to drink. They refused her water.
They did not give those dice back either. All they gave her back was their lip chap, her little bottle of cologne and a phone that belonged to a little boy. They did not give back the $25 that was really mine. They didn’t search her back pocket; they went in her front pocket. They should not have searched you period. They had no business searching you at all. [Editor’s Note: Jackson told HNN that EMS told her they washed Diane’s face, but she lost her contacts because her eyes watered so much. ]
GUARDS MACED CROWD, MOM SAYS
HNN: Did anyone tell you what initially prompted the guards and/or officers to use mace and/or pepper spray?
SHARON JACKSON: I don’t understand what happened either. She walked in to whatever happened. She wasn’t there when the Starbucks incident happened. When she arrived from Taco Bell, that’s when she learned the movie was sold out. She sits with the kids already out there [by Starbucks]. Starbucks called security because they did not want the kids around there. Security comes and told the kids they had to leave. I guess the kids thought security is not a police officer, you can’t tell us what to do. They sit there. Then, security called the police. When the police came, the kids started leaving.
NOBODY TOUCHED ANYBODY BEFORE THE SPRAYING
HNN: Reports I read stated security use the mace and/or pepper spray…
SHARON JACKSON: Security is the one who maced Diane first. He was holding it up to her face and she had never seen a mace [dispenser ] before . She said it looked like a gun. She said, ‘what are you going to do, shoot me?’ He turned it sideways and sprayed it in her face.
[After her cousin’s arrest and Diane complained about it,] security started macing the whole crowd. A lot of people came walking over. Diane got it again. It’s all over her shirt.
HNN: From what you have explained, the first use of pepper spray and /or mace resulted from VERBAL statements and not a PHYSICAL confrontation with Pullman guards?
SHARON JACKSON: Nobody touched anybody. Nobody had done anything. [After the arrests and mass spraying], the kids were out there crying.
HNN: Could their eyes have been watering from the spray?
SHARON JACKSON: Right, but the kids were watching . The last time he pepper sprayed Diane, he had no business doing it. She was talking to her cousin’s mom, telling her what was going on and why they arrested her cousin. The Chief said it was security that came over and told Diane to shut up and maced her again. Then, somebody runs up behind her, grabs her by her arms, throws her to the ground and cuffs her.
HNN: I believe an officer pulled on her pants belt loop…
SHARON JACKSON: Well, her shirt’s all tore up. She does wear a belt. But, if I had done that to my own child, I’d be getting ready to go to court. But they can do it.
HNN: You have complained about other incidents where you live?
SHARON JACKSON: My daughter has been [youth] president of the weed and seed program since they started it. She’s really active on a dance group and teaches autistic children at HHS… in the spring, she was leaving Rite Aid to go to Barnett and an officer pulls up in the Rite Aid parking lot and grills her. Wants to know her name, her age, where she lives, where she’s coming from, where she’s going… since she’s [youth] president of the Weed and Seed program, they should know her. If they are interactive with the people at Weed and Seed, they would have known her. She tells them all this and [the officer] said , ‘you fit the description of a girl on 23rd Street selling drugs.’
That’s just something he has made up to stop you. That’s all it is. [In another separate incident, she was stopped] because she fit the description of an elderly lady with plaid shorts. What was that all about? Where is the elderly lady? She put them shorts on to go play ball. Why didn’t he call 911 back [for a more thorough description]?
[Jackson tells of Diane outside her home waiting for her mom’s out of town guest to arrive before 1 a.m. ] … I put the pit bull out back, all of a sudden I hear a knock at my door. Diane was outside. She was walking up and down the sidewalk , pacing. She was on the phone. The police pulled up. I said, ‘what’s going on?’
He said, ‘Do you have a daughter, Diane?”
“She’s out front.”
“Can you come outside,” the officer said.
“What did she do, she was standing out there on the phone?”
He said, “We were asking her questions…”
“Why did you stop her… why is she in handcuffs?”
He said, “Curfew is at 11 p.m. She’s not under arrest but she was trying to walk up to the house.”
“What you could have done when she said she lived here, instead of [handcuffing her], is to knock on the door. You don’t handcuff her, frisk her, and tell me her curfew is at 11 p.m. [Her curfew] is 4 a.m., if I say it is 4 a.m. because she is in FRONT of my house. I’m waiting for someone to come in from out of town…then there’s a message on my phone, Diane was talking to me and an officer came out and took her phone.
You wonder why they run. If they stand still, they don’t know what’s going to happen.
HNN: You have also alleged that a white woman with black people in the car will be stopped?
[She tells of police stopping her own vehicle]
SHARON JACKSON: I turned down 17th Street , well, I have Kentucky tags. He looks over at me, goes to the alley and gets behind me…when I start to go through the green light at Ninth Avenue, his lights come on. I pull over at U-Haul. I gave him all my information. He looked at my two kids [in the car], my children are black… I asked, why did you pull me over? [The officer said] because you were weaving. I was sitting at a stop sign; I was not weaving.
In February, I got stopped on Artisan Avenue , it was about eleven degrees, and I was giving a girl a ride home. They swarmed me like I robbed a bank. What was this all about? It’s all because I had her in my car. I told her, ‘if I see you walking any more, you’re going to have to walk home.’
You cannot be white and have somebody black inside your car, especially if you have out of state tags.
HNN: Have there been other incidents at Pullman?
SHARON JACKSON: When the black kids go down to Pullman Square, I don’t think it’s a racial thing. If anybody goes down there, they are in a group. They all live in this end of town and go to school together. And, probably 80% are related. Where else can they go and meet? They go to a movie, go outside and sit and talk. They are not any louder than any band you go there and listen to. What are they doing wrong? Security does not want them gathered in one place. If they are sitting outside in chairs or tables, what are they doing wrong?
Share This Story:
Make HNN Your Homepage (IE Users Only)
