The Black Commentator - April 19, 2007

On Friday, 30 March 2007, NPR announced that the 15 year-old, Shaquanda Cotton, was to be released from the prison system called the Texas Youth Authority. The facts surrounding Ms. Cotton’s case demonstrate the ways in which White supremacy and class oppression crush people in the vice of the American police-state. That she will be released also speaks to the power of elite, White media, and shows that a certain level of political activism, personal connection, and an appeal to human decency offer us a way to resist.

Chapters in the Life of a Black Girl

A year ago, at age 14, a Texas Judge sentenced Ms. Cotton to seven years of incarceration, in a prison for children (consider the meaning of that phrase). Her crime? Technically she pushed a White lady … for all practical purposes the punishment was for her audacity. This Black girl, who happened to be taking pharmaceutical drugs – another sign of our ever-increasing toxic/corporate controlled society, but that has been discussed elsewhere – supposedly Shaquanda has ADD/ADHD, (a/k/a that syndrome seen usually in boys, but especially in non-White girls, whereby Jose, Jamal, Lakeisha and others, are defined as ill, for they fail to show due respect to White female teachers), attempted to enter school early. (How is that for being lazy and shiftless?) The problem ensued when the White scorekeeper got in Shaquanda’s way, and the girl with the melanin dared to push a White lady who blocked Shaquanda’s path from visiting the nurse to take the drugs.

For being another uppity Nigger, in fact the daughter of the most Uppity Negress in the town of Paris, Texas, Shaquanda Cotton was not given a mere verbal reprimand, detention, or even suspended from school. Suspension would have been most fitting. Recall, prohibiting African slaves from learning how to read and calculate was always seen as a most necessary tool to maintain the slavocracy. Instead of these common, school-centered penalties, Ms. Cotton was arrested and charged with a felony!

Here is where the local prosecutor showed his moxie. Knowing that if would be hard to convict Ms. Bitch as an adult, after all, Shaquanda had a defense – mental defect, she is on the meds. Further, Ms. Cotton would be a sympathetic defendant, for she was attempting to obey directives of her White overseers who demanded that she ingest poison. So instead of adult court, Shaquanda faced a juvenile court judge, who sentenced this young lady, who had no criminal record, to seven years, in a prison nearly 300 miles from home! Did I add that the judge was White (damn, that is a coincidence). This same judge had previously released a White girl who burned down her house. And why not? Little Miss Arson was made of White sugar and spice (probably vanilla).

A Change of Heart?

What resulted was a strong PR campaign for juvenile justice, whereby various forces came together, including elite media (the Chicago Tribune, NPR and others) blew the cover off the corrupt and beastly system in Texas where young boys and girls are tortured and sexually assaulted by their captors. After a letter-writing campaign and sufficient appeals to mercy, even Texas Governor Perry stepped up – replacing the head of the Texas Youth Commission. The new director, Jay Kimbrough, made the release of Ms. Cotton job one. Was it out of a sense of justice, partisan moves to show Blacks in Texas that all is not wrong with the plantation, an act of common sense, or a combination? In some sense, it does not matter, but because Shaquanda Cotton is neither the first nor the last child to be abused by the expanding police state, we need to learn how to protect others … and there are others.

Florida is Dixie

As people start to breath easier in Texas, what occurs in Florida, and in particular Avon Park is horrifying. There, children, Black children, are regularly arrested. Let me clarify, the arrestees are not simply under 18, they are, in the classic legal sense, infants.

On 28 March 2007, six year-old Desre’e Watson was arrested at school – can you guess, she is BLACK! Because professionals could not control this legal infant, after all she is on the meds, they called the cops. How did the finest members of the Avon Park community respond?

“Eeny meany miney mo
Catch a nigger by her throat
If she hollers, slap her so
Eeny meeny miney mo”

The young Ms. Watson was not just detained until her mother or some other, non-brutalizing adult arrived on the scene. No, Ms. Watson was arrested and charged with three serious offenses, one that can be charged as a felony. They were:

disruption of a school function §877.13 (a second degree misdemeanor)

battery school employee §784.081 (which can be charged as either a first degree misdemeanor or a third degree felony)

resisting w/o violence §843.02 (a first degree misdemeanor)

Upon arrest, the cops took her to the county jail, and booked her, taking mug shots and finger prints. I wonder if these Police Academy cops bothered to read Ms. Watson her rights and have her sign a knowing waiver?

What’s Wrong with This Picture?

Most people will be scratching their head to read that a six year-old was charged with offenses that call for prison time. In a moral sense, we find it outrageous. In a practical sense we know that the traumatic episode is most often counterproductive. But what is worse is that arresting children under seven is ILLEGAL in Florida.

In Florida, under her legal code, all statutes on crime are listed under Title XLVI (44 for those of us who left behind the Roman empire and adopted the more advanced Arabic system … the one with the zero). The very first section of the Florida criminal code, 775.01, states:

“The common law of England in relation to crimes, except so far as the same relates to the modes and degrees of punishment, shall be of full force in this state where there is no existing provision by statute on the subject…”

What does §775.01 mean as it governs all other sections of Florida law on crime? Well, until yesterday, when I spoke to Avon Park police chief, Frank Mercurio, he did not even know that section of the criminal code, much less what it means. Under English Common Law, no child under age seven can EVER be charged with a crime. Generally, in the English Common Law system, children under 14 were immune from punishment – the presumption is that people under age 14 do not know the meaning of their actions. But specifically, infants (ages 0-6) could never be charged with a crime because judges recognized that infants did and do not have the mental wherewithal to form criminal intent.

(The American version of this English Common Law axiom is in the Model Penal Code. Section 3.1.6 holds that it is impossible for a child under the age of seven to commit a crime, reasoning that children cannot possess the requisite mental state, i.e. have criminal intent).

Everyone, or most of us outside Avon Park, Florida, understands that children do not think like adults. Children, and even many teenagers, do not have the same appreciation about cause and effect, cannot project or empathize. To answer the rhetorical question of Avon Park Police Chief Frank Mercurio, “Doesn’t a six year-old know the difference between right and wrong?” No, sir, generally six year-olds do NOT know the difference. And the LAWS of Florida, you know, the stuff that you are supposed to uphold, declare, right at the start, that children are NEVER criminally liable. Try reading … or is such beneath you?

Standard Operating Procedures

When I spoke with the man who does not know the very laws he is sworn to enforce, it sounds like Alberto Gonzalez, explaining the nuances of torture. Chief Mercurio insisted that the arrest of six year-old Desre’e Watson was not newsworthy. From his perspective, I agree. He informed me that his officers arrest children and legal infants regularly. He recalled at least 12 children ages five, six and seven, arrested by his officers over the last 10 years. Just another day at school.

Life in Avon Park must seem a lot like life on the plantation. The overseers spend their days patrolling the schools and streets for runaways and unruly children. Chief Mercurio waxed about a child they arrested at age five! In the subsequent three years, this same child, apparently demon spawn, has been arrested 12 times; in the last 18 months a variety of offenses including exposing himself and throwing a glass bottle (must have been beer) at an administrator. Arresting children as young as age six for burglary and vandalism is not unknown in Avon Park.

Though charges are sometimes dropped on the grounds that the child is incompetent, the initial process of dehumanizing children is not seen as aggressive, inappropriate or the result of incompetent adults not understanding how to interact with children. As the Chief said, “We respond to a crisis; we have to restore some semblance of order."

Yes, we do need to restore order. But not so that we can fortify the control of modern-day slavers and the prison-industrial complex. When these White people (teachers, school administrators, psychiatrists, and cops) look at children, especially the kids with kinky hair, chocolate skin and wide noses, as animals, and criminals in training, we must recognize the source of the crisis. It is the drive to control and dominate, the drive to crush the independence and individuality of our babies. Over 300 years ago, Jonathan Swift made A Modest Proposal to deal with the crisis of Irish children in the English empire. Is the current criminal justice approach, coated with a heavy layer of SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors), artificial sugars, and hormone-laden food, any better? Swift saw the reality and crassly suggested that we eat these children. The criminal justice/social control system is eating our children. We must sabotage this machine of violence and domination.

BC Columnist Dr John Calvin Jones, PhD, JD has a law degree and a PhD in Political Science. His Website is virtualcitizens.com. Click here to contact Dr. Jones.