Tag: Phillip Pannell

Living ‘Black’ in the United States of America

And living to tell the tales.

Traffic was heavy on Route 17 in Hasbrouck Heights on my way home to Ridgewood, NJ, after work on Wednesday, which wasn’t exactly news. But, as I approached a stretch where Route 46 and Interstate 80 go over Route 17, traffic eased and I saw the reason why. Rubbernecking motorists.

What were they looking at?

A black man with both hands on top of his head standing in front of a white police officer on the grassy area next to the shoulder. The cop’s car, lights flashing, and another car in front of it were parked on the shoulder. Unlike Alton Sterling on Tuesday or Philando Castile on Wednesday, this black man stopped by a white cop was still alive.

James Eagan Holmes, heavily armed, killed 12 and injured 70 people in a Colorado theater and was captured alive. Dylann Roof killed nine churchgoers in South Carolina and was captured alive. Jason Dalton killed six and injured two in Kalamazoo. His life was preserved as he was being arrested.

Cedric Chatman. Tamir Rice. Laquan McDonald. Eric Garner. Michael Brown. Black men make up 6% of U.S. population; are 40% of people killed by police.

He’s lucky to be alive, I thought as I drove on. Was that too sanguine a response to the situation?

Jesse Williams Speaking out

http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1&isUI=1

I am not taking the situation lightly. I’ve lived long enough to be a middle-aged black male despite too many tangles with cops, both in the United States of America and elsewhere, to do that. But, as these killings pile up, becoming more and more common each day, I’ve long realized that I’ve been lucky to still be alive to tell tales of encounters with cops.

My narrow escape from racist Afrikaners in 1994, while on assignment for the New York Daily News in South Africa, is an entirely different story that will be told a different day. Not today. Also, it’s available on the Internet for anyone curious enough to want to find out.

St. Louis, MO in the ’80’s

A police car pulled up behind my car as I eased into traffic after a college friend and I left a bar late one night many years ago. He pulled me over. The cop came up to the car, peered in, then instructed me to step out. I did. He said that he had stopped me for suspected drunk driving because he had observed me weaving in and out of traffic. I protested that I did no such thing and that, in any case, I couldn’t be drunk driving since I had not been drinking.

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PANNELLS MAKING A `MEMORIAL JOURNEY’

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Wednesday, April 10, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | Four Star B | NEWS | Page B03

The family of Phillip C. Pannell will make a “memorial journey” to the youth’s grave in Fair Lawn this morning.
The event, announced Tuesday by the Rev. Herbert Daughtry on the steps of the Municipal Building, is one of several planned today to mark the anniversary of Pannell’s death.
Daughtry was joined by Pannell’s parents, Phillip D. and Thelma Pannell; their 14-year-old daughter, Natasha, and black leaders as he announced the graveside visit. The Pannells will travel to the grave by car with members of community groups, all assembling at 10 a.m. at the Shiloh AME Zion Church in Englewood.
Another observance is planned today at the township high school, which Pannell attended. Principal James DeLaney said students will reflect on the events of the past year between 1:15 and 2 p.m.
Pannell, 16, was shot by Officer Gary S. Spath, who is awaiting trial on a charge of reckless manslaughter. Police say the black youth was reaching for a loaded gun when he was shot by the white officer. Witnesses have said Pannell’s arms were raised. The shooting inflamed racial tensions in Teaneck.
Wednesday night, Daughtry, a Teaneck resident who is national minister of the House of the Lord Pentecostal Church in Brooklyn, is scheduled to preside at a memorial service for Pannell at the Community Baptist Church in Englewood. It will begin at 7.
On Saturday, marchers will meet at noon at the Bryant School, near where the shooting took place, and walk to the Bergen County Courthouse in Hackensack, Daughtry said.
Also present at Tuesday’s news conference were the Rev. Al Sharpton; Dr. William B. Jones of the African Council; Robert H. Robinson of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; and the Rev. Stanley Dennison, president of the Black Clergy Council of Englewood-Teaneck and vicinity.
Record Staff Writer David Voreacos contributed to this article.

Keywords: TEANECK; BLACK; YOUTH; SHOOTING; DEATH; POLICE; ANNIVERSARY

ID: 17339234 | Copyright © 1991, The Record (New Jersey)