by Robbie Tolan
What is it like to have your life destroyed in mere seconds?
How do you psychologically, physically, and emotionally overcome nearly dying?
What happens when American society and the criminal justice system turns their back on you and say, “Your black life doesn’t matter”?
How do you get over the very real guilt of living through a shooting and the havoc that your continued existence has on the people who love you?
No one knows the answers to those questions except for me. And it’s been a ten-year journey into hell for me to find them.
My name is Robbie Tolan, and this is my story.
Bellaire is one of those predominately white bedroom communities you can find anywhere in America. Adjacent to the city of Houston, with its pesky black and Latino inner-city populations, the Bellaire suburb is a testament to the experience of white flight, with high property values, safe streets, and middle-class stability, whereas the black and brown communities in Houston are equated with ghettos, crime, and slums.
A planned community, Bellaire was supposed to represent a slice of pure Americana, with its streets named Holly, Maple, and Pine. There’s the ubiquitous Texas small-town water tower that celebrates the Bellaire Little League team, and at one point, the Houston Dynamo Major League Soccer team thought about building a stadium in Bellaire, but ultimately decided against it, having instead built in Houston. Bellaire is a quintessential small town, a place where everyone knows everyone, and with less than 2 percent black people, about 150 black folks in total, it wasn’t hard for white people to know who the Tolans were. We were the only African American family on our block.
Our house was located at 804 Woodstock Drive, and it’s ironic that the most violent episode of my life would take place on a street named after the 1960s musical festival that’s known for peace and love, but that’s where it all happened.
A lot of people talk about their neighborhood as being an archetype of the utopian neighborhood from the 1950s television show Leave It to Beaver, but my street really could have been a model for that show. Full of modest-sized ranch-style homes, with the occasional two-story brick house, our home could have been a model home for any suburb in Anytown, USA. We weren’t rich, but we weren’t poor either. We were living the American Dream of being solidly middle class, with middle-class values and middle-class attitudes.
Everyone on my block pretty much had a gardener come by once a week to keep the lawns neat and trimmed, because no one wanted to be that homeowner, the one who didn’t keep up their house. And as was expected in a neighborhood where streets were named Maple and Elm, trees were everywhere. Besides the trees lining the street next to the sidewalks, most homes also had one or two trees in the middle of their yards. We had three tall majestic trees, each reaching over fifty feet, standing guard over our house like Roman sentinels. To the right of those trees was a one-car driveway that was a short walk to the front door. Our house was right in the middle of the block, with a cul-de-sac about a quarter of a mile down at the end.
As I noted earlier, my father, Bobby Tolan, was an ex-Major League Baseball player, who’d been in the league for a dozen years playing for the St. Louis Cardinals, Cincinnati Reds, San Diego Padres, Philadelphia Phillies, and Pittsburgh Pirates before retiring. He’d been one of the key cogs on one of baseball’s all time great teams, the 1967 World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals, a team featuring four future Hall of Famers—Lou Brock, Orlando Cepeda, Steve Carlton, and Bob Gibson.
Athletics is, and has always been, the family business for anyone with any connection to the Tolan bloodlines. It started with my uncle, Eddie “Midnight Express” Tolan, the first African American to be named the “World’s Fastest Human” after having won the one-hundred-and two-hundred-meter gold medals at the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. And as I said, my father had more than a cup of coffee in the major leagues, but he’s not even the most famous family member to play baseball. That honor would go to my cousin, the Major League Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr.
I was a pretty good athlete at Bellaire High, and I’d played a bit of baseball at Prairie View A&M before heading to the Washington Nationals Minor League system. So yeah, when I hit the football field or the baseball field, I was used to all eyes being on me, to the point that, as a kid, I used to conduct my own “postgame interviews” as a way to entertain myself after playing Little League games, just like my big league idols.
“So Robbie, how do you think you did today?” I’d ask my eight-year-old self in the car after a game.
“Well sir,” I’d respond, trying to deepen my voice to approximate the voices of major leaguers I saw on television and people like Tony Gwynn, who we knew as a family friend. “I went three for four, with two home runs and a triple, but I really think that I could have done a little bit better. But we’ll get back after them next Saturday.”
Everyone, especially my parents, got a kick out of my “interviews,” but little did they know that they’d play an important role in how I’d deal with the media when I was truly put in the hot glare of television cameras from around the world. I was mentally preparing myself to answer questions, and I didn’t even know it.
But then again, it wasn’t like we were looking to be in the spotlight in the first place. We were the quiet black family in town who kept to their own business, never had an issue with our neighbors, and definitely never had any confrontations with the Bellaire police. There might have been one or two times during the fifteen years we’d lived in town when there was a complaint about noise from a party, but nothing serious. In fact, we were quite used to seeing Bellaire police driving up and down our neighborhood blocks, not necessarily to harass, but to serve and protect. Before I got shot, my family thought it was part of the community the police were trying to protect, but au contraire we soon found out. Perhaps if we’d been paying attention, we’d have noticed the warning signs indicating that all wasn’t well between the Bellaire police and people of color.
For instance, an incident that was eerily similar to what happened to me six years later happened to a guy named Jose Cruz, Jr. He’d been stopped by the Bellaire police for a missing front license plate, and on the face of it, that’s not much of an issue. The officer gives you a Fix-It ticket warning, you feel good about not getting an expensive ticket for speeding or an illegal lane change, and you go on your own way. It happens a million times a year all across America, except in Cruz, Jr.’s case he ended up arrested and jailed for a night for that missing license plate.
What made Cruz’s experience so weird to me is the fact that we have similar backgrounds. An alumni of Bellaire High School like me? Check. Has a dad who was also a former Major League ball player? Check. Jose Cruz, Sr. was a former Houston Astros player and coach and was a legend not only within the club but in Texas baseball in general. The Puerto Rican had been inducted into both the Texas Baseball Hall of Fame and the Hispanic Heritage Baseball Museum. Come from a family of athletes? Check again. His uncles Hector and Tommy Cruz were also long-time Major League baseball players. But none of that mattered when the Bellaire police stopped him.
So why was Cruz, Jr. arrested for a missing license plate, which, he explained as his pregnant wife sat in the passenger seat, was only missing because the car was new? Did he resist arrest? Try to drive away from the scene? Get aggressive in how he interacted with the police officer? Nope. Cruz, Jr. was arrested because the Bellaire police falsely claimed there were warrants out for his arrest, and despite not having anything on his record, Cruz, Jr. was handcuffed and taken to jail. You can’t be surprised that Cruz, Jr. believed that he was racially profiled. It was a big deal in Bellaire, and despite the apologies from Bellaire officials, Cruz, Jr. never forgot and eventually moved out of Bellaire because of it.
After my shooting incident occurred, a reporter from the Houston Chronicle decided to interview some of the 150 black residents of Bellaire and ask them about their experience with the Bellaire police. There was a li
tany of racial profiling complaints.
One long-time resident, a caterer, had been followed from the grocery store and then verbally abused in front of his children. Earlier, the caterer had been stopped because the Bellaire police claimed that his Ford truck could have been stolen, so they needed to run his plates. It wasn’t stolen. It was clear to me that the excuse of a stolen car was the go-to reason for Bellaire police to justify a traffic stop.
In another grocery store incident, a husband and wife had been handcuffed and searched by Bellaire police after a store manager falsely accused them of shoplifting. A black anesthesiologist claimed he was stopped four times in his first year in Bellaire, with the harassment ending only after he went to police headquarters to complain. One story particularly resonated with me because of how absurd it was, and it revolved around something simple: Christmas lights.
One black Bellaire homeowner related the story of one of his black friends, who was putting up Christmas lights on his house one December. What could be more normal? It’s the Christmas season, and there are millions of Americans throughout the country untangling lights, climbing up janky ladders, and praying that they’re not going to fall and break their necks, all to run up their December electric bill in the name of holiday cheer. Nothing unusual, except in the eyes of the Bellaire police apparently, because when they saw a black man on a ladder holding Christmas lights, they couldn’t put two and two together and come to the conclusion that this black man probably owned the house. In other words, the police wanted answers to their unsaid racial prejudices as they stopped in front of the man’s house.
“An officer pulled up and asked him what he was doing and if the owner of the house knew what was going on,” the black Bellaire homeowner recounted about his black friend’s experience. “He told him that he was the owner. He said the cop looked embarrassed and drove off.”
What struck me about that experience was that even if you lived in the community and were doing something normal, if you were a person of color, then normal didn’t matter. You could still be considered a suspect in the eyes of the Bellaire police. You didn’t belong, no matter how much you thought you did. It didn’t matter if you stayed out of trouble, paid your taxes, or scored touchdowns for Bellaire High School. If you were black or brown in Bellaire, Texas, you’d better have your papers ready to show to the Bellaire police, or things could turn ugly. I learned just how ugly on December 31, 2008.
My story begins with something rather ordinary: A late-night run to the grocery store. I was back in Bellaire after having played some Minor League ball the previous year as a member of the Bay Area Toros, an independent baseball club out of Texas City, just outside of Galveston Island. I’d done okay that year, but eventually, I asked for my release from the team and headed back home to Bellaire. You don’t get rich playing independent baseball, so at twenty-three years old, I was back at my parents’ Woodstock house, working a nine-to-five at Pappadeaux’s seafood restaurant until the next baseball gig popped up. But it was that nine-to-five that caused me to get into my 2004 Nissan Xterra that fateful night.
I was scheduled to work at Pappadeaux’s on New Year’s Eve, and knowing that the grocery stores would be closing early and probably running out of champagne, I wanted to make sure that we were fully stocked up by the time I got home. The Tolan family is tighter than tight, and on holidays, we like to get together and celebrate, New Year’s Eve being no exception. So my cousin Anthony and I decided to make a quick midnight run to the store.
We stopped off for a game of pool and then got a bite to eat at Jack in the Box before heading back home around two in the morning. We hadn’t had anything to drink, and we weren’t on any drugs. I want to make that clear because that’s almost always the first assumption made during shootings of black people—that we are impaired in some way, so being shot is justified. We weren’t impaired.
On our way back home from the champagne run, I hadn’t noticed that a Bellaire police car had started following us, but honestly, it wouldn’t have surprised me even if I had noticed. As I said before, Bellaire cops were known for cruising up and down the quiet streets of Bellaire, looking for people who didn’t belong. Now who those so-called nonbelonging people were was clearly open to a broad interpretation of each Bellaire officer, but let’s just say that the Bellaire police department had a long history of interpreting that to mean black and brown people. But having lived in Bellaire for so long, I kind of thought that the police were on my side, you know, doing their best to keep me safe from threats seen and unseen. Everyone knew us. We were the Tolans. We’d lived on Woodstock for fifteen freaking years. We belonged. Or so I thought.
How naïve I was.
It turned out that the Bellaire police were not just doing their routine patrolling; they were on a special mission that night. There’d been a series of stolen cars in the area, and the whole department was primed to catch the culprits. That meant that anyone driving the streets of our little burg was automatically a suspect.
As I turned down Woodstock and parked our car in front of my parents’ house, the police were the last thing on my mind. Anthony dropped his wallet and was half-heartedly reaching for it as he talked on the phone with our cousin, Chasen, who was in town from LA. I reached for the bag with the champagne, and as I opened the car door, two bright lights illuminated our car. Before I could make any sense of it, the car sped in front of us, going to the end of the cul-de-sac, where it then turned toward us and turned off its lights.
“Did you see that?” I asked my cousin.
“See what?”
“That car.”
“Nah. Help me find my wallet.”
And with that, my cousin and I pretty much ignored it, not recognizing that it was a police car. Besides, who cared if it was a police car? We hadn’t done anything wrong; no speeding, no illegal turns, no tickets, no warrants for my arrest, nothing. Plus, we were sitting right in front of my parents’ house, so why should we think the police were interested in us?
Oh, but how wrong we were. They were definitely interested in us.
Sitting in that Bellaire police car was Officer John Edwards, and Officer Edwards was sure that he’d just caught one of the thieves riding in a stolen Xterra. Turns out that he’d been following us since we’d stopped off at the Jack in the Box for a bite to eat before heading home. As he was driving, he sent in my license plate to dispatch to see if it was a match for one of the stolen cars. The dispatch came back with an answer.
Match.
As Officer Edwards sat in his car at the end of the block, my only interest was getting into the house and getting some sleep; having a confrontation was the last thing on my mind. But Anthony kept fumbling to find his wallet as he stayed on the phone with our cousin.
“Man, let’s go,” I said, getting frustrated. “Check for it in the morning.”
“A’ight,” Anthony said, the phone still plastered to his ear.
We got out of the car and made our way to the front door, but neither of us noticed that Officer Edwards had quietly crept his patrol car to the point where it was almost nose-to-nose with the Xterra. As I was about to put the key in the door, I heard Officer Edwards.
“Get down on the ground!”
We turned to see Officer John Edwards pointing his .44 caliber service revolver and a flashlight at us. We were stunned.
“What is happening? Why is this happening?” I thought to myself.
Our brains couldn’t make sense of it all. All we did was go to the store, get something to eat, and drive to my parents’ house. Why did we suddenly have a gun pointed at us?
There’s a scene in the movie Pulp Fiction where a nervous robber pulls a gun out on Jules, Samuel L. Jackson’s badass character, and Jules coolly says, “Sorry to disappoint you, Ringo, but this ain’t the first time someone pulled a gun on me.” He wasn’t scared. Well, this was the first time someone had pulled a gun on me, and I was scared shitless. My legs started to shake, and I felt my heart ru
sh from my chest to my throat.
“Why? What did we do?” I said, my voice cracking with fear. Instinctually, my cousin and I raised our hands to show that we were not a threat, although Anthony still held his mobile phone in his hand, with my cousin still on the line.
“We had a report of a stolen car.”
“What? A stolen car? This is ridiculous. Our car wasn’t stolen. Why would he think that? What the hell is going on?” I thought.
“No sir, that car isn’t stolen,” I said, my voice trying to remain calm and reasonable. The gun was still pointed directly at us. My brain told me I needed to do one thing to stay alive, which was to de-escalate this thing, quickly. They’re wrong, but de-escalate this thing. But Officer Edwards wasn’t interested in de-escalation. Not in the least.
“That car is stolen! I’m not going to tell you again. Get on the ground right now!”
This is the part where people who’ve never been in this situation say, “Well, why didn’t you just follow the officer’s orders and get on the ground?” It’s easy to think that, but we were thinking, as citizens, that we had done nothing wrong to deserve this type of treatment. Maybe it’s the DNA of Americans, but when we’re confronted with an injustice, we all feel that we have a right to speak out about that injustice. And at this moment, at two in the morning in front of my parents’ house, Officer Edwards was being unjust. Still, there had to be a better way.
“Sir, this is a mistake. This is my car. This is my house. I live here. I can show you ID.”
“I don’t want to hear another word. Get on the ground right now!” he barked.
Suddenly, I saw lights turn on inside the house. It was around two in the morning, so I figured that my parents had heard the yelling from inside the house and decided to investigate. But as it happened, my parents had just gotten home themselves, and when they heard us say, “this is my car” they thought Anthony and I were arguing. I could see them coming to the door. “Okay, I’ll get down on the ground now because Mom and Dad are about to fix everything,” I thought.
