No Justice

by Robbie Tolan

  Where does it leave the City of Bellaire and the Bellaire Police Department? In a city that has historically turned a blind eye to the idea that their police have racially profiled black people, there was finally some movement. The NAACP and the city came up with a plan to allow citizens to contact it about racial profiling, and that is a positive. But what does it say about the morals of the City of Bellaire officials when they’d rather pay their lawyers over $450,000 in legal fees instead of paying us a reasonable settlement. That’s four times as much money as we received in the settlement. In the end, the City of Bellaire filled the pockets of lawyers and left us with medical and legal debt. How inhumane is that? I honestly don’t know how they can live with themselves, but it gives me a clear understanding that I can never live in a city where my life is worth so little.

  There’s a reason why police department unions backed someone like Donald Trump, and it didn’t have a damn thing to do with jobs or draining the swamp. The election of Barack Obama as president was seen as a threat to the white supremacist system in this country, and so for every reaction, you have an opposite reaction. And if Obama represented a “Yes We Can” ethos, then Trump was the “No You Won’t” response. And for black people who were out there in the streets saying that Black Lives Matter after every police shooting, the blowback was millions of Americans telling the police departments that our lives didn’t matter, and here’s the guy to reiterate that as a fact.

  Will the City of Bellaire change its police department so that another black person won’t be shot for driving their own car, parking in front of their own house, and rising to defend their mother? I doubt it. Because where is the incentive? It’s not coming from the top of the country, so it sure as hell isn’t trickling down to the local police departments of this country.

  Again, if you think I’m bitter about that, you’re damn right I am. It means that even though I’ve gone though a decade-long struggle to be seen as an American citizen, as a human being worthy of respect and justice, I can still be shot today by the police and be right back in the same situation, unanimous Supreme Court decisions notwithstanding. No citizen of this great country should have to have that as a daily reality, and yet black people do, validated by a president of the United States who thinks police brutality is a punch line to a joke. My chest wound, something I’ll live with for the rest of my life, is a counterpoint to his assertion, and it’s not funny at all.

  When it comes to the criminal justice system, we’re always talking about how we’ve been raised to believe in truth, justice, and the American way and about the blind justice to which each American is entitled. And yet we have laws that say that if a police officer, because he has a tough job, shoots you, and people think it’s reasonable even if mistaken, then it’s all good. How can I believe that the criminal justice system works for me as a black man when the evidence in front of me says that it doesn’t? What I see is a criminal justice system designed to keep me down. To keep me in a cage. To keep me looking over my shoulder for situations out of my control. I no longer believe that a jury of my peers can empathize with who I am, unless you start having juries filled with people of color: Blacks, Latinos, Asians, and others who see their community members as human beings and not racial stereotypes. Nor do we need juries who look at the police as being beyond reproach.

  Finally, where does it leave me? I’ve been the focus of this decade-long drama, the person who stood up for his mother and took a bullet for it. I’m the one who went into surgery and had his life turned upside down and broken, to the point where I had to not only re-evaluate my dreams, but also decide whether or not I wanted to live another day so that I could create new dreams. I was the one who desperately wanted to hide from the world, who found solace in my Unknown 90 anonymity, but in the end, I looked the world in the eye and kept it moving.

  In the end, I’m proud of myself. I didn’t let a bullet stop me. I fought for everything that came my way and kept my integrity as I did it. I fought so that I could retain my sanity, even when the days got dark. I fought to do what was right for my family and to protect them whenever I could. I fought my lawyers and the legal system, to the point where the United States Supreme Court would unanimously rule in my favor. And I learned something about myself.

  I was going to be okay. At some point, I realized that I was stronger than I thought I was—that I could look death in the eye and not only live, but thrive. I’ll never say that I am better off because I was shot, because no one improves by having their body violated. So that’s not it. I learned about an inner strength that I had but hadn’t tapped. Maybe it was always there, generated from my mother’s prayers when I was in her womb trying to survive when my twin didn’t. I don’t know where strength came from, and I could spend years trying to figure it out. But despite the fact that I’m in so much medical and legal debt that I can’t see the end of the it, I’m not scared.

  And that’s my broader message for black people and those of us who support the Black Lives Matter movement. We have to not be scared. We have to demand that the criminal justice system, including everyone from the police officer in the patrol car to those who get selected for jury duty, be equal and fair to all. Black people don’t hate cops; hell, even after everything I’ve been through, I still don’t hate cops. However, I think I can say that black folks do hate oppression. And the line between a good cop and a bad cop isn’t simply when one decides to double check a license plate. A cop should know that the city that pays him is more interested in justice than “Just Us.” And if you spend three times as much money on legal fees in order to not pay your own resident for wrongdoing, then you’re creating a system of immoral justice.

  My fight against Jeffrey Cotton and John Edwards wasn’t personal. I’m sure they could be wonderful people who love their family and kids and do all of the nice things that nice people do. They could also be bad people who kick kittens, trip old people, and curse out mothers on Mother’s Day. Who knows? But I do know that none of that matters. What I wanted from them was accountability, and yet since my shooting, Sgt. Cotton has been promoted to lieutenant.

  Are you fucking kidding me? While on paid administrative leave, he was basically on a year-and-a-half-long vacation. I am fucking broke, up to my eyeballs in debt, and I lost my career. And I got nothing. Nothing. Not even an apology.

  Also, where is the sense of remorse that doesn’t come from me interpreting their actions, but comes from their own words? I wanted Cotton and Edwards, and the City of Bellaire for that matter, to say two words:

  “I’m sorry.”

  I can’t tell you how cathartic it would have been to hear those words, and not just for me and my family, but also for the two officers. But even the legalese in the settlement had the weasel words that avoided any sign that anyone involved in my shooting regretted it. The agreement stated that the city and Cotton “have consistently denied liability in this matter” but that the municipality is paying the money “in compromise and settlement of a disputed claim to avoid further expense of litigation and disruption of public service.”

  Basically, they just wanted us to go away. Or as our attorney Darryl Washington once said at the conclusion of our case, “This guy was not punished, but he was rewarded after he shot Robbie [being promoted to lieutenant]. Even if they say it was a mistake, you apologize for mistakes. This is something the city has failed to do, refused to do.”

  Asking for and receiving forgiveness is a human need; it allows us to look forward without feeling that we have the burden of our past hanging over us. I have the power to forgive these two officers, and I do. Not because I’m a bigger man or because I want to absolve them. My forgiveness does none of that for them. I forgive them for me. It completes my humanity. By not offering up their remorse, they are now saddled with the unconscious understanding that they did wrong and never said they were sorry. But that’s now between them and their God.

  I’m good.

  But I will say this. Just b
ecause I’m good, it doesn’t mean that America itself doesn’t need a culture change. Racism and injustice have a way of acting as a cancer, and it metastasizes into our society in other areas. The callousness we feel when we turn off our brains when black person after black person is killed by the police is the same mechanism of empathy we turn off when a mass murderer uses a semi-automatic weapon to shoot and kill over fifty people in Las Vegas, and no one remembers it as being extraordinary after a month goes by. Just another day in America where gun violence is normalized, and of course, it’s never the right time to talk about gun control.

  This means that for the All Lives Matter crew, the ones who don’t think police brutality exists, you’d better start recognizing that if you don’t recognize that black deaths at the hands of the police is a symptom of the larger epidemic of gun violence, you’re going to see white bodies violated by bullets more and more. As Malcolm X once said, the chickens tend to come home to roost if you allow violence in one area, it’ll come back to bite you in your own area.

  Despite all of this, deep within the recesses of my being, I still hold out hope that America can be better. That we can change this toxic culture that sees some people as human beings and others as nothing. Why do I believe this? Because of the wonderful people I met throughout this journey.

  I met good people: from the doctors and nurses in the hospital, who were as important to my recovery as the surgery and the medicine pumping through my veins, to the Harris County DA’s Office, with Clint Greenwood and Steve Morris championing my cause. I’m forever grateful for their generosity and selflessness in helping me achieve justice.

  An interview with the filmmaker Keith Beauchamp led to me meeting some amazing people in social justice. Beauchamp produces and hosts an Investigation Discovery channel program called The Injustice Files, and he was interested in featuring me and my story in a segment called, “Hood of Suspicion.”

  An annual show, each year, it has a theme that tackles social justice and civil rights. For example, the previous show had dealt with modern-day lynchings. In our episode, Keith was tackling racial profiling and the “stand your ground” law that had been much discussed in connection with the George Zimmerman killing of Trayvon Martin.

  At first, I was reluctant to appear on the show, but I saw that Beauchamp had a long history of chronicling injustice. His first documentary, at twenty-three years old, was The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till, a film that took him nine years to make and eventually led to the cold case being opened. And since Beauchamp had experienced racial profiling himself in Baton Rouge, he understood what I was going through.

  Beauchamp flew out with his producer and spent two days with me before we started shooting. He spent the entire day hanging with my family, taking us to dinner, and sharing stories of his childhood. By the time the cameras started rolling, it was more like we were old friends than filmmaker and subject. The cool part is that this piece wasn’t just about me. It was about a number of other cases, particularly in Homer, Louisiana, where he did a story about their infamous police department.

  Later, Investigation Discovery invited us to attend the Television Critics Association conference in Los Angeles, a huge convention where all of television gathers to present and promote their new shows for the upcoming season. I sat on a panel with Investigation Discovery’s senior vice president, Sara “Koz” Kozak, Beauchamp, and Carolyn McKinstry, a survivor of the infamous Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963, when the Ku Klux Klan murdered four little black girls. I’d done my research on the panel, and I appreciated the opportunity to tell my story.

  During the discussion, I reveled in every utterance of Carolyn McKinstry, who with her soft soothing tone and her mild-mannered demeanor, spoke of survivor’s guilt, which up to that point I’d thought was imaginary. I’d never really had a conversation with someone who had gone through something similar to my experience. I’d only spoken with people with doctorates, folks who loved telling me that I needed to be strong and brave and that it was okay to be upset and confused, but none of them had personally gone through my trauma. It was all theory to them, stuff they’d learned in school. But Ms. McKinstry was the first person to convince me that I wasn’t alone.

  Everything she said I had thought about or experienced. And hearing her gave me great comfort. After the panel, I told her how much I appreciated her story and that it was an honor to meet with her. But it wasn’t the last time we’d be together.

  A few weeks later, at the Paley Center in New York, I joined McKinstry; Beauchamp; Kerry Kennedy, the daughter of Robert F. Kennedy and founder of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights; First Amendment crusader, former RFK aide, and civil rights luminary John Seigenthaler; and world-renowned journalist and anchor and our master of ceremonies Harry Smith.

  After the panel, we all went to dinner, where I was honored to hear John Seigenthaler say to me, “I was very impressed with you. You’re young, well spoken, good looking.” At this, he gave me a light-hearted punch to the chest. “And I’ll tell you what Robbie, you’re the face of racial profiling.”

  And that was when I knew that I was put on this earth for more than simply being a victim. I was thrust into this role, and I wasn’t prepared for it, but from that day forward, I wasn’t going to hide. I wasn’t going to be Unknown 90 anymore, and I was going to be that face of racial profiling, of police violence. The fact that I had lived and others had died was not going to stop me.

  But I don’t want you to think that good people, or being a good person, is enough. If you’re a good person who doesn’t help change society in a meaningful way, then you’re complicit in how that society treats me as a black man. I need you out there in the street protesting, in the ballot box voting, and on the police civilian review boards holding law enforcement accountable. Because that’s the only time that I will know that you actually care about who I am, and others like me.

  Because to not know that is to find yourself struggling to exist. After dozens of heartbreaks over the years, I’d fallen into a deep depression to the point where I considered taking my own life. It took prayer, lots of prayer, to help God break me out of that funk. It wasn’t gradual; it didn’t happen over time, but all of the sudden.

  I had spent so much time away from God, trying to climb the wrong ladder as I tried to mend my physical and mental selves, I know that He had to work hard to bring me back to square one. He knew that in order for me to have a chance of becoming the man He intended me to be, He needed to give me the strength to wipe the slate clean, and we would be able to start over together. I had to go through an emotional and spiritual bankruptcy to do that.

  I literally woke up one day and the depression was gone. Like all things with God, there was something unexplainable in the air. I walked outside and the sun shined brighter, and the wind blew differently. It was peaceful again, and I felt alive, like I had died and been reborn. The worst was behind me, and it was time for the restoration.

  After God broke the stronghold that depression had on my life, I felt daily changes in my spirit. God got me through this ordeal, and now it was time to pay Him back. Every day, God continues to reconstruct my spirit, and as such, I know I am on the righteous path. And now I know that the incident on December 31, 2008, was not the ending, but the beginning. I fully believe that I was ordained with a divine purpose at birth, and I have to make sure that I follow that purpose for the rest of my life.

  I don’t know what God has in store for my life, but I doubt that most people do. But I do know that I want to help people, lots and lots of people. I’ve always been able to recognize the needs of people, going back to when I was young and my mom took me to help out at homeless shelters. I’ve had countless blessings that have inspired me to bless and inspire others, even if I lack means. The bullet I took to my chest inadvertently created a stronger human being than what was there before. I know who I am, and I know that I’m a powerful vessel for maki
ng change in this country, and I believe that God is going to use me in that capacity.

  I can’t wait.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This is the part of the book I’ve been dreading the most, simply because when it’s time to say thank you to all the people who’ve been in your corner, you’re almost guaranteed to leave someone out. Who do I acknowledge? Do I include everyone I can think of? Or just my immediate family so that I don’t have to worry about leaving anyone out? Do I mention one group of friends but not another? Do I thank the people I interact with every day? My best friends know how I feel about them; do I really need to thank them? See what I mean? That’s why I put this off until the last possible second. It’s already hard enough to do this without tearing up. So if I somehow do forget to mention you, I beg for your forgiveness… or, it probably just wasn’t meant to be, lol.

  I THANK GOD for sparing my life for a greater purpose and continuing to order my steps. I am thankful for His grace and mercy.

  Mom and Dad, I cannot thank you enough for your unconditional love and unceasing (and sometimes undeserved) support. I was a weird little kid, but you always encouraged my eccentricities and never hampered my creativity. One day I hope to have children who feel as much love and encouragement as I felt from the both of you. I love you both so much. I hope I make you proud.

  This part of the Acknowledgments was the toughest to write, as I feared the possibility of not capturing my extreme gratitude to my village and my support system. To my aunts Carolyn and Tammy and my uncle Charles, I’m trying not to curse in my thank yous, so for fear of being uncouth, I’ll just say that you all are beyond amazing. I thank you for always stepping up. From Odyssey of the Mind competitions out of town, to Little League games, to press conferences and sitting front and center in court, you all were ALWAYS there. Thank you Ken and Melissa for every bit of support and everything else you’ve done for my family and me over the years, and for agreeing to do the foreword for this book. Y’all know I don’t like asking for anything, but you said yes without hesitation and I’m forever grateful. My sister, Cathy Carroll!! I thank God for you and that “Chica-go-getter” attitude!!! Had you not “harassed” the Winans brothers in Houston, this book would have never happened the way it did. I wish I could afford to hire you as my personal hype man. I wish I could tell little stories about each of the following people that expresses my gratitude, but I’m rushing to get this in, so thanks to: Chad and Toni, Kacy, Aunt Mel, Aunt Theresa, Tony Scott, Chasen, Anthony, Uncle Mike, Gale, EZ, Kevin Jackson and the Jackson 5, Lewis and Bridgette, Jerry and Rachel, Courtney and Adrienne, Randy, Pam Cox, Bryan-Michael Cox, Jim and Beverly, Carlos and Audrey, Treani, Aunt Evelyn and crew, Griffey family, Littleton and Harding families, Lisa, JD Elliby, and the rest of them Trahans. Man, I feel like I’m forgetting someone; please don’t beat me up when you see me. But thank you all for investing in me. You all mean the world to me, and I love you dearly.