Leslie represents so many other homicide victims whose circumstances of death remain virtually unknown to society. No, there was not a video that was shown on national news. The incident was not an international viral webcast feature or blog. No, there was not a march led by national civil rights advocates like Al Sharpton or Jessie Jackson. No, we were not interviewed by CNN, nor did we appear on the national evening news broadcasts of ABC, NBC, or CBS affiliates. We did send information to the producers of 20/20 and the Oprah Winfrey Show in an effort to attract national attention to this case, but we received no response. Leslie’s death only attracted the interest of local news reporters. Those who caused Leslie’s death were not held accountable. Justice was denied.
This book will tell the story of our struggle for justice in the wrongful death of our son. To date, I have been unable to find any other book that was authored solely by a mother in a similar circumstance. One book that comes close is My Heart Will Cross This Ocean, coauthored by Craig Wolff and Kadiatou Diallo, the mother of slain, unarmed Amalou Diallo. Their book is a memoir that includes the death of her son by police officers in New York City in 1999.5 Lezley McSpadden, the mother of Michael Brown, coauthored a book with Lyah Beth LeFlore. Her book, Tell the Truth and Shame the Devil, is a biography of her life and the account of Michael’s death by gunfire in Ferguson, Missouri.6 It is my hope that other families with experiences of police brutality will be helped and comforted by my sharing of these very personal events. Although no situation is identical to another, there are many common occurrences when lay citizens challenge the authority and inappropriate actions of police officers. Our experience is one of many, among a long history of unjust, wrongful deaths and injuries perpetrated by law enforcement officers.
For researchers who read this book, I feel an obligation to briefly discuss the unique research model used in this project. I chose to use triangulation, which is a technique used in the social sciences to indicate that two or more methods are used. The advantage of this integrative methodological approach is that a more detailed picture of a situation can be accomplished.7 The four types of triangulation are data, investigator, theoretical, and methodological.8 In this project, I used the methods of secondary analysis of quantitative research, interviews, data analysis, and participant observer to gain information. Participant observation is the process of enabling researchers to learn about those activities.9 Unlike some other social scientists, I was already a member of one of the families of concern. I thus felt the need for multiple sources to address this complex issue and to add validity to the hypothesis that police brutality is a real social justice issue with real consequences. It is anticipated that the use of triangulation will also widen the reader’s understanding of this pertinent social phenomenon.
1
Homicide or Natural Causes
How Did Leslie Vaughn Prater Die?
I understand that life is a precious, fragile gift. More than ever, I understand that one will stop living and transition to death in an instant. Nothing protects us from the inevitability of death, not youth, physical well-being, social status, or popularity. Death is the ultimate equalizer. Without any discrimination, death will eventually claim all lives. Babies die; people in seemingly good health die; and, yes, movie stars, politicians, and the wealthy die. There are all types of circumstances, natural and unnatural, that cause death. There are diseases such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes that may claim a life, with heart attack being the number one cause of death in America, including for women.1 In fact, at least one in four women will die of a heart attack.2 Accidents claim many lives daily, especially car accidents among our youth. Worldwide, traffic accidents are the leading cause of death for all youth over the age of ten.3 But there is an exception. For African American males, homicide is the leading cause of death. Researcher Dr. Charles H. Hennekens reported that the number of homicide deaths among African American males exceeds those resulting from car accidents, suicides, and diseases combined. Dr. Hennekens further found that, in America, young black men are six times more likely to die from homicide than young white men.4
There are numerous other factors that can cause a tragic end to life. During the warm months, drownings and boating accidents add to these tragic numbers. Sometimes people die from strange circumstances, such as a sinkhole opening5 or a terrific mudslide.6
Unfortunately, we cannot discount the fact that acts of violence from various means end the lives of people in our communities, within all age ranges. These occurrences of homicide are especially prevalent during weekends and in urban settings. Of no surprise is that increasing numbers are the result of injuries inflicted from firearms. These shootings can occur anywhere. Persons die from gunshot wounds while in their homes, shopping in the mall, or working in an elementary school. Memories still linger of the horrible 2013 shootings of children, some as young as five years old, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.7 It seems that almost daily, there is some incident of a shooting of innocent people, whether on a military base, in a park filled with children, in a movie theater, or merely on the street. For example, on April 13, 2014, in Kansas City, there was an arrest for the fatal shooting of Dr. William Lewis Corporon and his fourteen-year-old grandson, Reat Griffin Underwood. These killings were identified as a hate crime, because the assailant believed, erroneously, that the victims were Jewish.8
So, what happened to Leslie Vaughn Prater, a thirty-seven-year-old African American male? Simply stated, Leslie stopped breathing. The question that I propose is “What caused him to stop breathing?” In Alan D. Wolfelt’s “Mourner’s Bill of Rights,” among the ten items listed is the right to search for meaning.9 Thirteen years after Leslie’s death, I am still searching.
I believe that Leslie, an African American male, was the victim of a twenty-first-century version of a lynching, which I equate with the all-too-common occurrence of death by police brutality. In addition to law enforcement officers, I would include armed lay citizens who get away with murder by using the “stand-your-ground defense” after killing unarmed young black males. I know that the law doesn’t only apply to unarmed African American males killed by white persons, but these are the cases that are most publicized, especially when there is no conviction rendered. It appears that more states are interested in passing stand-your-ground laws. Sadly, Missouri passed a stand-your-ground provision in 2016, during the same year of legislative approval to carry concealed firearms without a permit.10 In general, a stand-your-ground law is a justification in a criminal case whereby defendants can “stand their ground” and use force without retreating in order to protect and defend themselves or others against threats or perceived threats.11
In Florida, Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis, both unarmed seventeen-year-old African American males, were murdered by gunfire. Attorneys for the white male adult killers used the stand-your-ground defense. A shocking verdict of “not guilty” was rendered for George Zimmerman in Trayvon’s death.12 In the case of Jordan Davis, Michael Dunn was initially not charged in the killing of Jordan but was convicted of attempted murder in the shootings of Jordan’s three friends, who survived. The Davis case is known as the “Loud Music” murder trial. Jordan was killed because he refused to turn down his music, as Dunn, a white man, demanded. Dunn returned to court to be tried for Jordan’s murder, independent of the attempted murder charges, which carried a minimum sentence of twenty years for each conviction, plus fifteen years for the felony charge. Tonyaa Weathersbee provided an interesting analysis of the verdict in her reporting of the Davis/Dunn case. She stated, “What the verdict says is that in this nation, in the 21st Century, some white men still believe they have the right to intrude into the space of young black men and make demands. And if the black man is unarmed, with no weapon except his words, those white men can still kill him and call it self-defense. All they need is for a jury to buy it.”13 Fortunately, the jury in the murder trial did not buy it. On October 1
, 2014, Michael Dunn was found guilty of the first-degree murder of Jordan Davis.14 Subsequently, he was sentenced to life in prison.
I will submit a controversial proposal that our unarmed black sons are being lynched. Why would I think that the concept of lynching could even be applied in Leslie’s death? It is because common features of lynching include group participation in the death, which is motivated by twisted notions of justice or racial hatred.15 There is a history of lynching in America. Between 1882 and 1946, there were at least five thousand recorded lynchings in the United States.16 No one knows how many other lynchings were not recorded.
I propose that lynching is alive and well today. I acknowledge that, as a cause of death, there are fewer people hanging from trees in 2017 than in prior years, but there is more than one way for a group to kill unarmed people.17 Moreover, traditional lynching still happens. Just ask the families of Frederick Jermaine Carter, lynched in 2010,18 and Johnny Lorenzo Clark, the victim of a lynching in 2012.19 Contemporary forms of lynching include burning, beating, shooting, and dragging people attached to motor vehicles. Death can still result from these cruel and outlandish actions. James Byrd Jr., an African American, lost his life in Texas after he was tied to a pickup truck and dragged until he died. His murder was considered a federal hate crime.20
In cases in which the cause of death is a mystery or not easily determined, or there is speculation that a crime was committed, it is common for autopsies to be performed. In the case of Leslie’s death, an autopsy was immediately ordered by police officials. On the evening of January 2, 2004, the Chattanooga Police Department fingerprinted Leslie, prior to releasing the body to the medical examiner. Is there a rational explanation for why this action was taken? My belief is that the Chattanooga Police Department wanted to seek any information that would allow them to vilify the deceased and justify the suspected brutal actions of their officers. On January 3, Dr. Frank King, the chief medical examiner for Hamilton County, conducted the autopsy without any notice to family members about the impending procedure. We were told upon our arrival in Chattanooga on January 4 that police officials were present during the autopsy. I assume that it was at their request. Family members were neither involved nor consulted. We were not even given an opportunity to identify the body as actually being that of Leslie. We were told that information found in Leslie’s car was used for identification purposes. People can have documents in their vehicle that may belong to someone else. Use of those documents could not represent an official positive identification. Why would they autopsy him before any family members could positively identify the body? This fact is especially troubling, considering that family members were at the hospital but were denied the request to see him.
As Leslie’s family, we now feel confident that we know how Leslie died, regardless of the outcome of the Chattanooga Police Department’s internal investigation. Two medical examiners, independent of each other, completed an extensive, detailed autopsy and provided a report to our attorneys, who forwarded the results to us. Dr. Frank King of the Office of the Hamilton County Medical Examiner, Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Dr. Bruce Levy of the Forensic Medical Center for Forensic Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee, conducted the autopsies. At the time of Dr. Levy’s examination of Leslie’s body, he was the chief medical examiner for the State of Tennessee. Each pathologist concluded that homicide was the cause of death.
In the following summative discussions, I will provide more information from official reports, and results from interviewing eyewitnesses. A deposition summary from one of the officers involved in the physical confrontation that resulted in Leslie’s death is also included. That deposition describes incidents leading up to Leslie’s death. Mention of conflicting reports and other factors contributing to Leslie’s homicide are also noted.
Autopsy Report of Dr. Frank King
In Dr. King’s official report, dated March 24, 2004,21 the summary page listed six possibilities as to the manner of death. The directions stated that only one possibility should be selected. The options were accident, suicide, homicide, natural, unknown, and pending. Based on the box that Dr. King checked, he concluded that Leslie’s death was a homicide. As the probable cause of death, he wrote “positional asphyxia during physical restraint in the setting of acute ethanol intoxication, acute cocaine intoxication, catecholamine excess cardiomyopathy, and mild obesity.” It was interesting that he did not include statements reporting that Leslie’s body had multiple abrasions, multiple contusions, a dislocated and fractured shoulder, and multiple rib fractures—twenty-one, to be exact. The report specifically stated that the lower lateral rib fractures were unlikely to be caused by cardiopulmonary resuscitation. So, how did all of those injuries occur? Why were those items not included in the summary statement? Of course, I am aware that staff members of the Office of the Hamilton County Medical Examiner are employees of Hamilton County, in which the city of Chattanooga is located. Historically, the medical examiner’s office works closely with the Chattanooga Police Department, and the medical examiner is one of the highest-paid county employees. At the time of Leslie’s death, the salary of Dr. King was higher than that of Chattanooga’s mayor, Bob Corker.
In the autopsy’s detailed summary, there were no significant abnormalities found for the lungs, liver, kidneys, thyroid, spleen, adrenal glands, pancreas, stomach, or brain. Other than Leslie’s injuries and the officer’s subsequent actions, which prevented him from breathing, the autopsy report appeared to indicate that Leslie was relatively healthy. Leslie was seventy-one inches in height and, yes, overweight at 232 pounds, but this is hardly a condition that would cause one to stop breathing. I strongly agree with Dr. King that the death of my unarmed son was a homicide. Legally, there are various forms of homicide, but it is still the killing of a person by another.22
The reported conclusions specific to toxicology were conflicting. The urine tests from the Baroness Erlanger hospital emergency room reported an alcohol level above the legal limit, but no evidence of cocaine. Dr. King’s investigation included a report from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI), which reported blood and urine samples analyzed on January 25, 2004, and taken at different times. One blood sample detected ethyl alcohol, but no cocaine. Another detected no drugs in the urine sample. A third blood sample contained 0.07 ug/ml of cocaine. When the family met with Dr. King, he stated that, in his analysis of the fluid from Leslie’s eyes, there was alcohol found, but no cocaine. He stated that he felt that the eye fluid might give a more accurate postmortem analysis. I asked him directly whether those TBI-reported combined levels of alcohol and cocaine would probably cause erratic behavior or death. He said, “No,” and further stated that the reported cocaine level was considered only a trace. I will always wonder why there was no cocaine found in the tests conducted by the hospital and the local medical examiner.
During later conversations about Leslie’s death, certain police officials and media personnel chose to highlight the fact that Dr. King reported traces of cocaine in Leslie’s body. Often when people hear of the presence of cocaine the assumption is that death was caused by drugs. For example, one Chattanooga Times Free Press article subheading read, “Prater death resulted from drugs, suffocation during local police restraint.” The headline was “Autopsy Reveals Struggle.” Neither heading mentioned Leslie’s extensive injuries.23 Yet homicide by positional asphyxia—and in the presence of extensive injuries—was the cause of death.
The conclusion that it was homicide was arrived at by independent examinations from two medical examiners. Because I am not a medical examiner, I choose to believe the professional pathologists. Leslie’s autopsy findings were later reviewed by Dr. Michael Baden, a nationally renowned and extremely experienced medical examiner. He concurred with the homicide conclusion. In fact, I was told that Dr. Baden, after reviewing autopsy documents, expressed that the condition of Leslie’s body was one of the most brutal cases he had ever reviewed. This
information was reported to me by Nick Brustin, one of our attorneys, who spoke directly with Dr. Baden.
Although the autopsy reports answered the medical question of how Leslie died, we still don’t have the answer for the reason his life was taken. Why did those officers prevent Leslie from breathing? I suspect that we will never know the truth. Personally, I believe that there was malicious intent. If that was not the case, the level of incompetence on the part of those officers suggests that they should not be employed in a position of determining life or death.
According to Dr. King’s report, injuries to Leslie’s body were numerous. As previously stated, there were twenty-one rib fractures, with only some that may have been caused by cardiopulmonary resuscitation. His final diagnosis listed multiple abrasions on Leslie’s lower back, right leg, knee, and wrists. There were also multiple contusions to the right upper and lower chest, right and left arms, left thigh, and both wrists. In addition, Leslie’s left shoulder joint was dislocated, with a fracture of the left humeral head, which is the upper arm bone. The report further described that there was acute hemorrhage of the pubic and lower abdominal wall soft tissues and scrotal sac consistent with blunt trauma impact. According to an eyewitness to Leslie’s homicide, we were told that a police officer kicked Leslie in the scrotum, which would be consistent with the reported injuries documented in the written autopsy report. One can easily imagine the pain he suffered.
Excessive Use of Force Page 2
