'I want justice'

John Alan's column is turned over this issue to excerpts of Larry Marshall's remarks to a Chicago Local meeting of News and Letters Committees on Oct. 26.

On April 3, 2001, at about 3:30 p.m., my 11-year-old granddaughter was sent to the store. She never made it three houses past her house. Three white officers called her to their unmarked car. She had just turned the corner and she thought, I better get back to the house. One officer jumped out of the car and chased her across the street. When she realized she was running the wrong way and came back, the driver decided to run over her. He just missed her. Then she stumbled and they grabbed her, beat her, and put her in a choke lock.

By that time all the community--I thank God for my neighbors--came out and were asking, what do you all think you're doing to this girl? The officers had some drugs in their hands and the idea was to put these drugs on the girl and make her a drug dealer girl. But they couldn't get the drugs on her and they took off. That's the point when I became really angry. At my age I've seen some of the worst discrimination that you could ever witness. Living in a town where you have to go in the back door and a white person will sell you a hamburger and give it to you through a window.

I picked up the phone and knew I was going to say something really bad to the commander. When I found myself going to cuss out this sucker, I said to myself to just calm down. I sat down with him and told him what happened. He said, I'm going to send a sergeant out, you tell him what happened and you get this kid to the hospital. The sergeant came out; I told him what happened. He said send a note to the doctor but don't fill out the report. We went to the hospital. The minute you tell them the cops did it, everybody gets afraid.

I tried to get hold of Johnnie Cochran. These lawyers said, We work with Johnnie Cochran. Being all upset and frustrated, I went with them. They said, You can't say anything to the newscasters. I said, What? Then I told all the newscasters who came that I wasn't giving interviews, so all the newscasters left.

NOTES INTIMIDATE POLICE

The hardest thing is to identify the cops who committed the crime. But we were able to identify them. My granddaughter said the one guy that got her had spiked hair. My neighbors took the risk and were able to identify them. At the deposition, they allowed the cops to bring loaded weapons, .357 magnums. In the middle of the interview, their lawyers said, Mister, you have to stop intimidating my officers. The only thing I was doing, I wrote down every word the cops said--that was scary to them!

As the case went on, I was going to the Police Board and took my whole family. About two years went by, I called the lawyer asking, How is the case going? He said it's going OK and I'll have to treat it like a car accident. I said, I don't want you treating it like a car accident; I'll take the case to somebody else. In about a couple of months he went before the judge and had me and my wife's names removed from the claim and settled the case. I had told him at least I want my granddaughter to have enough money for college. Now my granddaughter is grown, out of school, and with no money for college.

At the Police Board meetings I found two great friends, George, who never stops fighting, and then, three months later, Gerry. I found out you can have a better thing with a small organization than you can with a large. At the Board they showed me the papers that said the case has been settled. But it hasn't been settled with me. George has agreed to be with me and he has been there. When you have a friend on your side like that, the world can't really do you harm.

FRIENDS FIGHT FOR JUSTICE

It's been a hard fight. I'm smiling more tonight than I usually do. I don't have anything to smile about; I could cry for two or three hours. But that won't do any good. Do people really realize this is going on? I know being a Black person of 60 some odd years, it's the worst life a person could ever live, being Black. But, I give George a lot of credit, he doesn't look at it like that. He thinks it shouldn't be about Black or white; this should be a gentler world, but the world is not like that.

I want justice. Seems like we won't get justice. George is showing no signs of quitting. When I thought I wouldn't fight much longer, I know he'll be there. At 7:30 a.m., I know he's there. Regardless of what he has to do in life. This changed my whole life to another direction--just trying to get some kind of justice. When you can't get justice and you got God on your side, you still got justice. That's how I look at it.

Celebrate the 150th anniversary of John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry with:

by Raya Dunayevskaya

This book recounts the revolutionary history of America.

"Marx kept his eyes glued on the movement of the Negro slaves. When the Civil War broke out, and 'the Great Emancipator' did all in his power to limit it to a white man's war for Union, Marx began to popularize the speeches and analyses of the Abolitionists, especially those Wendell Phillips wrote against the Northern conduct of the war..."

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