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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Support Stays Strong for Vigil in Cincinnati |
Current rating: 0 |
by Sean Marquis
Email: lesmarquis (nospam) ziplip.com (unverified!) |
06 Jun 2001
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Many people coming down and helping out in different ways and a mother adds to the Vigil |
June 6 - Despite increasing harassment by the Authorities, the Vigil continues. Though numbers were down today (as few as 3 or 4 at some times) due to arrests and many folks running off to transport our supplies away from the hands of the bad guys and to engage other groups in organizing efforts, there were still some great moments in the day.
We had some new people come down and bang drums for awhile (we easily replenished our supply of bangable objects) and someone brought us a new sign. A very nice older woman came down and gave us a whole bunch of chocolate chip cookies that she made for us and a man from the Health Department came by, gave us 10 gallons of water and said they would be bringing us veggie lasagna for dinner (folks from the Health Dept fed us last night with mixed salads and nuts).
I don't know if AIM (American Indian Movement), Black United Front, March for Justice or Nation of Islam have "officially" endorsed our Vigil and our demands, but many individuals from all of these groups have been giving us tremendous support. Also a local businessman has offered us the use of his bathroom while his office is open (because the Sheriff’s Dept. will no longer allow us in the Justice Center to use the (public?) toilets inside - but they will allow us in to take our money when we want to bail someone out, which is a daily event).
But I need to say that the closest moment I had so far was with a woman whose son died in police custody. She brought us some bags of food and I helped her take them out of her car. After that, she looked at me and then pointed at the Justice Center and said, "you know, my son died in there. They arrested him, and three hours later he was dead." It was hard for me to hear her, there was lots of drum and bullhorn noise, her voice was very quiet, as if she did not want to say it too loudly and have to relive that moment again.
She said to me, "I wanted to know if I could have a bag to put his name on and could you put a candle in it?" (still so quiet) (we had paper bags with candles in them and named with each person still in jail from April and one for each of our friends arrested at the Mt. Adams protest). So I immediately said, "of course", and went to get a bag and marker for her to write with.
When I returned she had a photocopy of a picture of her son that she gave me and handed me a packet of information (all the legal info from her son's arrest, lawyers info, her request for an investigation, more copies of her son's photo. etc. - I still haven't had time to thoroughly look it all over- it's been a busy couple of days here) and as I looked it over a bit she wrote his name on the bag. As she wrote, she was talking about the investigation but she was speaking so quietly and I could see she was physically shaken, I could not bear to ask her to repeat herself.
She then handed me back the bag and marker and said, "what you're doing here is a good thing, thank you." She paused then went on, "I... I would like to stay but I just can't bear to be here, to see that place." It wasn't until she made that statement that I realized she had barely picked up her eyes or looked in the direction of the Justice Center during our whole conversation (except at the very beginning when she pointed at the building).
As she left to go back to the car, she said, "I just don't want to see another mother have her son die." And she left, just as quietly as she had been there.
After she had gone, I felt as if this woman had given me a bit of what was left of her son's life and said, "take care of him."
**I will include the details of her son's arrest/death (his name is Jermaine T. Hill) in a later posting when I have time to go through it all, plus I wanted this post to stand alone, it was a very emotional encounter. |
See also:
http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=45308&group=webcast
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