People's Tribunal on Police Brutality video part 7

Speaking here: Doc Woods, Alice Ragland, Bernie Rolen

Doc Woods: oh yeah, I can blow you away.  I can abuse you up one side and down the other.   Now, proper education—unfortunately, we do not have an education system.  We never have had an education system.  What we have is a training system.  That system is to train people to work for other folks.  It ain't no secret.  George Bush, when he said, ‘No child left behind’, (one more minute, okay)... When he said ‘No child left behind’, the standards in ‘No child left behind’ are those standards that employers want in their employees.  We don't have an education system which is to tell you what you are, who you are, where you are and when you are, so you can discover why you are.  They don't want that.  That would upset the apple cart.  I'm trying any way to do this.   I gotta leave here because Humble G. and the Afropeans, (if y'all want to read about us, the Call and Post has a nice little insert all about us down at the King Arts center in Columbus) we're performing over at the Rock Hall, and I got to go ‘cause we start at two o'clock.  But, we have started ten years ago, something called Edutainment, in which we teach you, and we remove at least some of these ignorances through entertainment, which is the sneaky way to inform white people who the hell we are.  Peace.”  (Applause)   

Alice Ragland—“Thank you.  So, next we have Dennis Ficker and Bernie Rolen, and after that, and after that is going to be Cory Kouns.”   

Bernie Rolen—“Good afternoon.  (Audience:  “Good afternoon.”) I just want to thank Carol for inviting us here today to give you our testimony about our son, Daniel Ficker, who's pictured on my shirt, who was killed at the age of 27 on July 4th, 2011, by the Cleveland Police Department.  The story starts by, well, let me give you a little background.  My son was with his high school sweetheart for ten years.  Her name is Tiffany Urbach.  They have two children

together and they reside in, she still does live in, Parma with the two children.  On 4th of July they were going to a family party.  Tiffany's cousin is married to a Cleveland police officer.  They go to the party on July 3rd in the afternoon with their children.  They leave about 5 o'clock.  For some reason Tiffany's cousin does not like my son.  She hasn't liked him, but they go because they're family.  So they go to this party.  They leave the party.  They go to Tiffany's parents’ house in Strongsville, finish out the rest of the July 3rd afternoon, leave the children there; then they go home.  They stop at a bar, have a drink or two; then they go home.   When they get home there are two police officers from Cleveland parked in front of their house in Parma, waiting for them to get home.  While they were at their parents’ house, apparently some jewelry came up missing, which today we know is a lie, because there was no jewelry, and there was no jewelry missing.  So, Tiffany's cousin, Kim Mindeck, makes a phone call to her husband, Dave Mindeck, who is an officer at the 4th District, and says, ‘Someone stole the jewelry from our house, and I think it was Dan.’  Right off the bat.  Didn't see him do anything.  Nobody saw anything.  And today I can tell you there's no fingerprints, no DNA, nothing, anywhere where that jewelry was supposed to be.  So, what does Dave Mindeck do?  He leaves work, gets off work from the Police Department, calls his buddy from the 2nd District on the cell phone, doesn't make a police report like a normal citizen, like you or I would do.  He calls his buddy on his cell phone.  He meets him at his house.  When they get there, they disrupt the crime scene, so-called crime scene, which is not proper protocol.  I mean I could tell you one thousand things that those two officers did wrong.  We'd be here all day, but anyway they…, so, Dave Mindeck gets in the car with Officer Matthew Kraska.  Matthew Kraska is on the clock.  Dave Mindeck is off the clock now.   They get in their patrol car.  Kraska calls his supervisor, Daley.  Officer Daley was one of the officers that let one of those 63 cars go to the 137 bullets shooting.  (Audience:  “Wow.”) Yes.  One of the same officers.  So anyway, he doesn't tell him Mindeck's in the car with him.  He just says he's going to check something out in Parma.  That's about all the information he gave Daley.  So, like I said, they take matters into their own hands.  They go there.  They wait for my son and Tiffany to arrive home at their home.  No warrants, no arrests, nothing.  They just wanna question him, so they say.  Like I said, my son had a couple drinks and he was not driving, okay?  Tiffany was driving the car.  So, of course, like, you guys have said prior to me that they want to try to twist everything around and, you know, saying that my son's driving while he was drinking.  He wasn't even driving.  She was driving.   They pull in.  The two officers come up to him and say, ‘We want to talk to you.’  No lights on, no warrant, nothing.  And Tiffany and my son, they lock arms and they say, ‘No, we have nothing to say to you.’  First they say, ‘What are you doing here?’  Um, anyway... They try to get in their house.  And Officer Kraska pulls my son, unlocks his arm from Tiffany's arm, pulls him, throws him up against the police car and pretty much starts beating him.  My son is screaming for help.  He's screaming to the neighbors, ‘Somebody help me!  Dawn!  Somebody, somebody, please help me!’  Tiffany's calling the Parma police because what is she gonna do?!  She can't do anything.  These are two police officers supposed to help, but they're not helping.  Anyway, a fight ensues.  Um, because my son can't... he's not gonna get beat for something he didn't do.  And he knows the officers are not acting within their jurisdiction.  They're not acting as police officers.  So he's protecting himself and his life.  They get in an altercation.  They're rolling on the ground.  Tiffany's trying to call the police, and within minutes, I would say, Officer Kraska was tired of fighting with my son.  My son was unarmed, by the way.  He had nothing on him but a pocket knife, which they took out, threw it on the ground.  Just a pocket knife he carried every day.  And basically, um, he pulled out his gun and he fired it at my son and he killed him right at his doorstep, (Audience:  Groans) right when he was trying to get into his house.  (Breaking down) All because he was tired of fighting with my son.  And Officer Mindeck stood there and watched the whole thing happen and nothing.  He did nothing.   Anyway, of course, the grand jury doesn't indict him because it's a justifiable shooting, of course.  Even though my son's unarmed, and doesn't have to talk to them.  He doesn't have to go with them.  They have no search warrant.  He didn't have to do anything!  His civil rights were totally and completely violated.  So, we have a civil suit now, trying to do something to get justice somewhere, seeing that the Cuyahoga County prosecutor won't do anything.  The Cleveland Police Department didn't even discipline them because they said they're waiting for the discipline till after our civil suit.  How could you wait to discipline somebody until a civil suit?  It's almost four years!  Well, guess what! ...The two officers I believe have now since got disability retirement.  They're not even working as police officers, so they will never be disciplined.  So, we're just looking for justice.  Just real quick, my husband, my ex-husband, Dennis, which is my son's father, he suffered a stroke a couple months ago.  He's been in this with me from the beginning.  We've been doing this together.  He's been speaking, but we had a little setback, but he's here right now...thank you. (Applause)  (to Dennis: “You wanna say anything?”)  So, thank you very much for having us here.”  (Applause continue)