From behind the wall
Portland Observer
In 1949 Ms. Tomlinson was sent to
Africa at a teaching missionary for the
Salvation Army where she remained
until 1972, being forced to return home,
in Portland, to care for her father. She
was given the appointment of a Correc
tional Service Officer, working with those
in prisons and jails in Oregon.
I, like many prisoners, first became
acquainted with Major Prances Tomlin
son while lying in a 9x5 dirty barred cell
in Rocky Butte County Jail. Waiting for
trial, mad at the world, abused by the
guards, denied by the courts and slipping
into a mental state between insanity and
survival.
All of a sudden appearing
outside my cage was this woman in blue.
“Oh, wow! All 1 need to come poking
around me now was another 'Bible-pack
er,’ who was out to save the soul of
conformably dying man," I stated to
myself.
by Larry Baber «35021
O.S.P. Ce
JU ST C A LL HER RUSTY
Prom a neighborhood in Portland,
through the classrooms at a university in
Eugene, to the jungles in Africa, through
the corridors of flea bitten jails and
prisons in Oregon they call her "Rusty."
Prances Tomlinson, who graduated
from Lincoln High School in Portland,
Oregon in 1935, received a Bachelor of
Science Degree at the University of
Oregon in 1941. It was during her first
year as a high school teacher that she
became converted to a Christian faith and
returned to college and received a Bache
lors Degree in Education of Religion from
the Chicago Evangelistic Institute in
Illinois in 1944 and a Masters Degree in
Christian Education from Western Bap
tist Seminary in 1945.
Ms. Tomlinson then returned to Chica
go in 1946 where she became acquainted
with and then joined the Salvation Army,
it was then that she received her “call" to
become a Salvation Army officer.
M AJOR FR A N C ES TO M LIN SO N
Hello there," uttered this woman 1
had precondemned. “I'm Rusty." “Who
cares? 1 quietly shot back in a voice of
rejection.
“I do," she replied in a tone of
authority. “Why?" 1 found myself cur*
iously asking. "Because you're in there,
and I'm out here," she stated in a manner
of sincerity.
"Look lady, do you know what it feels
like being a Black man accused of raping a
white woman here in the State of Ore
g o n Y \ hat it s like having to act as your
own attorney because you can no longer
trust the white attorneys appointed by
the courts?" I quickly responded, testing
her feminine and racial validities.
“No, I do not. being in South Africa,
where I've been teaching schools for
Black children for the past twenty years,
but I would say you're going to need a
friend," she answered.
All of a sudden it became very
apparent that this woman, senior to my
years, was very much aware of the
Black's struggle for equal justice in a
land which practices discrimination much
more openly than where I was.
So that’s how I came to know this
woman called “Rusty.” A woman who
has become my friend. She never misses
visiting O.S.P. every other week, always
concerned about our welfare, our fami
lies, and our future.
Major Prances Tomlinson, last year
was responsible for the many toys and
dolls given to the many needy Black child
ren throughout Albina (Oregon's Black
community), and this Christmas will be
responsible for toys and gifts being sent
to any prisoner's child upon request.
On behalf of this O.S.P. Correspondent
and the “Behind the Walls" staff, along
with many, many other men at Oregon
State Penitentiary the question is no
longer to you Rusty, "who cares?" We
know you do. And thank you for being
there when someone was needed.
by Stevie Hoggaus «38921
Our country, that is composed of
various institutions, has a direct affect on
the Black Americans. The institution
with the most significant affect is the
criminal justice system. This institution,
composed of distinct sub-institutions (i.e.
police departments, courts and correc
Racism: Ten years after commission report
by M ark Shwarts
OCTOBER 13 [PN8] - A Latino newly
promoted to the rank of sergeant in the
San Francisco Police Department return
ed to his car after work and found a dead
skunk on the seat. A t a precinct station
across town, a photograph of a group of
' monkeys was posted with the caption:
“Minority Sergeants Swear In, 1977."
Chicago police officer A.A. Majerczyk
told the board of education there last
August that he and many other white
police "can be expected to get blue flu
when called to protect school buses...We
will not be used to destroy our schools."
Majerczyk's comments prompted a Black
police officers' association to demand he
be fired for refusing to protect Black
children buaed into white school districts.
Less than one fourth of the Black police
officers in Washington, D.C. - whose
police force is nearly 42 percent Black -
feel they have a good or excellent
relationship with white officers. Less
than one third trust their white supervi
son. and over 80 percent believe they are
discriminated against in job assignments
and promotions, according to a Howard
University survey completed last year.
Ten years after the U.S. Rio Commis
sion's famous report on ghetto uprisings
pinpointed racial antagonism among pri
marily white police and minority com
munities as a major and explosive source
of disorder and urged police to recruit
and promote more non white members,
racial strife continues to plague the police
departments of many of the nation's big
cities.
And the very solution proposed more
minority recruitment - has worsened the
problem.
"I think we have made a lot of progress
in trying to recruit minorities." says Dr.
Richard Staufenberger of the privately
funded Police Foundation in Washington,
pointing to the fact that the percentage of
non white officers in U.S. cities has more
than doubled in the past decade. "But
racial tensions in police departments are
probably higher now because white of
ficers perceive this minority recruitment
as reverse discrimination.
“The iasue has changed," Dr. Staufen-
berger notes. “In 1968. minorities were
demanding jobs in police departments,
but now they are aiming for political
control of the police and city govern
ment."
Since 1970, court battles over the issue
of police discrimination in hiring and
promoting minorities and women have
intensified racial splits in numerous de
partments.
In Chicago, where 20 percent of the
police are minority in a population over
42 percent non-white, a judge last year
upheld a five-year-old civil rights suit
filed by the Afro-American Patrolmen's
League (A A PL) and ordered the depart
ment to fill 42 percent of all new patrol
officer vacancies with Black and Spanish
sumamed men and 16 percent with
women. He also ruled that 40 percent of
all officers promoted to sergeant be Black
or Spanish-surnamed. Police administra
tors agreed to comply with the court
ruling this year, after the city lost an
appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In March, A A P L Director Renault
Robinson met with U.S. Attorney Gen
eral Griffin Bell. As a result, Bell filed
similar suits in Los Angeles and Baton
Rouge, Louisiana.
A similar legal battle has been on going
in San Francisco since 1973, when the
predominantly non-white Officers for
Justice (OFJ) sued the police depart
ment.
Although minorities comprise
about half of that city’s population, OFJ
lawyers contend only 12 percent of the
1,700 SPPD officers are non white. Of
the 75 permanent lieutenants and cap
tains, none are minority. The case - set
for trial this November - has had a
devastating effect on police morals.
While minority police continue to press
the courts for relief against alleged
discrimination, urban experts and mi
nority community leaders alike are more
alarmed by the larger problem of police-
community relations in the ghetto it
reflects.
"In many areas of the country, distrust,
suspicion and fear of the police are still
facts of life in minority neighborhoods,"
says Gilbert Pompa, acting director of the
U.S. Justice Department's community
relations service. Earlier this year, the
Police Foundation released a survey of
six U.S. cities showing that Blacks com
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prised 78 percent of those killed by police.
Homicide has now passed accidents and
single diseases to become the leading
cause of death for young non-white males
in U.S. cities, according to a study
reported in the September New England
Journal of Medicine. Killings by police -
mostly recorded as “justifiable" homi
cides - accounted for 13 percent of these
deaths, the study showed.
A recent study by the Afro-American
Patrolmen’s League showed that Blacks
in Chicago are more than six times as
likely to be killed by police as are whites.
Some critics see the still mostly white
police force as one cause of dispropor
tionate violence toward Black suspects.
“There is a general disrespect on the
part of white officers toward the Black
community," charged Henry Dotson, pre
sident of the N A ACP, Los Angeles
branch. “They're not out to enforce the
law - they’re out to crack some heads.”
The L .A . Police Department is less
than six percent Black and less than nine
percent Spanish-surnamed, the U.S. De
partment of Justice charged in a suit
against the city filed last summer. And
the Los Angeles Police Commission held
hearings in September to investigate
why 28 people - many unarmed, mostly
Blacks or Chicanos - have been shot to
death thia year by policemen there.
“M y gut reaction is that we probably
have less actual brutality from policemen
than in 1967," countered D r. Staufenber
ger of the Police Foundation. “But that's
partly to do with minorities’ increased
political power. The smacking of minor
ity heads is no longer going to go
unchallenged...Police officers are just as
racist today, but they’re probably more
cautious."
Will more minority police alleviate
violence in the inner city?
“I t ’s ridiculous for a government to
have a war on crime and not include the
people in the midst of the crime," argues
A A P L Director Robinson. “We endorse
the use of more Blacks to fight crime in
their own communities.”
But Rand Corporation researcher Ro
bert Yin warns against misinterpreting
statistics.
“You can have the right
proportion (of minority officers) and still
have a racist police department,” he says.
“You may have a Black police officer,
but he also lives in the suburbs, so there
may be an income gap between him and
the urban Black."
Although Yin supports the conclusion
that a predominantly white police force
was "a dangerous irritant" in the ghettos
in the 1960s, he contends that “police
today are doing less to be aggravating.
Now residents don't feel so antagonistic
toward the police."
(M ark Hhwartz is a member of PN8'
foundation funded urban Usk force of
scholars and journalists. For the .test
four years he has worked as a Bay Area
radio and television re;<orter on criminal
justice. |
Visit:
,,. .
.
Roberta B Vann
JOHN R E E D BOOK STORE
In the Dekum Building
519 8.W . 3rd Avenue
Sixth Floor
Or call:
227 2902
tions division) and these having their
sub subinatitutions (i.a. county detention
facilities, community relations, parole,
probation and prisons), are forever striv
ing and serving the needs to insure that
the Black American receives the guaran
teed rights as prescribed under the
Constitution of the United States. As all
institutions are far from perfect, we
won t dwell on the inconsistencies or the
personnel problems of the criminal jus
tice system, but rather elaborate on the
benefits of thia institution that Black
Americana receive.
First, let’s examine and discuss the
activities between the Black American
and these “discretionary agents of society
or social workers with guns." We know
that their job is to prevent crime,
preserve order, protect persons and
properties, and to protect personal liber
ties, but in the formance of these duties
Black Americans go all out of their way to
give these gentlemen
an extremely
rough time.
Just a few months ago, some Black
robbed a store. Consequently, another
Black, helpless, defenseless, quadripara-
plegic was shot four times in the chest
and head while handcuffed to his wheel
chair. attempting to escape from appre
hension; the gun accidently discharged!
It's a shame that our policemen must be
subject to such violent people.
Another incident that comes to mind
was of a Black man, his spouse and two
children, while going out to dinner. They
were stopped by these discretionary
agents, for looking suspicious. When
asked to produce his driver’s license and
while reaching for it, he was shot dead for
presumably pulling out a gun. Too bad
his wallet had a shinny buckle on it; but
how was this officer to know. The poor
officer, I can imagine the pain he and his
family suffered; “let's go dancing tonight
with the Reinharts dear!"
We also have another sub-institution in
the criminal justice system that signifi
cantly involves Black Americans: the
courts. Here justice is administered in
regards to Black's and society’s best
interest. Whether rich or poor, Blacks
always receive equal protection and due
process of the law. Look at Hurricane
Carter; he showed such viciousness in his
autobiography that it was enough evi
dence to convict him for murder. And
what about the Scottsboro Boys, they
were almost hung! Yes, the courts surely
do the respectable Black Americans just
deeds; thank God that Richard Nixon was
white! I ’ve often wondered why the
courts called their punitive administra
tion justice, because that’s all there is
“JUST US"! But as Black Americans, we
must be gratified to the countless judges
for that impeccable logic they're famous
for; i.e. Patty Hearst.
In the Penal System, Black Americans
are rescued from the poverty of the
ghettos. Where else but in America, can
a man receive three meals a day, clothing
and shelter, not to mention the countless
recreation and educational facilities for
merely breaking the law. It's a wonder
that all Blacks don't break the law, but
they don't appreciate nothing. They even
abuse this admirable form of help, by
starting riots and the like. I t isn't enough
that they’re taken care of, now they want
more aid - to be treated with kid gloves.
Who do they think they are?! They even
say that we beat and will kill them to
cover our mistakes. Have you ever heard
anything so absurd? Although the prison
guard's education exceeds a high school
and/or military training, we know that
they're well qualified in every aspect of
the behavorial scenes to deal with Black
Americans and give them the help they
need towards rehabilitation.
These
guards often converse on intellectual
levels far exceeding that of standard, "By
God there Ned, I reckon the wife and I
will go to the big city tonight." And the
Warden after fifteen years has finally
received his bachelor's degree. Yes, the
intellectual genius behind the Penal
Administration is one to behold.
These attributes of the criminal justice
system aren t anything new to the Black
American, for they are inscribed with the
framework of their minds as the whip to
the back. Their hostility and resentment
is alive and growing and soon to explode.
This institution of the criminal justice
system, fails to understand that their
attitudes, treatment and staff are only
true manufacturers of crime, instead of
elements of reform.
Will they ever
wake-up?
JU S T A N O T H E R BLACK M A N
by Ricky Brothers «39277
M y name is Ricky L. Brothers. I am
doing twenty years in O.S.P. Although I
am innocent of this crime I was found
guilty in Washington County Circuit
Court.
I went before the Parole Board at
O.S.P. on September 20, 1977 and they
Thursday. October 20, 1977
p»ge 3
gave me a twelve year parole date. I feel
that it was very unjust. I could discharge
it before then.
The Parole Board is not giving the
minority groups the same treatment as
the whites are getting. They are going
over the M atrix range on minorities more
than on whites, this is not fair at all.
I have a wife and three children but by
the time I get out my kids will all be
grown. The Parole Board wants me to do
all twenty years without parole because
they know it doesn't take nothing but
thirteen years and four monihs to dis
charge it.
I have never had a violent record or
arrest. I was incarcerated in 1971 for
burglary I I, that's the only criminal
record I have. It just doesn't seem right
for the Parole Board to give me a twelve
year date set. All the long sets that the
Parole Board is giving out are going to
make the prison blow one of these days,
because of the unjustice being done.
Prisoners that have been in four or five
times are getting smaller sets than first
timers, and a Black man just doesn't have
a chance. The whole prison administra
tion is screwed up. We, the inmates,
n?ed to let the public know what is going
on inside these walls.
The federal
authorities need to take a long look at this
place because it is behind the times.
There is no other prison like this one. I
believe they are trying to make this
another Attica. I feel there is prejudice
in O.S.P. I wish the public would take
into consideration the dilemma the in
mates are having in O.S.P.
Aszemar Glenn
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