Chad Holley’s brutal altercation with the Houston Police Department last March continues to raise issues about the department, issues that were responded to late Monday night on Houston Media Source’s up-and- coming informational talk show, People’s Politics.
The show’s topic was dedicated to several citizens who are concerned about the nature of the incident and included special guest Cynthia L. Payton, D. Z. Cofield, Omowale Olanrewaju, and Randall Kallinen. Joined on set by host Francelle Jones and Rev. Robert Gilmore, all four guests discussed the issue from their perspective and responded to calls from concerned listeners.
During the show, a video was shown from the town hall meeting that took place last week, showing Houston Activist Quannel X debating with Mayor Annise Parker and several other city officials about the severity of the incident. Parker also addressed issues regarding the incident.
A primary issue during last week’s town hall meeting was the official release of the video to ABC 13, where viewers captured the scene of the incident for the first time.
The video shows the 15-year-old suspect running from HPD officers and being cut off by a police car. After flipping over the hood of the vehicle, the suspect assumes the surrender position, but police continue to assault him with their hands.
The video can be viewed on YouTube under the name “Houston Police Beating teen suspect Chad Holley,” and has already generated nearly 80,000 hits after being posted on Feb. 3.
Kallinen, a civil rights lawyer, said, “In situations like this, you should always seek assistance from a seasoned civil rights attorney, because this is an extremely complex area of law. Oftentimes, people go to the press first and make some mistakes.”
Kallinen says the video was extremely disturbing because the suspect was so young and he had clearly given up.
He also says he was even more appalled when he found out the television version was sped up so that the actions didn’t seem as severe as they actually were.
Although four police officers were indicted for the incident, they were charged with misdemeanors for official oppression and no felony charges for assault.
One of the officers attempted to file a lawsuit against Quannel X for releasing the videotape but was unsuccessful because he had already received permission from a judge to release the footage.
Payton, who originally contributed the video to Quannel X, was fired from her job of the past three and a half years at Uncle Bob’s Self-Storage for attracting what the company referred to as, “unwanted attention” after releasing the video.
Payton said, “It was really lousy that I lost my job. However, I don’t regret releasing the video because if I hadn’t, things would’ve been kept quiet. I wish those who try to prosecute me for releasing the video the best of luck because I have a lot of protection and support from the NAACP and a number of other organizations.”
Cofield, who serves as president of the Houston NAACP Chapter, said, “I think it’s important for everybody to stand up and be counted because collectively, our voices have power. None of The Tonight Show’s guests are leading this protest, the community is. We just want to help manage this process and make sure we are effective in making sure that strategic and systematic changes result from these protests.”
Olanrewaju, a representative of the National Black United Front, said, “We are asking people to join us and contact city officials with their complaints. We should not forget that the Greater Houston Partnership has vested interest in seeing that this doesn’t get to a level where a few thousand people are in the streets protesting. With the Final Four and rodeo coming up, it would look bad for the city of Houston to have protesters in the streets because it would make Houston look as if it’s not respectful of citizens with diverse backgrounds.”
Olanrewaju joined with several protesters in a rally outside of City Hall Tuesday to participate in the term they coined as “Black Justice Tuesday.” Later that evening, an ensuing town hall meeting was held for the town hall meeting that took place last Wednesday.