FOIA REQUEST OF LOUDOUN COURTS RE BLACK ARREST FIGURES

CAMPBELL FLANNERY

1602 Village Market Blvd., Suite 220, Leesburg VA 20175

Cell: 202-365-5060; Phone: 703-771-8344

JonFlan@aol.com ; www.JohnPFlannerv.com 

The Honorable Gary M. Clemens

Clerk, Loudoun County Circuit Court

18 East Market St.

Leesburg, VA 20176

The Honorable Tammy Dinterman

Clerk, Loudoun County General District Court

18 East Market St.

Leesburg, VA 20176

Dear Gary and Tammy,

      There is a growing awareness that the Confederate soldier statue standing in front of the Courthouse represents disunity, lawlessness and slavery. I concur with that critical view. The statue not only offends but it chills access to and compromises trust in this Court and the regularity of its proceedings at the Circuit and District Court levels. There is a fear that this symbol means that persons of color are not being treated as equal by the Courts despite the promise of "equal justice before the law."

      In a recent Channel 9 broadcast, Johnny Chambers, Jr., a defendant before the General District Court, was interviewed and said, "It's hard to get justice when you get people that live in this area, that run this county, that believe in this system," pointing at the Confederate soldier statue.

      Several years ago a Deputy Clerk, Jennifer Grant, reportedly said, she "didn't like the statue," but that "there were certain things people didn't talk about."

      Current staff at the Court have told me the same thing in recent days since I expressed my opinion publicly about the adverse effect of this statue on the courts' mission.

       

      Accordingly, I'm requesting certain information to test the proposition how we treat the black citizens we arrest in this County and whether, as is believed, blacks are arrested in disproportion to their representation in the Loudoun County population.

      In the court case information on-line, there is plainly indicated the race of every person arrested, for the public to behold, to review and to use as they see fit.

      This information is also maintained in the aggregate in a database that has predetermined "queries" that you may access and forward to state authorities.

      For example, Johnny Chambers' case is available on-line, his race plainly identified, so that one may consider the charges against Mr. Chambers and know precisely what disposition he received.

      Johnny's charge was marijuana possession. There is a recent study that states,while there is no proportional difference between and among blacks and whites as to the use of marijuana, there is a dramatic and significant over-representation of blacks arrested for possession of marijuana, reflecting an apparent policy of prosecutorial discrimination.

      In any case, the purpose of this request is to gather information under FOIA that is believed to be readily available in the court's records to consider the proportion of all adult arrests in Loudoun County that are black citizens, of all drug and narcotics offenses that are black citizens, of all marijuana possession charges that are black citizens, and all disorderly conduct charges that are black citizens.

      We know the information in the aggregate is available in these categories as there are state-wide summaries that report this information.

      We have reason to believe it is accessible in your offices, online or otherwise, or we wouldn't request it.

      We seek this information for the last five years, consistent with the reporting intervals now extant, presumably every month, 6 months, or yearly, going back five years from the latest report. If you can access it for one period, then annual figures would be sufficient.

      Accordingly, we request the following information for the last five years, as follows:

      1. Criminal Offenses

a)  Number of arrests of adults for all criminal offenses exclusive of traffic offenses.

      b) Number of arrests of black adults for all criminal offenses exclusive of traffic offenses.

      2. Drug and Narcotic Offenses

     

      a) Number of arrests of adults for all drug and narcotics offenses.

      b) Number of arrests of black adults for all drug and narcotics offenses.

      3. Marijuana (Possession)

     

      a) Number of arrests of adults for possession of marijuana.

      b) Number of arrests of black adults for possession of marijuana.

      4. Disorderly Conduct

     

      a) Number of arrests of adults for Disorderly conduct.

     

      b) Number of arrests of black adults for disorderly conduct.

      We expect the report to reflect monthly, half-year, or yearly reporting increments.

      We expect that these reports are readily available by submitting queries for such information, if there aren't already such periodic reports.

      If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to call so that we may facilitate the requested FOIA production in accordance with the statutory timetable.

      We have addressed you jointly as the Clerks for both the Circuit and District Courts in the hope that you can both cooperate with this request and respond jointly without duplication.

      Thank you in advance for your time and kind attention to this request.

                       Very truly yours,

 

STATUTES FOR BLACK UNION TROOPS AND FREDERICK DOUGLASS by John P. Flannery

It’s high time that we had a statue placed on the Loudoun County Court house lawn honoring Frederick Douglass and the black Union troops from Loudoun County that fought for the union and for their freedom from slavery.

In Washington, DC, there is a statue to Black Union Troops.

Next week, there will be a statue of Frederick Douglass unveiled in the Capitol.

But we have no memorial in Loudoun.

You may not appreciate that there’s good and sufficient history to do so.

Kevin Dulany Grigsby, a Loudoun native, believes his black ancestral heritage from the Civil War has been overlooked, invisible in Loudoun County, particularly how Blacks fought for the Union.

 “It was the movie, ‘Glory’,” Kevin said, “while I was a Junior at Loudoun County High School, that revealed to me that there had been black soldiers fighting for the Union in the 54^th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry.”  Recently, Kevin spoke at St. James in Lovettsville, Virginia.

“It was my cousin, Vernon Peterson,” Kevin said, “who first told me, that there were Black Soldiers from our Loudoun County who fought for the Union.  He told me the story of Dennis Weaver, an African-American Civil War veteran, who was buried in the Rock Hill Cemetery in Southwestern Loudoun.”  Weaver, Kevin learned, had been a slave in the Bluemont area and enlisted at - what we now know – as Theodore Roosevelt Island.

These revelations contrasted sharply with what Kevin had been taught about blacks in school.  “In our Loudoun County school text book,” Kevin said, “they pictured blacks as families of slaves, the few pictures they showed, and all I could see was pain and suffering.  I was embarrassed, and it brought upon me a sense of shame.”

“We must tell the whole story,” Kevin said, “because it hasn’t been told, not about the historic battles when Black Soldiers fought, nor is it reflected in Loudoun County’s monuments.”

It was Frederick Douglass who said of Blacks, slave and freemen, that this was “the very class of men which have a deeper interest in the defeat and humiliation of the rebels than all others.” 

But Loudoun has been slow to acknowledge this truth, what Douglass and the black Union soldiers contributed to our union, either by word, or any County memorials, not even the plaque in Waterford honoring the Loudoun Rangers who supported the Union.

Kevin said the price for a Black fighting for the Union was dear: “The Confederacy decreed that colored Union soldiers (whether born free or enslaved) would face enslavement if captured.  Many black soldiers understood that the threat of enslavement also meant the likelihood of execution or torture if captured.”

The graves in Loudoun County, reproduced in Kevin’s book, show the headstones of Black Union soldiers, and, by his research, he’s uncovered the names of 260 Blacks who were in the Army from Loudoun County and 12 who were in the Navy, ranging in age from 15 to 60, including freedmen, slave, skilled and unskilled laborers.  There were 163 “Colored” Union Army Regiments, and about a third of those had a native from Loudoun County. 

Olmstead Turner, born in Loudoun County, a brick maker by trade, served in Company K of the 55^th Massachusetts Infantry, who achieved the rank of Sergeant, and distinguished himself in the Battle of Honey Hill in South Carolina. 

In the Massacre at Fort Pillow, Kevin wrote, “[m]any black soldiers lived by a creed of ‘fight to the death’ rather than surrender and be enslaved, tortured, or executed at the hands of the Confederacy.”

Nearly 25% of the Black Union soldiers from Loudoun County fought in the Battle of New Market Heights and Chattin’s Farm, and 14 African-American soldiers were awarded the medal of honor.

There are thos who say slavery would have died out – without the Civil War. 

But Kevin has studied the stats and they reveal that, while importing slaves was banned in 1808, the Southern States had more every year.  Virginia had 292, 627 slaves in 1790 and 490,865 by 1860.  Virginia even supplied slaves to the other states.  

“Black regiments,” Kevin wrote, “helped propel the Union Army to victory by overcoming frightening obstacles.”  Still they are ignored in Loudoun’s history and on our courthouse green.

Former General and President Ulysses S. Grant wrote in his Memoirs long ago his hope that, “[a]s time passes, people, even of the South, will begin to wonder how it was possible that their ancestors ever fought for or justified institutions which acknowledged the right of property in man.” 

In recognition that we know now to reject this inhumane historical institution that treated men and women as property, we must erect statues to honor Douglass and Loudoun County’s Black Union soldiers on the Leesburg County Court House lawn.

# # #

 Former blog post on this same theme - http://bronxgadfly.blogspot.com/2013/05/take-that-confederate-statue-down-by.html

OP-ED: SPILL BABY SPILL by John P. Flannery

We have these gorgeous beaches for Virginians and tourists alike.

They mean fun, income, jobs, you know, prosperity.

Who would want to mess that up?

We also have a naval military presence in Virginia concerned about using the waters off our Atlantic coast.

Would anyone want to compromise our military mission?

How about both of our United States Senators from Virginia?

Get outa here, really?  Absolutely!

Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine want us to allow the oil and gas folk to “drill, baby, drill,” unconcerned that that what that really means, as we learned from the Gulf Oil spills, is “spill, baby, spill.”

Does Virginia need that to ruin our coast-line?

Why do we elect these guys as "Democrats" when they talk “enviro” but want to drill off shore Virginia? 

Just watch their oleaginous pitch for this dirty fossil fuel industry in this infomercial, in which they are selling out the Commonwealth of Virginia -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iig5Ykf3uKg&feature=player_embedded#t=0s .

If you got a chance to watch it, you’d especially like the term Senator Kaine used, that we had finally found a "sweet spot" for drilling.  What is he thinking about when he says "sweet spot"?

Why do these Senators think it's proof that they are doing the right thing if it’s the case that our Republican Governor supports it?  We know our Governor is irretrievably lost to fossil fuel exploration, no matter the environmental risk.

Both our Senators thanked the Virginia delegation for supporting them but I read a report that Congressman Jim Moran does not support the idea.

We'll find out soon for sure who does support the idea - if any other Dems do and whether all the Republicans agree with our Senators – particularly those congressional members who represent the districts bordering our Atlantic shore line. 

But no matter who supports it, that endorsement doesn’t end the inquiry whether we should do it or not, not when you consider what’s at risk, rather than the distorting effect on public policy of the oil industry’s generous contributions, and pressure that “confuses” the “clear thinking” of our elected representatives.

This latest initiative by our Senators is especially aggravating, when we have a wind tunnel off our coast that, by all expert accounts, could supply real clean renewable power, and lots of it.  Virginia has done studies confirming this fact, and that's what we should do instead offshore – and we should keep in mind how cheap that wind energy is becoming - http://cleantechnica.com/2013/05/06/solar-pv-module-prices-have-fallen-80-since-2008-wind-turbines-29/

The right answer to our Senators was the Sierra Club critique in response to their initiative.

Glen Besa, with the Sierra Club, said, "As we saw with the Gulf oil disaster, oil spills decimate tourism and fishing industries.  In Virginia, that means risking over $2.5 billion and over 100,000 jobs in industries that depend on healthy ocean and Chesapeake Bay waters and clean beaches."

"It's a risk that remains real,” Besa said, “as large spills continue to occur around the world and as Congress has yet to pass a single law strengthening federal oversight of offshore oil and gas development."

"It is disappointing that so many Virginian politicians of both parties seem willing to jeopardize our strong coastal tourism and fisheries industries for a policy of drill everywhere and burn it all now that ignores environmental, climate and national security concerns," said Besa.

It sure is “disappointing” - and that's a kindly way to characterize what our Senators propose to do to us.

But it's business as usual in the Old Dominion where oil money talks more than the common sense of being responsible stewards of our environment and of our existing industry and jobs.

Shame on these guys!

Now we can only hope, if their legislation gets voted favorably out of the various Committees and out of Congress somehow, and actually makes the President's desk for signing, that it is vetoed instead.

OP-ED: NO FINER MEMORIAL by John P. Flannery

Uncle Charles Flannery and the author

 I remember as if it were yesterday my Mom crying, a soulful wound torn open upon hearing that my Dad’s brother, Charles, died of internal bleeding because years earlier he’d been shot in World War II. 

President Woodrow Wilson’s promise that World War I was the war to end all wars didn’t prevent World War II.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in WWII, said, “There is no glory in battle worth the blood it costs.”

We could therefore erect no finer memorial to our war dead than to rededicate our nation to peace.

Eisenhower, in his farewell address in 1960, told the nation, “We must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose.”  It is past time for us to reconsider his advice.

Our wars since World War II have been about property – the differences by and between communism, socialism and capitalism.  Also about ethnicity – over nationality, color, religion and region. 

The nation state now caught in the congressional and executive cross-hairs is Syria.

We insist our wars are honorable because we are fighting for individual freedom but those we would “save” all too often recoil at the definition of “freedom” we seek to impose.

We are hard-pressed to claim the high ground for freedom when the recent observable evidence, since 9-11, is that we distrust our citizens, frisk them, tape them, follow them, kill them with drones, kill innocent women and children in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and imprison innocents in Cuba without any formal charges or evidence.

Now we are ramping up to weigh in to Syria’s civil war, to spend funds we don’t have, perhaps even to add our own men and women to the 80,000 dead and million already displaced.

Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham want us to create safe zones for the Syrian rebels, arm the rebels, train them, conduct targeted air strikes, and deploy scud missiles.

Days ago, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations voted 15-3 to arm and train these rebels. 

We are going to arm rebels that may include al Qaeda terrorists.  Radical Sunni preachers recently issued a call to jihad to support the rebels, spurring an influx of rebel fighters. 

Abu Sakkar, rebel leader of the Omar al-Farouq Brigade, should give us further reason to oppose intervention.  Abu cut out the organs of a dead Syrian soldier including his heart and liver, and bit down on one organ in a gruesome snuff video he filmed, while addressing the Syrian soldiers loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, saying, “I swear to God we will eat your hearts and your livers, you soldiers of Bashar the dog.” 

Virginia State Senator Richard Black has called upon the United States to “end its intervention in Syria.”  I agree.  Senator Black cited the cannibalizing of the soldier as one of several good reasons, and published reports that we were training and equipping the rebels.

Is there any hope for peace?

There are peace talks tentatively set for June.  The rebels have, however, interposed a speed bump on the road to peace, demanding, as a precondition, that the Syrian President resign.

A step toward a worthy memorial to our war dead is to work for peace without war-like intervention. 

This would build on what President Barack Obama said last week in a speech at the National Defense University. 

The President proposed that we turn toward peace, given we have and are ending our occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, after spending over a trillion dollars on these wars, after losing 7,000 Americans, after damaging many others irreparably. 

The President thought it time that we respect President James Madison’s warning that, “No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” 

Acknowledging we still had to confront a “lethal yet less capable al Qaeda affiliates,” the President said, we must now supplement our military efforts and fight “to win a battle of wits, a battle of ideas.”  Eisenhower had similarly recommended “intellect and decent purpose.”

Robert G. Kaiser, a Washington Post editor, wrote that “the modern version of [congressional] culture is hostile to creative problem-solving.”  He said, “In the ‘world’s greatest deliberative body,’ there is little deliberation.”

We have to do better, because if we are not smart enough to make peace, then we may only make war, and thus shall we dishonor the memory of those war dead who served so this nation might be preserved and protected at peace.