The Springfield-based Alliance to Develop Power, or ADP, has released a statement from Alvina Williams Jackson, the mother of Melvin Jones III, the 28-year-old city man at the center of a recent case of alleged police brutality.
In November, Jones had been in a car stopped by Springfield police. The incident didn’t come to light until earlier this month, when a video made by bystander surfaced on MassLive.com and was reported on by Springfield Republican reporter Patrick Johnson. That video caught the ensuing arrest, including one officer—later identified as Jeffrey Asher, who has a record of brutality charges—repeatedly whacking Jones with a metal flashlight. Another bystander who watched the incident is heard on the tape reporting that one of the officers, all of whom were white, calling Jones, who is black, a “fucking nigger.”
According to the police report, Jones had tried to run from the police and made a grab for one officer’s gun. Jones—who Johnson reported already had “an extensive record, including drug, firearms and motor vehicle offenses”— was subsequently charged with drug possession and resisting arrest. Jones’ father later told the Republican that his son’s injuries included broken facial bones and a broken finger, and that he was left partially blind in one eye.
Now Jones’ mother has spoken out about the incident, via a statement that was read aloud at an ADP meeting on Thursday evening. The statement was also sent out to the press by ADP, which said Jackson released it “in order to make her voice heard in calling for justice and police accountability.”
The statement reads:
“My name is Alvina Williams Jackson, I am the Mother of Melvin Jones III, I want to thank you for the support that you are giving to my son and to my family and to other families that have been involved in Police Brutality. I am praying that there is a way to put a stop to this. The beating that my son got at the hands of the police he did no deserve. No one deserves that. As a mother do they know the pain I am in? My son is the real one suffering from this police brutality.
“When he looks in the mirror, he is reminded everyday what has happened to him. Then (to be forced) to leave the hospital after only 2 days, go straight to jail, not seeing or hearing from his family, and his family not hearing anything from him. And then the police tried to cover it all up. There was no need for all they have done to him.
“What I would like done to the police officer Asher is for him to be out of a job and put in jail. And for the others who were involved to lose their job as well. (We need to) Sweep out the other police officers who have committed brutality. Clean up the police department so this will never happen again. Taxpayers do not want their money wasted on Police Brutality.
“I am sorry I am unable to make any of these meetings. I am disabled and was in a car accident and am under doctor’s care. I speak to my son everyday, he thanks you so very much for your support. I ask for you to speak on behalf of me and my son and my family. His father Melvin Jones Jr. helps him as much as he can. I am a hurt mother. Beside all this I take depression pills and sleeping pills just so I do not have the nightmare of seeing my son rolled up like a baby in a pool of blood. This is what POLICE BRUTALITY has done to me. I know what it is doing to my son.”
The incident is being investigated by the SPD and the Hampden County District Attorney, which has also sent a copy of the video to the FBI. It’s also prompted calls for the re-establishment of a Police Commission with the power to review citizen complaints and discipline officers. An earlier Police Commission had been dissolved in 2005 and was eventually replaced, in 2007, with a civilian review board that had virtually no powers.
Officer Joseph Gentile, president of the patrol officers’ union, earlier released a statement calling the controversy about the Jones case “completely unwarranted at this point” and noting that the poor quality of the video makes it hard to see exactly what was happening. “Nothing on the video does, or could, reveal what danger the officers believed that Mr. Jones, by his actions, presented to them before he was subdued. All of these facts and more must be known to assess the actions of the officers during the arrest of Mr. Jones,” Gentile’s statement read. “Yet without knowing any of these essential facts, numerous persons, sadly including elected officials who should know better, have publicly denounced the actions of the officers and called for the firing of Off. Asher.”
Gentile also dismissed as “ridiculous” charges that the incident revealed racism in the SPD: “Hundreds, probably thousands of arrests in Springfield every year require the use of force. Black officers are frequently required to use force on white arrestees. White officers are frequently required to use force on black arrestees. The need for the use of force, and the amount of force needed, is a subjective matter dependent upon the actions of an arrestee. Force was used during Mr. Jones’ arrest because he resisted, not because he is black.”
Gentile’s statement also argued that it’s often necessary for officers to use force to handle potentially dangerous situations: “When people resist arrest, officers use the amount of force reasonably necessary to overcome their resistance. Officers are not expected to limit their use of force to the same force used by the person arrested. A police arrest is not some sort of sporting event. When individuals resist arrest officers can, and should, act decisively to end the confrontation and effect the arrest, thereby limiting the risk of harm to the officer and the individual arrested. If the arrestee reaches for a pocket or waistband while resisting, we are rightly concerned that the arrestee may be trying to bring out a weapon. We usually have no idea why a person is resisting arrest, but when it happens we must consider that the person may have committed a serious crime which we do not know about, and may be desperate to flee. Why else would the person resist? He may be desperate enough to kill. We have had members crippled and killed during arrests. Sometimes police work is an ugly business. That is why we are issued chemical weapons, impact weapons and firearms. We are trained in the use of those weapons, and attempt to use them in most effective and least injurious manner. But overcoming and subduing a healthy man resisting arrest cannot be perfectly scripted. And if an arrestee presents a risk of serious injury to an officer, such as by reaching for what may be a weapon, the officer has the right to, and will, defend him or herself as necessary.”
Gentile’s statement triggered a second controversy, over his description of calls for Asher’s punishment as resulting from a “lynch mob mentality.” That prompted a group of African-American clergy to ask the union for an apology for words they described as trivializing real cases of African-Americans lynchings in the past. Gentile responded that his choice of words were meant to convey a rush to judgment, and had nothing to do with race.
