On a cold night in N. Y. my four friends and I were sitting on my friend’s porch at about 11: 00p. m. listening to the radio and along comes a cop and arrests us all. My friend’s mother tried to tell the cop that we were there all night but he didn’t care and arrested us anyway. The cop would not tell us why we were being arrested; he just read us our rights while waiting for the paddy wagon to arrive. We kept asking him what we did and why we were being arrested but he wouldn’t tell us. He said, “ You know why I am arresting you!” but we had no idea. After they took us down to be processed; they separated us all then took us all into a small office individually and asked which one of us was the one who shot the two gang members a few blocks over from my friends house. The two gangs in our area were the Nomads and Elderodoes. After he talked to all of us they put us into a cell together. There had to be twenty five guys that were their that were arrested for the same reason, which told me they had no idea who did the shooting so they just arrested everyone that was in the area.
In the little room they told us all at different times that we were identified by a witness down the block and that if we told the truth they would let us go. We didn’t know that cops could lie to you, but we kept insisting anyway the truth, which was we had nothing to do with it. This lasted for hours past my curfew and I knew my parents were going to be pissed, at least until the police called them and told them we were in the Nassau County Jail, I thought they would kill me. I didn’t know what was worse breaking curfew or telling them I was in Jail. Either way I knew I was going to get my butt beat by my parents when I finally was released, if I did get released. I come from the old school where your parents beat your butt for everything. When they found I was going to be charged with murder I thought they would disown me. After holding all of us for what seemed like forever, we were all released to our parents custody.
They next day their was two other murders done by the other gang members in retaliation of their members being killed. This proved that we weren’t involved which is what we all kept trying to tell the police. I feel they could have resolved the situation by not arresting us especially since we had a witness, my friends mother that said we were their all night and never left the porch. They should have also realized it wasn’t us when they looked us up and not one had a record, not even a parking ticket. My intensions to clarify the situation were to tell them most gang members have records for things like drugs and stealing. If you are picking up five kids without records and they have a witness that said we were their all night then it usually means you have the wrong people. The basis for us being picked up was racial as the officer through his actions and statements basically stated that kids sitting in a group that are black must be up to no good. Racism in the country will never be totally resolved which since everyone in America has ancestors from somewhere else, America can be a sad place at times, and nothing seems to change that fact and I don’t think anything ever will..
