Hairston apartment residents angered by detention of boys by police

That night, residents say, five teenage boys were handcuffed and detained. As residents gathered around, including mothers and other family members of the boys, they became outraged and challenged the police’s judgment. The police appear to have been caught in a standoff for a time as they attempted to contain the crowd. Finally, the boys were driven to the parking lot at nearby St. James Baptist Church and released without charge.

“I had to tell everybody to go home,” said LaTonya Stimpson, a Hairston resident and mother of four, who is the aunt of one of the boys who was detained. “I said [to the police]: ‘Y’all are making the situation worse. These people are in an uproar because of what you’re doing to minors.’ They said, ‘You’re being belligerent.’ I told them: ‘This community is so oppressed.’” Several residents have been embroiled in a dispute with Hairston apartments, which is owned by a nonprofit associated with Shiloh Baptist Church and operated by Westminster Co. The city recently settled a civil discrimination lawsuit with Hairston apartments and Westminster Co. that was filed on Stimpson’s behalf. Residents complain that the apartments lack adequate play areas for their children, several units are infested with bedbugs and management imposes draconian rules that make it easy for residents to rack up violations and face eviction. Several residents have filed complaints with the city’s fair housing office and obtained findings of discrimination on familial basis against management.

Tension between residents and police officers assigned to patrol the apartment complex falls along similar lines, with residents complaining that the police seem to turn a blind eye to lawbreaking while harassing residents who aren’t doing anything wrong.

The tensions that erupted on June 26 unfolded from a series of events that appears to have begun with a fight near Florida Grocery, a store in the Freeman Mill Shopping Center adjacent to Smith Homes. Hairston apartments is located just north of the much larger Smith Homes, which is owned and operated by the Greensboro Housing Authority. Marsh Street divides the two public housing communities.

LaTonya Stimpson said she learned from one of the officers that the police witnessed the fight at the store, in which “a number of boys had one boy squashed down on the ground.” As the officer described it to Stimpson, “We literally had to peel the dude off the ground.”

LaTonya Stimpson said she received a phone call at 10:31 p.m. notifying her that her nephew, 15-year-old Marque Stimpson, had been detained. Marque Stimpson identified the two officers as McPhatter and Caviness. LaTonya Stimpson said she believes they were assigned to work off-duty at Hairston apartments that night. Apparently, the officers thought Marque was the boy who administered the beating in front of the store, because they released him and told LaTonya they had the wrong person. LaTonya said she pointed out another boy who was shirtless and walked through the housing complex acting belligerent to the police, but they did not take any action. She went back to her apartment, she said, assuming that the incident was over.

“As I’m walking in my house I was about to sit down on my porch I saw people running,” LaTonya Stimpson said. “I said [to the police], ‘Call back-up, call back-up.’ I said, ‘Y’all just allowed the enemy to come in.’ I said, ‘Go over there. It’s getting ready to be a big fi ght.’ I had my baby in my hands.

My son ran over there.” Marque Stimpson and his friend, 15-yearold Trevon Jennings, said the opposing group was the aggressor. There were three or four grown men and some teenagers who were perhaps 17 or 18 years old on the other side. One of the men, the Hairston residents said, was a one-legged drug dealer and member of the Bloods street gang whose street name is Charlie Black. LaTonya Stimpson said she saw Charlie Black charging one of the boys with a crutch. A bystander swatted LaTonya’s 16-year-old son, Quentin Dick, out of the way to keep him from being struck by Charlie Black, she said.

Marque Stimpson said the men who hang out with Charlie Black in front of the store had complained that they were “making the block hot” by prompting unwanted attention from the police.

“I had my gun on me,” Marque said one of the men had told him. “I could have gotten arrested.” “He has one leg and he sits at the store and sells drugs,” LaTonya Stimpson said of Charlie Black. “It got shot off on the east side. They ran him off. Now he’s over here, and he’s trying to recruit little boys to be down with him, to sell drugs and kill people…. The little boys are not following his orders and regulations.” Gloria Rankin, the resident council president at Smith Homes, said Charlie Black is well known in her community.

“Sad to say, but because of where we’re located and because of the activity at the store, it fi lters down to the community,” she said. “It gives us a bad rep. They hang out there and sell their drugs, and we get stigmatized for it. It’s not the residents. Mostly everything that happens is from people that do not live here.” Rankin said she doubts that any of the men and teenagers fi ghting with the Hairston apartment boys were residents of Smith Homes.

“I know for a fact that there’s not a rivalry between the two communities,” she said. “They travel through here and they have friends here. Nine times out of 10, they’re probably not from here.”

A police incident report roughly matching the time and location of the second fi ght lists Ricky Gerard Dawkins, 31, of High Point, as the victim of a simple physical assault and suffering minor injuries. The listed offi cer is Marcus McPhatter, assigned to Squad H in the Southern Division. His supervisor is Cpl. RR Chapman. The fi ght was over in about two or three minutes, Marque Stimpson said, and the Hairston apartment boys appeared to get the best of it.

“They people was beat up bad,” Trevon Jennings remarked. The boys were walking along Marsh Street, and LaTonya said she had come back from her apartment after checking on her youngest children when she saw six offi cers approaching. She said she warned the boys to stop cursing because the police would arrest them. Marque Stimpson said three offi cers slammed him down on a bare patch of ground between the sidewalk on Marsh Street and a parking lot on the Smith Homes side of the street. “Two of them were holding my arms,” Marque Stimpson said. “One stepped on my back. They had my face in the dirt. I couldn’t breathe.” At one point, Marque Stimpson said, he was allowed to sit up, and an offi cer whom he identifi ed as McPhatter stepped on his handcuffed wrists. Three days later he showed an indention in his wrist, which he said was caused by the cuffs cutting into his fl esh, and a handful of other scratches and bruises that he said were caused by the police. YES! Weekly could not independently confi rm that the markings were caused by the police incident. “When they were putting their knees and foot on his back, I said, ‘Get off my homeboy,’” Trevon Jennings recalled. “The offi cer said, ‘Back up,’ and I didn’t back up.

They sent another offi cer to get me.” Trevon’s mother, Tania Long, was on the scene almost immediately, and gave the police her son’s name, date of birth and address. She said that by that time there were about 20 police cars on the scene. “I asked the police, I said, ‘That’s my child,’” Long recalled. “He said, ‘His ass is going to jail.’… He said, ‘He been fi ghting. I don’t have to deal with it.’ I said, ‘Can I talk to him?’ I’m standing right beside the car. He wouldn’t even let me talk to him. He asked, could I give him the information on Tre? I gave him the information.” Jamar Stimpson, 16, who is also LaTonya Stimpson’s nephew, threw his hands up in surrender. LaTonya Stimpson said she challenged the police’s right to detain the boys, addressing a sergeant whose name she did not learn. “I said, ‘They’re not even charged with nothing, Sergeant,’” Stimpson recounted.

“He asks his offi cers that are right there on Marsh Street, and said, ‘What are these boys charged with?’ They looked at each other dumbfounded. I said, ‘Exactly.’ The sergeant said, ‘Ma’am, we’re going to release them. We just got to get them to another area to get this crowd calmed down.’” Officers reportedly involved in the incident could not be reached for comment. Lt. Hope Newkirk, executive assistant to Chief Tim Bellamy said the offi cers were notifi ed of YES! Weekly’s inquiry into the matter and given the option of talking to a reporter, but all declined.

“They know who the guys are who were fi ghting,” Tania Long said. “We’re saying, ‘Why didn’t y’all go arrest them? They’re adults. These are teenage boys. None of them are 17.

“The police just have really nasty attitudes,” she added. “They talk down.”