{"article":{"id":8632,"heading":"Racial Profiling: America's Death Squads","author":"Excelsior","created":"2001-07-13 17:40:34","modified":"2005-08-15 00:36:26","last_modified":"Mon, 15 Aug 2005 07:36:26","article":"

Fwd:

Stories about Prince Georges County, MD, cop

abuses in a civil rights vacuum. Illustrates the

vicious cycle of buying problems and solutions

from the same people.

PG is next to DC. PG cops staked out an open air

drug market in DC, looking for MD plates. They

profiled Prince Jones, a Howard U student with a

full-time job, who was a \"young single black male

driving a nice car with MD plates in DC\". Assuming

he was there buying drugs, two cops followed him

for hours, back to MD, back to DC, on into VA where

he planned to visit his girlfriend.

After several hours Prince confronted one of the

cops, also black. Rather than show his badge, the

cop showed his gun and ordered Prince to get back

in his car. Prince wanted the MD cop unlawfully

impersonating a lawful VA cop to stop stalking him,

so he rammed the left front wheel of the cop's vehicle

to disable it. He didn't make a mark on the driver's

side door. The third time he approached to disable the

left front wheel, having established a pattern of

ramming that wheel and not touching the driver's

door, the cop fired sixteen shots, killing his stalking

victim for attempting to throw his steering alignment

off.

The cop claimed self-defense. He claimed he thought

he was following somebody else, successfully diverting

attention from the PG practice of death-squadding

profiled MD license plate vehicle owners spotted in

DC. Three months after Prince Jones was murdered,

the cop filed a charge against a man, alleging that he

thought Prince Jones was not that man, but an

associate of that man, which satisfied the FBI that

this was not a death-squadding instance according to

a policy of witch-hunting of young black males driving

nice cars with PG license plates if spotted in DC high-

crime areas.

PG cops have shot a lot of people, some innocent,

some unarmed and in custody, some twice.

http:\/\/washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/metro\/md\/princegeorges\/government\/police\/shootings\/

A Blue Wall of Silence

Killing with Impunity

Prince George's county police have shot and killed

at rates exceeding those of nearly any other large

force in the nation. (Series of articles)

http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/articles\/A49700-2001Jul11.html

Cases Tied To Killing Of Jones Are Dropped

By Ruben Castaneda

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, July 12, 2001; Page B01

Prince George's County prosecutors dropped two first-degree assault

charges yesterday against the man whom undercover Cpl. Carlton B.

Jones allegedly thought he was following the night he shot and killed

a Hyattsville MD man in Fairfax County VA.

Prince George's State's Attorney Jack B. Johnson said in an interview

that he dropped the charges against Derrell Lamont Gilchrist specifically

because Jones initiated the investigation. After Jones shot and killed Prince

C. Jones Jr. on Sept. 1, it was disclosed that the police department had

found Carlton Jones guilty of filing a false police report in a 1997 case

but that prosecutors had never been told of the finding.

Johnson announced in February that because of the guilty finding, he

would never again call Carlton Jones as a prosecution witness. He also

said then that he was dropping or reviewing 22 cases in which Jones

was the key investigator. But the charges against Gilchrist were dismissed

only yesterday.

Gilchrist's attorney, Douglas J. Wood, said he believes that the charges

were trumped up to \"create the impression Gilchrist was a dangerous

guy, to corroborate Carlton Jones's account that he shot at a bad guy.\"

He noted that although the first assault allegedly took place in July 2000,

Gilchrist was not named in a warrant until six weeks after Howard

University student Prince Jones was slain.

\"I don't know how we can explain to a jury that someone assaulted a

police officer and was not charged with that offense for three months,\"

Johnson said.

Prince George's police spokesman Royce Holloway said only that \"the

state's attorney has the right to make such determinations.\" Carlton

Jones's attorney did not return a telephone message left last evening.

Gregory L. Lattimer, a lawyer representing Prince Jones's mother in a

federal civil lawsuit against police, said the police account that Carlton

Jones thought he was shooting at Gilchrist is \"a concocted fairy tale they

have come up with in order to justify their utter stupidity in following

Prince Jones and blasting him to death.\"

Lattimer said Prince George's and Fairfax County police have testified

in depositions that Carlton Jones said he believed he was shooting at an

associate of Gilchrist's, not Gilchrist.

According to court records, the associate is 5 feet 9 inches tall. Gilchrist

is 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighs 250 pounds. Prince Jones was 6 feet 2

inches tall and about 200 pounds.

Police alleged that Gilchrist tried to run officers over in a car on July 13,

2000, but Gilchrist was not charged with the assault until Oct. 16. Four

days after police obtained the warrant, they tried to arrest Gilchrist, who

again tried to run them over and again eluded arrest, according to police

charging documents.

Johnson dropped both of those cases.

\"The fact [that Carlton Jones] lied in an official capacity has to undermine

anything he is related to,\" said Johnson, explaining why he dropped the

assault charges against Gilchrist.

Carlton Jones's fatal shooting of Prince Jones created a firestorm of

controversy and sparked a U.S. Department of Justice investigation,

which officials recently closed, saying that they found no evidence

contradicting Carlton Jones's contention that he acted in self-defense

when he fired 16 rounds at Prince Jones's back. Fairfax County

Commonwealth's Attorney Robert F. Horan Jr. had earlier declined

to prosecute the officer, saying he acted in self-defense.

Carlton Jones has told investigators that he was afraid for his life because

Prince Jones backed into his vehicle twice. [not a scratch on door! -B]

The series of events involving Gilchrist began with Carlton Jones, Johnson

said yesterday. On July 13, 2000, undercover county narcotics police officers

set up a meeting between Gilchrist and a confidential source in Hyattsville,

according to police charging documents.

The source asked Gilchrist to deliver a large amount of crack cocaine,

according to the charging documents. It was Jones who said a confidential

source was fingering Gilchrist as a drug dealer, Johnson said.

Gilchrist ignored orders by uniformed officers who tried to arrest him,

backing his truck toward officers and brushing one detective, the charging

documents alleged. Gilchrist then drove away, the documents state.

<\/p>\n","contact":"","link":"","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/plain","summary":"Three months after Prince Jones was murdered, the cop filed a charge against a man, alleging that he thought Prince Jones was not that man, but an associate of that man, which satisfied the FBI that this was not a death-squadding instance according to a policy of witch-hunting of young black males driving nice cars with PG license plates if spotted in DC high- crime areas.","numcomment":1,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/2001\/07\/racial_pro.txt","filesize":"6.8 kibibytes","article_url":"\/news\/2001\/07\/8632.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[]}