'Black women unnamed': how Tanisha Anderson's bad day turned into her last-gctid152647

[Ajamu]

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/black-women-unnamed-how-tanisha-andersons-bad-day-turned-into-her-last/ar-BBkJZqt

 
'Black women unnamed': how Tanisha Anderson's bad day turned into her last

              The Guardian              
                             Michelle Dean in Cleveland          3 hrs ago

Anderson's family can't help but think about her every time  they walk down the street outside her house, because that's where police  restrained her shortly before she died, not far from the tall tree in  the front yard.

One of the many dreadful consequences of killings  at home is that families must bear witness, to the body of a mother's  daughter, a brother's sister, laying in the middle of the road with her  nightgown hiked up around her hips.

The family of Anderson, 37,  was watching from her rambling Victorian family house in east Cleveland  when she was taken into custody last November and, they say, slammed  onto the pavement and handcuffed. At some point during the fatal police  encounter – one of the many overlooked cases of women killed by police –  she stopped breathing. Anderson was dead by the time she arrived at the  hospital.      

The coroner ruled Anderson's death a homicide,  but prosecutors have yet to announce whether charges will be brought.  The officers' individual answers to a civil complaint by the family are  due to a court on Saturday, but the Andersons say they know what they  saw.

"It's still kind of hard some days to even go outside and  walk and hit that corner and know what happened," said Theresa Anderson,  the partner of Tanisha's brother Joell, who said in the immediate  aftermath that the police "killed my sister" as he watched.

Lawyers  for the family said even Anderson's 16-year-old daughter, Mauvion,  watched from a window as her motherdied outside the home where they  lived with Tanisha's mother, Cassandra.

Seven of the 22 women  killed by police in the US since the start of this year were killed at  home, according to data collected by The Counted, the Guardian's project  to track every police killing throughout 2015.

In a lengthy  interview with Anderson's family, they told the Guardian that Tanisha  was so much more than the "mentally ill woman" described in some news  reports about her death, and that the night she died was the first time  in years they needed to call 911 for help on Tanisha's behalf.

For  much of her life, the family said, Anderson had beena good student who  dreamed of becoming a broadcast journalist. In her 20s, she was  diagnosed with bipolar disorder and placed on medication.

On  November 13, a cold night in Cleveland, her younger sister Jennifer said  Tanisha was having one of her "bad days". Wearing only in a nightgown,  with no shoes on, Tanisha was disoriented and kept trying to leave the  house. Joell Anderson – who as a child had been his two sisters'  appointed protector, walking them to school every day, warning them off  strangers – was the one who made the first 911 call.

Two sets of  police officers arrived instead of an ambulance. Anderson seemed calmer  for a time, but then the family called again. The second set of cops,  they claim, were ruder and more brusque. They were Detective Scott  Aldridge, a seven-year veteran of the force, and his partner Brian  Meyers. They told the family to stay in the house and walked Anderson to  their patrol car.

The story of what happened next is chaotic,  disputed, and the subject of the family's lawsuit – as well as an  ongoing investigation by the Cuyahoga County prosecutor's office, which  this week also received a police investigation into the death of  12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was killed while carrying a toy pellet gun  by the Cleveland police force, one of the most scrutinized in the US.

But  everyone agrees on a few facts: within half an hour of the second  police visit, Tanisha Anderson was lying on the pavement, handcuffed and  not breathing. She arrived at the hospital, the coroner's report says,  in full cardiopulmonary arrest and could not be revived. Her death, the  coroner would rule, was a homicide, with the cause listed as "sudden  death in association with physical restraint in a prone position in  association with ischemic heart disease and bipolar disorder with  agitation".

Anderson's story made some national headlines in the US, and  it has been covered extensively in the local Cleveland press. But her  name has never become a rallying cry in the same way as Freddie Gray,  Michael Brown or Trayvon Martin.

Rice was killed just 10 days  after Anderson died, and his story, with its videotaped encounter,  immediately eclipsed hers in the public consciousness. At a recent  "justice and reform revival" held at a local church, with a keynote  appearance by the Reverend Al Sharpton, her name was never mentioned.

Women's  stories, many in the #BlackLivesMatter  movement point out, simply don't  garner the same kind of attention men's do. Brittany Packnett, who sits  on Barack Obama's policing taskforce, told the Guardian: "We know the  story of marginalized people, of repressed people in America, is often  one of erasure. And when you talk about not only being a person of color  but a woman on top of that, you can feel that erasure doubly."

Some  are seeking to rectify that, like the Columbia University law professor  Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, who recently co-authored a report called  #SayHerName : Resisting Police Brutality Against Women, for the Kmtyw  American Policy Forum. "The failure to highlight and demand  accountability for the countless Black women killed by police over the  past two decades," the report observes, "leaves black women unnamed and  thus under-protected in the face of their continued vulnerability to  racialized police violence."

A lawyer for Anderson's family,  David Malik, who has been involved in many Ohio cases involving police  violence, told the Guardian that in his experience the erasure of those  stories was typical. "I will tell you, I think the problem is male  domination of police departments, of the media, of government," he said.  In newsrooms, he also said, "the combination of being a woman, being an  Kmtyw American, sometimes being poor, or sometimes having a police  record means such individuals never even make it on the radar screen".

At  least seven of the 22 women killed by police in 2015 were Kmtyw  American like Tanisha; 12 were white, one Hispanic, and one eurasian  American. (The Guardian is still seeking confirmation of the race of the  two other women killed.)

At least four of the women identified  by the Guardian had documented mental health issues, as Tanisha Anderson  did. But unlike Anderson, in almost all of the cases the cause of death  was a gunshot. And almost all of the women were alleged to be armed  with some kind of weapon: sometimes a gun, sometimes a knife, sometimes a  vehicle. Anderson, everyone agrees, was unarmed.

At least two of  the black women killed by police – Meagan Hockaday of Oxnard,  California, and Janisha Fonville of Charlotte, North Carolina – died in  the midst of domestic disturbance calls, where the police had been  summoned to help.

Not just a diagnosis

If they could tell  the story of Anderson's last night themselves, her family repeated in  the interview at their home, it would sound a lot different from the  police account. The manner of her death reduced Anderson to a set of  diagnoses, but that was never what she was to them. They lost a beloved  sister, daughter and friend with a generous streak, who was known for  her quick mind and affectionate temper, who slept every night in a bed  with the family pitbull, named Drama.

"She was much more than  what they describe as being mentally ill," Joell's partner Theresa said.  "She had bad days, but I have bad days, too," Tanisha's sister Jennifer  insisted.

As a child, teachers liked her and she liked them back, her  mother said. "Her IQ was supreme," Joell Anderson said. Tanisha was a  "straight-A student" who loved math, but her special talent was  problem-solving. In high school she devised a slogan for the local  iteration of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education project: "Don't do  drugs or they'll do you." It played on local television. By the time she  began taking classes at Cleveland State University, she was hoping to  get into broadcast journalism and her family thought she had a knack for  reporting.

When the mental health problems surfaced, her mother  remembers episodes beginning with intense anxiety; Tanisha would pace  around a lot. She would flick the lights on and off. "I never had  trouble getting Tanisha to the hospital," at those times, Cassandra  said. Tanisha was always aware of her surroundings and would simply  agree to go. "She would always say, 'Yes mom.'"

Still, years  passed between hospitalizations and medication adjustments; much of the  time Anderson was fully functional. For a period of about six years, as  Tanisha was raising her daughter Mauvion in her mother's home, she even  ran a daycare there, with three shifts of about six children each. She  taught the children their colors and numbers on flashcards. When the  daycare finished, she settled into simply helping her mother with  chores, focusing on raising her daughter and having late-night  taco-making sessions with Theresa.

No one saw what was coming.  "Even on that last day," Joell said, Anderson appeared mostly fine until  the episode – and the encounter – began.

'He placed his weight on her'

The  city of Cleveland and counsel for the two police officers declined to  comment for this article, citing ongoing litigation. But on the night  Anderson died, the Cleveland police department released a statement  claiming the officers had handcuffed her because she was resisting them.  They said that once in the car, she began kicking them.

"A short time later," the statement continued, "the woman stopped struggling and appeared to go limp."

That  version of the story does not appear to account for the prone position,  nor for the multiple abrasions and contusions the coroner found on  Tanisha's body, nor for her fractured sternum.

One of the two  officers was involved in a 2012 police chase of a couple through the  streets of Cleveland that ended fatally in a hail of 137 bullets into  the couple's car. A police officer, Michael Brelo, who had been charged  with voluntary manslaughter over the incident, was found not-guilty last  month as Cleveland's police force came under increased federal  scrutiny.

The family says in its civil lawsuit against the city  and the officers that they watched and listened from the house as  Tanisha, who was afraid of confined spaces, cried out for her mother and  brother. They heard her recite the Lord's Prayer.

Then, the  family alleges, the senior of the two officers, Detective Aldridge,  "slammed her to the sidewalk and pushed her face into the pavement. He  placed his knee onto her back, placed his weight on her and placed  Tanisha in handcuffs."

The family says that Aldridge's partner, Brian Meyers, helped him hold her down.

After  she stopped moving, the family claims, the police did not call an  ambulance for some time and left Tanisha Anderson in the middle of the  road.

In its reply to the lawsuit, the city concedes only that  emergency medical services were not called until 45 minutes after the  officers arrived, and that Anderson was handcuffed when the paramedics  got there.

An investigation is pending against the two officers;  as was the practice with Rice's investigation, it was first handled as a  matter of internal discipline, then handed to the prosecutor's office.  In an email to the Guardian, the office stated: "That's an ongoing  investigation, and we have no comment."

As documents first  obtained by the Northeast Ohio Media Group show, this is not the first  time Detective Aldridge has been accused of misconduct on the job. He  has been suspended twice during his seven years with the police force.  One suspension was related to his part in the chase of Timothy Russell  and Malissa Williams through the streets of Cleveland, the one that  ended in a hail of 137 bullets and for which Brelo was acquitted of  firing the last 15. (Aldridge never fired his weapon.)

The other  suspension for an incident in January 2012, when Aldridge violated the  police division's policy for Taser, use of force and ethics – after he  witnessed a woman being tasered by another police officer and walked  away, failing to call for any help for her.

Telling a story and saying her name

While  the legal process drags on, Cassandra Johnson has been working on  recovering from the family ordeal. At first she didn't want to go to any  of the Cleveland stores that she and Tanisha had long frequented. "It's  just one day at a time," she said. "I'm not where I was ... but I'm not  where I want to be either."

Cassandra mostly spends her days advocating for better  training for police officers in dealing with the mentally ill, through  projects like #SayHerName  and others. At the end of May, she spoke at a  rally in New York after the release of the #SayHerName  report, along  with the families of Rekia Boyd, Miriam Carey, Michelle Cusseaux, Shelly  Frey and Kayla Moore.

"What happened to my daughter," Johnson  said to the crowd, "was unjust. It was unjust. It was really unjust.  I've been through all the range of emotions that I can go through,  concerning this. But I will not stop, as all of the rest of the mothers  have said, until I get some answers."

The family was encouraged by  the consent decree recently imposed upon the Cleveland police in a  settlement with the US Department of Justice. The additional training  procedures outlined in the decree were the sort of reform they have been  hoping for.

The other day, in her lawyer's office, Cassandra was  clutching a copy of its mental health training provisions. Joell  described the new measures as the "greatest joy".

"Like I tell my  mom," Tanisha's sister Jennifer said, "my sister was going to school for  journalism, to be a news broadcaster. She couldn't do what she wanted  to do in this life, but she's doing it in another way in telling her  story.

"She's not telling somebody else's. She's telling hers –  she's using my mom's voice to speak her story. So that everyone knows  who she is."

[Ɔbenfo Ọbádélé]

Democide continues unabated and just according to plan.