(October 26, 2018 at 11:18 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/26/us/wh...k-men.html
Quote:How ‘Gardening While Black’ Almost Landed This Detroit Man in Jail
Quote:The trouble started in the summer of 2017 with the colors red, black and green. Mr. Peeples painted the color bands on a tree and on the porch of a gutted home facing the park. He said they were the colors of liberation, of Pan Africanism. The women said they were the colors of a gang.
It wasn’t long before the three women were calling the police.
“We were like, ‘You can’t paint them trees.’ That’s when the threats started. He yelled it out from the field. He said he would kill us, burn down our homes and kill our dogs too, so we went and filed the police reports,” Ms. Morris, 37, said in an interview. “We went down to the prosecuting attorney’s office and told our story and it went to court. We didn’t want it to go that far. We just wanted the threats to stop.”
Until that point, the two sides mostly stayed away from each other. But in March, just as the weather broke and Mr. Peeples returned to the garden for another season, the police received a report that he had a gun. Six officers in three cars responded. It turned out that Mr. Peeples had a rake, for gathering leaves. The police soon left.
“Now I know these women are calling the police on me all the time, but I didn’t know how deep it was, that they were accusing me of threatening to burn the house down, threatening to kill the dogs,” Mr. Peeples said.
Two months later, Mr. Peeples hosted a group of home-school children at the garden. As they planted cabbage, carrots and wildflowers, the police showed up once again. During cross-examination at the trial, Ms. Callahan admitted that she called 911 and told the police that Mr. Peeples had been convicted of sexual misconduct, according to Mr. Burton-Harris and Judge Bryant.
Ms. Callahan, 74, testified that she had called the principals of nearby schools to warn them about Mr. Peeples, but offered no evidence to corroborate her testimony.
Shortly after, Mr. Peeples was arrested on three counts of stalking charges based on the earlier claims that he had threatened the women. Each count carried a sentence of up to a year in jail.
In court last week, Judge Bryant described the women’s testimony as inconsistent, without credibility and part of a strategic campaign against Mr. Peeples. In one example that came out in court, Ms. Nash admitted she hired Mr. Peeples to paint a house after she accused him of threatening her.
“This is disgusting and a waste of the court’s time and resources,” Judge Bryant said, who added that she found the case upsetting.
“These ladies testified they made the initial contact with him, not the other way around,” she said in an interview. “They testified that they called the police and the parks and recreation department and they followed him to the bus stop and said he was in a gang and had a gun. That is the definition of harassment.”
“From the bottom of my heart, I believe race was a motivating factor and an injustice has been done to this man,” Judge Bryant said.
Some old biddies committed crimes, they should do some time.
If you get to thinking you’re a person of some influence, try ordering somebody else’s dog around.
