“Police Said” (1978/1997)

PROUD FLESH: A New Afrikan Journal of Culture, Politics & Consciousness (2003)

ISSN: 1094-2254

“Police Said” (1978/1997)

Brian Gilmore

“A Prince George’s County district court judge set bond at $1 million yesterday for Terrence G. Johnson, the 15-year old Bladensburg youth accused of fatally shooting two Prince George’s County police officers.”

The Washington Post (June 28, 1978)

“...something bad must have happened in that police station to make him do something like that.”

Leroy Campbell, Neighbor of Terrence Johnson
The Washington Post (June 27, 1978)

“It is just not logical that an average 15 year old boy would shoot two police officers...[t]here must have been extenuating circumstances.”

Victor Houlon, Attorney for Terrence Johnson at the Bond Hearing
The Washington Post (June 27, 1978)

My friend Fats had a gun that didn’t work. He took it from his father who was a Lieutenant on the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police force. An all black .357 Magnum with a dismantled trigger mechanism and a bullet jammed in the end of barrel. Fats’s father wanted to be sure. That night, while we all sat in Fats’s car, Fats playfully waved it at people in a 7-Eleven convenience store parking lot in Prince George’s County, Maryland. P.G. County, as we called it, was just over the Washington D.C. border. That’s where we all lived. Fats was a goddamned fool. But we were all laughing. Cool, Brick, Fats and myself. Moments ago, it was funny; we had been inside that 7-Eleven shoplifting junkfood for kicks: Slim Jims, candy bars, ice cream sandwiches, bumble gum, bags of peanuts. A 7-Eleven store in P.G. County, Maryland. Home of the meanest, most reckless police officers in the world as far as we knew.

“A group of Prince George’s County police detectives became widely known on the force as the ‘Death Squad’ after police planned an armed robbery in June 1967, lured two teenagers into committing it and then shot and killed one of them during the robbery, according to a former member of that detective squad...”

The Washington Post (February 11, 1979)

“...85 percent of the black community and 40 percent of the white population ‘[believe] police brutality to be be a serious problem in the county.’”

The Washington Post (March 25, 1979)

“25 percent of the blacks in the county believe that when ‘the Prince George’s County police arrest someone, that person’s life is in danger’.”

The Washington Post (March 25, 1979)

Prince George’s County police officers were known to maim and kill Black men. One story I had heard had a Black man getting shot in the back of the head when he bolted out the front of a police station trying to escape. He had been charged with stealing a ham or something. The officer who shot him in the head said he was aiming for the man’s legs.

We got pulled over by a Prince George’s County police officer right after we left that 7-Eleven parking lot. Right before we made it back over the line. Someone must have called the police on us and told them about Fats waving that .357 Magnum at people like a goddamned fool. I remember too; I heard the siren and saw the flashing red and blue lights, saw him get out of his squad car and remove his gun from his holster as he approached us like he was Clint Eastwood. He was white. His blue and gray county officer uniform was impeccably neat. Creases in the shirt and slacks. Dark blue tie didn’t have a wrinkle. Could probably see the moon in his shoes they were so shiny.

“Tail light is out,” he said to Fats as he walked up.

He didn’t put his gun away. I knew we were fucked. In minutes, there were police cars and police officers everywhere. All of the police officers were white and impeccably dressed. They all had their guns out too. The officer who pulled us over pointed his gun at the car right in Fats’s face. Some of the other officers did the same.

“Exit the vehicle! All of you. And get your fucking hands up!,” the first officer yelled.

“Keep them hands where we can see them!”

“Assume the goddamn position!”

“I said assume the goddamned position!”

“Don’t move, niggers!”

“Do you see these guns, boy?!”

“Let me see some hands.”

“I said, let me see some hands!”

We were not laughing anymore. We were all on the car in the position. We just kept looking at each other with a look of doom on our faces. Fats was on the car shaking like he was an alcoholic who needed a drink. Brick was shaking too. Cool began telling me jokes to ward off the doom. Cool always did this when we were in a tough spot. It was his way of trying to remain calm and in control. I wasn’t laughing. I was looking at Fats. Stupid ass Fats. But all I could think of at that moment for some reason was the first time I watched Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. The movie shook me bad. For weeks afterwards when I would take a shower, I would leave the shower curtain open. Crazy ass Anthony Perkins wasn’t going to stab me with a fucking knife.

I looked at Fats again; he was still shaking. Poor Fats, he was like a giant tambourine in some Pentecostal church service. Brick was a tambourine too. Cool was still trying to tell me jokes. I was thinking of Linda Blair in the movie, The Exorcist, possessed by the devil and speaking in a voice that was not of this world. And then Linda’s head spins around slowly in a circle. Unreal kind of shit. Freaked me out the first time I saw that too.

The police officers find the gun. They are pissed off. More cops show up. They are white and their guns are drawn.

“Don’t try to run niggers!” I get kicked in my legs several times. Fats, Cool and Brick get kicked in their legs too. They began searching us but it felt more like we are being beat up on. They keep yelling in our faces.

“Spread your legs boy!”

“Where are the rest of the guns?”

“Where are the bullets?!”

“Where are the drugs?!”

“Who were y’all going to rob?!”

“Assume the goddamn position!”

“Let me see some hands!”

“I dare y’all to run. See that officer behind you with that 12-gauge shotgun pointed straight at your heads, niggers. His gun is locked and loaded. He is not shaking. He is not afraid!” I glance back. An officer is right behind us with the shotgun. It is pointed right at our heads.

“Don’t try to escape! Y’all probably think this gun thing is funny. Waving guns at people is not funny.”

Fats tries to tell the police officers that the gun doesn’t work. He tells them it has no trigger mechanism and a bullet is plugging the barrel. Fats says it is his father’s gun and his father took the trigger apart years ago. My father, Fats says, is a Lieutenant on the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police force.

“Fats needs to shut the fuck up,” Cool suddenly whispers to me, “they don’t give a fuck about that shit. They are going to shoot us. Remember that kid Terrence Johnson, he shot and killed two Prince George’s County cops about three weeks ago. They were beating the shit out of him in the police interrogation room. He’s locked up awaiting trial. They remember, that’s why they want us to try to run and shit, they want it to look like we tried to bolt so they can shoot us.”

“Stop whispering over there,” one of the other cops says. “You two like to whisper, tell us what the fuck you are whispering about!” Cool stops talking to me.

“Where are the bullets?,” the cop who stopped us says. “This gun doesn’t work but where are the bullets!”

“We should take you niggers in,” another cop yells, “we can take you in and you know that, even if the gun doesn’t work!”

“Keep your hands where they are, niggers! Y’all were going to rob somebody. If you pulled out this gun, you could rob someone even though the gun doesn’t work, you know that, right?” He waves the gun in our faces. He looks right at me and Cool. “Ain’t that right?!,” he yells. We nod our heads in affirmation.

They search us. They search the car. They do not find the bullets. They run our names through the system. Nothing comes back. We are all clean. Bastards, I say to myself, you fucking bastards.

“We are going to let y’all go,” the cop who stopped us says. Fats and Brick calm down. Cool stops cracking jokes and is not talking to me anymore. “But don’t let us see you around here anymore.”

We get into our car. They are still yelling at us as we get in. They are putting their guns away. Fats starts the engine and begins driving away slowly. We head back home to the city. I am calm now.

We cross the county line back over to the city where it is safe. Fats drives slow. No one is talking in the car. There are some Slim Jims on the floor. Candy bars. Bags of peanuts. I don’t have a taste for anything. It is completely quiet in the car. I stare out the car window back across the Prince George’s County line where three weeks ago two white police officers were killed by a 15 year old, skinny Black boy named Terrence Johnson. Terrence says that the officers were beating him up in the interrogation room, kicked him in the groin, called him a nigger, a Black motherfucker, choked him, punched him in the face, and held him down on the ground for a whole minute for no reason. He thought they were going to kill him. No one will ever know if he was telling the truth. He killed those two police officers.

I look back again across the Prince George’s County line. Everything is good. I close my eyes as Fats drives over the border. I doze off and begin to dream:

Alfred Hitchcock is standing in the middle of the street shaking a tambourine like he is in some Pentecostal church service. In the other hand he is holding a gun up in the air that does not work. Alfred looks at me and begins laughing loud and scary in a voice that is not of this world. His head begins to spin around in a circle just like Linda Blair in the movie, The Exorcist. Alfred is wearing a police officer’s uniform.

“The wrenching saga of Terrence Johnson, convicted as a teenage cop-killer from Prince George’s County and released from prison as a promising college graduate, ended yesterday on his 34th birthday. He put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger after a foiled bank robbery in Aberdeen, Md., police said.”

The Washington Post (February 28, 1997)