Mountain (In)justice

A Class 1 misdemeanor in Virginia is the highest of the misdemeanor classifications. It's punishable by up to 12 months in jail, as opposed to prison, and is punishable with a fine of up to $2,500.

All of the links in this blog are redirects to videos, audio, and an independently published article supporting my claims. This is the true story of what happened to me.

On October 5th 2016, I was charged with a Class 1 Misdemeanor and served with an Order of Protection. The incident that lead to the criminal complaint occurred just before 9am outside of a Mitchelltown, Virginia convenience store. I was stopped in the parking lot by the plaintiff who, per his sworn statement to the Magistrate and the court, "followed me out of the store." The content of our conversation is still disputed, but no one disputed the fact that I was leaving the store when the plaintiff followed me and provoked our confrontation. The plaintiff's initial statement to the police, his statement to the court, the store surveillance video used at my November 16th trial, and eyewitness testimony confirmed this.  

I was accused of threatening to kill man (in public) and creating a public disturbance. In his statement to the Magistrate, the plaintiff said, “He then reached in his pocket; not sure what he had I turned and walked ‘by’ into the store.” What I reached for was my phone. I thought he was going to say I hit him, so I started recording. When I ended the recording I had 25 seconds of video. I left the store thinking everything was over only to be visited two hours later during my live radio show by a member of law enforcement who gave me a chance to tell my side of the story. At the completion of our talk I was assured nothing more would come of this situation. I look back and regret not letting the official know about my video. I didn't let anyone associated with law enforcement see the video I recorded. Approximately 13 hours after the incident I was told by a coworker at my 2nd job that I needed to stop by the Sheriff’s Office before I went home. Before I went inside the Sheriff’s office I used my phone and some recording equipment to wire myself. I left with a 19-min mp3 that further complicated an already frustrating situation. In the Commonwealth of Virginia, it's legal for citizens to record conversations with law enforcement. Once I got home, I made copies of the audio and video files I recorded and emailed them to a few people I trust. The misinformation I received from the deputy who processed my paperwork made me feel like I was being set up. I was so paranoid that I mistook his ignorance of the law with malice. The very next day (Thursday) I made a video detailing the events from the day before, and on Friday I retained legal counsel: a local attorney I trust and a Black woman from Richmond connected to several civil rights organizations.

On October 19th, two weeks after the incident, the protective order against me was dropped and replaced with a no contact order. I was given a strict warning not to be in the immediate proximity of the plaintiff ahead of my November 16th trial. In the two week period between the accusation and my first court appearance I was treated like I was already guilty by many people in my community. I had a cadre of very supportive people: young, old, rich, poor, black, and white, but they were indeed in the minority. There were people I worked with on various projects over the last few years who treated me like I was Hannibal Lector. My wife and I traveled every weekend just to get away from the constant questions about that morning. For 6 weeks, I lived under a presumption of guilt. I was (incorrectly) told by the deputy who served my warrant that I wouldn’t be able to attend county government meetings because of the protective order: thus limiting my ability to participate in some very important local issue. On several occasions before my preliminary hearing Bath County Sheriff's Deputies publicly and privately admitted they knew the plaintiff had been causing problems with other citizens, but felt powerless to act. When I asked what was being done to protect other citizens from this kind of abuse I was told, “We know what’s going on.” They truly believed their knowledge of the problem was a viable remedy to it.

In the weeks before my confrontation with the plaintiff I faced incredible harassment: I had horse manure delivered to my day job multiple times, I received a threatening phone call from an elected official the day before I was confronted, and I had another elected official threaten to cut funds to a non profit organization I'm affiliated with. For as bad as the harassment was in the weeks before the confrontation, things proceeded to get worse. Someone close to the plaintiff contacted two venues I was scheduled to give talks at and tried to get my speaking engagements cancelled. I had to suspend a business opportunity that was planned for November due to the loss of revenue that came from canceling speaking engagements and the legal expenses I incurred. Even though the case was dismissed, my family and church suffered immensely: my mother lost close to 20 pounds worrying about the outcome of my trial, my wife spent six weeks answering questions about my mental stability, and our church came under undue scrutiny for having ordained someone like me.

This story really got confusing after I was found not guilty. The Commonwealth’s Attorney for Bath County didn’t want to prosecute the case: he thought it was ridiculous. A special prosecutor from another county was tapped to prosecute me. I learned that the magistrate didn’t want to issue the misdemeanor warrant. The Sheriff met with me a number of times to assure me that neither he nor anyone in his department was out to get me, yet I had my life spun upside down by someone with too much free time on their hands, a grudge, and the support of elected officials. The overwhelming majority of people representing the legal system in our area didn’t want this issue to go further than it had, but I still found myself in court facing a criminal charge.

In the time since my charges were dropped I’ve asked myself two questions over and over: what if there wasn't a surveillance video of this incident? What if this happened to someone passing through town who didn't have access to a proper legal defense? During my trial I was questioned in a very vindictive and mean-spirited way. It was more than a ferocious prosecutor doing his job; It was personal and condescending. At one point during my cross examination the prosecutor wanted the judge to find me in contempt of court. I had all of the evidence on my side, over thirty people showed up to support me, the sheriff testified on my behalf, the manager at the convenience store testified she never felt the situation created a public disturbance, and I still had to fight like hell to prove my innocence. This is what justice looks like for too many people in our society. Even with all of the evidence supporting me, I had to be perfect to get the benefit of the doubt necessary for a flimsy case like this to be dismissed.

I've spent the majority of my adult life pointing out and fighting against systemic inequalities in society and our legal system. I use the platform I have to highlight the injustices I see. I’ve lost employment opportunities and speaking fees because of my public stances on issues related to the Black community. A lot of people are shielded from the subtle kinds of racism black people deal with on any given day, so they are often surprised when they hear claims of racism. Just because a Black person has caring and supportive white friends doesn't mean they can't be touched by racism. This is a reality Black people need to stay in touch with. When your skin color is enough to warrant suspicion there's no amount of intellect, wealth, or success that can protect you. If my situation occurred somewhere else I can't say with confidence that the outcome would have been the same. We live in a country where too often Black victims of crimes are talked about worse than their killers. My situation was steeped in ignorance, but race played a part in the way I was treated. I have audio and video of people doing worse than I was accused of (in front of law enforcement) and their actions were ignored. I was one of the lucky ones.
 
There's a sequel to this piece chronicling the disturbing behavior of our elected officials. 

Click the link below to read the full article from The Recorder

http://thoughtwrestler.blogspot.com/2016/12/cardwell-charge-dismissed.html

This Election Is About More Than Fear

One minute you were sitting quietly in a cafe eating a croissant and enjoying the Kenny G inspired serenity when, out of nowhere, the corner of heaven you found was violated by the repeated firing of a semiautomatic rifle. The silence wasn't the only thing disturbed by the gunshots; bullets ripped through your flesh tearing your vital organs as they passed through your body. You were weeping, gasping for air, and looking for answers when your executioner yelled  ALLAH AKBAR! Milliseconds before being hit by a blast of energy you saw the brightest light you'd ever seen; you wondered if this is the bright light people who've had near death experiences talked about. This was supposed to be an ordinary day. You left the house with a list of goals to accomplish and none of them included dying in a terrorist attack. 

The odds that anyone reading this will meet their demise under such circumstances are astronomically minuscule, yet we have people in our country who've been conditioned by politicians and the media to be more afraid of this kind of subjective violence than the objective and systemic violence that are constitutive parts of our everyday life. The reality is: more Americans will die from the side effects of industrial pollution than terrorism; far more Americans will be discriminated against on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or nationality than die in a hail of bullets; more of us will suffer a prolonged illness that ravages our bodies and assets than face beheading in an American city. We know this, but many of our fellow citizens could care less. As a nation we have more people afraid of abstract statistical anomalies than the concrete realities of our time. This fear is pervasive in the "home of the brave". 

The Conservative call to take back their country is rooted in this fear. I've watched people hem and haw their way through some basic questions associated with the notion of taking the country back. Who are you taking it back from? When did you lose it? How far back are you trying to go? Hiding among the throngs of alpha males who attend militia meetings, gun shows, and Trump rallies are beta males who aren't sure of their place in a rapidly changing America. Most of us know some of these angry Americans; some were Democrats until 2008, some were Libertarians, and others waved Gadsden flags at Tea Party events. Many of them have embraced Donald Trump's mantra of making America great again. They say they're mad, but rarely do they admit their fear. If you push them hard enough they'll say they're afraid of the direction the country is headed, but even that admission comes with a qualifier: they say they're afraid for their children. I don't dismiss the rational fears a parent has for their children, but I question that fear when structurally nothing in our society has changed enough to lessen or intensify it. I can't think of one thing a parent would be afraid of today that they wouldn't have been afraid of ten or fifteen years ago. If someone can help me with this I'll listen, but the threats of terrorism and random acts of violence have been part of our lives since 911. The fear of radical Muslims, Black thugs, and illegal Immigrants has caused too many to lose sight of the systemic economic violence that is at the core of their hardships.

This election (like so many in the past) will be decided by fear, and, depending on what you're afraid of, there's a candidate for you. If you're afraid of subjective violence then vote for one of the hawks in the GOP. Electing Donald Trump or Ted Cruz won't decrease your odds of  being the victim of gang violence or terrorism, but you'll be able to sleep better - even if your chances of dying at the hands of Ahmed, Tyrone, or Juan are statistically the same as they are now. If Ted Cruz's promise to, "find out if sand glows" excites you then cast your vote for him. The fear that's become part of the political rhetoric on the right has allowed people to casually call for genocide. If the Republican strategy is, to in the words of Donald Trump, "bomb the hell out of them" they have two choices; they can take half measures that decimate cities and almost guarantees the rise of a new generation of fighters, or they can do what they say and commit mass genocide throughout the middle east killing everyone in their path. Those are their choices. There's no path to the security they're selling that doesn't involve the mass murder of concrete people or the betrayal of our stated principles, yet this is what passes for a viable foreign policy platform. As progressives we have to make them admit their plans in specific terms. We need to ask them who digs the mass graves for their victims? Will our soldiers have this duty, or will one of the private sector defense contractors get the job? We have to match their rhetoric with questions that have equally brutal answers.
  
I'm afraid of the threats I face from systemic violence. Too many Americans will lose their homes due to economic factors outside of their control, more people will be pushed into bankruptcy because of medical bills, and too many people will lose their job based on market analysis and shareholder's demands. These are the terrors underlying so much of the fear I see, yet they don't inspire people the way a 1 in 20 million chance of dying at the hands of a terrorist does. This divide is what separates us. I don't know if it can be bridged.

Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are talking about these issues, but I'm worried about the growing tensions among progressives and centrist Democrats. In hindsight I think it would have been better for the party if Jim Webb, Lincoln Chafee, or Martin O'Malley had been a more formidable candidate. Having more of the Democratic support split between a larger group early on could've made it less contentious between Bernie and Hillary supporters now. Iowa didn't get us any closer to a nominee. It intensified the growing distrust inside our party. Yes we need robust debate, but we also need to keep in mind that either candidate would be leaps and bounds better than what the Republican party is offering. We should avidly support our candidate, we should vent when our candidate isn't treated fairly, and we should engage in vigorous debates about the issues, but it  become socially acceptable for the left to savage itself. In reality: the far left is responsible for holing on to many of the gains progressives have made over the years, and centrist Democrats at every level of government have won races progressives couldn't have. We've needed each other. Centrist Democrats are the only electable Democrats in many areas of Virginia. If we want to take back the House in 2016 we need to drop our ideological purity test come election time. The systemic violence I'm worried about needs votes to be counteracted; let's not forget why we're here. 

DR. Michael Eric Dyson at Washington and Lee University

http://livestream.com/wlu/mlk-michael-eric-dyson/videos/109733102?t=1453088870172

Creating The Space For Your Dreams

Don't let 2016 be another year where you work harder for someone else than yourself! 

Immoral Morality, Hyper Hypocrisy, and America's Denial of Domestic Terrorism

Australian philosopher and Princeton professor Peter Singer developed a thought experiment in which he asked people if they would jump into a swimming pool to save a drowning child if it meant ruining a thousand dollar suit. Every person asked, without hesitation, answered yes they would jump in to save a drowning child. Then he asked the participants to send the thousand dollars they saved by not jumping in a pool to a charity that helps children dying overseas. This was a much tougher proposition. It’s hard to make sacrifices for people half a world away, harder when they pray to a “different God”, and even harder when they don’t look like you.

When I watch television, read the comments section on websites, or read letters published in newspapers there’s one reason consistently given for not helping Syrian refugees: fear. I don’t care how articulate or inarticulate the arguments are presented; fear is almost always the central thesis. Fear is a reasonable response to trauma. We live in a dangerous world, but are we to driven by fear? Is it immoral to deny help to someone because of fear? Is it reasonable to be more afraid of terror half a world away than the terror in our backyard?

I want to, in my own fallible way, demonstrate how we (Americans) focus more on terror threats abroad than the attacks we face at home. Paris made the world pay attention, yet with our eyes focused on the middle east and Europe we missed several terrorist provocations and attacks in our own country. The viciousness of the Planned Parenthood attack made us address a painful truth many in our country reflexively avoid: domestic terrorists are more likely to hurt or kill us than Isis.

Since 911 cowardly American terrorists have murdered and shot almost twice as many innocent Americans than their middle eastern counterparts, yet we don’t obsess over this. We’ve become very skilled at explaining away the actions of our fellow citizens. We dismiss their cunning as mental illness, we say they’re loners- even when they act in unison, we systematically disconnect the string of politically and racially motivated shootings and murders over the last few years because not doing so would force us to admit we’re under siege by someone other than dangerous people from Mexico, Chicago, or the middle east.

When Muslim Americans in Irving, Texas were greeted in front of their Mosque by a dozen well armed “Patriots” the terror they felt wasn’t plastered all over television. The young man in Fairfax, Virginia who planted fake bombs at a Mosque in Falls Church isn’t a household name. When five Black Lives Matter members were shot in Minneapolis last Monday night I had to look for information about the investigation because it wasn’t deemed worthy of media coverage. I’m convinced that a nationwide 90 day black out from politically driven, racially divisive cable news outlets and Yellow journalism websites would actually make some of our fellow citizens more informed than they are now.

I understand how rational people feel compelled to intervene in traumatic situations facing them, but I can’t understand how the same people can use the same side of their brain to deny the carnage around them. The nine Christians murdered in a terrorist attack in South Carolina weren’t murdered by Muslims, The almost monthly ritual of school shootings aren’t being committed by illegal aliens, and it wasn’t thugs from Chicago pointing guns at federal law enforcement officers at the Bundy compound last year.

Our cowardice and inability to talk, in an open and honest way, about these issues is telling. One undeniable proof of privilege is being able to avoid conversations that are uncomfortable or call into question your worldview. Every few weeks we see a breaking news story about children getting shot down like dogs in their classrooms, and all we get from our political class is an admission of impotence. They tell us there’s nothing we can do to stop gun violence in a free society, yet we’ve seen fast moving bipartisan legislation to slow down the refugee process for our Syrian brothers and sisters- who, by the way, are created in the image of our God. This kind of moral inconsistency doesn’t go unnoticed. As a nation I wish we were more John Brown than Jefferson Davis when it comes to affirming the humanity of a person, but I’m old enough for my wishes not to hurt me.