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Chapter 1
Black shadows flung, some large, some small,
Contrast and conflict with white warehouse wall,
But all the while knowing, this is all one mind gets,
In memory always, of those two silhouettes.
I walked out to get the newspaper and casually looked around like I did every day. It was already warm and there wasn't a cloud in the sky, which meant little chance for anything besides hotter weather as the day continued. Normally, I didn't pay the front page any attention, instead opting to pull out the sports page and see who had won the previous night’s events. In my case, like most sports fans, it didn't really matter what season it was; there was always something to follow. Now, granted, I preferred football to any other sport, but that only took up six months of the year. Basketball was a great fill-in, and in a pinch, I could find some interest in baseball.
For some reason, though, today was different; I didn't disregard the front page as I so often did. Instead, I looked at the headline on the front page. Doing so sent a shiver down my spine as flashbacks from five years before ran through my mind. My name is Will Jones, and this is my story.
I was thirteen going on fourteen that afternoon in late October, 1996 when the event happened. A black motorist named Tyron Lewis had been stopped by a white cop on the suspicion of operating a stolen vehicle. Turns out, however, the car was not stolen. Lewis, a convicted drug offender, pulled his car over to the side of the road but refused to exit the vehicle when the two police officers ordered him to. One officer said Lewis tried to drive slowly away, at which point the officer placed himself in front of the moving vehicle and again ordered him to stop.
The officer alleged that Lewis accelerated slowly towards him, bumping him with the vehicle, knocking him towards oncoming traffic lanes, at which point the officer pulled his pistol and repeated the order to exit the vehicle The officer's request reportedly fell on deaf ears. The officer eventually discharged several rounds from his weapon into the vehicle, killing the eighteen-year-old suspect.
During the investigation immediately following the incident, a large crowd gathered and became increasingly agitated when it became apparent that the police department would not release or share information with them. Tempers quickly flared and the crowd started throwing rocks, bottles, and other items at the police officers. Additional units arrived on the scene, using tear gas to help contain and disperse the crowd. None of them could know that all hell was about to be released in a twenty-five-block area of St. Pete.
That afternoon, people in the black community took to the streets; not to protest but to cause trouble. The unrest started in the area where the stop had taken place but eventually it radiated outward. Many people in the community did not feel that the white police officers treated them fairly, and they were sick of what they viewed as a long history of injustice. The death of Tyron Lewis was the final straw that set the city off.
All police officers quickly came under fire by the enraged crowd. Any city vehicles that drove by immediately became targets for bottles, rocks, and gunfire. Mama ordered us all to stay in; there was no way she wanted us out in the chaos that was happening all around our neighborhood. The riot began at the intersection where the shooting took place and quickly moved across town. Businesses were looted in short order. The police showed up in riot gear, and that’s when things really heated up. Tear gas was launched into the crowd but did little except intensify an already out of control situation.
Within the first few hours of the riot, six officers were taken to the hospital to be treated—one with a gunshot wound to the shoulder. Joining them were four journalists and a firefighter. Many of the people rioting were youths, but the adults were definitely involved.
As the afternoon stretched into the night, the violence escalated and became worse. The crowd increased in size, and as it did, people became more bold, more violent. What angered me was that people were destroying our turf, our neighborhoods. Even at my young age, I knew this was doing nothing to help the cause. Protesting is one thing; rioting is another. But when you do it in your own neighborhood and destroy the places you shop at in your own community, you are as bad if not worse than the reason you are rioting.
Martin Luther King, Jr. preached about protesting without violence. Looking back on the riots, I have to wonder if he had been alive to see them, what he would have thought of the actions taken that day. I know people were fed up with the way they perceived themselves being treated by the cops, but to attack and destroy your own neighbors is no way to solve the problem.
I watched the events unfold both on TV and from my bedroom window - when I could sneak a look out of the closed curtains. If Mama had caught me looking, she would have killed me. As I looked down the street, I could see that mobs of people were moving from one business to another. Illuminated by the streetlight, I could see them throwing rocks, bricks, and bottles as well as Molotov cocktails, which were glass bottles filled with some sort of flammable liquid like gas with a rag stuffed in the top of it that would be used as a fuse. People would light the cloth fuse with a match or lighter and toss the bottle. When the bottle crashed, the flame would catch hold of the liquid inside and spread quickly. I saw several of these being thrown at police cars and fire trucks.
The TV reported that a newspaper reporter had been caught in the mix and badly beaten. I watched as police cars approached the mobs of people. The cops were four deep in the cars and wearing full riot gear. Their main goal seemed to be to break the crowd up and get people to go home. According to the TV, wherever they could break up one crowd, it seemed two more would pop up someplace else.
I remember seeing one of Tyron Lewis’s family members on TV asking for control and restraint. He said something to the extent of: "My brother is gone, and I don't think burning down all of these buildings is going to bring him back." I thought at the time—and still do—that these were not only brave words but wise ones. There was no reason for more people to get hurt or killed.
We were not allowed outside. I lay in bed listening to the sound of gunfire. I didn't know if they were just firing guns into the air or if they were shooting at people. I hoped it was into the air, although I had learned in school that that was not exactly the safest thing to do either; the bullets have to come down somewhere, and they can and will still do harm if they hit somebody.
Our phone rang late that night. The next thing I heard was my mom screaming and sobbing. Eddie, my stepfather, was holding her by the time I made it into the living room. My cousin Andre had been caught up in the violence that had taken the city. There had been a group of people breaking into cars in his neighborhood, so Andre was going around knocking on his neighbors’ doors and letting them know to be on the lookout for anything suspicious. The guys breaking into the cars had caught up with my cousin and shot him in the head at point-blank range. He never stood a chance.
I cried at first as I went to my mom, but as I did, the rage inside me almost burst through my chest. How could they kill Andre, of all people? All he was doing was trying to help keep an eye on his neighbors and help keep them safe. I wanted to get my hands on a gun and go after the people responsible, but I knew even if I could get a gun and manage to get out of the house, the chances of me finding out who shot my cousin were slim at best.
The next morning, family gathered at our house so we could start making funeral arrangements. It felt safe to have all of our family nearby; I just wished we had done it earlier before Andre had become a statistic of the riots. Andre's little brother Demetrece, who we all called “Meat Head” because he was always doing goofy and meat-headed things, couldn't stop crying the entire time he was in our house. At some point, he was sitting in the front seat of his car holding a drink. The stress got to be too much for him and he shattered the glass he was holding in his hand. Blood dripped from his hand as the broken shards of glass dug themselves in deeper. I’ll never forget the pain and anguish I saw in his eyes that day—not from the pain of the broken glass but from the loss of his brother.
His sister Linda wiped his hand off with a wet cloth and picked the glass out where she could. "I know you’re hurting, brother, but what did you do that for?" she asked him as she pressed the rag against his hand to stop the bleeding. Meat Head couldn't answer her through his tears of grief.
Black shadows flung, some large, some small,
Contrast and conflict with white warehouse wall,
But all the while knowing, this is all one mind gets,
In memory always, of those two silhouettes.
I walked out to get the newspaper and casually looked around like I did every day. It was already warm and there wasn't a cloud in the sky, which meant little chance for anything besides hotter weather as the day continued. Normally, I didn't pay the front page any attention, instead opting to pull out the sports page and see who had won the previous night’s events. In my case, like most sports fans, it didn't really matter what season it was; there was always something to follow. Now, granted, I preferred football to any other sport, but that only took up six months of the year. Basketball was a great fill-in, and in a pinch, I could find some interest in baseball.
For some reason, though, today was different; I didn't disregard the front page as I so often did. Instead, I looked at the headline on the front page. Doing so sent a shiver down my spine as flashbacks from five years before ran through my mind. My name is Will Jones, and this is my story.
I was thirteen going on fourteen that afternoon in late October, 1996 when the event happened. A black motorist named Tyron Lewis had been stopped by a white cop on the suspicion of operating a stolen vehicle. Turns out, however, the car was not stolen. Lewis, a convicted drug offender, pulled his car over to the side of the road but refused to exit the vehicle when the two police officers ordered him to. One officer said Lewis tried to drive slowly away, at which point the officer placed himself in front of the moving vehicle and again ordered him to stop.
The officer alleged that Lewis accelerated slowly towards him, bumping him with the vehicle, knocking him towards oncoming traffic lanes, at which point the officer pulled his pistol and repeated the order to exit the vehicle The officer's request reportedly fell on deaf ears. The officer eventually discharged several rounds from his weapon into the vehicle, killing the eighteen-year-old suspect.
During the investigation immediately following the incident, a large crowd gathered and became increasingly agitated when it became apparent that the police department would not release or share information with them. Tempers quickly flared and the crowd started throwing rocks, bottles, and other items at the police officers. Additional units arrived on the scene, using tear gas to help contain and disperse the crowd. None of them could know that all hell was about to be released in a twenty-five-block area of St. Pete.
That afternoon, people in the black community took to the streets; not to protest but to cause trouble. The unrest started in the area where the stop had taken place but eventually it radiated outward. Many people in the community did not feel that the white police officers treated them fairly, and they were sick of what they viewed as a long history of injustice. The death of Tyron Lewis was the final straw that set the city off.
All police officers quickly came under fire by the enraged crowd. Any city vehicles that drove by immediately became targets for bottles, rocks, and gunfire. Mama ordered us all to stay in; there was no way she wanted us out in the chaos that was happening all around our neighborhood. The riot began at the intersection where the shooting took place and quickly moved across town. Businesses were looted in short order. The police showed up in riot gear, and that’s when things really heated up. Tear gas was launched into the crowd but did little except intensify an already out of control situation.
Within the first few hours of the riot, six officers were taken to the hospital to be treated—one with a gunshot wound to the shoulder. Joining them were four journalists and a firefighter. Many of the people rioting were youths, but the adults were definitely involved.
As the afternoon stretched into the night, the violence escalated and became worse. The crowd increased in size, and as it did, people became more bold, more violent. What angered me was that people were destroying our turf, our neighborhoods. Even at my young age, I knew this was doing nothing to help the cause. Protesting is one thing; rioting is another. But when you do it in your own neighborhood and destroy the places you shop at in your own community, you are as bad if not worse than the reason you are rioting.
Martin Luther King, Jr. preached about protesting without violence. Looking back on the riots, I have to wonder if he had been alive to see them, what he would have thought of the actions taken that day. I know people were fed up with the way they perceived themselves being treated by the cops, but to attack and destroy your own neighbors is no way to solve the problem.
I watched the events unfold both on TV and from my bedroom window - when I could sneak a look out of the closed curtains. If Mama had caught me looking, she would have killed me. As I looked down the street, I could see that mobs of people were moving from one business to another. Illuminated by the streetlight, I could see them throwing rocks, bricks, and bottles as well as Molotov cocktails, which were glass bottles filled with some sort of flammable liquid like gas with a rag stuffed in the top of it that would be used as a fuse. People would light the cloth fuse with a match or lighter and toss the bottle. When the bottle crashed, the flame would catch hold of the liquid inside and spread quickly. I saw several of these being thrown at police cars and fire trucks.
The TV reported that a newspaper reporter had been caught in the mix and badly beaten. I watched as police cars approached the mobs of people. The cops were four deep in the cars and wearing full riot gear. Their main goal seemed to be to break the crowd up and get people to go home. According to the TV, wherever they could break up one crowd, it seemed two more would pop up someplace else.
I remember seeing one of Tyron Lewis’s family members on TV asking for control and restraint. He said something to the extent of: "My brother is gone, and I don't think burning down all of these buildings is going to bring him back." I thought at the time—and still do—that these were not only brave words but wise ones. There was no reason for more people to get hurt or killed.
We were not allowed outside. I lay in bed listening to the sound of gunfire. I didn't know if they were just firing guns into the air or if they were shooting at people. I hoped it was into the air, although I had learned in school that that was not exactly the safest thing to do either; the bullets have to come down somewhere, and they can and will still do harm if they hit somebody.
Our phone rang late that night. The next thing I heard was my mom screaming and sobbing. Eddie, my stepfather, was holding her by the time I made it into the living room. My cousin Andre had been caught up in the violence that had taken the city. There had been a group of people breaking into cars in his neighborhood, so Andre was going around knocking on his neighbors’ doors and letting them know to be on the lookout for anything suspicious. The guys breaking into the cars had caught up with my cousin and shot him in the head at point-blank range. He never stood a chance.
I cried at first as I went to my mom, but as I did, the rage inside me almost burst through my chest. How could they kill Andre, of all people? All he was doing was trying to help keep an eye on his neighbors and help keep them safe. I wanted to get my hands on a gun and go after the people responsible, but I knew even if I could get a gun and manage to get out of the house, the chances of me finding out who shot my cousin were slim at best.
The next morning, family gathered at our house so we could start making funeral arrangements. It felt safe to have all of our family nearby; I just wished we had done it earlier before Andre had become a statistic of the riots. Andre's little brother Demetrece, who we all called “Meat Head” because he was always doing goofy and meat-headed things, couldn't stop crying the entire time he was in our house. At some point, he was sitting in the front seat of his car holding a drink. The stress got to be too much for him and he shattered the glass he was holding in his hand. Blood dripped from his hand as the broken shards of glass dug themselves in deeper. I’ll never forget the pain and anguish I saw in his eyes that day—not from the pain of the broken glass but from the loss of his brother.
His sister Linda wiped his hand off with a wet cloth and picked the glass out where she could. "I know you’re hurting, brother, but what did you do that for?" she asked him as she pressed the rag against his hand to stop the bleeding. Meat Head couldn't answer her through his tears of grief.