Two Years Later Still No Officers Punished in Beating Death of Black Man by Greenville Police

Kenneth Gray Suggs died on Jan. 31 at Pitt County Memorial Hospital from injuries his family believes were suffered while he was in Greenville police custody nine days earlier. Suggs ran from police after being spotted with an open alcohol container near Fourth and Hudson streets about 7:30 p.m. on Jan. 22. Suggs was apprehended at Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and 14th Avenue and charged with resisting a public officer, consuming alcohol in public and being intoxicated and disruptive. He was held on a $1,000 bond at the Pitt County jail. Family members believe Suggs was kicked, stomped and choked by at least three officers after he was apprehended. "This is what you get for making me run after you," one officer allegedly said, according to an affidavit by the victim's wife, Amia Clopton-Suggs. Suggs allegedly kept passing out while in police custody and officers used either smelling salt or ammonia to revive him several times, according to an affidavit given by Suggs' mother, Sylvia Suggs. After complaining of asthma symptoms at the police station, Suggs was taken to the hospital where he was treated and released, police officials said. Sylvia Suggs' affidavit stated that hospital officials only checked his pulse and temperature before he was cleared. After the victim's mother and wife posted bond and Suggs was released from the Pitt County Detention Center, they said Suggs had to be helped to a vehicle. He was admitted to the hospital again the following day where he died a few days later. [MORE]

Letter from Coalition Againt Racism
On Jan. 29, the family and friends of Kenneth Gray Suggs Jr., along with community justice advocates, gathered at Thomas Foreman Park to memorialize the second anniversary of Kenneth's death after being beaten by Greenville police officers. There was talk of the pursuit and eventual fatal shooting, three days earlier, of Kerry Turner.

Aside from establishing a truly independent, elected, Civilian Complaint Review Board:

– Prospective police officers should first be screened for tendencies toward brutality and denial of basic human rights.

– They should then be trained to defuse potentially volatile situations and less violently protect themselves and those they are supposed to be trying to help.

It would certainly take more than the above to decrease the disproportionate arrest, brutalization and even death of young black men and other people of color. But maybe we would have fewer people with mental disabilities dying due to the use of lethal force. How absurd it is to take the life of a tortured soul in the effort to execute an involuntary commitment order designed to better his life and the life of others?

Have we made no progress in our understanding of mental illness and treatment? Is it possible we simply don't value our youth, especially if they are people of color? Most of the talk of gangs, drugs and curfews only serves to further criminalize an entire generation.

Why should our youth look to the military as their best way to get training/formal education today?

Let's instead invest our financial and creative resources in quality health and mental health services for everyone; schools, not jails, and job training, not wars overseas.

DON CAVELLINI
Coalition Against Racism Greenville [MORE]