The Donovan

For more than two years, Clarise Coleman faithfully attended every track practice and every cross-country meet for her son, Chase.

A few weeks ago, Chase, who is a nearly nonverbal autistic child, was running in a meet in Rochester, New York, with his team from Corcoran High School - was assaulted by a stranger in the middle of a race.

Coleman was waiting for him at a part of the course where runners would come down a hill but he didn’t appear and she went looking for him. She was shouting his name and then she started to meet people who pointed in the direction of her son. One of them said:

“I see a grown man, who is quite tall and fairly heavy … exit the vehicle and give this young man a shove that puts him back 10 feet and flat on his butt. Like, just shoved him across the road. The kid didn’t seem to be doing anything but standing there, obviously had nothing in his hands and weighed all of 130 pounds. This guy was easily twice that.”

This tall white guy was a 57-year-old man named Martin MacDonald who told the police that the reason he attacked the Black kid was he thought Chase was going to mug his wife and take her purse.

“My son is a minor. [MacDonald is] a grown man,” Coleman said she told police. “He put his hands on my son. Of course I want to press charges.”

However the police was deaf and on Oct. 21, Rochester City Court Judge Caroline Morrison sent a letter to the Colemans that shocked them: 

She had denied their warrant application, and MacDonald would not be charged for second-degree harassment.

Now the autistic Black boy refused to go to practices and skipped running in his last meet of the season. He turned his running uniform in to his coach, who gently encouraged him to change his mind. Chase refused.

“We just keep telling him, ‘You didn’t do anything wrong. Chase is good. There are mean people and there are nice people and this person was just a mean person,’ ” Coleman said. “We just keep apologizing to him that happened. Especially me. I kept apologizing to him that I couldn’t keep him safe.” 

The attack deeply traumatized him and he lost one of the few things that gave him a sense of pride and belonging.

Please, make a shout out to this outrageous accident! The white man still didn’t receive any punishment for ruining life of the Black boy. THIS IS HELL!

I've had to fight a case where cops busted in my house during my birthday party, they held shotguns to everyone and entered my house illegally. I lived in a nice neighborhood, but I'm brown and of mixed race descent.

They arrested me and took me from my own home and drove me to the station, even though my neighbor came outside to talk to them, explaining that I told him and other neighbors I was having a party. They harassed me along the way and as I was handcuffed to a chair downtown. They threw me in jail overnight and when I was released, they gave me a bunch of false charges.

My friends got together and called to lodge complaints all night and I called the next day as well. The commanding officer threatened to not file my complaint and even came to my house after 10 pm to try and intimidate me, into not filing a complaint. I had my friend on the line and told him just to listen and not hang up during our verbal exchange, just in case something violent happened.

I went and talked to the public defender's office and they weren't at all surprised, they believed me. The main thing that helped me, was I happen to have a good friend who's a military police officer and another that has a degree in criminal justice. They were able to describe every wrongful action by the officers and it also helped that they were White.

The police suddenly dropped all of their charges, only after I refused multiple deals from them and the D.A.. I told them I was going all the way with court, because in my mind, I wanted to see them get up and lie on the stand.

Anyway, please explain to me all of your rage as a Caucasian woman? Explain to me what racism is and explain why I shouldn't have a strategy when dealing with the law. I don't want to get shot, but I also don't want to die subservient and on my knees. Explain to me how I'm not supposed to be enraged at the way I'm treated. Explain to me how you can talk about how dangerous it is to be a cop when they lost less than 50 officers, but killed 986 civilians. It's not safe for me, even though I try so hard to be a good citizen and give back.