"Painkiller" is the BBS name of a friend of mine, Ed Eubanks of Minneapolis. He is a very decent, very intelligent, very educated man. This letter to electronic friends describes an event that took place in downtown Minneapolis. - Mike Finley

97Oct 09 12:09 am from Painkiller  

Some of you may recall that I mentioned I had been arrested in downtown Minneapolis for disorderly conduct and was awaiting trial. Last week, the case was dismissed. A small triumph until one realized that the cops making the arrest knew it would be dismissed and went ahead and made the arrest anyway. The details (briefly):   One of the properties in my asset portfolio is the Lamoreaux hotel across from the Target Center. I had received a complaint that there was drug dealing going on in the building, so on a Friday night, I put on my best transient clothes and went down to have a hangout.

At 12 am, I had seen what I needed to see and decided I would grab a bite to eat and catch the last bus back to Saint Paul. I ended up in an Arab restaraunt in the Hennepin location where a Slice of New York use to be. The place was loud, raw, and nasty, but that's the clientele it serves so I decided to get my food, get the hell out, and never come back.   As I stood in line, a young, white security guard came up and stood behind me. Tight wound. On edge. Armed. Bad recipe.

Without provocation, he began to verbally assault one of the black customers in the place. He was yelling at the one person, but using the one person to talk to all of us. I wasn't going to stand for that.  

Very politely, I told him he had no cause to go off on that customer. He screamed at me to shut up. When I persisted on pointing out he was out of line. He grabbed me by the shirt sleeve and ordered me out of the restaurant telling me I was under arrest.

I pulled my arm away and told him not to grab me again. At that point he started to scream Mayday into his radio and telling me I was going to jail. To this I replied, if I went to jail, I would sue his company.   As I tried to leave the restaurant with my order, he impeded my exit. On the outside on the sidewalk, he again grabbed my arm. At that point, I assured him he was to be sued and that I was walking back into the restaurant to get the names of the patrons as witnesses.

At that point he blocked the door to keep me from going in. I reached around him, grabbed the handle of the door, and in pulling the door open. squeezed him between the door and the wall. He screamed I was assaulting him and pushed me out into the sidewalk. At that point I laughed, held my hands above my head, and said to the crowd that was watching the whole thing to witness that I was being assaulted and was doing nothing to provoke it.  

At this point two police officers ran up (I later found out they were working off-duty at the nightclub on the corner), ordered me to put myu hands behind my back and put cuffs on me.   I insisted that the police arrest the guard for assault, but every time I spoke they yelled at me to shut up. WHICH I WAS CERTAINLY NOT GOING TO DO!! I insisted that they speak with the witnesses. WHICH THEY WERE CERTAINLY NOT GOING TO DO!!

When one of the patrons came up to tell the police what had happened, they threatened him with arrest and he quickly took off. I statement was taken from the guard, whom I found out was not even working at this restarant but was a just a customer like everybody else.

Throughout the whole thing, I insisted and insisted again, that I was assaulted that I wanted them to speak with the witnesses, and that I wanted to press charges. The cops reply to all of us this was "Shut up!".  

Up until this point I was not even agitated, actually. It was a chess game. But at the end, when all the witnesses had gone, and the cop turned to me, and said with a smirk "Where are your witnesses?", I got pissed. This was the height of injustice. This was the cops not making a mistake but participating in a crime.

This was 400 years of struggle thrown back for a loss. This was America raw and unadorned with all the masked pretensions of justice and equality stripped. I was just a nigger. These white boys was still massah. At that point I felt as close to hating anyone as I ever want to come.  

The cops lied in their report which was a flimsy tissue of lies. They didn't identify the guard so I am going to have a hard time locating him and suing the security company. They chased off my witnesses. And to make matters worse, very much so, they said they witnessed me assault the guard.

As I said, the case was dismissed, but only after I had paid an attorney very hard to come by money to clear my name. In fact, the case was dismissed before the attorney did anything at all. That is how flimsy the case was.  

And now I have this problem, this real problem with the police department. I am not at war with it, but I am no ally of it either. I think at this point, I will become like Ron Edwards and challenge them at every turn. Expedient law enforcement has nothing to do with justice. It has to.   White folks want to know how black folks could acquit O.J. This is why. White people ask why cops would lie. They do. And fabricate evidence. Were I to sit on a jury, a cop's testimony would carry no more weight of verity than a defendant's. I could vote to free a thousand O.J.'s if it came down to trusting and believing cops. It's sad but that's the way it is.  

Well, I am off to think about how to collect my revenge. I am not going to sue the city. I will sue the security agency and I have the lawyer working to locate the guard who started it all. I guess writing this post is part of my revenge. I guess writing a better one and sending it off to the Tribune will be even better yet.  

Someone has to pay for this. I mean, someone besides just me.