OFFICER FRIENDLY JOHN D. CARR: NEW SHERIFF IN TOWN!
ON SATURDAY MAY 20th SHERIFF JOHN D. CARR IN DRIVEBY FOR MY 85th BIRTHDAY AT TY BARNETT’S GYM IN CAPITOL HEIGHTS WITH FAMILY AND FRIENDS
I was thinking I would never see “Officer Friendly” again in my life time and along comes John D. Carr.
I have spend 50+ years working in the streets of the DMV with youth gangs and at-risk children. My career choice was to try to make children really “First.” I was once a child/youth trying to go to hell in a hurry.
My Kids In Trouble program has carried me from the U Street corridor (Black Broadway), Mt. Pleasant, Potomac Gardens, Barry Farms, Parkside/Mayfair, Simple City, Homer Avenue (Suitland), to Alexandria, Virginia.
As a 4th generation Washingtonian, I have seen the Good-Bad and Ugly when it comes to law enforcrment in the DMV. The Prince Georges County Police Department was known for decades as one of the most racist and brutal police departments in the country when it came to black residents. The Prince Georges County Sheriff’s Department was their partners in crime.
When my brothers became law-enforcement officers I had mixed emotions. My older brother Bobby, was college educated (Maryland State) and a businessman. He left the business world behind to become a U. S. Marshall. Earl my younger brother decided on a law enforcement career after becoming a juvenile deliquent and serving a short stint in Cedar Knoll a juvenile facility. He got his act together after graduating from DC’s Spingarn High School and enrolled in the U. S. Army in 1961.
There he became a segeant in the Military Police (MP), a starting fullback on the football team, a heavyweight boxing champion , a table tennis champion, and a champion for the civil and human rights of black military soldiers on the base in Nuremberg, Germany.
SGT. EARL ‘BULL’ BELL PREPARING FOR HIS NEXT FIGHT IN OR OUT OF RING.
The on and off base racism became too difficult for him and other black soldiers to ignore. White soldiers had no problem finding off base housing for themselves and their families, but finding off base housing for black enlisted men was next to impossible. Black soldiers were also denied addmission to downtown clubs during their leisure time. finally, blacks soldiers said, “Enough was enough.”
Sgt. Bell led 35 militant troops in a march that almost ended in violence. They marched on a segregated discotheque (The Cage) in downtown. The base sent Military Police (mostly white) to the club to squash the distubance. These were my brother’s colleagues. Earl remembered, “I was the only peaceful man there. Everybody else wanted to fight, and I had to keep saying be cool.” they were not worried about going to jail or their military record. All they wanted to do was straighten that white man out!
Here we are in 2023 and we are still trying to straighten that white man out, to make things worse we got some black folks to straighten out!
A white man tried to straighten the white folks out and he failed. On July 26, 1948, President Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9981, creating the President’s Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services. The order mandated the desegregation of the U.S. military.
I remember stories of World War II veterans of how they returned home after the war, had to ride in the back of the bus. They were made to go to the kitchen to eat, while German prisoners of war ate with white U. S. military service men!
Let me count the failures: read the first black Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and the disrespect he encounters daily
https://apnews.com/article/us-military-racism-discrimination-4e840e0acc7ef07fd635a312d9375413 read Stephanie Davis’ story.
In 1969 S/Sgt. Bell’s perfect service record was marred a month after the march in downtown Nuremberg. While he was umpiring a softball game. He drew a $30 fine for identifying himself to a white lieutenant as “Mr. Bell.” Insisting that normal military courtesy regulations are waived during athletic competitions.
The lieutenant was just a grandstand spectator who joined an augument between him and two players on the field. The Lieutenant was out of order, but he was seizing a chance to retaliate for the protest march on downtown Nuremberg.
S/Sgt Earl Bell, after two tours of Army life, decided he was not going to re-enlist. He gave up on the Army because there was too much racism and the black officers were of little or no help.
He jumped from the frying pan into the fire when he returned home to join the DC Police Department. The racism he encountered was just as bad or worst than the U. S. Army and the black cops (homeboys) in white shirts were just as white as the shirts they wore.
TOP COP D. C. POLICE CHIEF BURTELL JEFFERSON & SGT. EARL K. BELL
TOP COP: HOST ANNUAL KIDS IN TROUBLE CHRISTMAS TOY PARTY
They were scare of the FOP/KKK and the Code of Silence and the Thin Blue Line. Sgt. Bull Bell took names and kicked ass and if white cops thought “White Privilege” was going to be their ticket to disrespecting him and get away with it–it would not be on his watch.
We grew up on on the borderlines of Kenilworth Avenue and Eastern Avenue (Parkside/Mayfair), and East Capitol Streets and Central Avenue (Simple City). Here respect was earned and not given and that included neighborhood thugs and the cop on the beat. We must get back to that way of thinking if our children are going to have any chance of surving this gun violence in our country.
Prince Georges County cops were feared and for good reason. Traveling from DC into Prince Georges County for a black man was like traveling into the Bermuda Triangle–there were stories of brothers never returning. Mostly, I think they were stories to scare knuckeheads like me and they did. I would only travel in the county during daylight hours–that sounds familiar-like today!
My brother Earl’s 14 year career ended when he drove over an icy overpass on Southern Avenue and Suitland Parkway in DC one early morning. The road was icy and he met a 16 wheeler truck head-on and the truckk won. He was on the way to his first day at the Police and Fire Clinic in South East DC.
He had been assigned there after a whiteshirt homeboy had discipline him for knocking out a white Lieutenant in the 6th District HQ. The Lieutenant had stepped on Earl’s shoeless foot while trying to get an explanation on why Earl had parked in his spot!
I had spoken with the Assistant Chief about the incident and he swore the Lieutenant was wrong and he had Earl’s back–famous last words.
My brother ended up paralized for life ending his law-enforcement career–I never let go. Sgt. Earl ‘Bull’ Bell was a good cop because I stayed on his case not to forget Parkside/Mayfair.
My brother Bobby, retired after 20 years as a U. S. Marshall. He had racist encounters on his job, but Judge Luke C. Moore was my mentor and friend. Luke was the first black modern day U. S. Marshall-in-Charge. He had to make one call for Bobby, after that first call my brother was good. I cannot count the times Luke saved me from myself!
DC SUPERIOR COURT JUDGES: LUKE C. MOORE & GENE HAMILTON IN THE HOUSE FOR KIT TRIBUTE
The new Sheriff in town, John D. Carr was born and raised in Prince George’s County, Maryland. He attended Bishop McNamara High School, Forestville, Maryland; University of Maryland, College Park, he has a B.A. (criminology & criminal justice); Norwich University, M.A. (public administration). Past member, Prince George’s County Democratic Central Committee. Board of Directors, Maryland Crimes Victims Resource Center. Member, National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives; National Association for Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); National Tactical Officers Association. He is married and has four children.
When Sheriff Carr says, “Children are first”, it is personal and you can take it to the bank.
For Sheriff Carr to make not only children first, but he he has to make all the residents of Prince George County first and that is going to take a T-E-A-M. His team should be and pray includes, the new Prince Georges County Chief of Police, the new DC Police Chief and the Alexandria Chief of Police. The crime and violece in DC will affect the jurisdictions surrounding the Nations Capitol. Out of control leadership leads to children’s blood flowing in our streets and out of contol crime rates.
The children are acting out because they are watching adult leadership act out, in their homes and schools. They don’t know who they can trust!
THE KIDS IN TROUBLE POLICE/YOUTH FORUM BIBLE WAY CHURCH IN DC.
THURSTON McLAIN KNEELING SECOND FROM LEFT AND NFL LEGEND JIM BROWN STANDING IN BACK (RIP).
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