Denver Post

Citizens call for justice, not revenge
By Jim Spencer
Denver Post Columnist

Sunday, July 13, 2003 - "We want to get rid of these racist pigs," the woman screamed at the police officers staffing the corner of East 35th Avenue and Ivy Street.

There was no mistaking the hate in her voice as she marched Thursday in a parade commemorating a disabled black 15-year-old boy shot to death by a Denver cop.

There was also no mistaking the reaction of those surrounding her.

"No," several of them told the woman quickly and firmly. "Don't do that."

It was one of the tensest weeks in the city's history and, at the same time, one of the proudest. Police shot Paul Childs while he held a knife. But each time simmering anger over the police killing flared into a destructive emotional spark, people pulled together to snuff it out.

"We didn't throw one rock," the Rev. Reginald Holmes, president of the Greater Metro Denver Ministerial Alliance, said at Childs' funeral Saturday afternoon. "If ever there was a time, if ever there was a reason for uncool heads to prevail, this was it. We are a peaceable people."

It took a grassroots effort to keep that peace, and an effort that stretched from the mayor's office to the City Council chambers to the Police Department to church pulpits to neighborhood activists, all the way down to men, women and children on the streets.

"Give yourselves a hand for staying under control," community activist Alvertis Simmons told 500 participants after Thursday's march and candlelight vigil.

Everyone in the city deserves a round of applause.

"I have never seen a community come together like this," the Rev. Paul Martin said as he presided over Childs' funeral at Macedonia Baptist Church. "Paul has done something in death that many of us couldn't do in life."

Mayor Wellington Webb summed it up best as he confronted a flier that tried to twist outrage at Childs' death into a declaration of war on police.

"This is not what Denver is about," Webb said. "This is not what Denver does.

"We're not going to let anyone separate us."

The flier, for which no one has claimed responsibility, urged people to kill cops. Whoever put the flier out hoped to use some of Martin's comments to justify the slayings. But when Martin told The Denver Post that African-Americans should go on the offensive against police violence, he didn't mean with weapons.

Neither did Nation of Islam leader Gerald Muhammad. No fan of the police, Muhammad reminded the community Thursday, "You want them to stop killing you, you stop killing yourselves."

Rather than opt for revenge, the city funneled its fury into shows of support for Childs' family.

The funeral and peaceful demonstrations stood in stark contrast to the police behavior that bred them. Dispatch tapes show that only 99 seconds elapsed from the time police arrived at Childs' home July 5 to the moment officer James Turney fired four bullets at the 15-year-old for failing to drop a knife he was holding.

Questions linger about Childs' actions before he was shot. He was recovering from a seizure and was also developmentally disabled. His family claims he never threatened the police.

"I know something about justice," lawyer Johnnie Cochran told more than 500 mourners at the church gathering Saturday. "If we do justice in this case, we make this a better community."

Cochran, of O.J. Simpson fame, will represent Childs' mom in a wrongful-death lawsuit.

Whatever is not known about the facts of this case, this much is known about its aftermath: People pulled hard to keep the lid on a situation that could easily have turned Denver into Benton Harbor, Mich., or St. Petersburg, Fla., or other places where riots broke out after deadly police confrontations.

Folks here made a conscious and tough decision not to strike back violently. They did so because they knew that kind of response is ultimately self-destructive.

Ironically, if the cops had understood that eight days ago, Denver wouldn't be in the predicament it's in right now.

Patience works. The community, especially the black community and its leaders, didn't roll over and play dead.

"We will work with every ounce of our energy as clergy and politicians," Holmes said. "There must be punitive repercussions when you use deadly force in every circumstance."

Besides punishing trigger-happy police, calls continue for overhauling police procedures in collecting information in 911 calls and training officers to deal with the mentally disabled.

The overwhelming mood in the city last week was that Paul Childs should not have died. Accompanying that disappointment, however, was a collective resolve to make sure Childs didn't die in vain. A violent backlash would have all but assured that.

The person who offered the prayer that kicked off Thursday night's march put it in perspective. He paraphrased America's icon of nonviolent revolution, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

"Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time," King wrote, "the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence."

The citizens of Denver have demanded justice. They did not do it by burning and looting their own neighborhoods or murdering police officers. Instead, they have used free speech to express their outrage. They have promised repercussions with ballots, not bullets. They have set an example.

As they marched Thursday night, their chant of "justice for Paul" gradually metamorphosed into "justice for all."

It was the perfect sentiment in the perfect atmosphere. It kept the onus where it should be in this tragedy.

The community did a difficult job right. Now police and prosecutors must do the same.

Jim Spencer's column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays in The Denver Post. Contact him at jspencer@denverpost.com or call 303-820-1771.