The January 2008 shooting death of 26 year old Tarika Wilson in her home by a Lima Ohio SWAT member is one of the defining moments of my activist career. This young mother of six was shot and killed as she huddled in the bedroom with her children. The soldiers were there to arrest her boyfriend who sometimes stayed with her. Tarika was holding her 13 month old son, whose hand was blown off by the bullets that killed his mother.
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I followed the media on this case closely as I was working for LEAP at the time, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, and part of my job was to help the law enforcers who speak for LEAP place opeds and respond to media accounts of the failed drug war.
The victims of this 40 year civil war are not memorialized or honored in the way our country memorializes other war victims. They are demonized, hunted and put in cages. They are murdered or prosecuted and their children put in foster care.
In this interview after he was incarcerated, Terry raises some of the same questions I have of every civilian shooting that occurs in these highly militarized operations. Why did this specialized task force execute a dynamic entry on Tarikas home? They knew children were present. They knew Terry only stayed there a few nights a week. Why didn't they arrest him somewhere else, or outside of the home?
More importantly, why did they send soldiers to arrest him? That's what SWAT is, militarized soldiers in this very real war.
More importantly, why did they send soldiers to arrest him? That's what SWAT is, militarized soldiers in this very real war.
Terry challenges the main defense used by Officer Joseph Chavalia--that he heard another officer shooting the family dogs, mistook the noise for hostile gunfire, panicked, and fired blindly into the room where Wilson was kneeling with her children.
Terry, who was not called as a witness in the case, said he doubted the officer's story in part because he believed the dogs were shot as soon as the officers entered the house and Sergeant Chavalia wouldn't have time to get upstairs. He also remembers hearing Wilson call out to him just as he was being led out the back door.
In my experience, one of the reasons these men get away,
literally with murder, is that their victims are seen as "not
credible." Who's going to believe a convicted felon? And they
consistently use the "I feared for my life," defense, which doesn't hold
up to scrutiny or basic reasoning. They wore bullet proof vests and were armed with military weapons. They were unleashed not on enemy combatants, but on civilians protected by the Bill of Rights.
Women and children are collateral damage in this war on American families.
Chavalia was charged with involuntary manslaughter, but was acquitted.
Somehow, we must educate communities, the media and legislators about the horrific consequence of the failed war on drugs.
When enough people wake up, we can save future Tarika Wilsons.
