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We know for a fact that Kheil Coppin was 18 years old, residing with his mother and family in the first-floor apartment at 590 Gates Avenue.
We know that 590 Gates Avenue is often a “police response” location because there are numerous incidents there in which the police have continuously responded and many times, inappropriately.  That’s a fact.
We know that on this day, Kheil was agitated and he was what was termed an emotionally distressed person.  That’s a fact.
We know that on this day, sometime around 12 noon, Mrs. Owens, seeking assistance for her son Kheil, contacted Interfaith Medical Center and Task Force assistance from the Mobile Crisis Unit.  The Mobile Crisis Unit told Mrs. Owens that they would send out a team between 6 and 9pm that evening.
As she waited with her son, Kheil continued to be agitated, and around 4:00pm, she contacted Covenant House to try and find assistance for Kheil.  We know this to be a fact because the telephone records support those calls. 
Just before 6pm, Kheil was hungry and decided to go to a corner store.  The moment he left the apartment, the Interfaith Crisis Medical Team arrived.  As a matter of fact, according to Mrs. Owens, they may have passed each other in the outer corridors of the apartment building.  She spoke to them.  She told them Kheil had just left and he would be back momentarily, but the Mobile Crisis Team said they could not wait.  They could not wait ten minutes.  And after having a brief conversation with her, they decided that Kheil was not a threat to himself or the community and they left. 
Moments after they left, Kheil returned.  Mrs. Owens told them he had just missed the Mobile Crisis Team and what she had done, Kheil became further agitated and she became concerned.  She threatened to call 911 twice, to assist him to calm down.  We know this to be a fact because she put it in her written statement to the police officers that night when she was interviewed at the precinct.
Her daughter Jenna, when she was interviewed at the precinct, put it in her statement that she (Mrs. Owens) threatened to call 911 twice. 
Finally in frustration, she called 911 in an attempt to seek assistance for her son.  So the police would come  and remove Kheil and take him to a nearby hospital.  How do we know this to be true?  She put it in her statement to the police department.  The detectives took it down, she signed it.  She wasn’t making anything up.  When she called 911 and Kheil was in the room, Kheil said he was going to tell the police that he had a gun. 
Mrs. Owens told the 911 operator he does not have a gun.  She was going to tell the police officers that he does not have a gun, this was silly, he shouldn’t do that.  She put that in her statement to the police that night at the precinct.  That should have come over the 911 tape.
Secondly, we know for a fact that the 911 operator called back to ask for a description of her son, as officers were on their way.  She told them that Kheil did not have a gun.  That was on the 911 tape.  That’s a fact.  Finally, when the police officers arrived (Mrs. Owens and her daughter opened the door, they were the only two other occupants of the apartment besides Kheil) she told the police officers at the door that Kheil was not armed.  The officers asked her to come outside and she and her daughter exited the apartment and numerous officers went into the apartment and for 20 some-odd minutes, the police had Kheil cornered in the back bedroom of the apartment.
Subsequent to that 20 minutes, Kheil left the side window, there were shots fired and when they came out, Kheil was on the ground, under the adjacent street lamp with numerous bullet wounds and bleeding on the pavement.  There was no gun, there was no weapon.  This has left many questions that the family and the community want to have answered. 
1. Why did not Interfaith Medical Center give appropriate services to the Mobile Crisis Team?
2. Why was there not adequate services from Covenant House?
3. Why did the police not heed the warnings by Mrs. Owens, the three warnings, that her son was not armed? 
4. Why did not the police department implement its own guidelines for the custody of an emotionally distressed person?  Those guidelines include setting up barriers, calling emergency services.  Those guidelines include using metal shields and non lethal force.  Kheil was in the apartment for 20 minutes and none of those guidelines were followed which subsequently led to him being shot down on the street with 20 some-odd shots on a crowded street.   The question we ask is why was it necessary for the overwhelming use of deadly force.  Five police officers. Twenty shots.   Eight hits.  Is there no proportionality?  Is there no guideline for the excessive use of force?  These and many other questions we have asked investigators to look at and consider.  We’re calling upon the District Attorney’s office, we’re calling upon  the Justice Department at the U.S Attorney’s office at Cadman Plaza to look at this and to ask these questions and find out why this young man is dead.  Not for a self-serving reason, but we cannot have this happen again.  Kheil Coppin’s death cannot be in vain.  We are indeed distressed by the self-serving statements made by the police commissioner, whose only purpose, within 24-hours of this incident, was to serve and protect the interests of the police department.
5. The police commissioner did not have access to the apartment. The police commissioner did not interview the five police officers, on lockdown from the D.A.s investigation.  How could he determine that in 24 hours?  These statements can only possibly serve to possibly lessen the culpability of the police department. 
On behalf of the family we ask for a full and proper investigation and accounting there needs to be answers as to why young Kheil is dead.

“This is Not Our Legacy.  It is Not Our Fault, but It is Our Responsibility.”
The search for meaning in a young man’s violent death is a long and too-often travel road that took a turn to the  Nazarene Congressional United Church of Christ, pastored by Conrad Tillard, for the funeral of Kheil Coppin, shot by police, because he had a hairbrush mistaken for a gun. 

The tableau of black-robed ministers, the organist and the pews of mourners was again a “too familiar setting” to Councilman Al Vann who spoke of how justice is supposed to be blind, but he said, “I think justice sometimes peeps” because he had not seen justice done for Black boys.
Assemblywoman Annette Robinson reminded those present of the personal responsibility in caring for the neighborhood.  “Some of the activity that goes on in our community must stop,” she  said. “And children must know that their lives are valuable and that someone cares.”
Sharonnie Perry of Community Board 3 spoke of how she and her committee had occasion to have an impromptu discussion with a group of young people who spoke about their anger at the steady police harassment and the stopping and frisking for no apparent reason.   She called for continued dialogue with, and response to, young people.
Reverend Al Sharpton gave the eulogy and spoke of those in society who say they want peace, “when what they really want is quiet,” in response to the double standard of delivering basic services with strategy and caution in some neighborhoods and violence in others. 
Reverend Sharpton reflected the thinking that has begun to galvanize the African-American community, “The problem is not the opposition, the problem is us.”  Sharpton said he had a different self-concept when he was growing up.  “I was raised to believe I could be president.  I was raised to believe that liberation does not come from City Hall, it comes from us..and it will end when we stand up.”
 Like many in the community, Sharpton reflected on the faltered progress and even backsliding in the African-American community and insisted that “This is not our legacy.  It is not our fault, but it is our responsibility.”  Each generation has a purpose, said Sharpton, and he says that we must discover in Kheil’s death, the purpose of this generation, which is “to straighten this out,” organize and rise up.
At a press conference called to give voice to community outrage at the 20-shot shooting by the police of Kheil Coppin, an emotionally disturbed 18-year-old holding a hairbrush, assumed by police to be a gun, Councilman Al Vann spoke of the outrage that despite all of the times he’s attended events like these, “No changes have been made to prevent killings of unarmed Black men by police.”
“Despite the decades of protest marching and demonstrations,”  he says still that  Black and Latino and mentally disturbed people are killed, “and yet no fundamental change has been made.”
Giving words to the frustration running through the community, Councilman Vann noted that policy and legislative experts had long studied the problem.  He said he’s attended decades of meetings and at this point has heard all the recommendations.  And yet here we are, he says, all those decades later and “no recommendations have been implemented.”

Speaking then to the community that has had “thousands of Black men and boys killed and lost,” the councilman, told them as someone who was “born and bred” in Bedford-Stuyvesant and who ran the streets as a child, he was mindful of the adage, “A sign of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect a different result.”  He was speaking, of course, of the now-too- familiar cries of outrage and demands and said, “You know what has to be done, you cannot wait for the system to correct itself.  Young people have to join everything positive in the community and work with enlightened elders,” so as not to repeat the mistakes of the past. 
Speaking of the past, attorney Mark Pollard, of the Brooklyn NAACP, an organization born of the children of Reconstruction, noted that people “forget” the underlying cause of the environment for the shooting, its beginnings in slavery and its continuation in the form of the prison industry, which transfers populations, giving added political clout to upstate New York and Pollard says, providing “economic development for the white community.”
Councilman Vann and community leaders included in immediate demands: independent monitoring of “Use of Force” incidents, reform of the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) and establishment of an Independent Prosecutor for police corruption and brutality cases for New York City.

By Mary Alice Miller
Does sex really occur in prison? And is it just rape, as the federal government would like to believe, or also consensual?
In 2003, the Prison Rape Reduction Act was  signed into law. It required federal, state and local governments to work with the Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics to study the number and effects of incidents of sexual assault in correctional facilities and hopefully provide accurate data for the first time on the actual number of incidents.
That year, the Congressional Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security held hearings “to examine the issue of sexual assault within federal, state, and local correctional institutions and actions that are to be taken to address the issue.”
Many revelations came out of that hearing. Of over two million people incarcerated today, it is estimated that one in ten, or roughly 200,000, have been raped. Rape is recognized as a contributing factor to prison homicide, violence against staff and institutional riots. Not only does it cause severe physical and psychological trauma to victims, it increases the transmission of HIV/AIDS, other sexually transmitted diseases, tuberculosis and hepatitis B and C, all of which exist at very high rates within U.S. prisons and jails. Juveniles have a 20% chance of being sexually abused while incarcerated.
Testimony revealed inmates victimized by prison rapes are more likely to commit crimes when they are released. Inmates, often nonviolent, first-time offenders, come out of prison rape experiences severely traumatized. The high incidence of rape within prison also leads to increased transmission of HIV, hepatitis and other diseases outside of prison, which in turn imposes threats and costs to all of society.
Since enactment of the Prison Rape Reduction Act, Congress formed a commission and has held hearings all across the country.
What prompted the federal government to undertake a study of sexual abuse  in prisons?
In 2001, Human Rights Watch produced a sobering report- No Escape: Male Rape in U.S Prisons. No Escape is a comprehensive overview of the scope of the problem and made recommendations to the U.S. Congress, The Civil Rights Division of the Justice Dept., the National Institute of Corrections, State Depts. of Corrections, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and state and local prosecutors.
For those who are in denial, Human Rights Watch conducted  200 interviews with inmates from 40 prisons across the country who spoke of the horror.  An inmate in New York wrote: “When a man finally gets his victim, he protects him from everyone else, buys him anything, the victim washes his clothes, his cell etc. In return, the entire prison knows that this guy has a “Bitch” or “girl.” I’ve seen inmates attacked by two or three men at a time and forced to the floor while three men hold him down the fourth rapes him. I’ve known two men who have hung themselves after this.”
Another story from No Escape: “I had no choice but to submit to being Inmate B’s prison wife. Out of fear for my life, I submitted to sex, and performing other duties as a woman, such as making his bed. In all reality, I was his slave.”
And yet another: “Most of the prisoners who rape are spending 5 to life. And are a part of a gang. They look for a smaller, weaker individual. And make that person into a homosexual, then sell him to other inmates of gangs. Anywhere from a pack of cigarettes to 2 cartons. . . . No one cares about you or anyone else. If they show kindness or are trying to be helpful, it is only because they want something. And if they are offering you protection, you can guarantee that they are going to seek sexual favors. . . . When an inmate comes in for the first time and doesn’t know anyone. The cliques and gangs watch him like wolves readying their attacks. They see if he spends time alone, who he eats with. It’s like the Wild Kingdom. Then they start playing with him, checking the new guy out. (They call him fresh meat.)”
And another: “I was raped in prison from Feb. 1991 through Nov. 1991. From that, it left me H.I.V. -Positive.”
No Escape focuses on male inmate-to-inmate sexual violence, excluding incidents between corrections officials and issues with women inmates, which was the focus of a 1996 report entitled All Too Familiar: Sexual Abuse of Women in U.S. State Prisons.          

No Escape reports “Prisoners may find themselves becoming another inmate’s ‘property.’  Forced to satisfy another man’s sexual appetites whenever he demands, they may also be responsible for washing his clothes, massaging his back, cooking his food, cleaning his cell and myriad other chores. They are frequently ‘rented out’ for sex, sold or even auctioned off to other inmates, replicating the financial aspects of traditional slavery. Their most basic choices, like how to dress and whom to talk to, may be controlled by the person who ‘owns’ them. Their name may be replaced by a female one. Like all forms of slavery, these situations are among the most degrading and dehumanizing experiences a person can undergo.” In addition, “Rape in prison can be almost unimaginably vicious and brutal. Gang assaults are not uncommon, and victims may be left beaten, bloody and, in the most extreme cases, dead.”
Inmate perpetrators of sexual violence do not consider themselves to be engaging in  homosexual activity, even though, by definition, it is. Both victimizers and the victimized  generally consider themselves heterosexual.  Dr. Divine Pryor, associate director of the NuLeadership Center at Medgar Evers College, a think tank working on criminal justice issues, when asked if rape goes on in prison, he said that sex is so common and casual in prison that much of it is mis-characterized rape.  Some engage in consensual same-sex activity because they are lonely. Others participate because it is the only available outlet for sexual tension.    Dr. Pryor says, “Gay for the stay” is what the men call it and do not consider themselves homosexual and they look for heterosexual experiences upon release.
The variety of means by which male inmates are sexually abused include coerced consent, violent or forcible assaults, coerced sexual abuse, slavery and imposition of power.
The psychological impact is pervasive. Once raped, inmates become trapped into a sexually subordinate role and become an object of sexual abuse.  Shame at the  “loss of manhood”, depression, anxiety and despair, suicide, anger and perpetuation of the cycle of violence are some symptoms. Other effects of prison rape are post-traumatic stress syndrome, rape trauma syndrome and the Stockholm Syndrome, when a traumatic bond is formed with the victim’s captors- who are not prison guards, but instead, cell mates.  (One inmate testified about fantasies of returning  back to prison for more sexual abuse. Is this why recidivism is so high?) Prisoners often harbor intense feelings of anger directed first at the perpetrators of abuse, but also at prison authorities who failed to react appropriately to protect them, and even at society as a whole. Some prisoners have confessed to taking violent revenge on their abusers, inspired both by anger and by a desire to escape further abuse.
The all-to-common occurrences of sexual abuse in prison leads to serious physical injury, which are not adequately addressed, or even taken seriously, by corrections officials. Opportunities for obtaining medical evidence for possible future prosecution are missed.  Inmates who take the risk of retaliation by reporting rape are told corrections does not get involved with “lover’s quarrels” and are counseled to “deal with it”.
A wide variety of sexually transmitted  diseases are transmitted and go untreated.
Compounding the problem is callous indifference within the justice system.  “Few local prosecutors are concerned with prosecuting crimes committed against inmates, preferring to leave internal prison problems to the discretion of the prison authorities; similarly, prison officials themselves rarely push for the prosecution of prisoner-on-prisoner abuses.  As a result, perpetrators of prison rape almost never face criminal charges.”  As long as the incidents take place behind bars, and the public is not affected, local district attorneys are unconcerned because inmates do not vote them into office.
There is also a lack of honest inmate orientation. One inmate testified: “I have been to 4 Ohio prisons and at no time was I ever warned about the danger of sexual assault. No one ever told me of ways to protect myself. And to this day, I’ve never heard of a procedure for reporting rape. This is never talked about.”
Very few states, including Virginia and Arkansas, provide information to inmates on how to avoid sexual aggression when entering prison. Virginia issues a handbook that includes “How to Avoid Homosexual Intimidation,” with warnings such as ‘don’t get into debt,’ and ‘don’t solicit or accept favors, property or drugs.’
Many groups have been advocating on behalf of inmates regarding the issue of inmate-to-inmate prison rape. Stop Prison Rape is a national human rights organization that seeks to end sexual violence in all forms of detention.
The AIDS Community Research Initiative of America released a report titled Prison Health = Public Health: HIV Care in New York State Prisons, and made numerous recommendations to the NYS Dept. of Corrections and former governor Pataki, who refused to provide condoms within prisons. The Prison Committee of ACT- UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) produced No Time To Lose: HIV/ AIDS and Hepatitis C in New York State’s Prisons. The NYS Defenders Association’s prisoners rights division has numerous links on its Web site addressing prison issues. The Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons produced Confronting Confinement in 2006, connecting what happens inside with the health and safety of our communities. The report states: “What happens inside jails and prisons does not stay inside jails and prisons. It comes home with prisoners after they are released and with correction officers at the end of each day’s shift.” Even Clarence Thomas, for once, got it right. He wrote a concurring  opinion in the 1994 Farmer v. Brennan, when the Supreme Court held that deliberate indifference to the risk of prison rape violates the 8th and 14th amendment to the United States Constitution.

What seems to be missing is coordinated advocacy from the group impacted the most- Black current and formerly incarcerated men. Gay men who enter prison remain gay when they are released. Heterosexual men who experience inmate-to-inmate sexual violence while in prison  come home to unsuspecting women and the community with myriad mental and physical issues. Formerly incarcerated  (and other) men who are living ‘in the closet’ or ‘on the down low’ waste their political power when they do not even advocate for themselves and what they need. The informal  policy of  ‘don’t snitch’ doesn’t help and is counterproductive. The whole community pays with the unchecked spread of HIV/ AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases as well as the relationship chaos created by untreated mental trauma caused by prison rape.

We were startled to see 18-year-old Khiel Coppin’s blood still on the street Wednesday morning, two days after being shot by police who said he had refused to obey an order to stop walking toward the officers.  The officers say Coppin made a menacing gesture with what turned out to be a hairbrush, and they fired 20 shots from their positions of cover behind their cars.   After hitting Coppin at least seven times, the police then handcuffed the bleeding Coppin for transport to Woodhull Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival.   
They had been called to the Medgar Evers Apartments at 560 Gates Avenue after Mr. Coppin’s mother, Denise Owens, contacted 911 because he was threatening her.  On the 911 call, Coppin could be heard in the background shouting that he had a gun.   On a second 911 call, Mrs. Owens told the operator that her son did not have a gun.  When the police arrived at the apartment, Coppin exited a window, and the deadly events unfolded. 
New York City Councilman Albert Vann, in whose 36th District the shooting occurred, noted that the only information available is what the police commissioner said.  “And he spoke before the district attorney had completed his investigation and before the autopsy.  So there is no verifiable information yet.   All we know is that Kheil Coppin is dead and that he was shot by police.  We know Kheil was a troubled young man and he should have been treated as such.”
A young man from the neighborhood, “Dublo 7,” said that “within the first 24 hours of the boy dying, Kelly said that the murder was ‘within departmental guidelines.’  All the information describing what happened is being filtered by the police.”   Asked what did happen, Dublo 7 said, “What happened was that individuals with a shield on their chests, let go 20 bullets in the direction of a young man and killed him.  If they took their badges off and did it, they’d be prosecuted for murder.”
Councilman Charles Barron said, “This is total madness.  The police are out of control.  Years ago a young Black man had a candy bar, they shot him. Then we had Randy Evans, years ago, had an Afro pick.  They shot him.   Amadou Diallo, they say he had a wallet.  They shot and killed him.  Brother up in Harlem, they say he pointed his finger.  They shot and killed him.  This is insane.”
That was a sentiment that resonated in the neighborhood.  “The cops, they crazy, they scaring us out here,” said Buddy Love, a young man from the same housing where the shooting occurred.  “They stop us for any reason.  They want us locked up.  They don’t like us. They’re grabbing us up.  Riding a bike on the sidewalk, throwing a cigarette in the street, spitting on the sidewalk, why do you want to lock us up for some little stuff like that?  They really think we’re that dangerous and it’s them that are dangerous. They walk around with guns.  Why you pull out your gun and all he had was a brush?”
Black elected officials and the leadership of Bedford-Stuyvesant and Greater Central Brooklyn, including local residents, grassroots, national and regional community organizations, are uniting in sympathy and open support for the family of Khiel Coppin. “We are committed to guaranteeing that justice will be served for Khiel and embattled young black men in Bedford-Stuyvesant and beyond,” said Councilman Vann, in announcing the major press conference to take place Friday, November 16th, steps from the site of the tragedy.  “As we express our sympathy, we also are speaking out to assure that there is a strong, unwavering voice for the voiceless everywhere.”
On the day we visited the shooting scene, the voice of Malcolm X was coming loud from  Efron Cherry’s car.   Efron, a street educator, not uncommon in the neighborhood, said, “We are a people that are in trouble and until we become a people that makes them respect us as the human beings we are born to be.   I’m out here not just to make the police realize that they’re wrong for pulling the trigger, I’m out here to tell my people that we’re wrong for not making them understand that as a people, we will not tolerate it.  Which means we will not do the things to ourselves that are making us weak.  We will not destroy us, and we will not sit back and let them destroy us.   That’s why I’m out here.” 
Councilman Barron says, “We should decentralize the police department and make it more responsive to the local community.  We should also be able to vote for the police commissioner.  It should be an elected position.”
Regarding “acceptable police guidelines, Barron said, “The police are going by their fear, their perception of a gun.  They do not go by the actual gun.  Their argument is that the police have only seconds to make that determination.  But why doesn’t that happen in the white community?  The Gideon Busch case in 1999 is the only time you heard about a white person being shot for no reason. (Officers said Busch was threatening them with a claw hammer.)  They seem to be able to make those determinations in the white community when they are apprehending suspects. 

Asked if there was a relationship between the fact of public housing, low income enclaves surrounded by homes and condos selling for $700,000. “absolutely.  I think the method of policing is to move us out of these neighborhoods.  Gentrification is coming hand-in-hand with police terror. It’s almost like they’re clearing us out for the white folks.  They’re using police harassment, housing policies-building 421a housing with 80% luxury and 20% affordable that you can’t really afford.  We’re number one cases of HIV/AIDS.   We have colon cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer.  We are the most unhealthy with the least health facilities.  I don’t think it’s a coincidence that all of these things are happening at the same time.”  Wake for Kheil Coppin is Monday 3pm-9pm, Nazarene Congressional Church, 506 McDonough Street at Patchen, and the funeral is on Tuesday at 12 noon.

The Department of Education recently released a report card which graded and assessed public schools in N.Y.C. There still remains an unacceptable and disproportionate number of failing schools in the Black and Latino community. On the bright side, however, the 2nd ranked high school in all of Brooklyn is our own Bedford Academy. This school which started only 4years ago received a grade of A and 103.6%. I guess the 3.6% was for extra credit because they did so well. Principal George Leonard and his staff have done a stellar job with our children. I have had a first hand experience with Bedford Academy as my son Alade attended Bedford his first year of high school. He along with most of the students passed three regents in the school’s first year of existence. This took all of the myth and uncertainty out of the narrative that Black Children can’t pass standardized tests. George Leonard has been doing this for many years. He must be given accolades for a job well done. More so our community must demand that he be elevated to at least a superintendent position so that he could impact upon black and Latino youth that the school system isn’t equipped to properly train to pass standardized  test. We also acknowledge Bedford’s parent coordinator, staff, parents, and students. Bedford Academy is an example of our communities BEST PRACTICES.
Another learning institution that and that I am equally impressed with is Bushwick Outreach H.S. This school in the Alternative H.S. Division for older students that have failed in traditional high school settings. They too have a dedicated staff led by Principal Pira Randall and supported by dynamic school leaders Tabari Bomani and Brian Favors. I have participated in several workshops and meetings at Bushwick Outreach regarding a variety of social issues including police abuse and gang violence. I am immensely impressed with the consciousness of the student body.
They have a strong sense of history and understanding of the implications of racism. This is because the staff is brutally honest with the students and are always engaging them as critical thinkers. There is a strong emphasis on social activism and African centered learning. The result is that students have enhanced self esteem and pride in who they are. Most of them are doing well in school and have turned their lives around.  Bushwick Outreach High School is one of the best kept secrets in the New York City school system.
In my ideal world the leadership of Bedford Academy will meet with the leadership of Bushwick Outreach and develop the model Academic/Cultural Curriculum and pedagogy so that all of our children can benefit from their BEST PRACTICES.
Let’s get ready for Kwanza and embrace its core values as part of our strategy for empowerment for the New Year. Will elaborated on this in my next column.