Protest at jail gets support from public

As two members of the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement and the Howard Guidry Justice Committee walked toward the Harris County Jail here on July 21, four white mounted police were waiting for them. The lead cop asked, smiling, “Y’all here to protest? What are you protesting?”

Houston activists outside jail where death row activist and poet Howard Guidry awaits a new trial. WW photo: Luchita Rodriguez

“Police brutality,” the pair responded, and walked on. As they and others began their protest, they were confronted by the Houston Police Red Squad, the Canine Unit and many squad cars as well as the cops on horses.

The two groups already mentioned, plus the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and the Harris County Green Party, were at the jail to protest the brutal treatment of Howard Guidry who, supporters say, had been beaten on July 17 by police assigned to take him to a court hearing.

Guidry’s supporters stood on the corner of San Jacinto and Baker streets for almost two hours in solidarity with the men and women, and in some cases their loved ones, who are brutalized by the prison system.

Many passersby stopped to ask for more information about Guidry and talked about their own loved ones’ experiences with the racist, inhumane Harris County jail system. Some thanked the protesters for coming out and making their unspoken complaints heard.

The whole time the protest was taking place, cars passing by honked loud and long in response to a sign saying “Honk to stop jail brutality.” Even people who got off the bus to go visit at the jail would say, “Honk! Honk!” as they walked by.

Njeri Shakur led the crowd in chanting, “Five white cops/one Black man/equals zero justice” and “They give us no justice/We give them no peace” during pauses in her speech. She spoke of the similarities between today’s prisons and the racist plantations started during slavery.

“We are not isolated,” she said, “and Howard Guidry is certainly not the only poor, Black man being abused and disrespected behind these very walls. All of us whose loved ones are being treated like animals in these jails and prisons must come together and put our voices together. Alone, we are victims. Together, we are an unstoppable force.

“Nothing but the organized anger of the people will ever stop these injustices. They give us no justice, we give them no peace!”

One woman paused on the way to visit her husband, then asked for the bullhorn. She spoke of the brutal treatment her husband had received at the hands of the Harris County police, adding, “The cops were all white. My husband is Black.” She then walked across the street to wait on line for almost an hour with hundreds of others, mothers and sisters and babies and brothers, all waiting for a 15-minute visit through reinforced glass with their loved ones.

Gloria Rubac of the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement asked the crowd, “Would Ken Lay go to court barefoot, without his glasses, after being sat on by a SWAT team?” She denounced the prison system that brutalizes Black, Latin@ and white working class brothers and sisters who can’t afford the same kind of justice that Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling, two Enron executives who stole millions, can pay for.

In English and Spanish, Rubac called for an end to police brutality and demanded that criminals who hide behind badges be put where they belong—behind bars.

See www.geocities.com/howardguidry justicecomm for more information.