The Truth Staff
The New Order National Human Rights Organization held a protest march on Saturday July 20 to bring the public’s attention to a number of Toledo Police Department’s incidents that have resulted in complaints from area citizens.
The protesters started at Promenade Park, walked north on Summit Street, west on Jackson until they reached the Toledo Police Department on N. Erie Street.
“I’m very concerned about the recent issues under the chief of police administration,” said Gerald Rose, president and founder of New Order. Rose, a former Toledoan, has been based in Atlanta since the mid 1990s but makes his way home to Toledo on any number of occasions to further the work of his organization.
“Minorities are most affected,” said Rose as he noted that police profiling of individuals tended to be directed all too often at minorities leading to incidents that have recently roiled the community.
One such example is an incident which occurred on April 11 after a license-plate reader erroneously identified a resident’s pickup truck as a stolen vehicle. When the resident, Brandon Upchurch, was stopped, he was approached by Officer Adrian Wilson with gun drawn and declined to get out of his truck initially until he could find out what the problem was.
When he did finally exit the vehicle “to de-escalate the situation,” said Upchurch later, a series of mishaps followed. Ordered to lie down, Upchurch searched for a proper place to do so, was not deemed fast enough and Officer Wilson directed his canine partner to attack Upchurch.
Upchurch was treated for the dog bite by the Toledo Fire Department which cleaned and bandaged Mr. Upchurch’s wound; he was taken to St. Vincent Hospital to be examined and then transported to Lucas County jail.
He was charged with obstruction and resisting arrest and, after a number of postponements, originally a court date of June 12 for the misdemeanor offenses. They were later dropped but one has since been reinstated. The police officer was deemed by an internal review to have acted properly.
However, the protest march was not directed at just one incident.
“It’s for all incidents,” said Rose. “We’re getting a lot of complaints about issues here in Toledo. This is where I started an I’m not going to forget where I come from. I’m not doing this for fame, I’m doing this for the people.”
“We’re here to prevent [police violations],” Cedric Watson told his fellow marchers just before they started walking towards the police station. “A lot of times police don’t like Black people.” Watson said that the way to prevent such violations in the future was to ensure that there were repercussions for such actions now. “Repercussions come when there is a protest.”
Among the marchers was a young woman who recently had just such an incident with TPD officers.
On June 26, Natyjae Anderson was a passenger as her mother was driving north on Detroit Avenue when a confrontation began with a man in a black SUV, recalled Anderson.
“The black SUV cut us off and a man started yelling at me that he was a cop,” said Anderson of the other driver who only appeared to Anderson and her mother as “a Caucasian male.”
The man started following Anderson and her mother for about three or four blocks, and “got the license plate.”
Later that day, three squad cars arrived at Anderson’s parents’ house containing five or six uniformed officers. The driver of the SUV was now in uniform, said Anderson, and began yelling that “you used a handgun.” Anderson said she does not own or have a gun.
They handcuffed Anderson, and without reading her rights, took her to Lucas County Jail and charged her with aggravated menacing with a weapon. They didn’t search the house or vehicles and didn’t search Anderson. A weapon, said Anderson, has not been produced. She spent 20 hours in custody and has a trial date now set for August 23.
“I’m going to trial, I didn’t do anything wrong,” she said in answer to a question about taking a plea deal. “I’m not taking accountability for something I didn’t do.”
Her mother was ticketed for speeding, reckless operation of a vehicle and not stopping for a red light.
Those types of interactions are just what the marchers said they want to prevent. Referencing the 2020 Minneapolis George Floyd homicide, Wilson said: “If we could prevent and hold them accountable for the knee in the neck before somebody died, that will stop the knee in the neck.”
The marchers, as they made their way up Summit and across Jackson to police headquarters used several chants to describe what their mission was. One of the chants:
“If we don’t get no justice, they won’t get no peace!”
