A Daughter's Tribute

to Her Father

by Ferrell Winfree

 

Introduction

In addition to the murders committed by police and law enforcement officers on the street, while crime suspects are being arrested or investigated, there are many many deaths of a suspicious nature inside of prisons. Like the murders on the street, there is no official record of these deaths because they are recorded, on prison records, as suicides or deaths by natural causes. In the following report, even though the African American victim was "brain dead" upon arrival at the hospital as a result of the beating inflicted upon him, his death was reported as a heart attack. America's prison authorities, in covering up their racist deeds, are a mirror image of the American Government itself - boldly claiming to the United Nations that it has a perfect human rights record, while failing to even protect the civil rights of an injured African American war veteran.

Narrative

A lady named Maxine Cousin from Chattanooga, Tennessee gave to me a classic example of the injustice of our Justice System. She told me of her father, Wadie E. Suttles, Sr. The first time I met Maxine, as she told me her story, she began to weep. She told me that even though she is still fighting the battles, none of it will bring back her father to his family. I told her that even though this is true, his story could help in the greater struggle of those who cry out from the prisons and jails of this country. So in the sense of tribute to her father, she began to narrate to me the horrors of the past.

Mr. Suttles had served in World War II and was among the first group of blacks to serve in the European Theater. When he returned from the war, he was in a cast to his waist from an injury received in battle. He took a bus in Nashville, Tennessee and because of his restriction of movement, he took the first vacant seat on the bus. He was subsequently ordered off the bus for sitting in an area not allowed to blacks. When he did not obey, he was arrested and went to jail in Nashville.

So, his reward for serving his country began. Over the next several years there was a series of arrests. Most of these would come because of his belief that if he could fight for his country, his country owed him freedom. He had reservations about rearing children in the South but eventually had a family in the North Georgia and Southern Tennessee area.

On November 25, 1983, at the age of 66 years, he was arrested in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He was parked in an area near the bus station and someone had called the police and reported a suspicious person in the area. Maxine believes that her father had Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome from the war and from the segregation and oppression that he was subjected to after the war. There were times when Mr. Suttles would seem to feel the necessity of just being alone. When this happened, he would leave his family and friends and he would drive and drive and just get away from everything. When he did this, he would, most often, sleep in his car. There had been several of these times when he had been arrested for being a "suspicious character." He had no criminal record and had never been involved in any crime and this time, when the policeman came and told him to "move on," he responded that he was an American Citizen and he had a right to sleep where he wanted to. As a result of that response, he was beaten by that first arresting officer who, himself, was black.

This arrest in November of 1983 was different because this time, he did not leave the Chattanooga jail alive. The next day after the arrest, Mr. Suttles appeared before a judge and at the questions asked by the judge concerning his appearance, he told the judge that he had been beaten by the police. Even with the physical evidence of the beating, the judge sent him back to that same jail because the arresting officer did not appear at the hearing. When his family found out about his arrest, they wanted to post bond but he told them that he did not want to pay to get out of a jail that had no right to hold him. When his daughter saw him and he showed to her the blood on his clothing and bruises on his body, she remembers screaming as she begged him to leave the jail. He told her that he would not leave... he told her he wanted to show the world what was happening in that jail to him and to others of color. The next morning Maxine's mother, with a brother and sister, went to the courthouse to speak to a judge and attempted to explain the traumas of their father and the judge ordered the sister put into a holding cell and the rest of the family out of his courtroom.

On December 1, there was sewage backup at the jail and some of the prisoners were moved from one location to another. Mr. Suttles asked for a bath and the officers came in with chemical delousing and began spraying him. He was on a top bunk and crouched into a corner and they pulled him down and began beating him. He fought back. One of the officers had a slap stick with a piece of lead in the end of it and he hit Mr. Suttles in the head. He hit him so hard that the slap stick was bent at a 45 degree angle. Mr. Suttles' legs were chained and he was dragged down a 60 foot hallway to a holding cell. Later, they dragged him again down this hallway and took him to a hospital. One officer was overheard to say, "That old nigger's head sure was hard." Later Maxine learned that her father was the fifth black man to die in police custody in that area in just the last two years.

On December 2, a security guard from the hospital came to Maxine's door at three in the morning and told Maxine that she should go to the hospital to see about her dad. She later discovered that this was the third time in seven days that her father had been in the hospital for injuries received since his arrest. His family was told that his death was the result of a heart attack. The hospital officials told the family that Mr. Suttles was brain dead when he was brought to the hospital. When Maxine asked for and then insisted upon receiving her father's clothing, she was told that the clothing had been destroyed. This is when the investigation began. Maxine and her family did not believe the story fabricated by the jail officials. They were determined to learn the truth.

The jail had been under consideration for closing because of the sewer problems but there was a political battle about it and it had remained open. Now all of that changed. Everything broke lose and the very next day after Mr. Suttles death, the jail was closed. Neither this investigation nor any ultimate investigation has resulted in any arrests in the death of Wadie Suttles. There has never been a Coroner's Inquest into his death. The only changes that came were a few policy changes. Even though the FBI became involved and the FBI even named someone responsible for Mr. Suttles' death, there has been no action taken by local officials as of December 15, 1996.

Maxine fought for her father. She would stand in front of the jail with signs reading "Who killed Wadie Suttles?" She recruited others and they had bumper stickers which read "Who killed Wadie Suttles?" She was threatened. There were times when she feared for her life. She demanded documents, using court methods to gain access to them and the documents she received would have all pertinent information blacked out. She fought in court for 10 years and is still fighting. She lost her job with a government agency, and even with two associate degrees is unable to find work in the Chattanooga area.

In memory of her father's battles she fought a voter's rights case in 1989 and won. Following that, she fought a lawsuit to force the election of judges to be more representative of the people, and she won. In this Cousin vs (Governor of Tennessee) Sumquist the State is in the second appeal. So she is still fighting on her father's behalf. As a fighter, a daughter, and a Black woman in America, Maxine Cousins wishes to remind the world that the men who killed her father are still free.


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