4 posts tagged “houston”
This was kinda random. Homeless dude was sitting down, chilling, minding his bizness and the cop pulled up, parked, and proceeded to lock the man up. Thus, the title of this series ... "Park and Lock" ... like the sign says.
Today we met Brian, an 18 year old who was released from jail after serving a four year sentence. A native of New Orleans, he was locked up after an incident that occurred in Houston when he was visiting his father at 14. We met him in Huntsville, Texas outside of the "Walls" prison, the release center for Texas Department of Correction inmates. Brian grew up in Prison, he basically missed his adolescence ... or, he's still a 14 year old with an 18 year old date of birth and a 50 year old outlook on life. "Ten people close to me died while I was in prison ... and I couldn't do nothing but send a letter." Damn. That's what four years is to an eighteen year old black man, in or out of jail, nowadays. He was in prison when Katrina hit without any update on the status of family members until months later when his mother relocated to Houston.
A prisoner is given a bag for their belongings and a greyhound bus ticket to a destination of their choice upon release. The prison gates open and out comes an exodus of Black and Brown faces. Think of the day of Jubilee or Juneteenth: Freedom. Some sentences were as short as a couple of months, others were as long as a several decades. But today, they are free again ... well, at least after they board the bus because the Greyhound lady who yells for all the men to line up and collects their tickets is the first person to look at them as an ex con. She may not know where they're going but she is well aware, in the small country-prison-town of Huntsville, of where they're coming from. One of the men turned to DP while he was shooting and said "Thank you. Show them that we are not savages." Brian, who looks like a child, took that hour trip from Huntsville to Houston alone like the rest of the men. The first place he ran to after exiting the Greyhound station was across the street to grab some fast food. America's foremost ambassador, McDonald's, was the only thing waiting for him with open arms. Come eat up.
Brian knows he is not a savage, and after four years in the Texas Department of Corrections system, he is a free man. "I'm not going back to prison," he says,"but I know it's gonna be hard for me out here..."
Texas got 99 problems but a Mexican ain't one.
"The Klan is real active round here." Welcome to KPFT, liberal radio in the heart of Texas.
On the wall in the station is a Crime Stoppers bulletin with a $15,000 reward for a shooting at the station a few weeks ago. A radio show host was nearly shot in the incident. Ray, the electrician/custodian turned expert PA, due to the volume of camera crews they get, gave us a quick rundown of public reaction to the station. KPFT is the only station in the country to ever have its transformers blown up, it happened twice here ... And the leading suspect is the Klan. After shooting our interview with a radio host, we go outside on the back deck of the station to the vending machine.
Ray
comes outside, looks around for a second then shouts, "that wasn't on
there a few minutes ago! That stuff on the refrigerator ...well, it
won't be there in ten minutes." DP and I look at the refrigerator to
find a swastika and the words "burn all Negroes (Niggers)" written in
permanent marker on the refrigerator next to the vending machine. The
odd thing is that we were shooting in the room that the deck wass off
of for the last thirty minutes and we saw everyone who went out back
... they had to walk through our shot to get there. I question how
could or why would someone walk all the way around back to deface a
fridge? DP said,"it was probably one of the 50 people whose hands we
shook in the station...."
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