Carolyn Harding with Melissa McFadden, author of the newly released memoir, Walking the Thin Black Line - Confronting Racism in the Columbus Division of Police.
Last Friday, December 4, a 23 year old, young black man, Casey Goodson Jr. was shot and killed by the hands of a 17-year veteran of the Franklin County Sheriff's Office, deputy Jason Meade, as Casey arrived home from the dentist, where his grandma, little brother and extended family were waiting.
This heart breaking atrocity is not an isolated incident here in Columbus, Ohio. No, recent years we have lost Henry Green (23), Tyree King (13), Kareem Ali Nadir Jones (30) and Julius Tate (16) to police gun violence. We are all asking Why?
“Lieutenant McFadden can not comment on Casey Goodson’s investigation as she is still an active police officer with the Columbus Division of Police.” But her story can help us understand what set the culture and climate within law enforcement in Central Ohio, and in her experience, the Columbus Division of Police.
Melissa McFadden is an activist and author who’s spent 24 years as a police officer in the Columbus, Ohio Division of Police.
McFadden was born and raised by her mom in the coal country of southern West Virginia, with a strong sense of justice. She always wanted to be an officer. She entered the US Air Force right out of high school to gain the training she thought would give her a shot at realizing her dream. Even as a trained military special police officer, the Black girl from the hillbilly state had to fight her way into the Columbus Police Academy in 1996.
She immediately saw discrimination and bigotry she had never experienced before. She didn’t know it wasn’t her job to fix it. But with her belief in God, her military training, and her love of learning she set out to right decades of wrongs perpetrated by Columbus police against the Black community, which as she quickly found out, included Black officers.
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Intro and Exit music for GrassRoot Ohio is "Resilient" by Rising Appalachia: https://youtu.be/tx17RvPMaQ8
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