HOUSTON—On September 12, 2012, Crystal Scott, a 23-year-old African woman in Houston, Texas, shot and killed her white attacker.
The attacker, 22-year-old Jonathan Ables, and Crystal were involved in a minor traffic altercation that escalated into Scott having to use her licensed weapon to defend herself.
Here's the story:
September 12 started as an ordinary day for the single mother of two. She had prepared her kids for daycare and school and was driving to work.
At approximately 7:30 am, Ables rear-ended her car. She pulled into a nearby gas station to assess the damage and exchange insurance information, or so she thought.
Instead, in a matter of seconds, the belligerent white male confronted her, banging on her car window until it shattered.
Then, according to witnesses, there was a tug of war with Crystal attempting to keep her door closed and the attacker trying his best to pull it open.
Fortunately, Crystal was licensed to carry a firearm and had enough courage to use it in her defense.
She pulled her pistol and shot through the window, not knowing whether she had hit her assailant or not.
The bullets pierced Ables’ body, ensuring that he would never bully anyone else ever again.
Immediately following the self-defense shooting, Houston and Harris County police descended on the scene.
They questioned Crystal Scott and witnesses and determined she had acted in self-defense.
The cops even tried to console Crystal who was visibly upset because a stranger had made her fear and fight for her life.
According to the Houston Chronicle of September 17, 2012:
"Scott called 911 before pulling into the Shell Station because she was concerned about the man's actions following the collision, authorities said," and, "Her account of what happened seemed to match that of witnesses in the area, sheriff's deputies said."
Witnesses at the scene, and the 911 phone operator talking with Crystal as the attack unfolded, were major reasons Crystal was not arrested or taken to police headquarters for questioning.
Once Crystal's family and her pastor, the Reverend James Dixon arrived on the scene, Crystal was allowed to leave with them, to be reunited with her two children again.
But this is not the end of the story.
On February 19, 2013, a Harris County grand jury indicted Crystal for murder. The district attorney appeared on television calling for her to surrender or be arrested.
Colonial reasons for Crystal Scott’s indictment
First and foremost, African people in Texas just don't kill white people for any reason whatsoever and expect to avoid criminal charges. More times than not that means the death penalty.
Harris County (Houston) sends more Africans to death row than any other jurisdiction in the U.S. And Texas murders more Africans “legally” through the death penalty than any other state.
But that is the way it is with colonized people the world over. And black people in this country are no different. The colonized don't have any rights the colonizers are bound to respect.
A petition was put together calling for Crystal's arrest. It was based largely on the premise that if George Zimmerman was charged with second-degree murder for the slaying of Trayvon Martin in Florida, then certainly this black woman must be indicted.
The petition, which garnered nearly 575 signatures, reads in its entirety:
"Jonathan Ables died in a parking lot of a Shell Gas Station over a fender bender. Witness accounts show Jonathan possibly was trying to get Scott's insurance information when she shot him from the inside of her car. Why does she get a grand jury, but another high profile self-defense claim gets charged with murder in the 2nd degree (referring to George Zimmerman)? We demand that Crystal Scott immediately be jailed and charged in Jonathan's death. Every minute she walks free is an injustice."
The petition does not even attempt to refute the truth of what happened on that fateful day.
It reinforces exactly what happened and only plays on the built-in anti-black nature of the colonial State and white people who are patriotically aligned with it.
The white Harris County grand jury issued a murder indictment after waiting five months. The district attorney took action immediately and issued the arrest warrant.
But this is not surprising because we know that the U.S. State was born out of the genocide of the Indigenous people of this land and the capture and enslavement of Africans for over 400 years. It was born as a white power State.
The headline on stormfront.org, whose slogan is "White Pride World Wide," reads, "White man murdered by negress in road rage incident." There is hypocrisy they say, because Crystal Scott is accused of signing the Trayvon Martin petition demanding the prosecution of the white-nationalist terrorist George Zimmerman.
State protects whites who kill Africans
The grand jury system that indicted Crystal Scott is the same one that in 2007 refused to return a criminal indictment on Joe Horn, a white man who shot-gunned down two Africans in the back.
He said he watched them break into his neighbor’s house and they were running away. He shot them despite being on the phone with a 911 dispatcher who warned him that the cops would be there shortly and to leave the situation alone.
And this is the same grand jury system that could not bring back indictments against three drunk off-duty cops who chased down and murdered 50-year-old Ida Delaney, an African woman on her way to work. Like Crystal, Ida was also licensed to carry a firearm and did manage to get off a shot before the drunkards gunned her down.
Earlier that night these cops were thrown out of a known narcotics bar. Other cops later stopped them for driving erratically. But they were let go because they were cops.
This same grand jury system could not bring back indictments on the white cops who handcuffed Jose Campos Torres and threw him off the Buffalo Bayou Bridge where he drowned.
This is the same system where Houston cops shot Robbie Tolan in his yard because he attempted to defend his mother from a cop physically abusing her. The cop walks and patrols the streets today.
This same system lets cops, who in 2011 were caught on video beating, kicking and running over 15-year-old Chad Holley, walk free.
And this is the Texas where white terrorists kidnapped and dragged James Byrd Jr. from the back of a pick-up truck until his body literally broke apart, then dumped his remains in the nearest African cemetery. They did this for no other reason than James Byrd Jr. was an African.
This is also the Texas where millions of Mexican and Indigenous people were murdered during the theft of their lands so that black people could be brought in to work as chattel slaves. We were worked and lynched and didn't get paid a dime.
And this is the Texas where Africans celebrate the 19th of June every year because Texas fought the emancipation proclamation two years after the end of the civil war, which supposedly ended legal slavery, except for prisons.
Crystal Scott lives in a country where young people like Oscar Grant are murdered on an Oakland, California subway platform with cameras rolling and clear evidence, but nevertheless, the murderer walks.
The whole world watched cops from the Los Angeles Police Department nearly stomp the life out of Rodney King. Now they walk free and serve as police leadership there.
Christopher Dorner saw this and last month tried to bring some semblance of justice to the situation.
We must organize to defend Crystal Scott
The International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM) says to Crystal Scott and her family: We got your back!
Everyone involved in Crystal's defense should understand that these are serious charges and that the State will attempt to put her in prison for life, despite what appears to be no evidence to support such harsh treatment.
Justice has nothing to do with this case unless the black community stands up for Crystal and demands it.
Our responsibility is to organize a militant defense and movement that allows for all the freedom loving people in this country and in this world to lend political and material support.
This movement exposes the true relationship black people have to the U.S. colonial government and State.
This is a movement that can win. We have done it before and we will do it again.
We fought for the freedom of Dessie X Woods, a black woman in Georgia in the 1970s who killed a white man with his own pistol while he attempted to rape her.
It was unheard of for an African not to get the death penalty in Georgia for killing a white person.
We fought for Dessie and we won.
In 2012, we fought for Eric Oliver in Florida. Eric defended himself and his family from white vigilantes who came to his home to take his brother away. We fought for Eric and we won.
When we organize here in Houston and fight for Crystal we will win.
The International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement will hold its International Convention in St. Petersburg, Florida on March 23 and 24. The convention is being organized under the slogan: "Build Revolutionary Organization to Protect and Defend Our Own!"
One of the workshops is entitled "Let's Go Half on a Revolution; Protect and Organize the African Woman."
Hopefully, Crystal or her representative can come to this convention and put Crystal's case before the people.
The struggle to Free Crystal Scott will take a top-notch political and legal effort.
Talks with the lawyer, Letitia Quinones reveal she believes that an almost all-white jury will be chosen; therefore we should not antagonize them with the "racial" issues.
She says she believes she can get twelve jurors that will let the evidence speak for itself.
Despite the present legal philosophy of attorney Quinones, Crystal Scott deserves to be defended against a colonialist legal system that has never cared about evidence, demonstrated by the thousands of legal lynchings they have carried out in U.S. courtrooms throughout this country.
Courtrooms in Houston, Texas are showcases for injustice against Africans.
This means organizing a defense committee capable of mobilizing the people into the streets and the courtroom, in addition to raising funds to help defray legal costs.
Currently, Crystal remains free until an April 4 plea and bail hearing.
Stay tuned to The Burning Spear newspaper and Uhuru News for what you can do.
In the meanwhile, we are organizing!
DEFEND AND FREE CRYSTAL SCOTT AS WE PROTECT AND DEFEND OUR OWN!
FORWARD TO THE INPDUM CONVENTION, MARCH 23 and 24!
For more information contact: omowale.uhuru@yahoo.com
