March 6, 2019 was Ash Wednesday to many, and at 19 degrees, the coldest day of the year to all Baltimoreans. For Tawanda Jones, it was the 2044th day since her brother, Tyrone West, died while in Baltimore City police custody. Despite freezing temperatures, Jones and 15 others protestors gathered on the intersection of Greenmount and 33rd, holding up the signs reading the names of police brutality victims across the country.
West Wednesday is a weekly protest and vigil led by Jones to speak out against police brutality and keep her brother’s memory and death fresh in the minds of Baltimoreans. March 6 marked the 292nd West Wednesday.
A tall, older man, who Jones affectionately calls Uncle Bill, sets up a mic and speaker. Tacked onto the speaker is a laminated poster that reads in white block letters: JUSTICE FOR TYRONE WEST. The words are accompanied by a picture of West, a man with long dreads and an introspective look in his eyes.
A young woman steps up to the mic to speak. “Police brutality is just a weapon used in a system that’s filled with greed and corruption,” she says. “It’s the capital of this system.”
Several others speak after her. One man reads the names of Baltimoreans who were killed in the past week due to violence.
But no one speaks longer, louder, or with more passion than Jones. Even though she’s bundled up in a coat and gloves, Jones is striking. She has on a large, shiny necklace, thigh high leather boots, and a black hat with a large fuzzy pom-pom. She greets everyone with a smile and a hug. At one point, she interrupts an impassioned speech to greet an elderly West Wednesday participant.
“Hey beautiful queen!” she says. “Glad you could join us.”
On this particular day, Jones calls out to everyone to voice their opposition to the Hopkins private police force.
On April 18, Governor Larry Hogan approved the Community Safety and Strengthening Act, the bill that will allow the university to implement a private police force. Since the beginning of April, Hopkins students and community members that oppose the bill have staged a sit-in in Garland Hall, the university’s administration building. Every Wednesday since, Jones has culminated the West Wednesday protests in Garland Hall, demanding that the university’s administration include more measures for police accountability in the bill.
Jones, a prekindergarten teacher, wasn’t always an outspoken person, she says. She was shy, and kept to herself.
“You can either look at things as a negative or a positive,” she says. “Even though what happened to my brother was horrific, I turned that energy into something positive.” Jones realized that West’s death was part of a larger story. Instances of police brutality were happening across the nation, and police were not being held accountable for their actions.
Bill Bleich, or Uncle Bill, says that as long as he’s known Jones, her outspokenness has never wavered. Bleich is a retired teacher. He taught at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, a public high school, where he taught three of West’s cousins. He knew of the West family. A year after West’s death, he got involved with West Wednesdays.
“Tawanda and her fiancé told me what they needed most was for people to stick around,” Bleich says. “They needed people to stick around and be committed to the cause.”
At another West Wednesday, Jones talks about attending church with her brother on July 14, 2013, the Sunday before he died. That day, the pastor said something Jones had never heard before: black lives matter. After the siblings left church, West told Jones that he felt like the pastor was speaking specifically to him.
“That Thursday, at 6:30 PM, the last conversation I had with my brother on Earth was about George Zimmerman.” Jones said. West had told her that he had been thinking a lot about the pastor’s sermon, and that they needed to watch out for the George Zimmermans in their own community. Jones asked him to elaborate.
“His last words to me were ‘I’ll tell you when I get back’. Guess we’re going to have a heavenly conversation.”
Tyrone West died on Thursday, July 18, around 7 p.m. He was having dinner with Jones when he got a call from a friend of his, who was stranded and needed a ride. He took his sister’s green Mercedes Benz and set off to help his friend. West and his passenger were on the corner of Kithmore Road and Northwood Drive when two police officer, Jorge Omar Bernardez-Ruiz and Nichole David Chapman, initiated a traffic stop. Police accounts show that Tyrone fled from the police once he was out of his care. Residents of the homes on Kithmore and Northwood report seeing West chased down by police officers, tackled, punched. They watched in horror as West was beaten onto the sidewalk with batons, kicked and knocked in the head and back, restrained, and pepper sprayed. Twelve officers were at the scene when West was handcuffed. One of them, a Morgan State police officer names David Lewis, sat on his knees on West’s back. Another officer screamed at Lewis to get off Tyrone, which he eventually did. Officer Corey Jennings of the Baltimore City Police told CBS Baltimore in 2014 that when he tried to rolled West over, he was “dead weight” and ashen gray.
At that moment, Jones, who was at home, says she felt a sharp pain in her neck and back. She fell to the floor, writhing in pain, crying. She says the spell only lasted 10 minutes. When the pain subsided, she knew immediately that something had happened to her brother. She told her fiancé to go to her brother’s house to check on him.
“I told him, ‘I don’t care how you get there, just get there,” Jones says. Her fiancé ran 5 miles to her brother’s house. All the while, she prayed that her fiancé would see the her green Mercedes parked in West’s driveway, which he had borrowed from his sister, and know that her brother made it home safely.
In fact, West had been taken to the Good Samaritan Hospital. He was pronounced dead at 8:11 p.m.
The chief medical examiner of the state of Maryland, David Fowler, conducted an autopsy West the following day. The examiner report claimed that West’s death was caused by a combination of heart complications and dehydration. Neither asphyxia nor the injuries sustained from the alleged police assaults were reported to have caused his untimely death.
Then-mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake charged the Baltimore Police Department with an internal investigation surrounding the officer’s charged with Tyrone’s death. Eight officers were suspended.
Later that year, the Baltimore City State Attorney determined that there was not enough evidence to file criminal charges against any of the officers. None of the police officers were charged, not even Morgan State officer David Lewis.
One of Bleich’s most memorable moments of his many years involved with West Wednesdays was a march through the Morgan State University campus. The march ended in the university’s student center, which features a permanent civil rights movement exhibition. The West Wednesday was broken up by Morgan State security, and a participant was arrested. Bleich says that this was the only person to have ever been arrested at a West Wednesday. He notes the irony of this arrest in a hall featuring images from prominent historical moments in civil rights movements.
This is why Jones, along with a majority of Hopkins students, fear the implementation of a Hopkins private police force. “Hopkins is manipulating people by saying this force is going to be a good force, and not only that, but they’re going to be held accountable,” Jones says. “But nothing in that bill spells out accountability.”
Bleich said that one of his former students at Baltimore Poly, a current Hopkins security guard, predicted that, once the private police arrive on campus, it would only take six months before tragedy strikes.
“Brutal forces are going to come in, and something is bound to happen.” Jones says.
“Someone’s loved one is going to be murdered. But whatever Hopkins wants, Hopkins gets. Someone shouted that one out at a West Wednesday – and it’s true.”
Even if the bill is passed, the opposition will continue, Tawanda said, speaking before the April 1 passage of the Community Safety and Strengthening Act. She is confident that the resistance can stop the police force by voting out the politicians who approved the bill.
On April 29, the Monday before the 300th West Wednesday, Jones received a notice from Hopkins administration. It warned her that further protests would be considered violations of the university conduct code and trespassing. The following week, in the early hours of Wednesday, May 8, Baltimore City police arrested seven students and community members peacefully protesting in Garland Hall. This followed the student protestors’ complete lock-down of the building, shutting out all administration and administrative activities. At the West Wednesday held later that night, Jones expressed her support of the student protestors.
“Even though they tried to ambush us this morning, we still stand in solidarity with our soldiers and queens and kings.” Jones raises her fist in the air. “We still riding for the cause.”
Jones believed that one day things will change for the better. She plans to continue to speak out until that change comes around.
“I do this out of love. One day I’m going to sit down with the right prosecutor that is going to prosecute. Even if those killer cops spend six months to a year in jail, it still sends a strong message that don’t give up. Don’t give up.”
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