Rodney Pearson Jasper, Texas Town's First Black Police Chief, Sparks Racial Firestorm

JASPER, UNITED STATES: Painted circles that marked evidence in the dragging death of James Byrd Jr. are still visible on the county road outside Jasper, Texas, 27 January. John William 'Bill' King and two others were accused of beating and then chaining the 49-year-old disabled black man by his ankles to a pick-up truck and dragging him more than three miles, strewing his body along the road. AFP PHOTO PAUL BUCK (Photo credit should

jobs.aol.com:

On a June morning in 1998, Rodney Pearson, the first black highway patrolman in Jasper, Texas, got a call. He walked along a mile and half of drag marks, skin and blood, and found the spot in the woods where three white supremacists had wrapped a logging chain around James Byrd Jr.'s ankles, hooked it to a pickup truck and dragged the 49-year-old black man to death along an asphalt road.

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Comments

[karmabee]

04:41 PM on 05/23/2012

Being a broke white female baby boomer I am sick to death of the racism that pervades this so called free country. However hard my life sometimes, I know how much worse it is for ethnic minorities who struggle every day just with looking the way they do. I am sick to my stomach at the whining of under-served 'cyclists, weed smoking frat rows or disheartened bird watchers. Try waking up every morning, looking in the mirror and thinking, Be afraid and stay that way! From cradle to grave. STILL! WTF. Where am I living?

[shawshank]

12:32 PM on 05/23/2012

"The town still needed to select a permanent chief, and suddenly a lot of people started applying for the job -- people from all around Texas, with gleaming credentials. In an interview, Willie Land, a council member at the time, speculated that the mayor and other city officials were soliciting applications.

None of the city council members serving then had ever picked a police chief before, so the mayor said he decided to adopt a new scoring system to help sort through the candidates.

Unfortunately for Pearson, the new scoring system was heavily weighted toward municipal experience. So Pearson's 21 years as a Texas State Trooper didn't count for much. He got a really low score."

This is how institutional racism works. They move the goalposts.

[tracelm]

09:14 AM on 06/14/2012

How is it racism when he scored lowest of all applicants and they still placed him in office? He was picked over 2 other African American Candidates that scored higher than him. He was chosen by a black city council members........

[meelabean]

10:48 PM on 05/22/2012

East Texas. Not a surprise, won't venture anywhere near there if I don't have to.

[happyblackman]

03:34 PM on 05/22/2012

It seems the more things change, the more they stay the same.

[OooZzzzz]

03:24 PM on 05/22/2012

Quote: "In just over a year since Pearson's selection, the city council has flipped from four-fifths black to four-fifths white; a group of white residents managed to organize the first recall election Jasper has ever seen; and despite evidence of forgery on recall petitions, the city managed to kick out the council members who gave Pearson the job".

White people, I only have a question to ask.

What continues to be your overall major malfunction?

[hlane721]

03:19 PM on 05/22/2012

Once again, I do not understand why black and white are the main issue in America. White is not the only race that lives in American nor Black. We are so busy fighting each other until we are overlooking that American is being buy up by foreigns from other countries. China is buying up so much in American and we own them tons of money. Whites have become the minorty according to a lot of surveys I have seen. Why fight blacks, they are not taking over the jobs here in America. Most of the foreigns in this country hired people from their country. We all need to stop and look around. It is so stupid, Yes, we have a black president, which he can not do too much with the congress he has fighting against everything he trieds to do. He may lose in 2012, America with all of this hate and racial tones is heading for destruction.

[SayWhat1955]

02:39 PM on 05/22/2012

What's the story on this? It's only one paragraph and it's about James Byrd Jr.

[Boissiere Parker]

01:41 PM on 05/22/2012

Jasper is one of many US cities the civil rights movement missed.

[Erynn Sellers]

12:21 PM on 05/22/2012

How is that a firestorm? If the men did it than that is all there is to it. there is no firestorm.

[BlairCase]

08:49 AM on 05/22/2012

According to thr Beaumont Enterprise, "Pearson has a criminal background. He was arrested in Sweetwater for bad checks and was transferred to Odessa. But his supervisor in Odessa said he was arrested there for more bad checks, and while Pearson was working for the department of transportation he was investigated for stealing gasoline from the department. A previous supervisor of Pearson’s told the city of Jasper that if they hire Rodney Pearson they are only asking for trouble." The paper also reports Pearson lied on his job application by checking boxes to indicate he had never been arrested or subjected to disciplinary action.

.http://blog.beaumontenterprise.com/bayou/2011/04/25/rodney-pearson-jaspers-new-police-chief-hire-raises-some-brows/

[girlking]

12:56 AM on 05/23/2012

It looks like he fits in quite well with the rest of law enforcement in Jasper so what's the difference? Are you more concerned with his transgressions or everyone as a whole?

[BlairCase]

08:53 AM on 05/23/2012

People routinely get fired for lying on their job applications. Police departments tend not to hire people with criminal records. There's no indication in the artilce that other Jasper police officers lied about their criminal records on their job applications.

[O K Ali]

09:49 AM on 05/23/2012

A Class C misdemeanor, the same thing the mayor got with his bout of public drunkeness, never mind that he ran his car up a pole at the same time too.

[MARTYB]

05:16 AM on 05/22/2012

Mayor "Lout" how fitting,"a little bit of cronyism"? how about some "good ol fashioned" behind the doors lets get rid of the "n" ism?

[maliksmama]

11:12 PM on 05/21/2012

So sad that black folks don't vote and didn't come out and support the police chief. They deserve whatever happens.

[MizzAfrodite]

01:14 PM on 05/22/2012

To be fair, the article did say that there is no black owned newspaper or radio station there. Why the churches, at least, couldn't get the message out, I don't know, though.

[matilda81]

04:58 PM on 05/22/2012

The African American community in Jasper is extremely peaceful and forgiving. Many are angry over the city council member removal but feel like it isn't Godly to participate in any of this, because they would be buying into hate. Interestingly enough, Mr. Pearson was never that involved in the black community there and has even been known to snub people of his race. His friends are white as well as his wife.

[iRock]

09:27 PM on 05/21/2012

You mean white people are racist???

[Boissiere Parker]

01:43 PM on 05/22/2012

No all of them thank goodness....

[ColleenHarper]

02:04 PM on 05/22/2012

No, but racists are racists. Not all white people are racists. And some black people are racists.

I didn't see anywhere in the AOL article where anyone claimed that all the white people in town are racists, but I did read how there has long been a racist problem in town.

[Boobuzuela]

06:22 PM on 05/21/2012

"The sheriff is a-near!"

[BLAQ RAIN ANGEL]

09:05 PM on 05/21/2012

Someones a Fan of Blazing Saddles!!!!