The story of my life could very well be considered yet another tragic tale of how the Amerikkkan criminal justice system functions to destroy the lives of Black and Brown Peoples in this country, especially Black and Brown males. My fatal encounter with Amerikkkan justice took place back in 1993 during the height of the mass incarceration boom. i was only an 18 year old kid addicted to drugs and like so many of my inner city peers, struggling to find my way in a society that deems my life disposable. Failed by the public school system nd trapped within an over policed, crime infested environment, i appeared to be on a fast track straight to prison as the system had designed.
On the night of Nov. 30, 1993 destiny would come calling. Walking through the parking lot of the apartment complex where my sister lived i was confronted by officer Mark Spears of the Indianapolis police dept. Routinely harassed by IPD, i was high, had a loaded handgun on me, and several warrants out for my arrest, so upon seeing the police i immediately fled. Ofc. spears gave chase and when he began to gain ground on my my scared irrational 18 yr old mind made a reckless decision that i would come to regret the rest of my life. I took the gun i had and fired several shots into the air hoping to scare the ofc. Into slowing his pursuit and allowing me to get away. This actually worked but ofc. spears called for backup and every available officer in the area rushed to the scene. Within minutes the apartments was flooded with police and shortly after i was found at my sister’s apartment and arrested.
Despite the fact none of my rounds hit ofc. spears or anything else, the state of ind. charged me with attempted murder and felon with a gun. Poor and penniless the court appointed me a public defender who provided me with no real legal counsel. Instead he worked with the prosecutor to trick me into signing a jury waiver. My case was heard by a white lady pro temp judge who made no attempt to hide her prejudice towards me. Once both sides had rested their cases she did not even bother to deliberate over the facts but immediately found me guilty on all counts and sentenced me to the maximum the law would allow. On the attempted murder charge i received 45 yrs and on the felon with a gun charge i received 3 yrs with the sentences ordered to be served consecutively for a total of 48 yrs. Here in ind. that meant i had to serve 24 yrs before eligible for parole.
i would serve 26 ½ yrs before being paroled last year on July 27, 2020. Now a 45 yr old man, the world that i returned to had changed. It was now a more colder violent vicious place that i now realize i was totally unprepared for. And with both my parents passing away while i was incarcerated even though with three sisters and an older brother. Out here i would learn the hard way that i was still all alone. The fact that the ind. dept of cor. had done nothing to help me prepare for a successful transition made it obvious that they hope i would be caught up in the vicious cycle of recidivism that helps keep the nation’s jails full. To ensure this fate they burdened me with a set of oppressive rules as a condition of my parole that would limit me from enjoying my rights of full citizenship in a society that already viewed me as suspect due to my criminal record.
The parole ofc. assigned to my case was a young white lady in her twenties and a former cor. ofc. with the ind. dept of cor. Like most cor. ofc she had that mentality that all prisoners are manipulators and untrustworthy. She made it clear to me that her job was to make sure i complied with the conditions of parole. During our first meeting she showed up to my house with five other parole agents and illegally cloned my cellphone making it possible for them to see who i talked to and track my movement. And when i explained to her that i had secured employment with the non profit i had helped create while incarcerated and was starting a landscaping service that would focus on providing jobs to formerly incarcerated people my parole ofc. told me flat out i would not be allowed to do this because parole doesn’t allow parolees to work for themselves. So instead she arranged an interview for me with Recycle Force where i would be paid min wage to pick through the trash and dodge rats all day. i had taken the time to earn a college degree while incarcerated and refused to settle for a low wage dead end job. i explained to my parole ofc. that i was a 45 yr old man which meant i might have 10 more yrs of physical labor left in me and if i hoped to have a stable comfortable future for myself and potential family i needed to be an entrepreneur not a low wage employee. Believing that i did not deserve such a future my parole ofc. wasn’t hearing it and insisted that parole wasn’t going to allow me to be anything but help.
After this first meeting i was pretty much turned off by the entire parole situation feeling as if i had been placed in a trap. It was clear to me that parole did not have my best interests in mind and each encounter with my parole ofc. left me more bitter and frustrated. After a few months i found myself turning to drugs to cope which only made things worse because now i began to fail my drug test, placing my freedom in even more jeopardy. Five months after being released i realized that i needed to regroup in a more humble environment and reached out to those i knew in Bloomington, IN who are also activists. They invited me down and helped me get a job at the IU Medical Center construction site through Wilhelm Construction. The company paid for me to take my OSHA 10 exam online so i could join the union and my starting pay would be 17 dollars plus an hour. My comrades in Bloomington also helped me secure a place to stay and i began to work with them on several activist projects that helped me develop a deeper sense of what community activism was all about. The time i spent in Bloomington was by far the best experience i had while free because it provided me with a sense of achievement. But it was quickly snatched away from me by parole who felt the need to show me they still held all the cards to my freedom.
Though i had not seen or spoken to my parole ofc. in over a month i had left several messages with her explaining everything i was doing and where i was at. i guess this however wasn’t good enough for her because my parole ofc. had a warrant put out for my arrest, and on Jan 8, 2021 not even six months since being released, a heavily armed SWAT team showed up at my new bosses farm in Columbus, IN where i had been working on the property the past few days with him and his son. The police pulled up to the property in a tank and at least fifty other cars blocking the road for a mile in both directions. They had snipers positioned across the road ready to kill me and used two heavily armed tactical teams to assault the property. They set off flash bang grenades and pointed assault weapons causing everyone to fear for our lives all because my parole ofc. said i did not return a phone call that i never got. They treated the situation as if they were looking for a terrorist or someone who had just committed a serious crime and not a simple parole violation. This incident made it clear to me that though my case was almost 30 yrs old, law enforcement here in the state of ind. still took it personal and would always deal with this aggressively. They would kill me without hesitation and nobody around me was safe.
I was arrested and taken back to Indianapolis and placed in the Marion County jail. A few days later my parole ofc. shows up with the Notice of Preliminary H
earing waiver telling me that if i simply pleaded guilty to the alleged violations i would be sent to out patient treatment rather than back to prison. Though i had passed the last two drug tests she had given and didn’t feel as if i needed treatment, i really didn’t want to return to prison so i signed the waiver and after 10 days i was taken to the VOA. But instead of out patient treatment i was to learn that i was being placed in an inpatient program. i was also informed that the VOA was a work release program and i would be required to work while there and pay a fee. The entire idea of this made me furious because not once towards the end of my 26 ½ yrs of incarceration had the ind. dept of cor. even considered placing me in work release. Instead they kept me housed at some of the most dangerous maximum security facilities in the state. Now work release wasn’t being offered as a privilege but a means to punish me. Upset i demanded to be returned to the jail and allowed to just finish my parole time on the inside knowing that under the parole status my attempted murder sentence had been completed because i had turned over to parole on it in Nov. 2018 and two yrs had passed since that date. Now all i had was the gun sentence to complete and the maximum on that was Aug 31, 2021. But my family and comrades pleaded with me to give the program a chance so i stayed.
i would quickly come to regret it because i discovered the VOA program is a huge kick back scheme and the residents are all being exploited by private companies. Though it claims to provide drug treatment the directors of VOA couldn’t care less about its residents recovery. They were more concerned with placing as many of us as possible in low wage dead end jobs that were being provided by private companies who held contracts with the VOA. The VOA itself is a private company contracted by the state and it required that its residents work and turn over our entire paychecks which they immediately took out their fees. The rest of the funds were deposited in an interest drawn account, held until you are released from the program. But you don’t receive all the funds from the account, only the money you earn while working and the VOA pocket all interests made off those funds.
Though supposedly a drug treatment program there are so much illegal drugs flowing through the facility that it might as well be considered another dope spot where drugs are sold and consumed all day. While i was there several residents overdosed on heroin and over a dozen more were arrested for dealing drugs at the facility. I was there for over a month at what is supposed to be a sixty day program and not once did i see or speak with the facility’s drug addiction specialist or receive any treatment outline designed to help me with my addiction. Instead i was constantly hounded and harassed daily by my counselor about accepting a job through one of the temp services VOA receives kick backs from. When i informed them that i wanted to resume the work i was doing before i was arrested, they told me i could not work for the non profit and parole had restricted me from leaving Marion County so i could not return to the construction job with Wllhelm in Bloomington. Now please tell me how such an environment could be conducive to recovery?
Without a job i was forced to remain at the facility trapped in a drug infested environment where so much K-2 was being smoked a thick heavy cloud lingered over the entire dorm area, especially the restroom area where people were allowed to hang out and smoke all day and night. My physical health began to be affected by second hand exposure causing my eyes to swell up and leak puss which i had to be rushed to the hospital treated and placed on medication the first time. i finally had had enough when i woke up with severe chest pain struggling to breathe and coughing up black mucus. Once again i was rushed to the hospital where i was treated for a severe lung infection. i spent the entire night in the hospital and upon my release late the next morning i sat out front in the cold for hours debating what i was going to do. i knew i wasn’t going back to the VOA but by not returning i realized i would be violating my parole and a warrant would be issued for my arrest. This meant that once again ind. Law enforcement would have a reason to come looking for me and my life as well as anyone around me would be in danger. Having been locked up most of my life i was tired of being caged up and simply wanted to experience a little of what life had to offer. So i reached out to a relative in Georgia who agreed to let me come down there and get my life together. And that very same day i left and headed down south.
Knowing that i could not run forever i arrived in Georgia with a plan. With only a few months left on my gun sentence i figured i would create a solid foundation for myself in Georgia that would give me something to return to once i turned myself in and finished my sentence. i hooked up with a local barber who allowed me to apprentice under him during the week and i began learning to cut hair. On the weekend i worked to earn extra money with a private contractor remodeling houses allowing me to learn another valuable skill. The entire time i was in Georgia i never violated any of that state’s laws or came in contact with law enforcement. Just like I did in Bloomington, IN i conducted myself as a law abiding citizen with no desire to live a life of crime because i can function properly out in society when left alone by parole and other law enforcement agencies.
Somehow law enforcement got wind that i was in Georgia and on April 21, 2021 the U.S. Marshals arrested me outside my hotel room in Forest Park while i was leaving for work that morning.
Once again i was placed under arrest and taken to the Clayton County Jail to await extradition back to ind. On May 14, 2021 the ind. dept. of cor. came and got me from Georgia and brought me straight to R.D.C. When served my Notice of Preliminary Hearing i learned that i had been charged with violating three conditions of my release which i pleaded not guilty to. i also discovered that Vice Chairman Charles Miller of the parole board had instructed the Director of Sentence Computation and Release Jennifer Farmer to go into the computer system and switch my sentences around to try to make it appear that i was paroled last year on the attempted murder sentence and not the gun sentence. The purpose behind this illegal manipulation of my records and abuse of power was that now the record reflects that i have at least another 9 yrs left to serve on the attempted murder if the parole board decide to hold me on my alleged violations instead of the 4 months left on the handgun sentence. Whoever has done this either have never bothered to read the parole statute or could clearly care less what the law is, believing they have the power to do whatever they want to me. i believe this illegal manipulation of my sentence was done so that the parole board would have justification to hold me which otherwise they would not and my time on the handgun sentence would expire before the sixty days the law says they have to hold a hearing.
What these people have failed to realize is that while incarcerated i took the time to educate myself on the laws of the state of ind. Now i am able to utilize this knowledge to protect myself and others like me from blatant abuses of power such as this. What they also have not counted on is the power of the people out there who are willing to stand up and say they won’t tolerate the system’s attempt to rob me of my life. So i share my story with you all to expose the truly
wicked, vindictive, and diabolical nature of the ind. parole division. i now ask that you will join me in my fight to bring an end to this injustice. Together we can let the ind. parole division know that they will not get the chance to steal another precious life from our community. My release date should and shall be Aug. 31, 2021 if they know that eyes are watching and won’t tolerate an injustice. In asking for your support i’d like to point out to you that i have committed no additional crimes while free on parole and i am being held on technical violations, acts that had i not been on parole i would never be arrested for. And the crime that i do stand convicted of happened over 25 yrs ago and no one was physically harmed. I have given almost 30 yrs of my life paying for the actions of an 18 yr irrational kid. What more do they want to satisfy their thirst for vengeance? Those of you who have the opportunity to personally interact with me can testify to the type of person i am. You know that i fought to expose abuses of oppressed people while trapped inside of that cage and once freed made every effort to stand side by side on the front lines.
A simple look at IDOC Watch web page will reveal all that i have done and i hope that those who know me will go online and share their stories so that the world will realize i am worth the effort. Please don’t allow this to be another tragic tail of the Amerikkkan injustice system stealing another Black Life because this life does indeed Matter.
Angaza Iman Bahar
They Shall Never Break Me
For Like My Ancestors I Am Unbreakable
Greatness Shall Be My Destiny
For the People Shall Make It So…
