FOR GOOD!

The following is taken from a Facebook post dated April 15, 2019 by a former gang member entitled "The Former Gang Member Who Finds Meaning"

I was 17 years old and walking out of Cook County Jail having pled “No Contest” to burglary to an automobile. My public defender had said to me back in the cage that he was shocked to see me reading. He said that as long as he had been a public defender, he had never seen anyone in the cage reading before they came out to see the judge.

The public defender seemed so impressed that I was reading in the cage. He said that I didn’t have to plead guilty, but I sure wasn’t innocent. He said that this could go real bad with me going to prison for years on other charges if I didn’t pled “No Contest.”  He figured he was working for me. I was there but kind of not there at the same time. The older inmates saw me, and I saw them. I had little to say to them, and they didn’t say much to me. It was a kind of an unspoken respect, sometimes spoken that I had gained since being locked up.

I walked into the Cook County Jail as a recognized and hardened gang member of a violent South Side of Chicago street gang. To this day, I do not tell people the gang that I was affiliated with because many members hold the creed that once a member, always a member. Also, many in opposing gangs hold the creed that once an enemy, always an enemy. I had decided, while in County Jail, that I would no longer be defined by gang culture and identity. I had decided that no one in an opposing gang was my enemy any longer. Judge Strayhorn believed this public defender and gave me a chance.

Judge Strayhorn gave me probation with some time served. He also gave me an assignment on Judge Thurgood Marshall that I had to turn in to him. Previously, I had been reading the Autobiography of Malcolm X, Nai’m Akbar’s Chains and Images of Psychological Slavery, and Stephen B. Oates' Let the Trumpet Sound on the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. These books were provided to me through mail while locked up by my mentor, David McCasckill. David had been my substance abuse counselor and mentor, father-figure. He was the only reason that I would get back into high school in my junior year after being a dropout. After Judge Strayhorn gave me another chance at freedom, after the support of this public defender, after David fighting for me when I didn’t fight for myself; my life began a trajectory with meaning and purpose which I have not stopped to this day many years later after being a father, husband, educator and role model to thousands.

Is the young man who had the experience described above one of the young men that Umar Johnson, speaking as a psychologist, would want to "put to sleep" for good?  Should he have been "put to sleep"?  Does Umar Johnson, who claims to be a psychologist, a clinical psychologist, a therapist, an expert in conflict resolution, a behavioral scientist, and a school psychologist, thinks someone like the young man who wrote the words above, who is now an educator, father and a husband, would need to be murdered?

Who the hell does Umar Johnson think he is that he is the decider of who deserves to live?

People who are psychologists, clinical psychologists, therapists, experts in conflict resolution, behavioral scientists, and school psychologists do not advocate murder of populations.  The irony is that Umar Johnson has openly advocated for the murder of members of the population he claims he's trying to help with the still nonexistent school.

This alone should disqualify Umar Johnson from being around any children.






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