Scared

Description

The day I realized I hate police was when they barged in my house and made my dad cry. I was very scared. Waking up hearing my front door being run down. People running in the house, me waking up and my vision all blurred, not fully awake. Me still—haven’t processed in my mind at a young age what’s happening—scared. The officer yanked me by my arm aggressively and tossed me on the couch like I was some type of rag doll. My eyes open wide, me fully awakened at this point. My nephew Leeky was tossed on the couch next to me—him looking like someone stole something from him because he just woke up. My eyes wandering around the house, then turned towards my parent’s room with my parents in handcuffs screaming, “What the fuck is happening?” They were told to be quiet and were placed on the couch next to me. My head rang a bell saying, It’s the police, but why are they here in my head?

We heard screams, and it was my brother screaming, saying, “What’s going on?” Leeky looked at me and I looked back at him and we both gave each other the face like “WTF” are we going thru? They finally yelled at my brother and told him to shut his freaking mouth and pushed him and his girlfriend on the couch. He finally kept calm and stopped talking. They said my name, “Desmond Mashon Leon- ard.” I stood up and they said out loud, “Desmond has been seen with a firearm.” My brother said, “Don’t say anything to these pigs and keep your mouth shut.” They told him to shut up—I still standing confused, wondering, What’s a firearm? Then words started clicking together in my young mind, saying, Oh, I don’t have or own a firearm.

Author Bio

Desmond Mashon Leonard

Desmond Mashon Leonard wrote this piece in a special workshop at Touro Law Center, in 2013 when a small group of students from Central Islip High School came together each week with Barbara Allan, founder of Prison Families Anonymous, Rachel Wiener, their school counselor, and Erika Duncan, founder and director of Herstory Writers Network to use guided memoir writing to explore what it was like to have a parent in prison.  After working together for several months, they decided to create a book, All I Ever Wanted: Stories of Children of the Incarcerated. 

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