TAKE ACTION ADVOCACY GROUP CEO FAWN WALKER MONTGOMERY IS OUTRAGED AT THE RECENT EVENTS INVOLVING MCKEESPORT POLICE. KAY STINSON, LEFT, LOOKS ON. HER BROTHER, CALLIE, WAS BEATEN BY POLICE ON MARCH 8. (PHOTO BY ROB TAYLOR JR.)
Viral video shows police placing knee on Callie Stinson Sr.’s head
There were so many cars, trucks and buses honking their horns down Lysle Boulevard in McKeesport on Saturday, March 15, you would have thought there was a dignitary in town, or a celebrity, like Beyonce or Taylor Swift.
No.
It was the sound of hunÂdreds of horns honking in support of the 20 or so peoÂple holding a rally outside the McKeesport police headquarters. Signs that read, “Defund the police! Invest in this communiÂty,” “We shall overcome racism, hatred, bigotry” and “Hold McKeesport police accountable” were held by people at the rally. The signs were met with support via the over 400 vehicles that rode by and honked their horns.
“We are here because the (McKeesport) police officers (nearly) killed a 72-year-old man, and that’s not the only thing that they’ve done,” exÂclaimed Fawn Walker Montgomery, the CEO of Take Action AdvocaÂcy Group, formerly Take Action Mon Valley. “They beat him, they fractured his ribs, he was in intenÂsive care…We’ve been fighting the McKeesport police since we started (the organization) 10 and a half years ago.”
Could it be that the hunÂdreds of cars who honked their horns in support saw the viral video from March 8, when two McKeesport officers were seen kneeÂing the 72-year-old Black man, Callie Stinson Sr., including holding a knee on Stinson’s head, as they tried to apprehend him? Could it be that the cars that went by were all too familiar with the allegaÂtions Take Action AdvocaÂcy Group says McKeesport officers are about, which, according to TAAG, is terÂrorizing people of color, particularly Black people, in the city?
Local TV news outlets played the viral video for all to see a few weeks ago, when Stinson was arrestÂed outside of his home. McKeesport police and the mayor, Mike CherepÂko, said that police were called to the scene on Beech Street for Stinson allegedly threatening a neighbor with a brick. The mayor said police told him that when they arrived, Stinson allegedly charged at the neighbor and startÂed throwing punches, and that’s when McKeesport police stepped in.
But it’s the “way” that they stepped in that has members of Take Action Advocacy Group, and esÂpecially Montgomery, hotter than a firecracker. When it was all said and done, Stinson had to be rushed to a local hospital and placed in the ICU with multiple broken bones, inÂcluding fractured ribs.
“This is a 70-year-old man, and there’s nothing you can tell me he could have done to provoke such an attack,” Montgomery told WPXI-TV reporter Talia Kirkland. “There is no excuse for that at all.”
Stinson, while up in a hospital bed, was charged by McKeesport police with two counts of simple assault and one count of resisting arrest. Stinson’s sister, Kay Stinson, was at the March 15 rally outside the police station, and told the New Pittsburgh CouriÂer that she hadn’t seen her brother in the hospital beÂcause he was under police custody. At the time of the March 15 rally, a week afÂter the beating, Kay StinÂson said she heard her brother was doing “terriÂble,” even adding that she was told his broken bones in his ribs were numbers “2, 4 and 9.”
DAKOTIS GREENHOW, 12, HOLDS A SIGN DURING A RALLY OUTSIDE MCKEESPORT POLICE HEADQUARTERS, MARCH 15.
Sidney Walker, a McKÂeesport resident who is 67 years old, spoke at the rally. A fellow Black man like Stinson, Walker told the Courier after the ralÂly that it was a “disgrace” what happened to StinÂson. Walker said there was no need for an officer to put his knee on Stinson’s head, but then Walker brought up another point.
“When the other cop that drove up ran up (to the scene), obviously he had a body camera on, because that’s when (the other two officers) stopped beating him.”
Walker said that he feels McKeesport officers do such actions “because they’ve gotten away with it for so long. The bottom line is, there’s nobody that ever holds them accountÂable.”
Walker also said that he feels McKeesport poÂlice officers come from “upper-echelon neighborÂhoods (and cities) like Mt. Lebanon, that don’t know how to deal with African Americans, number one, and number two, they come in here and the adÂministration tells them, ‘these are targeted areas, so you go in there with that type of force or menÂtality,’ so we (as African Americans) don’t even have a chance.”
Walker told the Courier that years ago, while he was in a Port Authority (now Pittsburgh Regional Transit) uniform driving his BMW, he was pulled over in McKeesport by an officer. Turns out, Walker did nothing wrong. Walker told the Courier he feels he was pulled over just beÂcause McKeesport officers don’t want to see Black men driving such luxury vehicles.
SOLEIL MEADE WANTS MCKEESPORT POLICE TO BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE
FOR THEIR ACTIONS. (PHOTOS BY ROB TAYLOR JR.)
Cherepko, the McKÂeesport mayor, has already said there won’t be any internal or external inÂvestigation into the arrest of Stinson by his officers, stating they did nothing wrong, and that Stinson was the original aggressor. That didn’t sit well with Montgomery, who, three weeks earlier, learned about a situation where a Black man was pulled over in McKeesport, and ended with a viral video of police pulling the Black man out the car at gunpoint, while his family watched in front of their home.
“This is a pattern of exÂcessive force and misuse of power by the McKeesport Police Department that has been going on for years,” Montgomery told WPXI.
At the rally, MontgomÂery went over a list of deÂmands her organization wants from McKeesport police. The first demand was for the releasing of police-worn body camera footage from the incident where the Black man was forced from his vehicle at gunpoint in February, and the footage from the StinÂson arrest on March 8. She also wants the officers inÂvolved in the two incidents to be terminated. The secÂond demand was that the McKeesport police join the Allegheny County PoÂlice Review Board or start their own. The police deÂpartment should also use mental health professionÂals to assist the police on calls, Montgomery said.
The third demand was that the McKeesport poÂlice budget should be sliced by 10 percent, with the money going back to the McKeesport commuÂnity for things such as a foundation grant program. That foundation could help with youth scholarÂships or violence prevenÂtion programs.
“I am terrified,” MontÂgomery said at the March 15 rally, “literally terrified that McKeesport police are going to kill a person of color, particularly a Black person. That is why we are here today, because it is our duty to fight for our freedom and our duty to win.”
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