The Final Call

The trauma and tragic loss of Pamela Turner

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Antoinette Dorsey, sister of Pamela Turner and Attorney Ben Crump at funeral services. Photos: Rhodesia Muhammad

An independent autopsy report confirmed Pamela Turner, the 44- year-old mother of two gunned down by a Baytown, Texas police officer, was shot three times. She was walking home May 13 when confronted by the officer. She was shot in the face, in the chest and abdomen.

“What kind of a person could do that?” Rev. Sharpton asked hundreds of people who came to the May 23 celebration of life services for Ms. Turner. “At the end of the day, what did Pamela do? Try to go home,” he reiterated.

Ms. Turner had a mental illness and was killed by officer Juan Delacruz who was aware of that, during Mental Illness Awareness Month. Early reports were that the officer was trying to arrest Ms. Turner for outstanding warrants. The victim, caught on cell phone video, and her family accused the cop of harassment.

Family members, civil rights activists, and people from different parts of America filled seats to pay their last respects to a woman said to be loved by the community. Her pearl white casket was adorned with bright pink and purple flowers. Her family wore shades of purple.

Terry K. Anderson, senior pastor of Lily Grove Missionary Baptist Church, welcomed everyone and opened in prayer. Ms. Turner’s children, son Cameron January, and daughter Chelsie Rubin held each other’s hands as they shared a poem and spoke of how supportive their mother was.

“I know my mother is looking down on me and is proud of how strong we’re being,” Ms. Rubin said. “I love you,” she added, before walking back to her seat.

Antoinette Dorsey, Ms. Turner’s sister, who acknowledged she was more like a second mother, said she’s lost a lot of family members. “But the way I feel now is unexplainable. I stand here as a person without a heart because my heart is in that casket,” she said.

Tears rolled down faces as she read a poem about how her sister felt about having a mental illness. “People think I’m crazy but I’m not. I suffer from mental illness, but because people do not understand, I was disliked and judged,” Ms. Dorsey read.

One attendee said she came to the funeral because the tragedy resonated with her. She has a sister with mental illness who likes to roam the streets. What happened to Pamela Turner could easily happen to her sister and it scares her, she said.

“Houston, we have a problem,” said Benjamin Crump, the family attorney. Baytown is about 25 miles from Houston. He introduced the legal team working to bring justice for Ms. Turner. It includes attorneys Lee Merritt, Carol Lexing, John Martinez, and Albert Williams.

“Far too often when you are a person of color struggling with mental health crisis, you don’t get the same care and consideration as others get. See, Pamela Turner needed a helping hand from the police, but what she got was bullets in her body,” Atty. Crump said.

The legal team is demanding due process for Ms. Turner, an unarmed, Black woman who battled with mental illness, he said. “It should not be because of the nature of your ethnicity and the status of your mental health that it should be a compounding factor of whether you live or die whenever we have an interaction with the police,” asserted Atty. Crump.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee flew in from Washington, D.C., to her hometown of Houston to spend time with the Turner family. Instead of gathering for Sunday dinner, the family was mourning the loss of a loved one, she noted.

“She did not have to die,” Rep. Jackson Lee, a Black Democrat, insisted. “Pamela Turner should not have died. I take issue with this woman shot dead in the street and looking up, eyes open, seeing someone take their last breath.”

The congresswoman said she worked in law enforcement for years and what occurred that night did not represent trained law enforcement behavior.

Rev. Sharpton, who was the final speaker, pointed out the lack of compassion Baytown police had for Pamela Turner and her family. “The insult that on the day this family has to funeralize her and lay her to rest, they announce the officer (Juan Delacruz) has gone back to work. It’s a spit in our face. To even not have the respect to say wait a minute … you have to step aside until we investigate this, shows the contempt that some have for human decency,” he said.

“Law enforcement was more concerned about who did the tape instead of what was on the tape,” he continued. He was referring to a viral video of Ms. Turner’s final moments in the encounter with the officer, who also lived in the apartment complex.

Rev. Sharpton said he watched the video and the officer shot the victim without giving any instructions. “Never yelling a command. Never saying anything about stop. If you’re contingent that she reached for your taser, why wasn’t it verbalized on the tape. I hear her say, ‘I’m pregnant. You’re harassing me.’ I never heard you say, ‘don’t go for my taser.’ So, where were you saying halt? Stop! Back up! Freeze!” asked Rev. Sharpton.

He promised the family they were not alone and everyone had to keep up the fight for justice.

Kofi Taharka, national chairman of the National Black United Front, said it was good to show a strong level of support for Ms. Turner’s family. “These families are thrust into a spotlight. They’re grieving. They are approached by the media, lawyers, activists, all types of people. The main reason I went was to show some support for the family.”

“For many years of organizing and activism, I personally haven’t seen where any of these entities have delivered justice,” he continued. “For instance, you have the Baytown police who said they are doing an investigation. Then they said the Texas Rangers were taking over, and one of the classic calls is for the Justice Department to look into things, but we’ve already dug into those things and all of them are police, they just the bigger police. So, we have to visualize a certain type of society where the community needs to be able to see information if we’re going to have any level of faith in it.”

Attorney Merritt, one of the members of the legal team, agreed there needs to be transparency. But he has no faith the state agencies will be fair in their investigations.

“I think the DA’s investigation will be biased,” he told The Final Call. “I think the Texas Rangers’ investigation will be biased. It’s our responsibility to go out and collect the evidence ourselves. There’s no time limit on the investigation. My concern is that the Texas Rangers’ investigation is normally prohibitively extenuated. They run an investigation until no one cares anymore or until the attention goes away and the district attorney’s office in Harris County tends to follow their timeline.”

Atty. Merritt said lawyers are encouraging District Attorney Kim Ogg to secure an indictment, regardless of the investigation’s timeline, if there is sufficient evidence.

“We’re encouraging her to do that because we’re supplementing their investigation. So, we have witnesses, we have additional evidence, and we have the medical evidence that we’re turning over as a part of our civil suit. In doing that, we are preparing our federal civil rights claims. We’re petitioning that the Department of Justice and the FBI come in and take over the investigation,” he explained.

He went on to say the county’s District Attorney’s office has indicted cops before, “but I don’t trust them to run a fair investigation and I certainly don’t trust Baytown to investigate it or the Texas Rangers. We’re going to keep pressure on the DA because the evidence is already sufficient,” he said.

Many women, particularly Black women, expressed feeling traumatized by Pamela Turner’s death and increased police brutality against women.

Akua Holt, a producer and journalist, said while sitting through Ms. Turner’s memorial, she thought about how many other Black women lost their lives in similar situations.

“Long before sister Pamela Turner and long before Sandra Bland, women have been brutalized. The impact of the trauma is far reaching. It’s more than just a hashtag and a conversation. The emotional impact that this trauma is having on Black women is unspeakable,” she said.

“As a Black woman, I don’t hear our voices. I would’ve liked to see more women who understand our humanity. Where are we? Where are the hair stylists, and the make-up artists, and the people who make our clothes and do our nails and eye lashes? We don’t have any women’s group speaking out about what happened to our sister Pamela Turner.”

Baba Lola Goodrich, community activist, admitted he’s fearful of becoming desensitized to lives lost at the hands of law enforcement. “I fear that it’s sneaking up on me. That’s why I went to the funeral to show support to the family and the community. At this point, until we somehow make this stop and put pressure on our city and state leaders to change laws, it’s going to continue to happen. We need to remember if we don’t do anything, if we don’t challenge the system, it could be us one day or one of our loved ones and we’re going to want everybody in the world to come to our aid. That’s why it’s our responsibility to go to their aid,” he said.