A Cry for Answers, a Call for Justice

The family of Chevonne Ecclestone, the Strongsville woman that was brutally attacked in a Parma park, wants (and certainly deserves) a straight answer: They want to know how Todd Torok, who has been arrested 36 times and convicted 22 of those times, could be allowed to roam free and harm an innocent woman. However, I’m afraid no honest, straight answer will be forthcoming from any quarter of the criminal justice system ... simply because an honest, straight answer would point out a troubling, institutionalized, and deeply embedded flaw in that system.

While acknowledging that it’s indeed painful to raise such a nettlesome issue as the victim lies in a hospital bed struggling for her life, the simple truth is, the only time we as a society will pay any attention to systemic problems is when they manifest themselves in the form of some act so heinous, so brutal... that our sensibilities are outraged beyond our ability to ignore.

The hard reality is, Todd Torok was back on the streets once again primarily because he is white. Now, before anyone rushes to tar, feather and run me out of the county on a rail, please hear me out. I polled 27 members of the criminal justice system — from police officers to prosecutors, from defense attorneys to judges, from parole officers to prison officials, both active and retired, black and white, male and female — and the verdict was unanimous: No black man with a similar record of convictions would be allowed to be anywhere near the prison gate, let alone be free to roam the streets hurting innocent people. He’d still be where he deserved to be — in prison.

While some of those I polled were at first reluctant to make such an admission (and none would do so on the record), after a bit of hemming and hawing they all gave voice to an ugly truth: Lady Justice oftentimes peeks out from under her blindfold to see the skin color of the individual standing before her Now we can avoid publically discussing the reality of a built-in racial bias in our criminal justice system, but it only means that we will never address or correct it... and more dangerous men will be allowed back on the street.

The enactment of three-strikes legislation will certainly lock up additional violent felons, but a justice system that tends to favor white privilege can — and often will — find a way around laws deemed too Draconian to apply to a white person. Reality, sometimes, is too ugly and painful to confront, but the family of Chevonne Ecclestone really deserves a straight answer, don’t they?

From Cool Cleveland contributor Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com
Comments? Letters@CoolCleveland.com

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