Freda Gilmore Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Charleston Mayor Launches Community Outreach And Empowerment Council

Charleston city leaders launched an advisory group to advocate for marginalized communities on Tuesday.

According to a written statement from Mayor Amy Goodwin, the city’s new Council for Outreach and Empowerment will “cultivate relationships, advocate on behalf of Charleston citizens and create additional opportunities for community input.”

The group – called C-COrE for short – consists of at least 30 members including the mayor and a five-person leadership team. Members hope to have their first meeting within the next couple of weeks.

C-COrE will foster transparency, demonstrate sensitivity to various community concerns, cultivate public trust, advocate for marginalized communities and strengthen ties to various cultural, educational, religious, social, economic and civic entities, according to a list of objectives from the city.

Goodwin told West Virginia Public Broadcasting on Tuesday she began having conversations with leaders who are now C-COrE members last fall, following an incident during which Charleston police officers forcefully arrested Freda Gilmore, a Black woman whose family said she was hospitalized for the injuries.

“When the issues surrounding Freda Gilmore came up, we called the RESET team,” Goodwin said, referring to a group of local clergy and public officials formed in 2014, in response to protests and unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, over the death of Michael Brown.

“We met within 12 to 24 hours. We sat down, we had conversations with them, we had conversations with the police department,” Goodwin said. “But what we found out very quickly was that system was very myopic. Administration, police, and a couple of faith-based community members were not everybody we needed to have around the table.”

C-COrE’s roughly 30 members include faith leaders, mental health and addiction experts, housing advocates, workforce specialists and more, all of whom Goodwin said she hopes will work proactively versus reactively.

Last Monday, the Charleston City Council agreed to pay an $80,000 settlement to Gilmore, who police forcefully arrested in October.

Videos on Facebook and dash-camera footage show one patrol officer, Carlie McCoy, had Gilmore on the ground when patrol officer Joshua Mena arrived at the scene, following McCoy’s requests for backup.

Mena hit Gilmore’s face with his closed fist four times, and tried to hit her with his knee, according to video and police reports. An internal investigation later found Mena’s actions followed the city’s use of force police.

McCoy said in police reports that Gilmore was involved in an altercation outside Family Dollar. The city has agreed to drop misdemeanor charges against Gilmore, including one for obstruction.

Gilmore’s family told West Virginia Public Broadcasting in November their daughter was hospitalized following the incident for facial injuries.

“I feel that the city administration worked out an agreeable solution with Gilmore and I’m pleased that there was a settlement,” Goodwin said Tuesday.

LaKeisha Barron-Brown, from the C-COrE leadership team, said the group will address all community concerns and issues, not just those tied to law enforcement or race.

“Some of the other issues that we would like to address are the mental health issues that we know are plaguing our community,” Barron-Brown said. “Oftentimes when people think of mental health, you know, they may not have a true understanding of what that is.”

A mental health professional, Barron-Brown said she looks forward to finding new ways to support people in Charleston dealing with homelessness, or Charleston residents facing co-occurring disorders in mental health and addiction.

Goodwin said she wants the group to be community-driven, but she said she anticipates members will address requests that came up last fall, following Gilmore’s arrest.

The #KeepUsSafeCharlestonWV coalition asked in October that the city finish implementing an anti-racism platform the city started a few years ago and never completed.

There also were requests that the city review and update its use of force policy for police, which was last updated in 2003.

Goodwin said the city referred the incident to the FBI in November. Both Mena and McCoy work for the police department, following less than a week of paid administrative leave.

Emily Allen is a Report for America corps member.

Latest Use Of Force Suit Against Charleston Police Ends In $80,000 Settlement

The city of Charleston will pay an $80,000 settlement to a Black woman who police arrested and allegedly injured outside a Family Dollar on Charleston’s West Side in October 2019.

City council members approved the terms of the settlement during a meeting on Monday, after attorneys for Freda Gilmore and the city agreed to settle last week, the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported.

“This settlement gives Freda an opportunity to pick up these pieces and move forward, to start over again,” said Gilmore’s attorney Michael Cary in an interview with West Virginia Public Broadcasting Tuesday afternoon.

Cary said he also reached a confidential settlement for Gilmore with Family Dollar. The store’s security guard was involved in Gilmore’s arrest.

Patrol officer Carlie McCoy was responding to an altercation between two people outside the Family Dollar on Oct. 14, 2019. McCoy said in a police report that night that Gilmore was involved in the fight. McCoy further alleged that Gilmore was uncooperative, refusing to remove her hands from her pockets and attempting to walk away from McCoy.

McCoy already had Gilmore on the ground when patrol officer Joshua Mena arrived at the scene and approached them, following McCoy’s requests for backup. He said in his own supplemental statement that he had attempted to strike Gilmore with his knee.

Mena acknowledged issuing several more fist blows to Gilmore’s face when she was on the ground, which he said were to “gain pain compliance.”

Gilmore, who Cary and her family say has special needs, stayed at the South Central Regional Jail in Charleston for less than a week before her release. The city of Charleston is agreeing, through the settlement, to dismiss the two misdemeanor charges against her, for obstructing an officer and animal cruelty.

During her arrest, McCoy said she found a dead small dog in Gilmore’s pockets, which officers said died from parvo. Gilmore told the Gazette-Mail in January she had found the sick dog earlier and it wasn’t hers, but she wanted to help it.

An internal review from the Charleston Police Department found the actions of Mena and McCoy fit the city’s decades-old use of force policy, last updated in 2003. Both officers remain on staff.

Videos of the arrest from bystanders posted to Facebook sparked public outcry and requests for a new investigation last fall. Charleston Mayor Amy Goodwin said in November the city referred the incident to the FBI for review, but there have been no updates and the Charleston Police Department’s policy remains unchanged.

Earlier this year, the Kanawha County Commission also agreed to pay a $275,000 settlement to a white family in Dunbar, who alleged that the sheriff’s department and local police illegally and forcibly entered their home early in the morning on March 12, 2016, in search of a suspect who attorneys say the family had nothing to do with.

According to the Crites’ family lawsuit, filed in March 2018, officers didn’t have a warrant. They entered the Crites home with firearms, they didn’t identify themselves, and they damaged the stairs leading up to the Crites’ attic, their front door and their garage door.

Cary filed a separate suit against the Smithers Police Department in Kanawha and Fayette counties for an incident in 2019, during which an officer allegedly threw two women to the ground and injured both, as he was trying to arrest one of the women for missing a hearing in Fayette County magistrate court. Attorneys for that officer, C.L. Osborne, denied most of the complaint’s allegations of violence in a response filed on Feb. 14.

Emily Allen is a Report for America corps member.

Charleston Police Investigation Regarding ‘Use Of Force' Policy Referred To FBI

The Charleston Police Department has referred an incident involving two of its officers to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for independent review, according to an announcement from the mayor’s office on Thursday.

There’s no guarantee the FBI will take up the case, involving patrol officers Joshua Mena and Carlie McCoy, who have been scrutinized by some members of the Charleston community for the way they arrested Freda Gilmore, a black woman with special needs, earlier in October.

The incident went viral overnight after a woman standing nearby, Alisyn Proctor, posted a cell phone video of the arrest to Facebook. There, hundreds of people have viewed what appears to be McCoy on the ground with Gilmore, while Mena — who arrived on the scene after McCoy called for assistance — appears to be punching Gilmore.

Proctor also was arrested that night. Police say they charged her with a misdemeanor for disorderly conduct.

An internal investigation by the department’s Division of Professional Standards cleared Mena and McCoy of any wrongdoing a week and a half later. Police leadership have said Gilmore was resisting arrest, and both officers were complying with the department’s policy for permissible use of force.

During a press conference at City Hall Thursday afternoon, retired Charleston Police Officer Eric Smith tried to explain Mena and McCoy’s actions on the night of Gilmore’s arrest.

“You can only use the information that is available to the officer at the time,” Smith said, referring to precedent set by the U.S. Supreme Court case Graham v. Connor.

Smith, who said he used to work on crime statistics during his time with the police department, explained that when Mena arrived to help McCoy, Mena likely couldn’t tell just by looking at Gilmore her size or the fact she has special needs.

“But [then] you throw in the mental health issues,” Smith said, “People with mental health, they don’t tire as quickly. They don’t feel pain as much. … They’re wired a little different, right? So they will fight, further to exhaustion, than normal people.”

A recent study from researchers at Indiana University, Vanderbilt University and the University of Virginia reports a growing number of people are wrongly correlating evidence of mental health illness with acts of violence. Several organizations, including the Harvard Medical School in 2011, have pointed out that most individuals with psychiatric disorders are not violent.

Two Press Conferences Merged Into One

Smith and local members of the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) — reportedly the nation’s largest member-organization for sworn police officers — shared a joint press conference with Charleston Mayor Amy Shuler Goodwin on Thursday, during which she and a group of concerned religious leaders spoke first.

There originally were supposed to be two separate press conferences. Goodwin said she decided to combine the events shortly before their scheduled times, after a private meeting with the police and clergy.

Goodwin’s address on Thursday was in response to a letter she and the city council received on Nov. 5 from local clergy, which declared Mena and McCoy employed “excessive and unreasonable force” and that the internal review of that force was “inappropriate and inadequate.”

The letter went on to request all Charleston police officers receive training on proper use of force, cultural sensitivity, mental health awareness, emotional intelligence, crisis intervention.

“During our conversation we found we were probably a little closer than we were farther apart,” Goodwin said of the private meeting.

Rev. Marlon Collins, one of the clergy at the combined press conference, said his group talked hours before the conference about ways they could avoid making it seem like they were against the city police department.

“We did not want to make this a black-white issue. It had black and white elements to it, but we did not want to talk about it,” Collins said. He suggested the conversation had grown more intensely focused on race since the Oct. 14 arrest, due to miscommunication.

To Goodwin, she said the joint press conference on Thursday was an effort to express support both for the community and its police.

“To say to our police officers publicly, ‘You do 71,000 plus calls a year for our citizens’,” Goodwin said. “‘We owe a debt of gratitude to you. We appreciate you.’ But to our community? ‘Yes. We need to do better’.”

Goodwin’s highlighted some other initiatives she and the Charleston city council have agreed to, in addition to requesting help from the FBI.

That includes a review of the police department’s policies with help from current and former members of the police department, according to a press release from Goodwin’s office.

Goodwin also has reportedly discussed with Police Chief Opie Smith getting officers to take the “One Mind” pledge created by the International Association of Chiefs of Police, to improve how police interact with people affected by mental illness.

Still No Response On Other Requests

Goodwin’s letter from the clergy wasn’t the only set of requests Goodwin and the city have received from the Charleston community, related to Gilmore’s arrest and the subsequent investigation.

Also on Tuesday, Nov. 5, a coalition of community organizations issued a similar list of requests, which included revising the police department’s use-of-force policy, mandating police officers have working body cameras on them during all shifts and creating a mental health intervention team.

Delegate Danielle Walker from Morgantown holds a sign calling for the city of Charleston to implement racial bias training on Tuesday, Nov. 5, outside a public forum at the local Emmanuel Baptist Church.

That “#KeepUsSafeCharlestonWV coalition” additionally requested the police department finish implementing an eight-point, anti-racism platform that the city started years ago and didn’t complete.

Takeiya Smith from the coalition said during the press conference on Thursday the narrative had been taken over by the police.

“How many times did you say, ‘We support the community’?” Smith said of the Goodwin and comments made at the event. “‘We support the protection of the community’? ‘We support our community members with mental health issues, we support black women’?”

Goodwin said the city plans to hold another meeting for all of the parties involved in this matter soon. Coalition-member Smith said her group plans to continue holding Goodwin accountable for her response to the incident.

‘Our Community Is Forever Opened Up’

As for the family of Freda Gilmore, attorney Michael Cary said they still intend to file a lawsuit against the city. Their timeline is unclear.

He says he also plans to request the dismissal of Gilmore’s two misdemeanor charges from that night.

“We’re not against the City of Charleston Police Department,” Cary said of himself and Freda Gilmore’s parents, Richard and Kimberly. “There are several good officers who have dedicated their lives to the city of Charleston to make this place better … we just have to make sure we come together as a community, to make sure we weed out the officers that aren’t living up to the standards.”

Following the city press conference Thursday afternoon, Kimberly Gilmore said referring the incident to the FBI was a “step in the right direction.”

“I think that our community is forever opened up, our eyes are opened up, and it’s going to be forever changed,” Kimberly Gilmore said. “Because with everything that’s taken place, each cop is going to think about that.”

The Gilmores did not attend the Thursday press conference. Their daughter is at home, her parents said, healing from head and facial injuries sustained from the arrest.

Emily Allen is a Report for America corps member.