Sean Ellis

Sean Ellis - Trial 4

Netflix is currently airing a documentary called Trial 4 which is about a young black man named Sean Ellis from Boston, Massachusetts, who was wrongly convicted at the age of 19, of killing a police officer named Detective John Mulligan, a corrupt police officer who routinely ripped off black drug dealers. This tragedy occurred on September 22, 1993. Sean spent some 22 years in prison, more than half of his life, and this documentary sadly depicts how these tragic events unfolded.

Adding insult to injury, Sean’s two female cousins were murdered three days later in the same household he shared with them. The detectives found Sean’s driver’s license there in the house, which to some, would not seem at all suspicious, considering that this was his legal domicile. A ubiquitous Walgreen’s receipt put him at the scene of the crime, where he had bought disposable diapers for his cousin. The date-stamp on the receipt suggests he was there at the time the murder occurred.

As a Boston native (and from personal firsthand experience), there have been tales of horrendous beatings perpetuated by this police department, experienced by many family members and friends. The Boston Police Department has been a brutal regime and ever more brutal to the black community. Criminality has been rampant within this police force, particularly during the crack epidemic in the 80’s and 90’s. Corruption is not unique in our country, and many other police departments within the United States carry this same badge of shame. The ones that are sworn to do their duty to protect and serve, to uphold legal rules and bylaws, only to throw those edicts aside. They serve only themselves, in pursuit of monetary gain, through self-serving greed and power.

Detective Mulligan, who drove a brand new Corvette, had also owned several other luxury cars on a detective’s salary. He was dispatched during the overnight patrol at the Walgreens store in Roslindale, Massachusetts, where he was often seen sleeping in the car. A worker at Walgreens during his break noticed how the officer appeared to be unresponsive as he tapped on the car window. The officer had been shot five times in his face, with a bullet lodged in his nostril while his pants were wrapped about his ankles.

The documentary is titled Trial 4 because they were preparing for yet a fourth trial, as Sean Ellis had two mistrials, and the third trial he was convicted for the murder and robbery of Detective John Mulligan. A weak argument from lead prosecutor Phyllis Broker claimed that Ellis and another man murdered the detective in order to rob him of his service weapon. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison on January 4, 1995.

After 22 years of imprisonment, this young black man had more than half of his life stolen by this degenerate legal system. Robbed of his manhood, and eventually exonerated, according to the National Registry of Exonerations, but the harm done is irreparable. He is part of this tragic phenomenon called mass incarceration.

Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, reveals a bleak outlook of a majority of young black men growing up in America who are being jailed, many of them wrongfully. Although this book was published in 2010, the present day reality and truth of this subject matter is still crystal clear. This author believes the present United States of America has and always has been made up of a caste system. As much as many would like to believe that there never was such a thing, the fact is that this system has never gone away; it has simply been regenerated; refurbished, so to speak.

Because of the so-called “War on Drugs”, black men have been disportionately targeted in order for America to gain some aspect of racial control. Just as it was legal at one time to discriminate against African Americans in the USA, presently it is legal to discriminate against criminals, the majority that are black and young. Former criminals have a hard time gaining employment, as well as housing, public benefits, excluding them from jury service, and education, and a host of other freedoms.

In her book, Michelle Alexander talks about how the War on Drugs was sparked by President Reagan purposely to invoke and instigate an epidemic, mainly to inflict a system that would marginalize blacks; to stall and prevent opportunities that would be and should be enjoyed by all of humankind. Michelle Alexander’s book is a rewarding and necessary read and as executive director of the National Black Police Association, Ronald E. Hampton suggests, “The New Jim Crow should be required reading for anyone working for real change in the criminal justice system.” I would add that this should be required reading for every student in any classroom, in any country.

There are many that would blame the absent black male parent that should have guided our black youth; (the so-called renegades and super-predators) to be their moral guides and role models. President Obama, Louis Farrakhan, Bill Cosby and Sidney Poitier, all reminded African Americans that there were far too many black fathers that were AWOL and/or MIA. As Michelle Alexander says: “The media did not ask-and Obama did not tell-where the missing fathers might be.”

I’ll give you one guess.

Alexander, Michelle, The New Jim Crow. The New Press, 2010.