Restraint: Marcus Deon Smith
March 8, 2021
“SAY THEIR NAMES” - “BLACK LIVES MATTER” - “ACAB” …
…are all plastered on large signs and spray painted on plywood boards throughout the city. I see people from the end of Elm Street meeting my neighborhood of Historic Fisher Park all the way to the start of Gate City Blvd. The one thing that hadn’t occurred to me - was just how close these names with deep and heavy backstories were, to being occurrences within my own space. If you were unaware of what I’m getting at, here’s a painted picture for ya:
38 year old Marcus Deon Smith attended the 2018 Folk Festival along with me, a few of my bandmates and friends without the knowledge that he may not return the next day. As he walked the streets of Downtown Greensboro, attacked by a wave of anxiety and discomfort, he attempted to ask for assistance from our local police. Sitting in a space so dreadfully familiar to the African American experience, he waited in the back of a squad car for the presence of EMS. He began to panic. Kicking at the door for freedom as I see it, because I can’t imagine what being in a unnatural headspace plus waiting in the back of a police car as a black man can equal.
He was greeted with an open door to a face on the floor, tight handcuffs and soon after, his legs pulled and bonded to his hands. The presence of body and car cams didn’t restrain the officers from standing and watching Smith gasp for air, beg for assistance, and wonder in fear why ten people could be in his vicinity with no one to his rescue. Two paramedics. Eight police officers.
Marcus Deon Smith, cause of death homicide, with the examiners statement saying “sudden cardiopulmonary arrest due to prone restraint. Along with the use of ecstasy, cocaine and alcohol, and hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.” The question that underlies to me is: if your cousin, or your college buddy that gets a little too turnt most nights decides to go out to the Folk Festival in the middle of the summer, down in the small lovely town of Greensboro, would you expect them to come home attacked by the police? I mean, this isn’t Chicago, it isn’t Detroit, it isn’t Compton, it’s North Carolina!
To this day there hasn’t been any justice concluded against this case. Marcus Deon Smith’s family is continuing this fight, now going into its third year. A rising number of names have come to light with this same tragic theme, and although we seem to give them attention for a small window of time we never seem to stay on topic for very long. This case is home, for those reading on computer and phone screens in the state of NC. So don’t let it get swept under the rug, do what you can, no matter how small.
PETITION TO SETTLE THE MARCUS DEON SMITH CASE
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thank you for reading.