Activist in Bland case receives 12 days in jail
Ex-justice of peace admits breaking law, trespassing
In the weeks after Sandra Bland was found dead in a Waller County jail cell, longtime community activist DeWayne Charleston joined those protesting outside the building day after day.
Charleston reported to that same jail Wednesday to serve a 12-day sentence for trespassing, part of an agreement with prosecutors. During the protests, Charleston entered the jail lobby one day and refused to leave.
As Charleston saw it, the time to be served represented a chance “to speak ‘with’ Sandy about injustice in Texas; to speak to my insides about who I am, and what I no longer fear,” he wrote in a Facebook post, the text of which was emailed to the media.
Charleston is eligible for early release.
Bland, a 28-year-old African-American woman who had returned to Prairie View to work for her alma mater, died July 13, days after a state trooper pulled her over on a traffic in fraction and arrested her following a heated exchange. Medical examiners ruled her death a suicide. The incident helped fuel the Black Lives Matter movement, with activists invoking her name well beyond the rural county where she died.
Obstructing enforcers
Authorities arrested Charleston on Aug. 12, nearly a month after Bland’s death, and charged him with criminal trespassing, a misdemeanor, court records show.
Barricades placed outside the jail’s entrance had blocked Charleston and other activists from resting on the hot summer day as they usually did in the shade of the building’s overhang, said Charleston’s attorney, Lee Van Richardson Jr. Charleston entered the lobby in protest.
“He intended it as an act of civil disobedience,” Richardson said. “He admitted it. When they asked him to leave, he didn’t leave.”
Waller County District Attorney Elton Mathis said by phone Thursday he had been told Charleston was interfering with the daily functions of the area, including dispatch. Charleston was repeatedly told to go but ultimately lay down on the floor, Mathis said.
“I can respect his feelings and his concern over the things that were going on in the world at that time, in particular with the issues surrounding Sandra Bland,” Mathis said. “However, when you are putting yourself in the position to interfere with law enforcement, and you are given numerous warnings to stop or leave, then that compassion at some point has to diminish. ... We have to maintain law and order.”
‘I broke the law’
Charleston was no stranger to the judicial system, Mathis noted.
In 2003, Charleston became the first black person in Waller County elected as a justice of the peace. But he was suspended indefinitely from the position in 2009, when he faced corruption charges following an FBI investigation that led to prison time for multiple officials in the county.
Charleston pleaded guilty in 2010 to involvement in a conspiracy in which he solicited and accepted $14,500 in contractor bribes, according to reports at the time. He received five years probation and a $2,000 fine.
The former j ustice of the peace also has a history as an activist: He re- portedly was born on the campus of Prairie View A& M University, a historically black school in the county. He fought for minority issues such as the voting rights of students there. He also advocated for better school conditions.
Following Bland’s death, he called for the sheriff ’s resignation.
In his emailed message, Charleston described becoming involved in political and civil rights issues as a student at Waller High School, when football players boycotted the varsity season in demanding the selection of more black cheerleaders for the squad.
Charleston wrote that, as he prepared for his 12-day sentence, he hopes others will take the opportunity to consider for what cause they would go to jail. Charleston deserved to go to jail, he wrote, while Bland did not.
“I broke the law,” he wrote. “I protested Bland’s treatment from behind the hastily erected barricades meant to stymie our peaceful protest.”
“Sandra Bland did not deserve to go to jail. Sandra Bland merely failed to signal a lane change,” Charleston added.