By Ashley Moss
Staff Writer
A man who left a voicemail message on a business phone line of a local NAACP branch that referred to Dr. Martin Luther King by a racial epithet may be prosecuted, Garland police said Friday [January 22nd] afternoon.
Police have referred the case to the Dallas County District Attorney’s office for consideration,” said Garland Police Lt. Pedro Barineau, the agency’s public information officer.
“We are pursuing the charge of harassment and the case is being referred to the Dallas County grand jury,” Lt. Barineau wrote in an exclusive email to Texas Metro News Friday afternoon.
Police declined to name the suspect.
Meanwhile, Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot said he was familiar with the case after reading about it in a local newspaper. However, he said late Friday that he was out of his office, away from his computer and could not confirm whether his staff had received the complaint.
“If it was referred to my office, I don’t know about it,” he said during a brief telephone interview from his home. “I just can’t help you right now.”
Calls and an email sent to Dallas County District Attorney Public Information Officer Kimberlee Leach were not returned late Friday.
The escalation of the case came three days after Garland NAACP branch leaders complained to police that they had received an eight-second recorded message on the branch’s telephone line that they considered hateful and intimidating.
In the recorded message, which branch leaders provided a copy of to Texas Metro News, the caller said, in part, “MLK is a good (N-word), but that’s because he’s a dead (N-word).”
The Garland NAACP uses a telephone answering service which sends notification alerts with voice recordings attached after a caller has left a message.
The service identifies the caller by the name in which a phone line is listed and by the caller’s telephone number.
Friday, Gwendolyn Daniels, the NAACP member who received the message in her branch voicemail box, said she was pleased at detectives’ work and their decision.
“We appreciate that the Garland police took the time to investigate it,” Ms. Daniels said. “The detective assigned to our case said that the accused admitted right up front that he did it and that he still felt the same way.”
NAACP Leaders said the incident would not change the branch’s civil rights work, their programming or deter their mission.
“We are not going to change the way we handle things,” said Annie Dickson, president of the Garland NAACP. “We’re just going to continue to serve the community and do our best.”
“This is just one of many people who have tried to bully us,” Dickson said. “But, we don’t accept bullying.”
“People need to realize that not everyone shares the sentiment of equal rights for all people,” Daniels added during a telephone interview with both leaders. “There really are people that feel African Americans do not deserve the same rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as the white community,”
Typically, cases that are referred to grand juries are considered by jurists, who then determine whether there is probable cause that a crime has occurred.
If jurists believe it is likely that a crime was committed, they return an indictment against a suspect, who then will be arrested, charged and face trial.
The members of the Garland NAACP will discuss the incident in their monthly meeting Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2021 at 7:30 p.m. The meeting will be virtual. It is open to all. For more information, click here: https://garlandtxnaacp.org/calendar/.
Texas Metro News staffer Valerie Fields Hill contributed to this report.
