Fear and apprehension have become the two terms that are loosely used when speaking about people of color. When white people are fearful of someone on the basis of race, they presume they have a right to attack. Though unprovoked, many of these attacks have been on black men and women, even children. One recent attack based on the fear of a 57-year-old white man, was against a 15-year-old black, autistic teenager.
Chase Coleman has been in love with track and field since he was in the seventh grade. Although he comes in last at every meet, he still continues to run. His mother, Clarise Coleman, is always there to watch him and make sure that he is safe. Since Chase is autistic, he enjoys going on his own route and charting his own path. Because of this, Clarise has been very meticulous when it comes to knowing the race route and areas where Chase may get lost or wander off to.
During a track meet in Rochester, New York, Clarise realized that her son had not passed the marker where she was patiently waiting. When she realized that Chase had not made it that far, she started to call out to her son. Chase, a non-verbal autistic child, could not respond. This heightened Clarise’s fear. Soon, a young lady approached and asked Clarise if she was looking for a runner. That was when Clarise saw her injured son. In order to understand what took place, she began speaking in third person asking him what hurt, and he said his back.
One witness, Kris Van Metter, recounted the events that took place to Syracuse.com. “I see a grown man, who is quite tall and fairly heavy…exit the vehicle and give this young man a shove that puts him back 10 feet and flat on his butt. Like, just shoved him across the road. The kid didn’t seem to be doing anything but standing there, obviously had nothing in his hands, and weighed all of 130 pounds. This guy (MacDonald) was easily twice that.”
Despite being twice the size of Chase, McDonald felt that his wife, who was seated in the passenger seat was in harms way. McDonald told police that there had been a group of teens breaking into cars lately and he was unsure about Chase and his intentions. After telling Chase repeatedly to get out of the road, he got out of the car because he thought Chase was going to mug his wife and take her purse.
Clarise’s response to that was what any mother would say. “I said, impossible. That’s a lie. Chase don’t even know how to defend himself. What? He can barely ride a bike. [Chase] was in a uniform. He had a number pinned to him. How did you think that he was out trolling to steal your car? You can’t tell me that it wasn’t because my son wasn’t black. There were Asian kids, there were Caucasian kids. But you picked the black kid to say, ‘That crossed my mind?’”
She filed charges against Martin McDonald for second degree assault, but Rochester City Court Judge Caroline Morrison denied their warrant application. Shocked by what took place, Clarise took to Facebook to vent her frustration. Syracuse city council member Susan Boyle heard of what happened and wrote a letter to the Monroe County District Attorney’s Office, asking for an explanation as to why the courts felt that this crime should go unpunished. “It’s just devastating, this poor kid. There’s so many issues around this that are so troubling. That this happened, to begin with. Even if there were no race issues, this grown man jumped out of his car and shoved the kid. If you met Chase you’d probably figure out pretty quickly that he was a special-needs kid. There’s no justice. It’s just disturbing,” Boyle told the Washington Post.
Since the incident Chase has stopped running. He turned his track uniform into his coach and quit the team. Clarise even finds that he holds his head down from time to time. “We just keep telling him, ‘You didn’t do anything wrong. Chase is good. There are mean people and there are nice people and this person was just a mean person. We just keep apologizing to him that happened. Especially me. I kept apologizing to him that I couldn’t keep him safe.”
