October 20, 2022 • 21 mins
We’ve all heard the unfortunate stories of police and Black Americans in our country. From misconduct to miscommunication, we often hear about victims of police abuse through memorials and services. But Leon Ford lived to tell the tale. At the young age of 19, he was left paralyzed after being shot by police. But, instead of allowing resentment and anger drive him, he decided to take control of the narrative – and his healing – to mend the relationships between his community and the authorities.
In this two-part Season 2 opener, Leon explains how he’s been able to create content and spaces to humanize both sides through “The Hear Foundation”, an organization dedicated exclusively to collaborating with community leaders, Pittsburgh Police, residents and the City to create a safe, thriving community for all. Listen to how he found unlikely allies for his own healing – and the healing of the larger community.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Learning to love ourselves and our messy and complicated truth
is hard enough. But what happens when you have that
feeling of otherness just hanging over your head, where you
don't feel understood even within your own tribe. How do
you confidently grow into your own skin or maybe even
grow out of it when the road to acceptance and
healing is so rough and bumping. Welcome back to in
(00:25):
the deep stories that shape us. I'm your host, Zak Stafford.
If you've been following us since day one, you're familiar
with the stories of hardship. Our guests have shared those
struggles of identity, discrimination, or health, and how these people
have managed to move forward despite their circumstances. And if
you're new, well check those stories out. You won't regret it.
(00:46):
We're going to continue listening to these stories from black
and Latin X people, hoping to gain clarity and get closer,
even if just a little, to a road of healing
and understanding. I think by now all of us have
had some understanding that many black people living in America,
especially black men, have that other type of talk with
(01:06):
our family, the one that teaches you to keep your
hands on the wheel or respond with yes, sir, no
sir answers when interacting with police, and regardless of how
much you prep in advance, no matter how many different
scenarios you recreate in your head, can a person really
be fully prepared for those human reactions, those feelings of anxiety,
or that fight or fight feeling that can take over
(01:29):
in times of danger. As a black man myself, I've
had my own experiences with the police throughout my life.
I've had the cops who follow you around town, hoping
you miss one stop sign, do one thing they can
deem suspicious. And as a journalist, I've dedicated most of
my life to exploring how these cops misused their power
towards people that look like me all around this country,
(01:49):
much of which has been inspired by my own personal experiences.
But through all of these years and countless stories, I
have yet to ever sit down and have the conversation
you're about to hear to day, a conversation with a
man who was pulled over, was shot by the police
five times, and became paralyzed at the age of nineteen,
and today is working to not defund the police, but
(02:10):
rather change them from within. Leonford's powerful story brings up
so many questions for me personally and challenges me even
more because even more than his body of work, Leon's
journey begs the question can you truly heal and continue
to help others all while facing your inner pains and
stigmas that have plagued you in your community for a
(02:31):
long time? And even more powerful, can you take this
healing and turn the people that have wronged you, those
that have hurt you into a sort of ally for change.
So I am from the east side of Pittsburgh in
a neighborhood called Garfield. It's like a small town, you know,
(02:53):
we're all one degree of separation away. And so I
was fortunate enough to build relationships with, you know, all
of my different relatives all throughout Pittsburgh. I was a
kid that always wanted to be outside. They used to
call me professor because I was also I was also
(03:15):
the kid that could have a full conversation with any adult.
I remember just being at the table while my grandmother
and aunts and uncles were playing spades. The games used
to be rowity, but there was like a lot of love, Whereas,
like you know, towards the corner, my cousins would be
(03:38):
shooting dice, and my grandmother would say stay away from
the dice game because you know, you just never know,
like somebody's gonna fight or something, you know what I mean.
I played football growing up. I didn't love it as
much as my son loves it. I have a night
year old son, and he loves so Paul. I mean
(03:59):
in each hands that I like, could skip football practice.
I was definitely doing. At what were you doing when
you skip football practice? Just hanging out with friends, right
and uh, dirt bikes and just hanging out. Would you say,
this time of your life, you're pretty happy with everyone
and everything going on, Absolutely happy. I was spoiled. So
(04:24):
when I was five or six years old, my dad, uh,
he was indicted by the FBI for conspiracy to sell
drugs and he actually served maybe fourteen years in federal prison. Yeah,
(04:44):
so that was my first huge shift in my life
where my dad was a very active father, you know,
supported the Little league football teams and things, and then
you know, he was snatched away. Something that really stands
out in Leon's story. It's just this idea of manhood
(05:08):
of fatherhood because on the one hand, he has his father,
his own personal superhero, but on the other he has
the world's opinion of his character. It's almost like living
in between two worlds, one where his father is very present,
a great man, friend, a great leader, even, and another
where he's getting hurt, stabbed, shot, or even arrested. I
(05:29):
can relate to that feeling because my dad was also
hurt like Leon's. He was even indicted at one point two,
and there's feelings of anxiety that feeling of am I
next are incredibly difficult to shake. So I felt like
I lived in two worlds. In one world, always was
like a star student, and the teachers treated me really
(05:51):
well because they knew that my parents were engaged. And
then once my dad was indicted, they kind of looked
at me like deferently, like I was a problem child,
you know, like I had done something wrong, and my
relationships with school changed because of that. I instantly felt
(06:15):
my blackness, right, I felt my privilege kind of be
stripped away, because I do feel like I was privileged.
My father was very well respected, and there was like
this deep reverence for him as a as a person
because he's just a stand up guy, you know, Uh,
(06:35):
He's a person who keeps his word. He took care
of so many people, from you know, saving homes from foreclosure,
to paying taxes, supporting youth sports, and just you know,
being someone that people in the community felt they could
lean on. But that has a huge heart. So one world,
(07:00):
I'm revered even though my dad went to prison, and
people are like treating me well and trying to look
out for me since my dad was gone. On the
other side, you know, these predominantly white teachers were treated
me like I was a criminal. So that was very confusing,
(07:20):
and I was struggling with why. You know, five and
six years old, I didn't have the language to say,
maybe because I'm block and they think my dad's a criminal,
and so they think I'm going to become a criminal
or you know, I don't know the reason, but I
certainly felt it. I felt the shift. I still have
(07:45):
the first letter that my dad wrote me when he
went to prison. He basically said that I'm not to
blame for him going to prison. My mom wasn't to blame.
It was his fault, his the choices that he made.
He broke down the importance of rules, how rules and
(08:05):
laws are similar, how all laws and rules aren't right,
but until we change them, we have to follow them
right in a way. And he said, you know, wrote
about how h he wanted me to, you know, listen
to my mom, follow her rules, and he wanted me
(08:26):
to become the best part of him, not the worst part.
And you know, in reading this letter and being so
close to my father, I thought about the possibilities of
me being incarcerated one day, and that certainly frightened me.
(08:47):
So even now I go to therapy and I'm a
huge mental health advocate. There's certain things that I experienced
from my father that made me who I am. But
I won't necessarily do it to my son or say
those things to my son, right, So I appreciate them,
(09:08):
and I appreciate my father for him doing his best.
Just because I've been exposed to a different way of
engaging with trauma and healing doesn't negate the lessons that
he learned throughout his life. And so I'm like moving forward,
(09:29):
but I'm also acknowledging the past. And you know, I'm
acknowledging the lessons from my father and my grandfather, even
those lessons that society today may say are very harsh,
which is complicated, you know, what you're saying takes me
back to something my dad said to me. He said,
(09:51):
I want you to be better than me, and what
that requires of you is to be different than me
and to deal with things different than me. So I'm
still be me and treat you how I know how
to treat you, but do not be me. Be different,
because you will be better. So here is Leon existing,
living his life, listening to his father's advice be different.
(10:15):
But then on a regular Sunday morning, he gets a
call from one of his cousins to hang out. Something
tells him to stay, but he decides to go anyway.
Leon and his cousins are really into fitness. They work
out all of the time. They're so close. They boxed
together and even have a packed not to do drugs.
But on this day, his cousin is hanging out with
(10:36):
a girl and Leon gets a whiff of weed. His
cousin has broken the pact. They all decide to go
to their grandma's house, but Leon goes alone in his car.
I got my car and drove off. I drove to
the corner to stop saying made a left, and so
(10:58):
I was driving the correct way on the one way street,
and then I saw a police cruiser coming towards me
the wrong way with no lights on, just illegally driving
down the street. And so when we passed each other,
I had to like move over a little bit, and
I locked eyes with those police officers and instantly knew
(11:22):
that they were going to pull me over. I get
asked this question often, like how did you know? It's
just an instinct. It's just hard to explain to people
who have never had that experience what that is like.
And so I get to the next stop. Sound, made
(11:44):
a left, drove about a block, made a right over
a bridge. As I'm driving over the bridge, guy said,
I say, behind me, police cruiser and they are speeding.
Through investigations, we know that they were driving about ninety
(12:04):
mile an hour trying to catch up to me. They
call it fishing. That's the term that they used. Uh
so they we're definitely fishing. And so this police cruise
just speeding behind me. I knew they were going to
pull me over, and so, you know, I began to prepare.
I mean, I didn't have my seatbelt on, so I
put my seatbelt on. You know those types of things, right,
(12:28):
I want to stay, put their lights on and out
immediately pulled over. I used to keep my driver's license
and registration in a little zip block bag, so I
got that for them and the officer immediately I just
came to the window and just snatched my license and
(12:50):
it's you know where you going up, telling what's going
to my grandmother's house, and h eggs and them that
I do anything wrong, and he said, I ran the
stop up saying he went back to the cruiser to
run my name. Everything came back Claire that the car
was registered to me. But then he decided to type
(13:12):
in Elford. So you can imagine on their system typing
al Ford, every name from Linda, Larry, any name or
social the al that's gonna pop up, and so he
just basically decided to pick lamont Ford. I get frustrated
(13:36):
a lot with this because the media, they would say, oh,
they thought he was a gang member, or they thought
he was a criminal, and he wasn't this criminal he was.
He wasn't this game. He wasn't this bad person who
they thought he was. The reality is that la Montford
(13:56):
didn't even have a active warrant that night I was shot. Yeah,
and so life for the record, he didn't have an
active work. So even if it was, even if I
was al mont Ford, La Monteford wouldn't have deserved what
happened to me. The idea of justice in Leon's story
(14:22):
is so complicated because even if you think, well, damn,
he shouldn't have driven off and stayed and complied, this
idea of being punished for having a human reaction feeling scared,
feeling worried, feeling defenseless, isn't usually a means for such
a drastic punishment. I've seen this time and time again
in my own career, especially when I covered police in
(14:43):
these incidents. At times, cops play the parts of both
juror and prosecutor, tipping the scales to their favor and
hopes of gaining a couple more informants for their needs.
Going back to Leon for a second, think about it.
He's nineteen, the police are confusing him for another person,
and lamont Ford, he's scared, and no matter how much
(15:03):
he pleads, they are not taking no for an answer.
It's his word against authorities. At that point, I was terrified.
You know, nineteen years old, gave my driver's license, registration
and car insurance. These officers. Now we're telling me, well,
(15:25):
how about you get out of your car and come
to our car and look at this photo of Lamont Ford.
I never heard anything like that before, so I told
them I don't need to know what lamant for looks like,
and saying we'll get your block ass out of the
car before we pull you out. It was that moment
(15:46):
where I kind of thought, well, I'm not getting out
out of this car because I felt safe inside of
the car, and one of the officers reached in through
the window and locked the door, opened the door. Two
officers both grabbed me and tried to yank me out
the car. So when I put the car and drive,
(16:09):
the officer on the passenger side immediately jumped inside of
the vehicle and within a half a second begin firing
shots point blank range. And I was shot once in
my neck, twice in my chest, once in my arm,
and once in my hip. One of the bullets that
(16:31):
went through my chest is the bullet that paralyzed me. Wow,
you said that you felt safer in your car, you know,
and I'm sure you grew up knowing that police were
that s aggressive in your neighborhoods. What do you think
was in you that day that said, I better hit
the gas to the pedal, because you know, that's something
(16:53):
when I talked to white people especially and they look
at these reports, they'll say, well, you shouldn't have driven off,
you should have stayed. You would have just listened. But
it sounds like everything in your body was saying, get
out as fast as you can. And the fact here
is that you were right, you were in danger. You
did get shot. But why do you think your body
said try to get out? In that moment? I did
(17:13):
not feel safe around these police officers and they weren't
taking no for an answer, and I felt like they
were going to harm me, and so you know, I
thought my best bet was to drive off. My parents
(17:34):
told me, you know, don't drive with your hood on,
don't have friends in the back seat, don't blast music. Right,
So my parents gave me information. However, I didn't have
the language to say, hey, I don't feel safe. I
would like for a supervisor to come to the sea. Now.
(17:58):
I don't know if that would have changed anything. However,
I feel like it's a duty of mine to equip
young people and people in community in general with the
language to protect them, to potentially prevent them from experiencing
(18:21):
what I experienced. And even with those words of caution
in his head from his parents, Leon woke up in
the ICU. He wakes up to a police officer in
the room without his family. Confused. I remember there was
(18:41):
a suction tube that I would use to get out
of the saliva out of my mouth because of the tubes,
and I was hooked up to all these you know,
i VS and things, and I accidentally dropped the suction
my mouth. You know, it was full of saliva and
I'm like China, spit it out. But I began to choke.
(19:03):
And as I was choking, you know, I was banging
the bed to get the police officers attention, and he
turned the TV up. Wow. As I was choking in
the machines are going off. And then you know, nurses
ran into the room and they, you know, they got
(19:24):
the saliva out of my mouth. They were so upset
with this police officer, but they too felt powerless. But
it was just like man, I had so much fear
and anger that began to crystallize into hatred. I was
(19:46):
shockled to the bed even though they knew I was paralyzed.
I was arraigned from my hospital bed because I was
charged and I couldn't see my family for almost two weeks,
and I didn't even know why. They actually had to
hire an attorney to figure out a way to see me.
(20:11):
I was devastated. When my family came to visit me,
I was I was so happy, man, and I would
just remember their sadness. They're worried and just like my
dad when he was shot. You know, I was in
the hospital bed saying I'm okay, I'm good, even though
(20:32):
on the inside I wasn't. The mental emotional leaving physical pain.
It was unbearable, you know. I remember hitting the button
repeatedly to take more fame to get them to come
just knocked me out. I just wanted to sleep, and
(20:53):
so when I would wake up, I would be out
for a while and it felt like a dream, and
then I would soon be knocked out of gain Battam Murphy.
I think most people would have grown resentful or maybe
just given up on life after something so traumatizing, but
Leon's journey never ended with this tragic day, and though
(21:15):
he was left with conflicting emotions at times, he quickly
realized that if he wanted to heal, truly heal, he'd
have to open himself up to things he never even
imagined and with people he never thought would be willing
to lend a hand. And this is something we will
cover in Part two, because Leon's journey is as complex
(21:37):
and beautiful as it is powerful, and proves how healing
yourself can sometimes come by lifting others up along the way.
Learning to love ourselves and our messy and complicated truth
is hard enough. But what happens when you have that
feeling of otherness just hanging over your head, where you
don't feel understood even within your own tribe. How do
you confidently grow into your own skin or maybe even
grow out of it when the road to acceptance and
healing is so rough and bumping. Welcome back to in
(00:25):
the deep stories that shape us. I'm your host, Zak Stafford.
If you've been following us since day one, you're familiar
with the stories of hardship. Our guests have shared those
struggles of identity, discrimination, or health, and how these people
have managed to move forward despite their circumstances. And if
you're new, well check those stories out. You won't regret it.
(00:46):
We're going to continue listening to these stories from black
and Latin X people, hoping to gain clarity and get closer,
even if just a little, to a road of healing
and understanding. I think by now all of us have
had some understanding that many black people living in America,
especially black men, have that other type of talk with
(01:06):
our family, the one that teaches you to keep your
hands on the wheel or respond with yes, sir, no
sir answers when interacting with police, and regardless of how
much you prep in advance, no matter how many different
scenarios you recreate in your head, can a person really
be fully prepared for those human reactions, those feelings of anxiety,
or that fight or fight feeling that can take over
(01:29):
in times of danger. As a black man myself, I've
had my own experiences with the police throughout my life.
I've had the cops who follow you around town, hoping
you miss one stop sign, do one thing they can
deem suspicious. And as a journalist, I've dedicated most of
my life to exploring how these cops misused their power
towards people that look like me all around this country,
(01:49):
much of which has been inspired by my own personal experiences.
But through all of these years and countless stories, I
have yet to ever sit down and have the conversation
you're about to hear to day, a conversation with a
man who was pulled over, was shot by the police
five times, and became paralyzed at the age of nineteen,
and today is working to not defund the police, but
(02:10):
rather change them from within. Leonford's powerful story brings up
so many questions for me personally and challenges me even
more because even more than his body of work, Leon's
journey begs the question can you truly heal and continue
to help others all while facing your inner pains and
stigmas that have plagued you in your community for a
(02:31):
long time? And even more powerful, can you take this
healing and turn the people that have wronged you, those
that have hurt you into a sort of ally for change.
So I am from the east side of Pittsburgh in
a neighborhood called Garfield. It's like a small town, you know,
(02:53):
we're all one degree of separation away. And so I
was fortunate enough to build relationships with, you know, all
of my different relatives all throughout Pittsburgh. I was a
kid that always wanted to be outside. They used to
call me professor because I was also I was also
(03:15):
the kid that could have a full conversation with any adult.
I remember just being at the table while my grandmother
and aunts and uncles were playing spades. The games used
to be rowity, but there was like a lot of love, Whereas,
like you know, towards the corner, my cousins would be
(03:38):
shooting dice, and my grandmother would say stay away from
the dice game because you know, you just never know,
like somebody's gonna fight or something, you know what I mean.
I played football growing up. I didn't love it as
much as my son loves it. I have a night
year old son, and he loves so Paul. I mean
(03:59):
in each hands that I like, could skip football practice.
I was definitely doing. At what were you doing when
you skip football practice? Just hanging out with friends, right
and uh, dirt bikes and just hanging out. Would you say,
this time of your life, you're pretty happy with everyone
and everything going on, Absolutely happy. I was spoiled. So
(04:24):
when I was five or six years old, my dad, uh,
he was indicted by the FBI for conspiracy to sell
drugs and he actually served maybe fourteen years in federal prison. Yeah,
(04:44):
so that was my first huge shift in my life
where my dad was a very active father, you know,
supported the Little league football teams and things, and then
you know, he was snatched away. Something that really stands
out in Leon's story. It's just this idea of manhood
(05:08):
of fatherhood because on the one hand, he has his father,
his own personal superhero, but on the other he has
the world's opinion of his character. It's almost like living
in between two worlds, one where his father is very present,
a great man, friend, a great leader, even, and another
where he's getting hurt, stabbed, shot, or even arrested. I
(05:29):
can relate to that feeling because my dad was also
hurt like Leon's. He was even indicted at one point two,
and there's feelings of anxiety that feeling of am I
next are incredibly difficult to shake. So I felt like
I lived in two worlds. In one world, always was
like a star student, and the teachers treated me really
(05:51):
well because they knew that my parents were engaged. And
then once my dad was indicted, they kind of looked
at me like deferently, like I was a problem child,
you know, like I had done something wrong, and my
relationships with school changed because of that. I instantly felt
(06:15):
my blackness, right, I felt my privilege kind of be
stripped away, because I do feel like I was privileged.
My father was very well respected, and there was like
this deep reverence for him as a as a person
because he's just a stand up guy, you know, Uh,
(06:35):
He's a person who keeps his word. He took care
of so many people, from you know, saving homes from foreclosure,
to paying taxes, supporting youth sports, and just you know,
being someone that people in the community felt they could
lean on. But that has a huge heart. So one world,
(07:00):
I'm revered even though my dad went to prison, and
people are like treating me well and trying to look
out for me since my dad was gone. On the
other side, you know, these predominantly white teachers were treated
me like I was a criminal. So that was very confusing,
(07:20):
and I was struggling with why. You know, five and
six years old, I didn't have the language to say,
maybe because I'm block and they think my dad's a criminal,
and so they think I'm going to become a criminal
or you know, I don't know the reason, but I
certainly felt it. I felt the shift. I still have
(07:45):
the first letter that my dad wrote me when he
went to prison. He basically said that I'm not to
blame for him going to prison. My mom wasn't to blame.
It was his fault, his the choices that he made.
He broke down the importance of rules, how rules and
(08:05):
laws are similar, how all laws and rules aren't right,
but until we change them, we have to follow them
right in a way. And he said, you know, wrote
about how h he wanted me to, you know, listen
to my mom, follow her rules, and he wanted me
(08:26):
to become the best part of him, not the worst part.
And you know, in reading this letter and being so
close to my father, I thought about the possibilities of
me being incarcerated one day, and that certainly frightened me.
(08:47):
So even now I go to therapy and I'm a
huge mental health advocate. There's certain things that I experienced
from my father that made me who I am. But
I won't necessarily do it to my son or say
those things to my son, right, So I appreciate them,
(09:08):
and I appreciate my father for him doing his best.
Just because I've been exposed to a different way of
engaging with trauma and healing doesn't negate the lessons that
he learned throughout his life. And so I'm like moving forward,
(09:29):
but I'm also acknowledging the past. And you know, I'm
acknowledging the lessons from my father and my grandfather, even
those lessons that society today may say are very harsh,
which is complicated, you know, what you're saying takes me
back to something my dad said to me. He said,
(09:51):
I want you to be better than me, and what
that requires of you is to be different than me
and to deal with things different than me. So I'm
still be me and treat you how I know how
to treat you, but do not be me. Be different,
because you will be better. So here is Leon existing,
living his life, listening to his father's advice be different.
(10:15):
But then on a regular Sunday morning, he gets a
call from one of his cousins to hang out. Something
tells him to stay, but he decides to go anyway.
Leon and his cousins are really into fitness. They work
out all of the time. They're so close. They boxed
together and even have a packed not to do drugs.
But on this day, his cousin is hanging out with
(10:36):
a girl and Leon gets a whiff of weed. His
cousin has broken the pact. They all decide to go
to their grandma's house, but Leon goes alone in his car.
I got my car and drove off. I drove to
the corner to stop saying made a left, and so
(10:58):
I was driving the correct way on the one way street,
and then I saw a police cruiser coming towards me
the wrong way with no lights on, just illegally driving
down the street. And so when we passed each other,
I had to like move over a little bit, and
I locked eyes with those police officers and instantly knew
(11:22):
that they were going to pull me over. I get
asked this question often, like how did you know? It's
just an instinct. It's just hard to explain to people
who have never had that experience what that is like.
And so I get to the next stop. Sound, made
(11:44):
a left, drove about a block, made a right over
a bridge. As I'm driving over the bridge, guy said,
I say, behind me, police cruiser and they are speeding.
Through investigations, we know that they were driving about ninety
(12:04):
mile an hour trying to catch up to me. They
call it fishing. That's the term that they used. Uh
so they we're definitely fishing. And so this police cruise
just speeding behind me. I knew they were going to
pull me over, and so, you know, I began to prepare.
I mean, I didn't have my seatbelt on, so I
put my seatbelt on. You know those types of things, right,
(12:28):
I want to stay, put their lights on and out
immediately pulled over. I used to keep my driver's license
and registration in a little zip block bag, so I
got that for them and the officer immediately I just
came to the window and just snatched my license and
(12:50):
it's you know where you going up, telling what's going
to my grandmother's house, and h eggs and them that
I do anything wrong, and he said, I ran the
stop up saying he went back to the cruiser to
run my name. Everything came back Claire that the car
was registered to me. But then he decided to type
(13:12):
in Elford. So you can imagine on their system typing
al Ford, every name from Linda, Larry, any name or
social the al that's gonna pop up, and so he
just basically decided to pick lamont Ford. I get frustrated
(13:36):
a lot with this because the media, they would say, oh,
they thought he was a gang member, or they thought
he was a criminal, and he wasn't this criminal he was.
He wasn't this game. He wasn't this bad person who
they thought he was. The reality is that la Montford
(13:56):
didn't even have a active warrant that night I was shot. Yeah,
and so life for the record, he didn't have an
active work. So even if it was, even if I
was al mont Ford, La Monteford wouldn't have deserved what
happened to me. The idea of justice in Leon's story
(14:22):
is so complicated because even if you think, well, damn,
he shouldn't have driven off and stayed and complied, this
idea of being punished for having a human reaction feeling scared,
feeling worried, feeling defenseless, isn't usually a means for such
a drastic punishment. I've seen this time and time again
in my own career, especially when I covered police in
(14:43):
these incidents. At times, cops play the parts of both
juror and prosecutor, tipping the scales to their favor and
hopes of gaining a couple more informants for their needs.
Going back to Leon for a second, think about it.
He's nineteen, the police are confusing him for another person,
and lamont Ford, he's scared, and no matter how much
(15:03):
he pleads, they are not taking no for an answer.
It's his word against authorities. At that point, I was terrified.
You know, nineteen years old, gave my driver's license, registration
and car insurance. These officers. Now we're telling me, well,
(15:25):
how about you get out of your car and come
to our car and look at this photo of Lamont Ford.
I never heard anything like that before, so I told
them I don't need to know what lamant for looks like,
and saying we'll get your block ass out of the
car before we pull you out. It was that moment
(15:46):
where I kind of thought, well, I'm not getting out
out of this car because I felt safe inside of
the car, and one of the officers reached in through
the window and locked the door, opened the door. Two
officers both grabbed me and tried to yank me out
the car. So when I put the car and drive,
(16:09):
the officer on the passenger side immediately jumped inside of
the vehicle and within a half a second begin firing
shots point blank range. And I was shot once in
my neck, twice in my chest, once in my arm,
and once in my hip. One of the bullets that
(16:31):
went through my chest is the bullet that paralyzed me. Wow,
you said that you felt safer in your car, you know,
and I'm sure you grew up knowing that police were
that s aggressive in your neighborhoods. What do you think
was in you that day that said, I better hit
the gas to the pedal, because you know, that's something
(16:53):
when I talked to white people especially and they look
at these reports, they'll say, well, you shouldn't have driven off,
you should have stayed. You would have just listened. But
it sounds like everything in your body was saying, get
out as fast as you can. And the fact here
is that you were right, you were in danger. You
did get shot. But why do you think your body
said try to get out? In that moment? I did
(17:13):
not feel safe around these police officers and they weren't
taking no for an answer, and I felt like they
were going to harm me, and so you know, I
thought my best bet was to drive off. My parents
(17:34):
told me, you know, don't drive with your hood on,
don't have friends in the back seat, don't blast music. Right,
So my parents gave me information. However, I didn't have
the language to say, hey, I don't feel safe. I
would like for a supervisor to come to the sea. Now.
(17:58):
I don't know if that would have changed anything. However,
I feel like it's a duty of mine to equip
young people and people in community in general with the
language to protect them, to potentially prevent them from experiencing
(18:21):
what I experienced. And even with those words of caution
in his head from his parents, Leon woke up in
the ICU. He wakes up to a police officer in
the room without his family. Confused. I remember there was
(18:41):
a suction tube that I would use to get out
of the saliva out of my mouth because of the tubes,
and I was hooked up to all these you know,
i VS and things, and I accidentally dropped the suction
my mouth. You know, it was full of saliva and
I'm like China, spit it out. But I began to choke.
(19:03):
And as I was choking, you know, I was banging
the bed to get the police officers attention, and he
turned the TV up. Wow. As I was choking in
the machines are going off. And then you know, nurses
ran into the room and they, you know, they got
(19:24):
the saliva out of my mouth. They were so upset
with this police officer, but they too felt powerless. But
it was just like man, I had so much fear
and anger that began to crystallize into hatred. I was
(19:46):
shockled to the bed even though they knew I was paralyzed.
I was arraigned from my hospital bed because I was
charged and I couldn't see my family for almost two weeks,
and I didn't even know why. They actually had to
hire an attorney to figure out a way to see me.
(20:11):
I was devastated. When my family came to visit me,
I was I was so happy, man, and I would
just remember their sadness. They're worried and just like my
dad when he was shot. You know, I was in
the hospital bed saying I'm okay, I'm good, even though
(20:32):
on the inside I wasn't. The mental emotional leaving physical pain.
It was unbearable, you know. I remember hitting the button
repeatedly to take more fame to get them to come
just knocked me out. I just wanted to sleep, and
(20:53):
so when I would wake up, I would be out
for a while and it felt like a dream, and
then I would soon be knocked out of gain Battam Murphy.
I think most people would have grown resentful or maybe
just given up on life after something so traumatizing, but
Leon's journey never ended with this tragic day, and though
(21:15):
he was left with conflicting emotions at times, he quickly
realized that if he wanted to heal, truly heal, he'd
have to open himself up to things he never even
imagined and with people he never thought would be willing
to lend a hand. And this is something we will
cover in Part two, because Leon's journey is as complex
(21:37):
and beautiful as it is powerful, and proves how healing
yourself can sometimes come by lifting others up along the way.
Host
Zach Stafford
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