Pack the Court for Jamelia and Julissa

On March 13, Julissa Dawkins, 12, was trying to comfort a friend when she was slammed to the ground by a Poughkeepsie police officer. 

According to an article by the Poughkeepsie Journal, a friend of Dawkins was being jumped by multiple people, which caused her to have an asthma attack. Dawkins, who also suffers from asthma was trying to relax her friend and help her catch her breath. When police arrived at the scene, the fight was over. When Dawkins went to leave, she bumped into one of the officers. The officer then began to arrest her following the contact. 

“He picked me up, he started trying to arrest me,” said Dawkins. “He couldn’t hold me so he dropped me on the concrete. My sister also got flung and slammed for trying to help me.”

Dawkins 15-year-old sister, Jamelia Barnett was also at the scene, but was held back from getting involved. When Barnett looked back at her sister, Dawkins was laying on the cement ground.

Marist and Vassar BSUs

When Barnett initially tried leaving the scene, she began being pushed by a police officer. Barnett did not see her sister being thrown to the ground, when she looked at her sister she was already lying on the cement. Barnett felt a hand on her arm, and mistook it for a friend holding onto her, when it was a police officer. Barnett was then thrown to the ground, and lost consciousness. News 12 Westchester covered this in March, part of the video footage can be found here. 

Dawkins, Burnett, their mother Melissa Johnson, and their lawyer William O. Wagstaff III visited Vassar College on Nov. 7 to have a conversation about what had happened, increase awareness to the event, and bring accountability to the Poughkeepsie Police. 

As of now, The county attorney's office who prosecutes juvenile delinquency matters will not drop the charges, and wanted the sisters to take an adjournment in contemplation of dismissal (ACD).The next hearing in court is scheduled for 1:45 on Wednesday November 13th. The Vassar student community Black Student Union (BSU) has invited students from the Marist BSU to attend in support of Barnett and Dawkins. 

During the talk, their lawyer described the girls as very good students and well behaved. “These girls have no criminal history, they are honor students,” said Wagstaff. They were involved with summer programs at Marist that put them in the position to have an associates degree upon graduating from high school.”

The girls were then placed in two different cop cars, and upon arriving at the precinct, they were placed in different rooms for interrogation. There the police officers refused the girls water, refused to allow them to use the restroom, refused to call anyone on their behalf, and began questioning the two minors without a parent, guardian, or any relative or representative for them. Barnett did not answer any questions until she knew what she was being arrested for. Despite asking multiple times, no officer was able to inform either sister why they were under arrest.  

“The detective threw me on the couch, and I was on my period,” said Barnett. “I said, can I go to the bathroom, they said I couldn’t use the bathroom. I asked if I could call my mom, they said no. We were there for 2-3 hours, with all male officers.”

Other kids that were present when the girls were being arrested reached out to Johnson. As soon as she was able to get to the precinct, she was not allowed to see her girls because during the rush to leave work she forgot a form of identification. When she finally was able to see her girls she chose to see the older sister first. When she saw Barnett, she noticed the blood stains on her grey sweatpants from not being allowed to use the restroom.

Vassar Lecture Hall packed with Vassar and Marist students in support of Barnett and Dawkins.

“There were seven male officers in the room, I counted,” said Johnson. “She (Barnett) sat there for 2 hours handcuffed with her hands behind her back, all bloody. “Jameilia told me she was dizzy and she wanted to go home. I didn’t bring her home because once I saw how she was and the mess, I took her to the emergency room.”

After picking up her daughters, Johnson immediately took them to Vassar Brothers Medical Center Emergency Room for an evaluation. The doctors asked Barnett what happened, and prescribed her medicine and suggested that she go home and rest.

 “When I got up in the morning, and I went up to her (Barnnet’s) room, she was sitting and she said I'm falling, I’m falling,” said Johnson. “When she stood up, I looked at her head and I saw this big lump on her head. “So I rushed her to St. Francis Hospital, and the doctor said oh no she passed out.”

Barnett was then placed on rest for a week. Although she recovered from the concussion quickly, both girls have lasting effects from the event.

“We kept quiet forever and it traumatized them,” said Johnson. “We have been to physical therapy, mental therapy, and they suffer with desperation.”

When the event was taking place, some of those witnessing began taking video footage of the event. One of the clips was 17 seconds long, which went viral. Later it was discovered that others were able to take much longer videos that showed the entire event. However, according to Johnson, when the police discovered this video going viral, they called in many of the people who recorded it. 

According to Wagstaff, the police called in another set of sisters that were at the scene. Those sisters had been involved in another incident just two days prior. Wagstaff stated that the police convinced those girls if they gave them their phones they would not be charged for their arrest, or it would lessen their sentence. The girls complied and handed over their phones and iCloud information. The officers then wiped their phones, and sent the girls upstairs to be fully charged for the crimes they were told they would be helped with by the police. 

“So they kept her in custody for 5-6 hours, then they took her cell phone, went off the premises and wiped the cell phone clean, deleted all the videos,” said Wagstaff.

“Among those videos, were longer videos that captured the entire incident which would have shown there was no justification to arrest these girls, that the force they used was excessive.”