DETROIT — Lucas County Sheriff John Tharp walked into the Ryan Correctional Facility on Detroit’s east side and asked for Shannon Keys — Michigan Department of Corrections prisoner No. 210418. Mr. Tharp didn’t come to interrogate Keys. He came to ask him for ideas on how to do his job better.
“We need to hear from people doing time to help us make decisions on prisoner re-entry and building certain relationships in the community,’’ Mr. Tharp told me last week. “I’m looking for ideas wherever I can find them.”
Following the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.; Eric Garner in Staten Island, and John Crawford in Beavercreek, Ohio, law enforcement officers need fresh ideas, new policies, and more conversations like this. “I can’t breathe” has become a national anthem.
An uncommon cop, Mr. Tharp doesn’t fear going to the source. Last year, he started an addiction resource unit to steer addicts with minor offenses into treatment. He has also teamed up with Books 4 Buddies to hand out books in Toledo’s housing projects. So it’s not surprising that, when he wanted to find ways to reach young men in trouble and build bridges in the community, he went to an inmate who once sold drugs and distrusted anyone with a badge.
Six months ago, Keys sent me an essay that The Blade published on Sept. 10. Keys argued that a no-snitch ethos was contributing to genocide in the African-American community.
After reading the piece, Mr. Tharp asked me to arrange a sit-down with Keys. “I was amazed,” Sheriff Tharp told me. “Mr. Keys was courageous and adamant that providing information to police on a homicide case was the right thing to do, even though, by saying that, he could be targeted.”
For Keys, talking to the sheriff was a chance to help heal a community he once wounded by selling crack. “I’m starting to think about legacy, about what I’m leaving behind,” he told me. “I’m trying to make a difference. The thing I regret most is being a crack dealer because of the devastation I caused the community — really, that was genocide.”
And Keys did make a difference. He gave Mr. Tharp plenty of ideas on reaching struggling young men and enlisting ex-offenders to mediate beefs and help reduce crime. His meeting with the sheriff will result in at least one policy change. Keys told Mr. Tharp that recovering addicts need to accompany addiction resource officers when they contact overdose victims and their families. Mr. Tharp said he would ask local agencies to help him do that.
“And you got to really care, man,’’ Keys added. “Love is the strongest agent in the world.”
2 men, 2 worlds
The two met in the visiting room of Ryan Correctional, otherwise known as the Detroit Re-entry Center, where Keys is serving a parolable life sentence for second-degree murder — a conviction federal courts are hearing on appeal.
Keys wore a blue and orange uniform stamped with his prison number. Mr. Tharp wore a pin-striped suit.
Keys grew up on Detroit’s east side and never met his father. His family ran a power cord from next door to warm one room in the house. His neighborhood peers all went to prison or jail.
Keys dropped out of Kettering High School and, to escape poverty, started selling drugs at 15. During a 1989 bust, a police officer shot him in the neck while he was on the ground and unarmed. He did seven years in prison on drug charges, earning a GED before his release in 1997. Before returning to prison in 2005, Keys was an honor student and homecoming king at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Mich.
Mr. Tharp, who grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Toledo’s south end, has spent 43 years on the other side of the law. In 1969, he served in Vietnam as a combat medic with the Army, earning a Bronze Star. He started in law enforcement when he was 22, spent 25 years with the Toledo Police Department, and eventually earned a master’s degree in education.
Mr. Tharp is 66. Keys is 43 but looks 10 years younger.
Despite their differences, the two laughed frequently and spoke with mutual respect. This conversation couldn’t have happened 10 years ago, when Keys regarded all cops with disdain.
“People base their ideas on experience,” Keys told Sheriff Tharp. “When I was coming up, cops were the guys who would jump on you and, if you ran, beat you up. I got shot by an officer. I hated cops and the system.”
Even his mother, faced with the dilemma of many African-American parents, told Keys not to trust the police.
“Parents want their kids to respect police officers,” he said. “But they still have to warn young black men about what can happen around police.
“How do you teach your kid to respect law enforcement when you still have to tell him that they will take you out if you move the wrong way or dress a certain way? Just because a young cat has braids and sagging pants doesn’t mean he’s a drug dealer. That’s just their swag.”
Keys changed his views on law enforcement while working in the Youth Deterrent Program. Founded in 2008 by inmate Darryl Jamual Woods, the program brings troubled young men into the Detroit prison — including some from Toledo — to talk to inmates about life and choices. Through the program, Keys has met some caring and committed police officers, judges, and probation officers.
If others see similar examples, they’ll change too, Keys said.
“The most important thing is for you to get out in those streets — get active, shake hands, crack a joke, roll down the window, talk to someone about school,” he said. “You can’t just let them see that uniform but also the humanity inside.
“Even having some rap music on the [squad] radio will get people’s attention and break down a wall. When they have a good experience with a police officer, they’ll tell their friends and family. Starting a conversation will break down a stereotype, especially if the officer is an older white guy.”
Seeing the other side
Mr. Tharp told him that most cops care about the communities they police. He recalled an incident in the 1980s, when a Toledo boy of about 12 pointed a fake gun at Mr. Tharp’s partner — a gun both officers thought was real. Mr. Tharp said he would have been justified in shooting the young man but, instead, lunged and snatched the gun. The young man, who could have been dead, went home.
“I’m glad I did what I did,’’ Mr. Tharp said. “He was a kid, and he was clowning. I really believe incidents like that — where an officer could have shot someone but didn’t — happen thousands of times. You just never hear about it.”
Keys nodded. “That has a lot to do with the person you are — your heart,” he said. “You didn’t have a preconceived notion that all black kids are dangerous.”
Sheriff Tharp asked Keys about a new Lucas County policy that can impose homicide-related charges for drug sellers in certain fatal overdoses.
It’s a policy I’ve opposed from the start, but Keys sided with the sheriff. It was sometimes appropriate, he said, and could deter some people from dealing. Keys said he didn’t sell heroin as a teenager because he heard of people dying from overdoses.
“If you know these drugs are killing people, you should be bagged for that,” he said. “People got to be accountable. With heroin, dealers want their stuff to knock someone out, because now the fiends [addicts] are rushing to get it.”
In prisoner re-entry programs, Keys said, police officers should work with certain ex-offenders to help parolees make a successful return to their communities. Ex-offenders, who have credibility in the street, could meet with parolees and police officers in community centers and churches and help bring the two groups together to solve problems. Once police officers earn the trust of newly released prisoners, they could even serve as mentors, taking parolees to community-service projects or helping them find jobs. A successful program called “Chance for Life” in Detroit shows it can be done.
At the end of 90 minutes, two very different men shook hands and returned to two very different worlds. But for more than an hour they listened to, and learned from, each other. Despite what you see on television, conversations like this can still happen in America. Even in the shadow of Ferguson, Staten Island, and Beavercreek, that should give us all hope.
Jeff Gerritt is The Blade’s deputy editorial page editor.
Contact him at: jgerritt@theblade.com, 419-724-6467, or follow him on Twitter @jeffgerritt.
First Published February 22, 2015, 5:00 a.m.
