Tag: Charleston

Civil Rights Advocate Leon Koziol Meets Al Sharpton at Site of Walter Scott Shooting.

On By leonkozioljdIn Child Support, Civil Rights, Fathers For Walter Scott
Leon Koziol, J.D. and the Rev. Al Sharpton
Leon Koziol, J.D. and the Rev. Al Sharpton

Administrator’s note: Leon has been in Charleston, South Carolina seeking support for family court reform in light of the police shooting of an unarmed father fleeing an arrest for a child support warrant. We’ve shown you the video taken of this father shot five times in the back with no concern for his condition afterward. Leon traces the route of the same video taker at a vigil held today at the site of Walter Scott’s murder. The North Charleston police officer is in jail on murder charges. Here is what Leon reports from the vigil site.

I had an opportunity to chat with Al Sharpton today at the site of Walter Scott’s murder here in North Charleston. It was during a vigil ceremony with everything about the place coming across very surreal.

I have reviewed this travesty in my mind with horror, finding it hard to grasp that it was all caused by a child support warrant. Our government is actually killing fathers now for money. Of course we know that this cop who shot Walter Scott had to be deranged, but the fact is, that’s what happened here. Without the warrant, this killing would not have occurred.

I focused on the exact spot where Walter Scott fell in that video which continues to haunt me as a father myself. A collection of flowers marks the spot which might as well be sacred ground today. It should move all fathers to action. We cannot allow greed and money to be a cause for police force and debtor prisons. A planned rally on June 19th (fatherless day) at the Supreme Court should be everyone’s focus to secure respect and fair treatment in our family courts.

I retraced the route of this father fleeing yet another stint in prison for being a support debtor. I struggled with the sounds of eight gun shots, five which landed in the back and one through the heart. I examined the distance between the officer and the location where the victim fell. I recalled how the cop casually walked over and hand-cuffed the debtor as he took his final breath. The family court warrant had now been executed!

On the other side of a worn-out fence, I placed myself in the shoes of the video taker. I was amazed at how he had to be in the right place and the right time for justice to be served. Fortunately he had the courage and presence of mind to complete his vital mission under a profound fear of being shot himself.

Gradually the crowd and camera crews dissipated. I was among the last to leave when I noted a biker gang in an adjacent lot. Out of respect for the attendees, they waited patiently and largely unnoticed until the place was empty. Then they formed a loud circular procession in order to make their own statement, concluding with a united linear back-up to the vicinity where the cop committed his crime. I felt a bit like the video taker when I captured this scene from the other side of the fence.

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A collection of flowers marks the spot which might as well be sacred ground.

 

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Leon Koziol Raises Fathers’ Rights During News Conference Outside Walter Scott Funeral

On By leonkozioljdIn Child Support, Civil Rights, Fathers For Walter Scott

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Administrator’s Note: Leon is busy getting us news updates and family law reform in Charleston. He was at the Walter Scott Funeral today. Some media are steering clear of the fathers’ rights issues so we will give you the news as it’s  happening here at Leon Koziol.com. Think of this site as the concerned parent’s portal to the issues affecting all Americans today. In fact, we know of media visiting this site to learn of cutting edge information which our followers have been getting all along.

Well he didn’t have a media pass while coming upon a congressman giving an interview surrounded by cameras and reporters from all across the country. But how was Leon Koziol to know? So he just joined the interactions. 

Leon had paid his respects to family members at the funeral for Walter Scott inside the W.O.R.D. Ministries Christian Center when he came upon a crowd outside. The pastor inside had just taken aim at the state’s unjust child support practices and  Charleston Congressman James Clyburn was giving his take on it.

Frustrated that no one was raising father discrimination as an overriding issue, what we have called the “elephant in the court room,” Leon cut in with  questions: “Isn’t there a serious issue of fathers’ rights here?” he began. It continued with an exchange concerning “draconian support collection practices” as Leon described it. 

Congressman Clyburn responded with a quip about his lack of authority in his own household. Eventually the Congressman admitted candidly, refreshingly but also surprisingly that he felt a bit uninformed on the issues raised by Leon. Yet, if you’ve been following our site, especially our recent posts, these practices are the cause for Walter Scott’s panic and flee from the scene of a simple traffic infraction. As we all know now, it led to his execution on April 4, 2015.

In the next interview featuring a family attorney, legislator and family representative, it was reaffirmed contrary to yesterday’s late media reports that in fact a “bench warrant” for support had been outstanding during the traffic stop. This prompted Leon to state that if sophisticated media was in conflict over the warrant, how could anyone expect Walter Scott to know of its existence.

A family representative explained that Walter was a wonderful father but job difficulties had caused him to fall behind in support. It landed him in jail a number of times. South Carolina has some of the most draconian “debtor prison” laws in the country. A father is prosecuted after only five days of delinquency and can be sentenced to a year in prison without committing any crime.

The impact on  minority fathers is particularly devastating in this southern state. Local government and law enforcement responses were commended by the family (as we did in yesterday’s post). In response to another media question, the family representative stated that no definite conclusion of racial motive had yet been made due to a “lack of clear evidence.” 

We will keep you updated on these fascinating developments. Whether a media pass was required to participate in this conference is still not known, but you can see now the profound benefit of secondary media and the internet which you folks capitalize on to help inform the public of all the important issues. Please share today’s post: http://wp.me/pXgi5-Pj

Civil Rights Expert Leon Koziol in Charleston: Walter Scott Support Warrant Requires Justice Department Inquiry.

On By leonkozioljdIn Child Support, Civil Rights, Fathers For Walter Scott

Charleston

Charleston May be the Saratoga or Gettysburg in this War on Fathers.

By Dr. Leon R. Koziol

Here in Charleston, it’s not just another racially charged killing in America. It’s much more. A black man was shot dead in the back by a white cop because of a money debt called “child support.” This is the elephant in the court room which everyone is ignoring, almost as if such obligations were sacred simply because the word “child” is attached.

Yet because of this money debt and an arrest warrant from a support judge, this heinous murder occurred. Such warrants are doled out like candy and countless fathers do not even know they exist. Substandard notice procedures are employed because these are supposedly civil courts with no criminal implications. But as the Walter Scott incident abundantly proved, these warrants are anything but civil. Debtor fathers are treated like criminals in the end. Poor notice procedures are akin to being shot in the back as a defenseless man.

Indeed in my civil rights reports, I have shown how the federal government and our family courts are literally criminalizing fatherhood for revenue generating purposes. Any competent investigation by our Justice Department must include the judge, lawyers and participants of a court process which treats fathers as lower class citizens due to their birth status. These money obligations are imposed in discriminatory fashion with minority fathers especially abused.

It was all explained in my 2012 report hand- delivered to our Justice Department and a public initiative summary made public only weeks prior to this travesty entitled “We Are Fathers.” Child support is enforced through draconian means with debtor prisons as their ultimate outcome. If it was not for a court process which is getting increasingly out of control, a more routine ending would have occurred. A traffic ticket would have issued and Walter Scott would have been on his way home .

If these courts were truly family friendly, if fathers were truly respected as parents, and if greed did not trump the true best interests of our children, no warrant would have issued to cause a desperate father to flee the scene of a simple traffic stop. Fathers are not just second class citizens in our family courts, they  have been reduced to sub-class status with less parental authority than teachers and teen baby sitters.

To be sure, fathers are routinely made to exercise a degrading form of parenting known as “visitation,” a term more properly applied to prisons and funerals. Whenever someone mentions child support, a male pronoun is always attached. Indeed, fathers do not even get the respect of having  the phrase “dead beat dad” treated for what it is, a sexist slur.

Walter Scott ran from the scene not because of a broken tail light, not because he was black, not because of any crime he had committed. He ran because he had been in family court enough times to know that he could not get a fair shake there. He knew that child support was often used for purposes other than the child. It was a scene that could have played out anywhere in America.

This dad knew that if he surrendered to this cop, he would be thrown into a debtors’ prison, there would be no jury of peers to decide his fate, and one person in a robe, rewarded by the number of support orders to be enforced, could not rule impartially. Why even show up to such a kangaroo operation when the only  crime that Walter Scott committed was that he was born the wrong way under antiquated laws.

Protesters are now running out of steam to maintain any ongoing purpose here. Unlike other racially charged incidents, the people and government of South Carolina are not trying to justify the aberrant behavior of Officer Slager. They had him promptly charged with murder, committed to jail without bail, and they even surrendered their investigative authority to outside agencies. Unless I’m missing something, what more could be done?

Well, if I may be heard, not only as a white man but as a civil rights attorney who took on the challenges that no one else would, you have an epic purpose here. It is one  that could make civil rights history. But I assert this as a parent. It is a status I have in common with this victim and one that could unite all Americans behind a worthy cause to root out corruption in our nation’s divorce and family courts.

Walter Scott is someone I can relate to as a father. I have resisted the same draconian debt collection practices for reasons too numerous to state here. They are aptly provided in prior posts here at Leon Koziol.com. In short , these practices violate rights under the American Constitution which our military fights each day to preserve only to return to the same unjust laws.

Walter Scott’s sacrifice cannot be allowed to go without real purpose. He is our turning point in this war on fathers. When a loving dad is shot dead in the back fleeing from a child support warrant, all fathers become victims. This is our fraternal bond since the time of creation itself. My objective here in Charleston knows no color or origin. It remains the final frontier of civil rights reform left unchecked in America today.

Dr. Leon R. Koziol

Civil Rights Advocate

(315) 796-4000

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