LeBron’s Big Lie

LeBron James
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LeBron’s Big Lie
Black Clevelanders fail to heed The King’s Proclamation


By Carl C. Chancellor


In my city, where a 10-story tall LeBron, his arms outstretched proclaims: We All Are Witnesses–how is it that no one saw what was going on inside a duplex house on Imperial Avenue?

For years convicted rapist Anthony Sowell went about unnoticed as he allegedly beat, raped and then strangled women in his Imperial Avenue home on Cleveland’s near eastside. To date authorities have removed the remains of 11 women from the home.

All that murder and mayhem in the middle of a residential neighborhood and no one witnessed a thing?

Apparently, none of Sowell’s neighbors noticed the dozen or more black women, who walked into that three-story duplex but failed to come out.

Did it register with the families of these women that mom, sis, auntie, baby girl, hadn’t been around for quite sometime?

Perhaps the families had just grown accustomed to these women’s absences. Maybe, they had become used to them showing-up for awhile and then disappearing again, and believed there was no cause for concern.

Are the police to be blamed for not seeing the terror in Gladys Wade’s eyes, when nearly a year ago she ran to them bleeding and babbling about escaping from a man, who was trying to kill her?

Police, after all, hear hundreds if not thousands of similar stories from women just like Gladys–crackheads and strawberries–homeless black women, who wander the tough, unforgiving streets of inner city neighborhoods just like the streets around Imperial Avenue.

Still, the two officers, who were waved down by Gladys, listened to her story, albeit half-heartedly. Sowell would be taken in custody but he would released without charge, after telling police that it was Gladys who had tried to rob and assault him. Just another night in the hood.

Five more women would meet their end in the Imperial Avenue house after Gladys alerted police to her attack.

There has been a great deal of finger pointing since the bodies were first discovered earlier this month in Sowell’s home, with everyone trying to downplay their own culpability by noting the shortcomings of others. Even the women, the 11 known alleged victims of Sowell, have been blamed for being complicit in their own murders.

Some have attempted to ease guilty consciences by claiming these street-wandering women were focused only on getting high, and by giving no thought to their own safety, placed themselves in harm’s way .


But to buy that argument is to be blind to the dangers homeless women face everyday.

Homeless women are in constant danger of sexual assault. According to the National Coalition of the Homeless, eight percent of reported crime against the homeless in 2008 were rapes and sexual assaults, with women being the victims in all of those cases. Keep in mind that rapes and sexually attacks against homeless women tend to go unreported.

Another study by the National Institute of Mental Health reported that 27 percent of homeless women receive medical treatment because of physical violence.

Sure some of the women were lured into that house on Imperial Avenue by the promise of drugs and malt liquor. But I would wager that many of Sowell’s alleged victims were looking to get off the mean streets for just a little while. Looking for a place they thought offered a bit more security and comfort than an abandoned car, or a bus shelter, or a boarded-up house.

Unfortunately, these women didn’t see the evil in the man they foolishly followed into that duplex on Imperial Avenue.

Eleven women, their bodies found decomposing in Sowell’s house and yard, and nobody witnessed a thing.

Predictably, directly across the street from the duplex on Imperial is one of those ubiquitous makeshift memorials, strewed with stuffed animals, bouquets of flowers, colorful ribbons and hastily written notes and cards bemoaning the tragic deaths. We in the black community are quick to erect our little inner city monuments to call attention to lives lost to the violence of our neighborhoods. But it is a recognition that always comes too late.

It’s easier, and honestly, probably safer, to turn a blind eye to the ugliness in our neighborhoods. That is why when the furor of these serial killings dies down we will return to not seeing these homeless women as they stumble along inner city streets, stand on corners, and hunch in doorways.

Oh, they might cross our field of vision as we make our way to work, to school, or to church, but we won’t see them-- won’t see these throwaway women because we don’t want to see them.

It's clear from the No Snitch campaign, to the horror on Imperial Avenue, that no one in the black community is willing to be a witness. And that is just what the Anthony Sowells of the world count on.