I Waited...Was Overall a Pimp?

Eric Overall

I have waited. I wanted to give this man's wife time to mourn. I didn't want to seem like a person that was inhumane, and who didn't care about the life of a man. I watched all the news reports, and the things that eveyone had to say about this man. I wondered everyday, however, " is he another pimp?" I know, sometimes, I can be really cynical and say things about people that are just unthinkable. I do that, because people do unthinkable things. 

I read the story about the young man that killed him and wondered if he had ever spent time in the Oakland County Jail. Maybe, Overall, had taken him there. It wouldn't be so far-fetched. Then I heard that he patroled around Pontiac. If you ever read my blogs in the past, you know that it starts in the streets. Somebody has got to bring the prostitutes into the jail. Was Overall one of those men? I know he had hardships with his own child that committed suicide. This could make him sensative to others.

Except, people who do cruel and unlawful things to people tend to dehumanize them. They don't see them as humans, but sub-humans, and a means to accomplish a specific goal. In this case, women and men from the streets, usually drug addicted and homeless, are used to make money for drug addicted deputies that wish to live beyond their means. I remember the last time I was there, Mr. Beane, one of the biggest culprits of the game, brought up a picture of his two daughters as I went out to visit with my lawyer. He felt that their well-being and ability to live a comfortable life, was cause for his illegal selling of people as sex slaves. Because these people they sell are drug abusers and have sex for money to buy those drugs. What difference does it make; right? Distorted thinking, at the least. 

It bring to mind two things when I think of reprorations. Somehow, God is watching and wants to bring right, all the wrong that has been done, and equalize the situation. Upon hearing of the death of John F. Kennedy, Malcom Little, known as Malcolm X, made a prolific statemnt about "chickens coming home to roost." It was used by Robert Southey, when explaining curses on a group of people. The idea that evil men's acts upon others, will cause evil to come upon them. I first spoke of this analogy, when Garry Jackson, a deputy at OCJ, was arrest, tried and sentenced for rape in the jail. He was Black, however, and subject to different laws. Another White deputy was caught having sex with an inmate and was allowed to retire.

That brings me to the second thought that Overall brings to mind. The idea that these people that they sell aren't human, and the words of Thomas Jefferson, slave owner and founding father. He wrote in him memoirs that Black people weren't human, didn't require as much food, sleep and didn't feel like White men, and therefore not human. He said this, to justify the fact that he gravely mistreated them, used them for free labor, raped their women and sold their children, seperating mothers from children and disrupting the lives of those who they thought of as chattle. Not seeing them as anything more than animals.

If you believe these things, as a scholar, philanthropist and businessman you can feel justified in the genocide of an entire race of people. It's a type of reasoning that allows evil men to do evil things, and flourish. But I believe in God, and I know he is the ultimate equalizer and his wrath is mightier than any man-made lie that can be told. The woman that caught that White man having sex with an inmate was deemed insane. They can do that to you, because they did it to me. But that Black man was sentenced to prison for his acts. There is an answer to that, and Overall is just the beginning.

Now, I'm not saying that Overall was a pimp. I don't know that, and none of the women have gotten back to me on that. As a child of God, I can tell you that prostitution is still an issue in the clinic at Oakland County Jail. Michael Bouchard can't stop it, Alder and Beane won't stop it. Hospitals, McClaren and General are involved in it, bails bondsmen, lawyers, prosecutors, judges and the State of Michigan is involved in it. When it all comes to a head, it will all play out for the world to see. I hope to be there. We know Overall won't be...