We are creating political action in Yonkers, New York.  Making things happen a step at a time.  I joined Community Voices Heard a year ago or so and we are working on a big meeting on August 28th, coming up next week.  We will have a chance to tell each of our stories, and then break out in groups to discuss topics of interest.  We are talking about violence against women and what keeps people in poverty.  These are topics that are very close to my heart as they hit close to home for me.  I wish I had a magic wand to get my son out of prison, where he is still hold up in Portland, Oregon.  They won't let him out of the state.  I have never imagined that a human being would be treated in this manner.  It's just a terrible crime the way the operatives in the criminal justice system handle prisoners, and keep them incarcerated for much longer than they should be.  They have a way of testing the strength and sanity of any individual.  I thought that they would at least treat him with humanity.  But oh my, did they ever do the opposite.  They went into his cell and pulled riot gear on him, breaking three of his ribs, cracking open his head, and "tazer" gunning him.  It was just disastrous.  Then they keep putting him back in and he goes around in circles,  but when he's out they can't do anything to help him.  Now he's been denied SSI back five or six times since he's been incarcerated.  It's unbelievable that the government expects felons to live on nothing.  I think it is an atrocity!!!  I hope we can finally sue them for what they've done to his life.  At 27 he now is bald from all the stress.

Shawn is a big part of my life

  So he has spent a good part of his maturing years behind bars.  It is a painful experience to go through.  Although people try to make you think that that is what is right, I tend to differ on so many levels with the outrageous treatment that he has received since he arrived in Oregon.  When he first went there he had his arms open and was looking to this experience to be a good one.  And what happened to  him there I wouldn't have wished on an animal, the poor animals the way the human race treats them as well.  I wish that he hadn't had to go through all t hat he went through while he was there. Now he wakes up with night horrors and there is no getting away from them.  These vigilantes are about to launch a full-fledged man hunt on him, and he is only a target for their anger which reigns supreme.  I want to see him free of all their chains and this is wreaking havoc on my life as well.  There is so much hatred in this world, and they don't give you the tools with which to fight the enemy, otherwise they wouldn't be able to continue in this fashion.  Right now,  I know that god must be following him, he has enough strength to fight them some how.  I hope he doesn't fall back into harms way as that is so difficult to skirt from under.  This is not a good time for me and I am waiting nervously in the wings to see how this scenario will play itself out.  I need him to come back in one piece, but that won't happen if they get their drothers.