(Melanie Whyte/DD)
At the age of 19, Reverend Reginald Walton, now chair of the Black Lives Matter movement in Arizona, found himself face-down on the ground with his hands cuffed.
“We’re getting off of the freeway and we notice that there is a police van next to us. We didn’t think anything of it; we were just getting off the freeway,” he said.
In the next moment, 10 police cars surrounded the vehicle while a helicopter spotlight leaked in through the windows.
The car was pulled over and Walton and two other boys were removed from the vehicle.
“To be placed face-down on the ground when you know you had not done anything … I wouldn’t wish that kind of terror on anybody,” he said.
He and his friends had no reason to be pulled over, Walton said.
“They were looking for two black males, and we told them that we had just gotten off of the freeway, we told them where we were coming from, and we gave them our IDs,” Walton said. “Well, those of us that were older. A friend of mine had brought his little cousin along, who was only 14 and didn’t have an ID.”
The police were searching for an earlier-model Chevrolet and pulled over their later-model Toyota.
“The reason we were pulled over is they said we fit the description,” Walton said.
The comments he received in police custody made the environment more hostile, Walton said.
“To not know if you’re going to make it out of that experience intact, alive, without being brutalized, without being beaten,” he said. “It has shaped my worldview now.”
This memory created a passion for justice in Walton, which drew him to Black Lives Matter.
“When Black Lives Matter came along, it really spoke to me, because I have witnessed people who have been killed,” he said. “My mother held a friend of mine in her arms as he took his last breaths. I have issues with anybody losing their life wrongfully.”
Police work has changed over the years, said Walton.
“In the early ’80s, there was a shift that took place in law enforcement and in policing. It used to be that law enforcement either lived in the community or they walked the community, so they had time to build relationships,” he said. “The war on drugs created an enemy, because if you’re going to have a war, you have to have an enemy combatant. How are you going to have a war with an inanimate object?”
Black Lives Matter is not anti-police; rather, the campaign is anti-brutality, said Walton.
“We support good law enforcement,” he said. “We will not tolerate, we will not stand for bad police officers to put that badge on and brutalize anyone, regardless of race, creed, color, sexual orientation. That’s what we support.”
J Johnson, a friend of Walton’s, says that some of the issues they work on together are wrongful deaths.
“The perception is that the Black Lives Matter movement and groups that are looking for police accountability are somehow anti-cop or not,” Johnson said. “We’d like to see no cops killed and we’d like to see very few suspects killed.”
Walton has been reaching out to members of local government, Johnson said.
“His leadership has been really effective,” he said. “Meeting with people like Greg Stanton and Ed Zuercher, the city manager, even folks as different as Sal DiCiccio and Kate Gallego, so he’s a good guy. He’s got a small church that he’s trying to bring along and he’s really trying to make an impact on the community.”
Warren Stewart Sr., pastor at First Institutional Baptist Church on 11th and Jefferson streets, pushed for Walton to lead the campaign in Arizona.
“Shortly after the Mike Brown shooting, I asked the community to lean on him because of the the young generation,” he said. “I would like Reverend Walton to be one of the chairs for Black Lives Matter because he is a young, prophetic pastor. He has the same concern as biblical prophets for justice as well as for civil rights leaders of the past.”
Walton works to bring people of different backgrounds together, Stewart said.
“He is a coalition builder,” Stewart said. “I’ve seen him involved with all races, all colors, all persuasions. He’s involved with issues that affect people of color and poor people especially.”
As a Christian Methodist Episcopal pastor, Walton has lived all over the nation and can be moved again if his bishop decides.
“I’m always afraid his bishop will say ‘now you have to go,’” Stewart said. “He’s done such an excellent job at providing leadership. It would be a loss to the community.”
Contact the reporter at Melanie.Whyte@asu.edu.
