Five Days to Christmas: the JeJuan Cooks story, part 1

JeJuan Shauntel Cooks

JeJuan Shauntel Cooks is a prisoner in the Eastham Unit in Lovelady, Texas.  Ten years ago, he was sentenced to life in prison for allegedly firing two shots at a Milam County Sheriff’s Deputy.  Cooks insists he couldn’t have committed the crime because he wasn’t carrying a gun.  A gun was discovered at the scene of the incident, but it was never tested for fingerprints, DNA or gunshot residue.  To his amazement, Cooks was unable to find a defense attorney willing to challenge the word of a respected sheriff’s deputy.  This narrative will explain how, and why, our criminal justice system silences poor people of color.

Inside the Milam County Jail

Aerial picture of the Milam County Jail

JeJuan Shauntel Cooks was embarrassed.  The wound where the EMS tech had removed the Taser probe was still throbbing. The bleeding hadn’t stopped; not completely.  He had asked for a nurse while they were booking him into the Milam County Jail.  “If I thought you were dying,” the officer said, “I’d get you some help.  You’ll be fine.”

The holding tank was cold. His pants were soaked with mud and urine.  When the Taser hit, he lost control of his arms and legs.  Now he realized he must have lost control of his bladder too. 

“Can I change out of these clothes,” he asked an officer.

“When you’re finished with Investigator Beathard,” the man said, “you’ll get a jumpsuit.”

Hours passed before an officer came to fetch Cooks.  The path to the interview room led through a large office brimming with far more police officers than he expected to encounter in the middle of the night.   

“What I can’t figure out,” one cop said with a cruel grin, “is how you’re still alive!”

Investigator Jay Beathard stood in the doorway of the interrogation room. His arms were crossed.  Stocky, with close-cropped hair, the investigating officer was enjoying himself.

When Cooks entered the room, he saw two officers, Beathard and a second man, sitting behind a desk. Beathard motioned for the suspect to take a seat opposite them.

“You like messing with white girls, boy?” the unnamed officer asked. 

Cooks glared defiantly, but said nothing.

“You think I’m playin’, boy?” the unnamed man barked.  “You want me to show you I ain’t playin’?” 

Beathard smiled silently.

“What is this?” Cooks asked, “Good cop-bad cop.”

At this, the unnamed cop sprang to his feet, eyes flashing with rage.  He started to charge around the side of the desk but Beathard, smiling all the while, escorted the bad cop out of the room.  He closed the door.

“You got a lot of angry people wanting a piece of you,” Beathard said as he settled into his chair.  “Tell me, what were you going to do to those poor little white girls?”

“F**k you!” Cooks said.

Beathard just kept smiling.  “You’re a regular Bonnie and Clyde, huh?  That was quite a shootout you and Officer White had out there.”

“How could we have a shootout when I don’t even own a gun?” Cooks replied.

“Oh, really,” Beathard said.  “Then how do you explain the shell casings I found at the scene? There were two from Officer White’s .45 and between six and eight from your 9mm.  How do you explain that?”

“I don’t own a gun,” Cooks replied, “so I ain’t trying to explain shit.”

“Well, you’re being charged with attempted capital murder,” Beathard said. 

Then I’m asking for a lawyer,” Cooks replied. 

Realizing he wasn’t going to get a confession, Beathard slid a sheet of paper across the table.  “Just sign this,” he said, “it’s your Miranda warning.”

Cooks signed the paper and slid it back. 

“Officer White did okay out there tonight,” Beathard explained in a laconic drawl, “but he didn’t do good enough because, if he had, I wouldn’t be talking to you right now.” 

He was still smiling. 

“And I wouldn’t have all this paperwork to mess with,” Beathard added.

“What about my lawyer?” Cooks asked.

“Don’t worry,” Beathard replied, “we’ll get you your lawyer.”

The interview was over.

You won’t find this exchange in a trial transcript or an incident report.  Every word of it comes from the pen of a convicted felon.  The name on his birth certificate is JeJuan Shauntel Cooks.  His friends and family call him Shaun.

When I first read his stark narrative, I was reminded of the interrogation of Jesus in the Gospels.  You may find this a strange comparison.  Mr. Cooks is a convicted felon, constantly getting into trouble.  But then, so was Jesus. 

Jesus, the gospels tell us, let his brief trial play out without saying a word.  There was no point.  The end of the story had already been written.

Shaun Cooks also sat in silence throughout his trial.  But not by choice.  If it had been up to law enforcement, there would have been no trial.  If the prosecutor and the district judge had their way, there would have been no trial.  Cooks’ defense attorney didn’t want this case to see the inside of a courtroom.  The trial happened because JeJuan Shauntel Cooks wanted his day in court. 

He didn’t get it. 

He wanted to tell his side of the story. 

He never got the chance. 

So, now, for the first time, JeJuan Cooks gets to tell his own story in his own words.

Don’t worry, you will also hear the story the jurors heard at trial.  But this story has big problems the jurors never got wind of. 

In a good trial–a proper trial–two stories collide.  The state tells its story, then its the defendant’s turn.  It’s the jury’s responsibility to decide which story makes the most sense.  That didn’t happen when Shaun Cooks was tried in the Milam County Courthouse.  In fact, it almost never happens. If this story was utterly exceptional, it wouldn’t be worth telling. 

It began with a laundry run

Chris White is the popular Sheriff of Milam County, Texas.  There are only 25,000 people in the county, but the people who live there don’t feel isolated. Austin, the state capitol, is a little over an hour away to the southwest.  If you want to catch a Division 1 football game, Waco and College Station are close by.  If you like franchise restaurants, Temple is half an hour up the road on I-35. 

And it is on Farm to Market Road 485, just ten miles from Temple, that our story begins.

Nine years would pass before Chris White became the Sheriff of Milam County.  Back in 2009, he was a humble deputy.  White says he was driving west toward Temple when he clocked an approaching car doing 73 MPH in a zone where the speed limit drops to 65 at night. 

Cooks places the incident much further west and insists that Officer White was parked at right angles to the road.  Seeing the high beams in the distance, Cooks took his foot off the gas.  He was driving under the speed limit, he says, but didn’t want to take any chances.  It was just five days to Christmas.  After that, they could do whatever they wanted to him.  But not tonight.

Cooks was living in Temple at the time, but he grew up in Hearne, an hour to the east.  Most of his friends and family lived in Hearne and that’s where he was heading on December 20, 2009, just a little after midnight.  He was driving a black Mercedes that belonged to Brandi Acosta, his new girlfriend.  She was 20, Shaun (as she called him) was just shy of 30.  They had only been together a few weeks, but so far everything was cool. 

The couple had travelled to Hearne the night before to deliver some laundry to Cook’s mother, Lois.  Brandi had been too shy to come in the house, Lois recalls.  Tonight, they were making the return trip to pick up the laundry.  Shaun was hoping to coax Brandi into the house to meet his mother.  

Ten months earlier

Cooks could have made the trip in his Crown Victoria, but that would have been risky.  Temple is located in Bell County and Hearne is an hour to the east on Highway 485.  To get from Temple to Hearne, Cooks had to pass through Milam County.  That meant danger.

Ten months earlier, while traveling in the opposite direction (from Hearne to Temple), at the same time of night, Cooks had been pulled over.  He was driving his Crown Victoria at the time, and was accompanied by Leonard Cravens, a guy from Hearne who had asked for a lift. Cravens had been texting madly the entire way. about what, Cooks had no idea.  

A Milam County Sheriff’s deputy had been following them for miles.  As they neared the Bell County line, the flashing lights came on.

The deputy said he had stopped Shaun for swerving over the center line.  His dash camera didn’t kick in until he hit the siren, so there is no way of testing that assertion.  The real reason for making the stop was that, a couple of miles further up the road, the Crown Vic would have been out of the deputy’s jurisdiction.  It was now or never.

The deputy asked to search the car.  Cooks refused.  The deputy called for a police dog.  Cooks and Cravens stood in the darkness for half an hour waiting for the dog to arrive.  According to the police report, the dog performed a “passive alert” (which means he stared intently at a certain spot without barking or pawing).  The car was searched, and sellable quantities of marijuana and cocaine were found in Cravens’ Foot Locker bag along with the kind of scale that drug dealers use. 

Here the stories diverge.  Cooks insists that only marijuana was seized and claims the dashcam video backs him up. 

According to police report, the Milam County Sheriff’s department had received a “tip” from a confidential informant working with John Paschall, the notorious District Attorney of Robertson County who inspired the role of the villainous DA in the 2009 film American Violet.  The film was scheduled to play in area theatres in the very month in which Cooks and Cravens were stopped.   

Cooks can’t prove it, but he is 99% positive that Cravens himself was the anonymous informant.

The case dragged on through 2009, with a hearing set for November 2nd.  The first plea offer from Kerry Spears, the Milam County D.A., was for 25 years in prison.  Gradually, that had been whittled down to 2 years.

Cooks failed to show up for the November 2 hearing and that meant there was bound to be a bench warrant out for his arrest.  He decided to put off calling his attorney until after Christmas.  He wanted to buy his two young daughters some proper presents.  He was still on good terms with the girls’ mother, visited when he could, and provided childcare whenever the mother found herself in a bind. 

History repeats

This tangled story was on Cooks’ mind as he and his girlfriend traveled east toward Hearne on December 20, 2009.  Cooks had already done a stretch for burglary five years earlier.  The thought of the prison door slamming behind him scared him to death. But if it he was going back to prison, it had to be after Christmas.  He had purchased presents for his two little daughters. 

Besides, getting arrested in front of his new girlfriend and her sister would be humiliating. 

On the evening of December 20th, Sean and Brandi were traveling with Brandi’s sixteen-year-old sister, Andrea.  Andrea saw the trip to Hearne as a chance to get out of the house. She had promised her mother that she would take care of her older sister’s one-year-old baby. 

The girls decided to spice things up by rolling a couple of joints. 

“Girls, kill your flame,” Shaun cautioned when he spotted the bright lights by the side of the road. They were nearing the spot where he had been stopped ten months earlier and that made him hyper-vigilant.

By now the police car had swung in behind the Mercedes and was following at a distance. 

Just the other day, Brandi had said “I want to invest in your mind.” That’s what he liked about her: she realized how smart he was. Cooks had dropped out of school at 14.  His mother was so angry she kicked him out of the house.  He had moved in with his grandfather, but spent much of his time on the streets.

Lately, he had been thinking of reinventing himself.  Going legit.  Fixing up real estate in Hearne and building duplex apartments. 

And now he had a cop on his tail.

The Twilight Rapist

Chris White didn’t usually pull people over for driving a few miles over the speed limit.  Technically, he wasn’t even on duty that evening.  Police departments throughout Texas were looking for a man they called the Twilight Rapist. 

They didn’t have a lot to work with.  The victims were all older women, mostly widows living alone.  Typically, he struck in the early morning hours.  He’d unscrew porch lights, cut phone lines (few seniors had cell phones in 2009) and was very good at covering his tracks.

Chris White in 2012

The Twilight Rapist targeted rural areas where he was unlikely to be observed, so his crimes covered a territory larger than most states.   He had yet to strike in Milam County, but he had recently raped an elderly woman just over the line in Bell County.  Across Texas, women were living in fear.  Panic was rampant.

Multiple Personality Excluded in Twilight Rapist Insanity Case | Psychology  Today
Billy Joe Harris: The Twilight Rapist

In response, law enforcement agencies were creating dedicated patrols.  Officers like White worked a regular shift, then spent several hours on the road, looking for anything the least bit suspicious.  Most of the victims had been too traumatized to make a reliable identification.  All White knew was that the man he was looking for would be between five-foot-six and six feet tall and of athletic build.  And he was Black and his victims were overwhelmingly white.   

Had it not been for the Twilight Rapist, Deputy White would have been safe at home with his family.  But there he was, looking for a young Black man who preyed on White women.

Shaun Cooks was used to being pulled over on a flimsiest of pretexts. In Hearne, the harassment had been constant, especially after he refused to snitch for the DA. That’s why he was living in Temple.  Slowing to a crawl, he steered the Mercedes into a driveway and waited for the cop to pass him by. 

Deputy White saw the Mercedes rolling slowly up the driveway.  Too slowly.  He decided to swing around and head back west at a slow roll.  When he saw the car pull back out of the driveway and continue in an easterly direction, White decided to make a stop.  As the Mercedes rolled past the intersection of Highways 485 and 190, he switched on his flashers.

“Are you lost,” White asked when the young Black man rolled down the window.

“Yeah,” Cooks replied.

“I clocked you eight miles over the limit back there,” the officer said.

“If you were going to pull me over,” Shaun said, “Why did you follow me for so long?”

“Just trying to figure out what you’re about,” White replied, his voice calm and professional.

Brandi fished the insurance card out of the glove compartment and handed it to the officer.

“And can I see your license?” White said.

That’s when JeJuan Shauntel Cooks made the worst decision of his life.  To this day, thinking about it fills him with a sadness verging on despair.

“F**k this,” he said. His foot hit the gas.

A high-speed chase ensued covering approximately fifteen miles.  In the back seat, Andrea was hysterical.  The baby was oblivious.  Brandi was on her phone to her mother, Beverly Daniels.  In minutes, her parents were headed east on FM 485. 

When Beverly wasn’t talking to Brandi, she was on the phone with the Milam County Sheriff’s Department.

If Shaun had been alone, Officer White might have recorded his plate and let him go.  But two young women were in the car.  And a baby!  What if this guy was the Twilight rapist?  You couldn’t rule it out.  White knew that one-third of high-speed chases end in a wreck, but he saw no option to pursuit.

As Cooks raced down a two-lane road at speeds in excess of 100 mph, the desperation of his situation gradually sunk in.  The Hearne PD was bound to be waiting for him when he crossed the Port Sullivan bridge into Robertson County.  “I’ve got this under control,” he told Brandi.  In reality, he had no idea what to do next.  

In the back seat, Andrea’s screaming was non-stop.

Two miles from the Robertson county line, Shaun slowed down and swung across the road onto the westbound shoulder.  The car was still rolling when he hopped out.  Mostly, he just wanted to put some distance between himself and his passengers so they didn’t become collateral damage. 

But this was hardly a random stopping place.  Shaun’s grandad, the man he loved more than anyone in the world, once lived up this road.  Shaun himself had lived on this road as a young boy.  His grandad was buried nearby in an obscure family cemetery, as were several uncles who died before their time. 

When life was too much for him, Shaun liked to visit these graves and commune with the dead.  They never talked back, but Shaun derived great comfort from these encounters.

Intersection of FM 485 and CR 260

An open pasture lay between Highway 485 and County Road 260.  If Shaun could clear the fence on the far side of 260, perhaps he could disappear into the darkness and find a place to hide out until this thing blew over.

White watched the suspect exit the Mercedes and bolt across the pasture.  It had been raining heavily, but he figured he could follow in his patrol car without getting stuck.  Skidding across CR 260, White stopped his car a couple of feet from the fence.  The suspect was off to his left.

What happened next depends on who you choose to believe.  Continue to Segment 2: Five Conflicting Accounts

21 thoughts on “Five Days to Christmas: the JeJuan Cooks story, part 1

  1. Cameron police department been corrupt for many many years. Planting drugs on blacks and Mexicans and making them confess because they knew they didn’t have money to fight the case. This is sad and even sadder that it’s still going on today.when will someone step up and bring justice to this department.

  2. When will enough really be enough?I know all cops and police departments are not bad and I was raised to believe I could always trust the police to be honest,protect and serve.But we,people of color have learned that’s just not true all of the time.Just like there’s good and bad civilians,there’s also good and bad police officers.So please don’t think just because they wear a uniform they’re always truthful and right.

  3. When you are a person of color especially a black man you are judged by your skin which is harsh so you will be judge harsher sad but true when I read this I want to know why were there only police shell casings🤔

  4. Eleven years taken. This is an example of the world we live in. Will no one hear, understand or advocate for the truth? This is more than a tragedy. I’m praying that God will bless JeJuan and his future to be freed, exonerated and redeemed. The small town police have been allowed to do criminal acts, devastate families and cause unspeakable damage to the family unit. How do they sleep at night? There has to be a reckoning. This can’t continue.

  5. Man this got me like in tears… Like where is the justice??? That man was just trying to get home for Christmas n give his kids decent presents but the police had to fuck it up… Its forever gone be FREE SHAUN til u come home… Love u and always will… Forever my baby!!!

  6. I’m from Cameron TX they have been dirty all my life but they are going to get what’s coming to them

  7. This type of injustice has been plagued upon our black men for years. The color of your skin decides the treatment you receive. Sad but true. The system is broken and they do whatever to tear our people down. Racism at its finest.

  8. This is something that has been going on for so many years. I’m from Cameron myself and many years ago I was a victim to a crime that was all a set up by the Cameron Police department. This saddens me that this young man went through all of this because he was a young black man with two white females and the cop treats him like that, here we are in 2020 and the cops still treat us like we don’t have rights this young man needs to be heard. Something has to be done about this department blacks and Hispanics people don’t never get treated Right there. The cops drive around on the black side of town pulling folks over for nothing. There’s no jobs for the kids or nothing to do. So yes the young black men and lady’s hang out at the local park in there hood because I done It many years ago. I have seen cops park on the side of the streets watch u as you maybe talking to ur friend or whatever and a car can pass by and they pull the car over for nothing it’s truly sad. I’m scared to even ride around when I’m there visiting my mom and family because of the behavior of the cops there and my past mistake. There isn’t a place we can go to, no jobs or nothing for no one there. The good jobs are taken by most of the whites there and they run the whole town and have been for many years it’s just sad. This young man had a whole lot of life ahead of him 30years old. Dreams taken away and just because of this Department and this Cop a “dirty cop” I would Call him. So yes it’s time for a change for CPD the Town i call home and last justice for Shaun as well. FREE SHAUN!!!

  9. This is what’s wrong with our system, ONE awful night, one decision based upon fear and one based upon racism and stereotypes cost this man the rest of his life in prison? It is beyond me how we have gotten to this point in our country.

  10. Cameron police department always stack charges on you to get a conviction everything down is one sided if you the wrong Color they will lock you up an throw away the key i got certified as an adult when I was 13 on charges sent to prison as juvy 16 years old the system is corrupt an let certain people get away with certain things it definitely needs to be looked at

  11. I once lived in Milam county and attended Cameron ISD.Nothing has changed.It was a racist community then and still is.Black or brown people don’t stand a chance at equality or justice.We’ve always known it was a problem and wanted change but now we see that we as people of color,need to make it happen.

  12. As a young black man 27 years of age I do not travel thru Milam county because I’ve always heard stories of how racist the police was in that county and as a black male that’s a target. This story is a prime example of why people always said what they said. In my opinion Cameron police department was 100 percent wrong in this case from the beginning to the end and for the judge and jury to sentence Jejuan to a life sentence after all that this store has told just give me weary feelings as if Jejuan was plotted against and targeted from the time he was leaving out of Cameron. It’s time to bring this young man back to the stand and honestly y’all should apologize to him as y’all are setting him free that’s 10 years he has wasted of his life behind bar when in all reality it should had been the cop. It’s time to give Jejuan his justice. His time there is done. He has a family to catch up with. JUSTICE FOR JEJUAN SHANTEL COOKS

  13. I’ve always heard the stories of how racist the Milam county police was and this story is a prime example. I do not go thru that county at all because the few times I have I’ve saw a cop ready to jump out at any minute. This story gives me a weary feeling that Jejuan was plotted against and targeted from when he first left out of Cameron. In my opinion the cop should be the one behind bars. Jejuan has lost 10 years behind bars when in all reality he was innocent. It’s time to bring him back to stand and give him the justice he deserve. This CPD was all for wrong that day
    JUSTICEFORJEJUANSHANTELCOOKS

  14. This racism in this world is horrible and cruel who can do that to a man who said he didn’t do it, most people think it’s ok but it’s not like why do that to a man who have kids needing their father a lot of mothers and fathers are wrongly treated badly in this world and they end up shot up and dead and the kids have to sit their and watch there parents die or get taken away from they this world is to cruel, police are not all bad but some are, some police officers shoot Black people and Mexican and some white people, people are taken for granted in this cruel world, why do this to kids, and adults, why are people taken for granted and why do racism define different people negatively and positively

  15. I believe an unjust justice system still exists in Miliam County today. The vast majority of wrongful convictions are never brought to light. How long will police officers, who are sworn to serve and protect be allowed and get paid to be the offenders. When will they be held accountable without a protest. A life sentence for something you didn’t do is terrible. It’s heartbreaking.
    #JusticeForJeJuan

  16. Say his name!! Say his damn name! Shaun! Shaun’s life matters!! It matters to his family it matters to his friends! His life matters! The article forgot to mention that he took care of his grandfather. He would sit in the living room for hours wstching the Spanish channel with him. During this time his grandfather was in early stages of memory loss. The article forgot to mention that he was a self built man, he did not have a male figure to show him what a man should be. The article failed to mention that he was so smart and talented. He could write a song and sing better than anyone at that time. Yes he was convicted for burglary, but the article failed to mention that he did offer to repay. Not to make any excuse for his transgressions but to help people reading this article know that Shaun is a gentle man that had to survive. He made the wrong choice of dropping out of school at 14. Where were the teachers or principles? Was it not heard of for one HISD (Hearne ISD) employee to speak life into him, to encourage him, to offer him insite of a better life if he finishes school? As I write this comment I thank God my mom moved us out of Milam county when we were smal children. My mom would take us (home) (Hearne) each summer, but I was not allowed to stay the entire summer. I now know it was because I was the vocal child, and I did not know color. I wasnot afraid. She would tell us stories about when people of color were made to go to the “white” schools they were not even allowed to participate in school plays, speech and drama, only sports. My aunt Lutie was very athletic but back then she could not prosper in the area. My grandparents dared not contest the order of the “white” school district. My mother’s stories would intrigue me, but I never truly felt her words until I was able to stay in Hearne and go visit my great grandmother in Cameron in the 90’s. Yes 90’s. As young teenagers we would go walking around town, my grandmother, who we called mama, would tell us not to go any further than Bill’s (store) if we went across the tracks, because those white folks will act a fool. Shocking for me because I went to a majority white school in Midland. Everyone was treated as equal. We would continue our daily routine each day walking through Hearne streets and I had my first encounter with racism. A young white police officer pulled up.on the side of us and harrassed my male cousins and his friends. He rode slowly beside us until we made it to a small black owned store. Then he pressed the gas to speed past us. When we went to Cameron we were never allowed to go out of the yard because of the thick hate for people of color. It saddens me to think of the cruelty Shaun faced when he was jailed. No excuse for him breaking the law and no excuse being made for him being jailed for breaking the law. There is also no excuse for the police breaking the law by lieing and perjury. He admitted to his wrong doing. Because he pissed the police officer off they created a false charge. Because he was not given the opportunity to defend himself on the stand nor have a attorney without his best intrest at heart he was given a life sentence. 10 years he has been gone because the justice system failed him. The justice system made him be silent, and refused to allow evidence to be brought forward. His attorney never once attempted to sway the jury with reasonable doubt never once said anything that would show Shaun for something other than what the police officers said. His attorney had the same agenda. Thats to take Shauns life away. I fault the entire judicial system in Milam county, as well as Shaun’s pears! All of you are at fault. As peers of the county you have rights and you fail to utilize the rights. You stand by and stand back! You allow this treatment of people of color to continue because your silent. How do you expect changes if you continue to allow the judicial system to chain you? Its time for a change in these small counties. Its time for voices of overcomers! Shaun is one of many that have been incarcerated for false charges! Stop being selfish and afraid. Open your mouth for freedom! Open your mouth against injustice, you say my damn counsins name and you feel his pain!! When is enough going to be enough? American Violet showed injustice. Once the movie was shown than the injustice was forgotten. The wound of Shaun being falsely convicted of a crime he did not commit is infected and it us time for some antibiotics. This conviction will be over turned. He will be free. Justice will be served against the injustice of racism in the small communities!

  17. It’s sad to see how our justice system continues to fail us. Black men and women receive harsher prison sentences. It seems to me the ones we expect to protect and serve us would weather see us locked away or dead. It’s clear that Jejuan Cooks rights were violated. So much time stolen from him and his family that’s punishment enough. FREEDOM FOR JEJUAN COOKS

  18. Jejuan Cooks we call him Shaun, is more than just this story he is a young man that is loved so deeply not only by his family but by his community. He is a young man of color that our judicial system has failed. The broken system has protrayed him as an attempted murder of a public servant. Funny we call the police of Cameron a public servant, when time after time they harm the public and solicit violence, trumped up charges, and heavier jail sentences for people of color. I think calling those police officers public servants should make you spit because it should leave a bad taste in your mouth. These police officers and attorneys are true criminals and should face the consequences of their criminal acts. They should be tried for hate crimes. We as a people are tired of being handled like we mean nothing, because God blessed us with melanin. We are a blessed people. We are tired of our skin color being a target. We are tired of reading stories of our people of color begging for justice, when justice is what the constitution that we all should represent states. We are tired of paying thousands of dollars for lawyers to help free us from a injust arrest. Money that should be used to help us prosper instead its used to help fight a lie so that we continue to be free. When will people of color be allowed the same privileges of whites? Truth is we dont want your privileges we just want equality and justice. We want Shaun to have whats do to him and thats justice. We want the lies exposed. I pray that he is released and that our communities can come together and demand justice!
    Philippians 4:13 no weapon formed against me shall prosper.
    Aunt Ree: no weapon formed against you Shaun shall prosper!

  19. I just hope the neighborhood hero be free and the Milam County get what’s coming there way its been 10 going on 11 years my causing been gone for something he didn’t do this was wrong but with no money its hard to beat a corrupt system full of racism but this is what we face everyday all around the world for people of color

  20. Me personally try not to go to or through milam county you never hear anything good about the laws there but one thing I do know is shun didn’t deserve what they done to him so what if he has a record everybody got a past and that should’ve been used against him they know he didn’t shoot at the laws they just knew that can do what they wanted to do with him I feel like they may have paid his lawyer off not to defend him just my opinion but most of all I miss my friend dearly and sum corrupt laws took him from me BFF for life my friend

  21. When will enough be enough? It’s hard to fight a corrupt system. Milam county has always been corrupt and racist. To know Shaun is to love Shaun. He was simply convicted because of the color of his skin. Law enforcement had an agenda and because of that Shaun was on the receiving end of injustice. “Let’s make an example out of him, throw the book at him and throw away the key.” They figured he would just sit back and accept what they did to him. Shaun keep making noise, and we will make noise with you. They will eventually listen and the truth will come out.

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