AWAKENED BY HATE A story of police brutality inspired by true events

AWAKENED BY HATE

A story of police brutality inspired by true events

Awakened by Hate

A story of police brutality inspired by true events

Who can you trust when police brutality happens? Did it just happen to us? Can forty seconds change your life forever?

By

Pam Macri

October 2020

To protect the innocent, Jackman is a fictitious city and county name.

About the Author

I have been a writer for 25 years, focusing on short stories and marketing materials. I am most proud of a cookbook that I wrote and dedicated to my late mom who was a phenomenal cook. Awakened By Hate is my latest work, a fictional story based on actual events around police brutality and corruption.

As a result of the experience detailed in Awakened By Hate, I am an advocate for those with mental health struggles. I work to change the laws to support those diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Order (PTDS). It is my duty to be an advocate because of my personal experience with PTSD and how it affects individuals, their families, and to create and educate into police training programs. This disorder is greatly underestimated, and I am working tirelessly to make it a priority in legislation and stop the inhumanity that has happened.

I sit on the Board of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) focusing on PTSD recovery court programs and working to ensure that police protocols include how to appropriately deal with individuals who suffer from mental illness.

When I am not writing or advocating, I work in the Project Management sector teaching continuous improvement and a Six Sigma Blackbelt problem-solving professional.

I enjoy gardening, especially roses. I love cooking, a fond memory that my late mother passed down to me, and a way to keep her spirit alive. I live in the Midwest with my husband and our two dogs.

I dedicate to you!

At the end of the day, I am grateful for this experience.

I am grateful to my deceased mother for influencing me to be brave enough to speak up for people getting bullied. In this book, I share my great experiences with her and the persuasive impact they had on me. She taught me that all people matter; to begin with one person (and another and another); and that truth has unbelievable power!

I am grateful Michael survived the horrific acts against him. I thought I lost the love of my life forever!

I am grateful for the brave people who know they will be condemned but speak out in truth about police brutality.

I am grateful to the universe, which attracted me to this true story that must be told.

Lastly, I am grateful to BELIEVE WE CAN CHANGE and hope this book will help serve others!

Awakened by Hate by Pam Macri

Published by:

Real Life Publishing, LLC

P.O. Box 473 South Bend, Indiana 46624

Where to get our work/how to contact us:

www.awakenedbyhate.com

www.facebook.com/awakenedbyhate

Copyright © 2020 Pam Macri

1st Edition

Edited by: Kirkus

This is a work of fiction. Unless otherwise indicated, all the names, characters, businesses, city entities, county entities, state entities, federal entities, any and all government entities, places, events, and incidents in this book are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact: pammacriauthor@gmail.com

Cover by: Book Cover Design by ebooklaunch.com

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-7357318-2-7

Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-7357318-0-3

Softcover ISBN: 978-1-7357318-1-0

Kindle ISBN: 978-1-7357318-3-4

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Preassigned Control Number (PCN) Awakened By Hate 9781735731810.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020917292

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Macri, Pamela, author.

Title: Awakened by hate : a story of police brutality inspired by true events / By Pam Macri.

Description: Includes bibliographical references and index. | South Bend, IN: Real Life Publishing, LLC, 2020.

Identifiers: ISBN 978-1-7357318-0-3 (Hardcover) | 978-1-7357318-1-0 (pbk.) | 978-1-7357318-2-7 (ebook) | 978-1-7357318-3-4 (Kindle)

Subjects: LCSH Police brutality—Fiction. | Police corruption—Fiction. | Coming of age—Fiction. | Michigan—Fiction. | BISAC FICTION / General

Classification: LCC PS3604.E8845 A93 2020 | DDC 813.6—dc23

CONTENTS

About the Author

Chapter 1: The Beginning

Chapter 2: The Injustice

Chapter 3: Sentencing Day

Chapter 4: Jail

Chapter 5: Home

Chapter 6: The First Visit

Chapter 7: Is This Church?

Chapter 8: Reaching Out

Chapter 9: Top Ten Things to Remember as a Prison Visitor

Chapter 10: Joints

Chapter 11: The Warden’s Office

Chapter 12: The Just

Chapter 13: The Pope

Chapter 14: Is It My Turn Yet?

Chapter 15: Police Brutality in the News

Chapter 16: Awakening

Chapter 17: That Guy from Work

Chapter 18: Homecoming

Chapter 19: Freedom!

References

Chapter 1

The Beginning

Peace is not absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means.

—President Ronald Reagan

Don’t quit. Never give up trying to build the world you can see, even if others can’t see it.

—Simon Sinek

I.

It was the beginning of what was supposed to be a relaxing Sunday of making wedding plans with my fiancé, Michael. But when I rolled into my neighborhood and discovered one of my cars gone, I suddenly got a sinking feeling. The night before, my nephew got married, and I stayed in a hotel with family and other wedding guests. I had been palling around with my twenty-four-year-old niece, Beth, who had just announced that her boyfriend had been talking about getting engaged after he graduated from the University of Michigan. We had a great time critiquing the entire wedding, from the decorations to the bride’s dress. We had danced our legs off and were exhausted. I was happy to have survived some of the sharks at the wedding. Happy, even, with my hoarse voice. I looked forward to flopping on the couch for a nice nap after checking off a few tasks on my wedding checklist. Michael and I had recently narrowed down the options for wedding invitations to three and today was the day to pull the trigger on one.

The previous night was the last time I had heard from Michael. At 10:45 p.m., he texted me, encouraging me to stay positive at the wedding reception. He wanted me to have fun despite the relatives and ex-friends who would have loved to push me off the dance floor for one selfish reason or another. These are the people I refer to as the sharks. Michael had words with my sister’s boyfriend about tearing up our yard with his motorcycle. The last time we had a gathering at our house, Tony was trying to be cool by spinning around in our yard. Michael let it go, but after a couple of minutes he asked Tony to ride out in the street because he didn’t want him to mess up the yard. That didn’t go over well, and suddenly it got ugly with insults. He left the grass uneven and dirt craters in our front yard. Michael and I agreed to celebrate the wedding with a nice gift and me going with Beth, not Michael, so my nephew would enjoy his wedding without any negative exchanges between Michael and Tony. This way, my sister’s boyfriend could attend the wedding. Other sharks included my aunt Charmaine, my mother’s sister who fought with my mother for years. She actually tried to run me over with her car when I was ten because she didn’t like my mother. I am not kidding. I was walking back from my friend’s house on the edge of the road during the time her and my mother were having an argument. When I heard the car behind me rolling over gravel, I turned to see Aunt Charmaine nearing me quickly. I ran into a ditch to get out of the way.

For some crazy reason, my ex-boyfriend’s parents were invited to my nephew’s wedding as well. Why and how they stayed involved enough to get invited to the wedding is beyond me, but they clearly didn’t want to see me happy with my new fiancé. My aunt Susie is the opposite of those sharks. She is my dad’s sister-in-law, always caring and asking how I was doing. She actually cared about me, and I her. When I described to her the three choices of wedding invites, one with a scroll, one with roses, and the other with a bride and groom, Aunt Susie reminded me how much I loved roses. Don’t you remember, Grace? All you used to talk about was getting married and having gardens with roses and herbs. Michael didn’t know it, but my choice was going to be the rose wedding invitations. Aunt Susie was a gem, far from a swimming-around, ready-to-attack-you shark.

As the garage door opened, I daydreamed of the comfortable blanket waiting for me on the couch but could tell something was off. I saw my other car wasn’t in the garage either. That’s when I got another sinking feeling and didn’t know why. A cool chill ran through my body as I got my bags out of the car. I opened the door to the kitchen and there it was again, that cool chill. The house was empty. No windows had been opened that morning. No lights or television were on. No morning dishes in the sink. I remember reassuring myself that despite the eerily empty house and uneasy feelings I had, everything was okay. I told myself it was the vibrations from the band still in my body, that I was reeling from all the conversations I had with the wedding partygoers, but I could be wrong.

I am Grace Manning and I’m thirty-three years old. I live with my fiancé in a house I bought in my hometown five years ago. Our home was a three-bedroom house on two lots on a slow and quiet road. I had some beautiful rosebushes in our front yard that I’d worked on since the day I moved in. The rosebushes were true works of art, perfectly spaced, watered and coddled as if they were my children. It was a peaceful place to live, until now.

Walking through the house, I noticed the light flashing on the answering machine, but didn’t think anything about it at the time. I didn’t know it then, but the message I was about to listen to would change my life forever. I pushed the Play button. That is where it all began. The impersonal voice said, This is a collect call from the Jackman County Jail. Do you accept the charges? I stared at the machine, completely frozen. I played it again but was still mesmerized after the light stopped flashing. The message was not making any sense. I thought that when Michael came home I would play it for him and ask him what to do about this disturbing message. I would ask him, Who would call us from jail?

I waited. Still no word from Michael. He typically would leave me a note welcoming me home and checking to make sure I had a safe drive back. I was still thinking about my plan of having a nice lazy Sunday, lying on the couch, daydreaming.

After a while I thought, Michael is not here yet, but why not just call the police department and ask them why I would have received such a call? I looked up the number and dialed the Jackman County Jail. I explained to the police officer what I heard on the message, and she asked, Who do you know that’s in jail? I said, Nobody, then paused. I haven’t talked to my fiancé today. I quickly regretted saying that. She said, as if to hurry and end the call, What’s his name? I paused again, then shared his name, and I felt guilty, as if I was doing something behind his back, something very disrespectful. His name is Michael McKensie. She replied, He’s here. Another pause came over me. What do I say now? Why are my hands shaking? Oh my god! What happened? I cannot speak.

She said, He appears in front of the judge tomorrow at ten a.m. Click. She hung up, not waiting for me to catch up or process what was happening. My thoughts began to put scenarios together, but couldn’t think of anything. What the hell was happening?

My mind was racing with a multitude of reasons that could have landed Michael in jail. Had his teenage son’s mother finally succeeded in putting him in jail? She was always threatening him and would scream at him when Michael called to talk to his son. The screaming was so loud that I could hear her from another room. He would ask her to Calm down, please be quiet. Michael did not want his son to hear the screaming. Michael’s ex-wife was unreasonable and bitter. As an ex-wife myself, I try to understand other women, but she was the proverbial crazy bitch. We had recently hired an attorney to get more parenting time and she was not happy about it. Was Michael in jail because of one of her schemes?

II.

I needed to know what to do. Michael always knew what to do, but he clearly was not going to be home anytime soon. It seemed so out of character for him to have any trouble. He was such a sweet man and a gentleman too. This is why I fell in love with him. That’s the best part about him!

The lazy-Sunday-wrapped-in-a-fuzzy-blanket plan was clearly not going to happen. Apparently, today I was going to be putting together a puzzle, with unknown pieces.

My mind could not remove the image of Michael being arrested and in jail in the town we both were born in. He was such a breath of fresh air to me. He was generous, kind, and loving. Yes! A good man!

I had invested my time in a few men over the years only to be taken for granted and disappointed. One turned out to be in it just for a party, a place to stay, and free meals. I was stable and always had a job, unlike a couple of the men I had dated.

When I met Michael, he was different. He saw me and accepted me for who I was, and that was refreshing. I am a generous person. I could be counted on to give gifts at Christmas and on birthdays. My friends and family depended on me to plan these events.

When some of my friends and family were angry, they would spend a lot of time and energy putting others down, including me. Michael saw through the pettiness and drama of my family and friends. He was real. He could see how I strove so hard for peace and to make everybody feel welcomed by making their favorite dishes and loving them. He loved me for everything that I tried to do all the years I had the birthday and holiday events. I had been on the verge of not inviting certain family members to events, which would have solved a lot of problems, but I always reverted back to a neutral ground. I wanted to do what my mom would do if she were here. So I kept trying, only to get fed up again and again. My mom, Charlene, was also born in Jackman but in the late 1940s. After she lost her teen brother in a hunting accident, she had imposed the value of family get-togethers. My mom was the rock in our family and I wanted to do what would honor her. It just wasn’t easy to do.

Once, I fell into a pity party that lasted for a couple of weeks. Michael said, ever so gently, You realize that your mom didn’t raise you to sit around and feel sorry for yourself. Do you think God put you on this earth to beat yourself up? I said, If I want to feel sorry for myself and lick my wounds after getting beat up by life, I will. Tend to your own knittin’s, buddy! I called him buddy when I was angry. He said, Well, go ahead then. I will hold you as long as you need me to. It’s not getting you anywhere! In my opinion … it’s time to wrap it up! It was refreshing that he could come out and tell me what he thought. I was not used to that either. Most men I dated seemed to be intimidated, even afraid of me at times. I always had a job, knew what I wanted and where I was going. Don’t some men want to direct the relationship? Maybe they didn’t feel like they had many choices in a relationship with me. Well, it seemed rare a guy would speak his mind to me, even though I always wanted a partner, and not to run the relationship.

Anyway, on the outside, yes, I basically told this sweet, handsome man, fuck you.

On the inside, I said to myself, "I have to keep this one around!"

Finally, I had a relationship with a man who was not afraid of me or who would answer, Yes, dear! to everything I asked. I am finally with the right guy!

Me, I was an overachiever with a strong personality. I worked so hard in everything I did, with a smile on my face. My mother taught me the value of a smile. I felt good when someone smiled at me, so why not give that to others?

Overachiever and teen mother are usually not heard in the same sentence, but that was me. I was that teen girl who had a baby in high school. Yikes, right?

I went right on to college at seventeen and defied the sharks from the wedding. These people were excited to see me crash face-first on the pavement. I knew damn well they were tapping their fingers and counting the hours until I would call them to beg for food or a place to stay for me and my precious baby boy. These people weren’t right in the head from the jump, I knew that. They were just waiting for me to reach my hand out and figured I would be versed in the welfare benefits I had been accustomed to; however, it never happened.

Could Michael be what we women call a real man?

My male lineup history included a cheater who told me women kept coming back to him because he was such a good lay. I thought, Why is he telling me he’s a good lay? Wouldn’t I know if he was a good lay?

Was that some door-to-door salesperson tactic? First, tell her that she wants the vacuum or gadget (in this case his amazing, magical dick). Secondly, get her to say, Yes! Yes! Because it fulfills my every need! Third, get her to sign a contract for $255 per month for the next twenty-four months. The completion of the plan was to scam me to pay for a place for him to live, his food, a car, and whatever else he did while I worked sixty hours a week. He got by on his insurance scams and my paychecks. When I kept seeing the same behaviors repeating, I got out of the relationship.

Next in the short lineup I had the educated, hardworking man who preferred the company of men over women. Why did he bait me to go out with him and then switch on me? Whatever happened to just being yourself and being honest with people? Did he think I would never catch on? It actually took me a while, but I did catch on and move on. It was part of his front for his family: having a steady female relationship but seeing guys on the down-low. Whatever, right?

Oh, I can’t forget the high school sweetheart who found his way back into my heart as well as hard-core drugs and truckloads of beer. The man who always told people, You never put your hands on a woman came up with a reason to physically abuse me. Then he found ways to deplete me financially. By the time he got forced out, this hardworking gal was penniless, over her head in debt, grossly underweight, and with a head of hair that resembled a straw kitchen broom. I blamed my stylist for changing my hair dye. She said, Grace, I know some other overwhelmed and stressed-to-the-max women with hair like this, but WHAT IS GOING ON IN YOUR LIFE? Ding, ding, ding! He was the worst.

I know I am not the only female with crazy stories after picking the wrong man! Let’s be honest.

Michael told me, They were wrong to treat you like that. They took advantage of your loving nature. All you wanted was to love them and they hurt you. I am sorry for that. I will never let anybody treat you like that ever again. I will love you the way no man has ever loved you. I promise you that.

I didn’t believe him. If he got halfway through his promise to me, I would be happy at that point. I loved that he told me to wrap up the pity party, which is exactly what I needed to hear.