Community Activist Speaks Out on Troy Davis

The fight continues to save the life of Troy Davis.
On death row since 1990 for the 1989 murder of Savannah Police Officer Mark MacPhail, appeal after appeal has been denied.
Attorneys for Davis are pushing for another hearing and want the case reopened because several witnesses have changed their minds.
Never far from the headlines, it’s a case that could easily divide this city or morph into an issue of race… a move one community activist is warning about.
News Three’s Community Reporter Alice Massimi has more.

In the past Nadra Enzi has strongly spoken out on the case of Troy Davis.
“Let’s face it this is the south. When you have a police officer who is white and you have a suspect who is a black male, and as a black male who grew up in Savannah, I can understand quite clearly the racial dimension,” explains Nadra.
An active member in the community he’s attended the rallies supporting a new trial for the death row inmate.
“As a former civil rights activist and current supporter of a retrial for Troy Davis, some fellow safety advocates mistakenly assumed over the years I was anti-police and anti-prosecution.”
Enzi is changing his tone.
“I’ve talked to people on both camps and you’ve got a lot of angry people who don’t seem to be willing to entertain opposing views.”
In an opinion editorial he says some people have tried to twist and turn the situation.
“I think people have painted some pretty stark pictures; if you are a Davis supporter the other side says well you must hate policeman and you are soft on criminals, if you are a MacPhail supporter than members of my side say well you must be a racist.”   
Enzi warns people this is not the way people who live in the same community should interact instead he says people should look at this as an opportunity.
“This could be an opportunity to encourage difficult honest dialogue that hasn’t happened otherwise.”
For Enzi that includes reaching out to the MacPhails… a family whose suffering is not thought of as often.
“I want them to know and their supporters to know there are people on the other side of this issue who care just as deeply about their loss, as we do the prospect that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred.”

Here is Nadra Enzi’s Entire Opinion Editorial:

(SAVANNAH, GA): As a former civil rights activist and current supporter of a retrial for Troy Davis, some fellow safety advocates mistakenly assumed over the years I was anti-police and anti-prosecution.
My position has always been, justice for all, regardless of color, class, religion (or lack thereof) or even sexual orientation.
Consequently, I must now focus attention on slain Officer Mark MacPhail and his family, whose epic suffering must also be acknowledged by those questioning the conviction following his murder.
My support is in no way meant to belittle his family’s loss because, unlike some who blindly hate the police, my concern has always centered itself upon fair application of public safety to all segments.
I don’t like murderers. It doesn’t matter who their victim is, someone who willingly murders another human being isn’t someone whose crime I will waste time justifying.
While it’s good that Davis’ previously under-reported side of the story is getting coverage, there are elements that trouble me more as one of his more conservative supporters.
I write the following as an NAACP life member: when the NAACP national president recently came to town blocks from my house, many in his inner city audience were the same folks breaking into neighbor’s houses; abusing drugs and keeping silent about the identities of local malefactors. 
I fear their hatred for a system that, while sometimes unfair, nonetheless punished them for crimes against their own people, is what brought them out. They want to thumb their noses at citizens, cops, assistant DAs and judges who have punished them for wrongs committed against mostly other low income Black people. 
This left a bitter taste in my mouth because Black crime victims can’t get such high profile support from America’s oldest civil rights organization.
Black citizens who uphold civil order might as well be whistling “Dixie” under the distant stars of a national civil rights constellation concerned with external threats at the cost of menaces within our homes and neighborhoods.
When I was a civil rights activist, it wasn’t on behalf of the freeloaders and vandals I sometimes see slinking around wearing “IAmTroy.com” t-shirts.
Compare them to 1960s protesters in their Sunday best and perhaps my discomfort becomes more easily understood.
Some in the Black community only speak out when someone of another race is involved while granting absolution to Black victimizers of Black people.
This wasn’t what I was fighting for so I took my leave to work on behalf of promoting safety in the inner city and elsewhere.
I left thugs, crack heads and their sympathizers to their own devices while seeking a safer, saner society as the foundation for a more fair one.
At the nexus of this process is law enforcement.
Police officers have a front row center seat for sometimes lethal consequences arising when laws and ordinances made in the safety of boardrooms are played out on the streets.
Longstanding social and political hostilities add jet fuel to already volatile situations when blue suits arrive….
No account of the night Officer MacPhail was murdered, by either side, provides justification for what happened.
He didn’t deserve what happened anymore than the church bombing victims from civil rights era Montgomery Alabama who were honored by the local NAACP branch.
His civil rights were violated in the most brutal fashion and the scales need to be balanced in this case. 
A meeting between both sides would go help cool tempers and close a quietly widening gap between the races.
On a related note, Black supporters of the conviction dare not speak openly. The mob rule of Jim Crow couldn’t muzzle their voices any more tightly and that’s sad.
The “freedom” to agree with only the party/pigmentary line is no freedom at all.
A man was murdered; another man sits on Death Row and the time for silence is long past.
It’s only fair since I have met Troy Davis family to offer what small assistance I can in this difficult hour to the MacPhails.   
They didn’t ask for this to happen, just as Black citizens often cite not asking for discrimination.
I support justice and therefore know this includes supporting the MacPhail family during their time of challenge.
This really isn’t an “us verses them” situation because at days end, we still have to live together and seek a safer, saner city and county.
Arriving here on different ships doesn’t change the fact we’re all in the same boat now- rising or falling as one community.

NADRA ENZI AKA CAPT. BLACK promotes crime prevention and self-development alongside his STREET TEAM OF AMERICA (very) concerned citizens group.