We are not trying to picture Gilbert as an angel. We are not going to picture him as hardened criminal that the sheriff department has. He had a criminal record, which none of the convictions or charges would justify being killed. If the law officers that had contact with him would tell the truth, they would have to say, they had no trouble from him. Gilbert wasn't the violent type. That is one of the things that bothers me the most, about the way he was killed. If indeed he was acting violent, something was seriously wrong with him. The last time incarcerated, Gil was at the Yanceyville Detention Center, While there he attended the community college in Roxboro before being sent to the Cornell Correction Center in Durham. This was a campus type, private owned detention facility. When assigned there, inmates performed work release or community service. At Cornell, he had studied the Bible and the Koran and had committed to himself to his mother and father that he didn't want to go back to prison. His community service work there was at an animal shelter, because he loved animals. The animal shelter owner was happy to have him there because his control of difficult dogs. He was to start community college this summer, to study residential electrical wiring. This was the course that he had excelled in while at the Roxboro school. On May 18, 2001 a Guilford County Deputy took his life. This young man, age 22, was thought to have been seriously injured in an automobile accident, was naked, (his clothing was said to have been tangled in the trees and fence near the wrecked auto), bleeding from visible wounds head to toe. There were three different stories as to where his clothing was found. There is reason to believe he was injured elsewhere. Clearly he needed medical attention, not to be pepper sprayed and arrested. The Sheriff portrayed him as a "raging bull," never as a human, a son or brother. He also made the statement that this man had to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol. The autopsy report revealed that he wasn't under the influence of any substance. The Sheriff was so convinced that all young black men use drugs that he had the medical examiners office run toxicology test three different times. Each time the results came back negative, he had them try to find anything. To find the traces of metabolites associated with cocaine, the ME had to run special test just to find them. The Sheriffs' remarks about this young man were designed to influence the public, and to portray this man as a horrible, vicious criminal that deserved to be slain under any circumstances. It is clearly shown that the emergency dispatcher had informed this deputy several times that this man was naked and yelling at 4:40AM in the middle of the street. Any officer with a reasonable amount of common sense or experienced officer would have or should have known that this person has some sort of mental distress. He should have realized this, before it was known there were an auto accident, and that the injuries, and strange actions had to come from some cause. It was foolish to approach any person with indifference after he saw the physical condition of this man, and then try to pepper spray and arrest him. We seek to persuade the courts to require that some of the department staff be trained to deal with persons with mental distress. This problem occurs frequently across the nation, some cities have adopted policy to train their officers to address mental distressed persons rather than killing or injuring them. Our son happened to get caught in a situation where the person dispatched had no training to deal with mental distressed persons or if he had the training, he didn't use it. There are many lies and inconsistencies told from the beginning. This would make anyone question anything that was reported from the department that investigated the incident. How can anyone pull 6 healthy teeth out by biting in to a plate and pulling on it? How can a person use his head to batter a half-inch thick glass door that is reinforced with vinyl without knocking himself out to gain entrance to the church? It took the Sheriff Department 7 1/2 hours before they notified us of Gilbert's death. By that time everything was cleaned up, the door of the church had been replaced, the damage inside of the church had been cleaned and furniture destroyed or thrown away. There is other information that I can't share at this time but there are so many things that just doesn't make sense. We did find out that Gilbert's teeth were knocked out with the collection plate, and the forensic dentist said he couldn't have knocked out the teeth himself. That put some one else there.This so-called investigation took three and half months. The Sheriff and the District Attorney discounted anything that happened before the deputy arrived at the shooting scene. The District Attorney told us, the family of the deceased what happened with the accident or the alleged breaking in the church, they weren't concerned with that. When the D.A. and the Sheriff couldn't explain his irrational behavior as drug or alcohol induced, they weren't concerned. The DA said they were only concerned with the 113 seconds, starting the time the deputy got out of his car until he called and said he was shot. With the concentration on such a short amount of time, he based the decision to find no fault on the officer's behalf. By doing that, it eliminated revealing anything else they may have knowledge of. There are just too many things that were supposed to have happened in that short time period. There many things that needs further explaining that occurred the morning of the shooting. On October 8, 2001, the deputy that was involved in the shooting has sued us for defamation and distress. He can't possibly know what distress feel like; he has taken the life of our son and gotten the department to legitimize his role in the killing of Gilbert. We haven't had a decent day or night since this happened. The Sheriff has slandered Gilbert and the family and they see no wrong in what they say or do, because it is done under the color of law and a lot of the public believes anything that comes from them. They forget that are suppose to belong to the same human race of all of us. Thus we have feelings and make mistakes, but only the general public has to answer for their mistakes. 
