blackmattersus.com
We’re very sorry for what happened to your husband Dante Parker. It’s been two years since he died at the hands of cops. Do you remember the day this happened? Could you tell us how you found out about his death?
Bianca Carlisle Parker
It was August 12th, two days before his birthday. We had been out all morning getting the kids ready for school. It was just a normal day. When I got back to the house it was time to pick the twins up from school, and he was like, “I have to use the restroom so I’m staying home.” So I ran out to get the kids and when I came back he wasn’t home, but I guessed he had gone for a bike ride. But his father was down visiting and the other three kids were home. And time kept going on and going, and the kids and I were texting him and he wasn’t responding, he wasn’t calling us back. And that’s not his normal routine. If you text him, he’ll text you right back or call you. That was about 4.30. His birthday was coming up so I was like, “Well, while he’s gone, I’ll just get the stuff ready for his birthday.” So we left to go order the cake and buy some stuff for the little party. When I got back home he still wasn’t there but he had invited his brother down because he thought he had to work on his birthday. So I texted him, “Your brother is here, where are you?” And he still didn’t respond, so I went on and cooked dinner. Nine, ten, passed, we went to the park because he used to go play basketball at the park and he wasn’t there, so I got online and looked to see if he was in jail, then I started calling the hospitals. And when I called Victor Valley, they told me that he was there but somebody was going to contact me in about 15 minutes. So I waited 15 minutes and nobody called me. I called the hospital again and said, “Yeah, I just spoke with someone and he told me that my husband was there and somebody will contact me in 15 minutes. Don’t worry about it, I’m on my way to the hospital.” I didn’t know what had happened. And so when I got to the hospital, the security took me to a room and said the doctor will be out to talk to me and let me know what was going on. I was thinking maybe he was hit by a car, I didn’t think he was dead. So I waited about an hour and then the coroner and two detectives came out and they were talking to me and asking me whether he had anything medically wrong with him, and I was like, “What’s going on?” They weren’t answering my questions. So I said, “Is he dead?” And they said, “Yeah, sorry to inform you, but he died.” And they asked if he was on a bike, and I’m like, “His bike has got a flat tire and is in the yard.” But I didn’t know that he was on my son’s bike. So they said he was on a kid’s bike and somebody had called in and thought he had stolen the bike. So I asked, “Can I see him?” And they said they had already transported his body to Riverside for autopsy. I’m like, “How can you transport his body when I haven’t even seen him or identified him? How do you know it’s my husband?” And they said, “You can see him when we release his body at the mortuary.” So that was how I found out about it.
blackmattersus.com
According to the police, he was uncooperative and combative. Most likely this wasn’t true, they just get excuses to justify what they’ve done. What kind of person was Dante?
Bianca Carlisle Parker
We had been together since we were thirteen so it was like we grew up together. When we would see people on the side of the road with a flat tire or something he would always say, “Pull over, let’s see if they’re alright, let’s see if they need a jump.” He was really caring. He was really proactive. He was always observing things that were going on and was always willing to help somebody. So it was weird for them to say he was combative. That wasn’t even the type of man he was. Never.
blackmattersus.com
The police wrongfully suspected him of being involved in a burglary but have they officially confirmed that he was wrongfully identified?
Bianca Carlisle Parker
No. They didn’t even confirm it. First, it was that somebody called in because he was on a kid’s bike, but when they found out it was our son’s bike, it turned into an intruder call.
blackmattersus.com
We’re sorry for what happened to your husband.
Bianca Carlisle Parker
Thank you. He was a great man, he was a great dad, it’s just mind-boggling.
blackmattersus.com
And how are the kids reacting to their father’s death? Have they come to terms with what has happened?
Bianca Carlisle Parker
It’s a day-to-day thing, because even last week my son, he’s 8, he was saying that, “Mum, sometimes I get sad.” And I was like, “Why, what’s going on?” And he was like, “Because my dad is supposed to be here and show me how to be a man and he’s not here anymore.” Sometimes it hurts my feelings. They have their mood swings and it’s hard, because we did everything together. I’m not just saying this because he’s gone, we really did everything together. We took walks, sat down and ate dinner at the table everyday together, we went to the park together, we had water fights, we played baseball, he was everything. So it’s a dramatic change for us because it’s like the soul of the house is gone. Because he was the one that would go room to room messing with folks. He would do stuff like tell us to get dressed and we’ll jump in the car and be like, “Where are we going?” And he’ll be like, “I don’t know, I just want us to get out of the house.” So now it’s just different.
blackmattersus.com
According to reports, he was handcuffed and placed in a police car when he was showing signs of difficulty in breathing. Did the police take off the handcuffs when the paramedics arrived to take him to the hospital?
Bianca Carlisle Parker
I don’t know. From what I was told, when they tased him the first time, he fell on top of his arms, so they kept tasing him because they couldn’t get his arms from under him. Then they hogtied him and left him on his stomach for a certain amount of time, and then they put him in the back of the police car. When the paramedics arrived, he was still hogtied in the backseat.
blackmattersus.com
And how long did it take the police to investigate the incident and prepare their report?
Bianca Carlisle Parker
I went down there every other day for a report. I still haven’t seen it, and when I called they said that when the reports are done before the shifts are over, the reports have to be tucked in. So when I went down to get the report, they never were there. Two years later I still haven’t seen one police report.
blackmattersus.com
What have you done so far to get justice for what happened to your husband?
Bianca Carlisle Parker
I don’t even know what to do, and that’s the thing. It’s like, you see so many things going on in the world, you get tired of protesting. I did a few protests but you get tired of that. There are no laws being passed, no punishment is happening. You have people that can just walk around freely and kill and nothing is being done about it, so you feel like you’re just trapped in a box.
blackmattersus.com
Have you filed a civil lawsuit?
Bianca Carlisle Parker
We did that, and that was horrible. It went from, “If you want to pursue the case and take it to trial, you have a home. If we lose the case, somebody has to be paid. They can put a lease on your home.” They told his mum, “If you lose the case, you are going to share wages for the attorney’s fees.” So it’s like basically they’re telling you, “If you want to pursue this, we have all authority. We can take everything you have.” And then they tell you, “Well you know, no officer was convicted in this and that case, and everybody was let go, Freddie Gray and Eric Garner, nobody was convicted.” They paint this picture like, “OK, you can do what you want to do, you have that right, but ten times out of ten you’re going to lose.” So you being just a regular person, you don’t know what to do, it’s like you can’t do anything. There’s no way to even get justice as long as people feel that Black people are just disposable, basically, what can we do as a people? You have Trayvon Martin being killed by George Zimmerman, you had that Jordan Davis kid being killed because he wouldn’t turn his music down, so you feel helpless everywhere you look. Eric Garner was killed a month before my husband and I wouldn’t even watch the news because I felt it was too parallel to my life. He was a married dude with six kids, when I saw his wife on the news, it hit me. You see so much distress in your own community, you can do nothing to help your people. There are no laws being passed, they don’t even lose their jobs when they kill somebody. There are no laws that are made for Black people. How could you justify two or three officers tasing my husband eighteen plus times because of his stature. He’s a big dude so what? The first time they tased him he hit the ground. So he was no longer a threat.
blackmattersus.com
Was anything caught on camera?
Bianca Carlisle Parker
Yeah, they have a videotape. I didn’t watch it, my sister-in-law watched it and she was like, from the first tase, he dropped. He was already on the ground. The lady was asking him, where did you get the bike? And he said this is my son’s bike, I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m going home. My husband used to say, “Nobody likes the police until they have to call the police.” We would always joke about that. His cousin, Donte Jordan, was killed in Long Beach by a police officer a year before him. He was shot in the back ten times. Our daughter wanted to be a police officer and she was like, “I don’t think I want to do it anymore because of what happened to Donte,” and he was like, “You can be a police officer, you just be a good one. Every career has a good and a bad person. You just have to make a difference.” I don’t think there’s anything we can do to get justice for our people that are being killed by police unless they change laws, unless there are consequences. I worked at Birmington in a department store, I can’t even go to work and get on the cash register and have my till be five dollars short without some repercussions. But you can go to work and kill somebody and just sit at the desk, you still receive the same pay, you might come back and get a raise. Why would they be afraid to do what they want to do and say I was afraid of him?
blackmattersus.com
Have you been in contact with any Black rights groups? Have you been in contact with BLM?
Bianca Carlisle Parker
My auntie is a member of it. She’s very active, but I’m way out in Victorville, I have five kids. I can, but it would be hard for me to be involved here. I don’t even know if they have anything down here, the only people that reached out to me when that happened was the NAACP.
blackmattersus.com
Do you still get in touch with them?
Bianca Carlisle Parker
Yeah, occasionally, I speak with Miss Downey, she calls me, we communicate on a regular basis, Clifton Harris, he was the one that came and found me. I talk to him too, but other than that, nobody else.
blackmattersus.com
Could you tell us the main issues you’ve faced for the past two years since Dante’s death?
Bianca Carlisle Parker
Just the adjustment. I had a lot of anger towards people because you get online and you read the articles and you see the comments: he probably was a POS and who cares. So you think, wow, that’s how people feel about you once you’re gone, that you’re nothing. But it’s been a struggle because we did everything together. It’s hard. I try to make it seem like it’s not a big deal because I don’t want my kids to feel like because their dad was killed their life has stopped. So I still try to keep going and I hold everything in. I can’t really grieve the way I’m supposed to grieve because I have to stay strong for our kids. So it’s been a hard thing to get through.
blackmattersus.com
Do you have any fears for your life, for your safety and that of your family after this incident?
Bianca Carlisle Parker
At first, I did, but the lawyer that we were dealing with, he showed me how to get over that. Somebody had unloosened all of the bolts on the tires on my truck? So he said what you do is, you call the police and you have them make a report, and anytime something weird happens you just make sure you get it on file and in writing. And after the report is done, you have to go there and get the report printed out. So after the incident, when whoever it was unloosened the tires on my truck, it’s been cool, once they realized that I’m not afraid to call if something happens and get everything in writing. The part that hurts is that I used to be the type of person that if I see anything that happened to law enforcement I would always pray for them because I felt like it was an honorable job to protect and serve, but once I realized that they don’t care about the people that they’re supposed to protect and serve, I don’t look at them the same because even during the thing, only one person ever said “I’m sorry for your loss.” And I came in contact with a few officers and detectives. They treat you like you didn’t lose anything. Regardless of what the situation was, he meant something to us, he was a person, he was human, and they don’t care. And they go out of their way to show you that they don’t care.
blackmattersus.com
What kind of support are you seeking now? Do you need help with organizing protests? Have you been able to raise any funds from the Black community to fight for justice?
Bianca Carlisle Parker
No, I haven’t. The only type of support I would want is for somebody to refer us to a good counseling session. That is the only thing I can see helping us heal. The first protest we had was pretty cool, but I felt defeated afterwards because the newspaper that he worked for online, when I read their article, they were like, 50 Black militants protested today. I’m like, “Did they not see the Hispanic people that were there, the Caucasian people that were there? But the newspaper tried to cause a divide in the community. I feel vulnerable, like I truly don’t have the protection that I had, I never had any fear when I had a husband, I never felt like I was a target, anything can happen to me, because I always had him.
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