I Just Asked for Assistance: How I Was Profiled by Prince William County, Virginia Social Services, and It Almost Ruined My Life. My Journey to Regain It.

By Baibai Kamara

Baibai Kamara leads a simple conservative life working on finishing his doctoral dissertation. His love for education and the environment brought him to Prince William County, Virginia, to pursue his doctoral education at George Mason University. Baibai has the same routine when he is on campus. He ordered the same menu of food (Panda) and the same mountain dew drink every lunch he has on campus.

Baibai is happy and content with the little he has. Nothing is worrying about life except the difficulty of pursuing a doctoral degree and being underpaid in this region of a higher cost of living (DMV).

One request for assistance for his children is about to interrupt his life and threaten to send him to prison and eventually destroy his education career and provision for his family. The walls that he created were about to collapse from a very boisterous county investigator, a county police detective, and county assistant prosecutor (Jennifer Yowell, Det. Kevin Rule, and Prosecutor Sara Bernin), respectively.

He is about to learn how to navigate in fighting these diabolic, hateful county officials whom for them cruelty is the point and beat back these forces of darkness that he's avoided all his life.

A story about the very worst of humanity, government officials abusing their power to inflict pain and sufferings with false and imaginary crime, but also the best of humanity from defense counsel to save the day.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9781662472589

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I Just Asked for Assistance

How I Was Profiled by Prince William County, Virginia Social Services, and It Almost Ruined My Life. My Journey to Regain It.

Baibai Kamara

Copyright © 2022 Baibai Kamara

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2022

ISBN 978-1-6624-7257-2 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-6624-7258-9 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Conclusion

About the Author

This book is dedicated to my wife and two sons and to all those who have been the victim of criminal profiling in the United States. I hope this book will serve as a reminder of the racial disparity in our criminal justice system. This book will help in spreading this targeted racial investigation that snowed ball into a full-blown prosecution for made-up charges that even they believed were a bunch of nonsense. Every lawyer I spoke with came with the same conclusion that this case should have never brought for prosecution. The only reason it was brought for prosecution one lawyer told me was due to my race. I would like to see this book in the hands of all Virginia legislative members, bookstores browsers, students, and vacationers in beaches and hotel rooms.

To all my friends and well-wishers who have expressed their support for this book to share to the American people the decayed of the Virginia Commonwealth justice system. This means plenty to me than words can describe.

Preface

As I look back, the past three years have been an eye-opener for me. What I went through is something I would not even wish upon my worst of enemies. As terrifying the past three years were, they've made me stronger and bolder. They've made me realize my purpose in life. They've made me realize I have a voice—a voice I can use to bring justice to myself and to others like me and to make sure nothing like this ever happens again to anyone.

It all started in the fall of 2016. I was peacefully continuing my education in the Prince William County when the Department of Social Services began falsely investigating me for welfare fraud. Of course, I vehemently denied every charge. I was an innocent man, and I still am an innocent man. However, Jennifer Yowell, the investigator working at the Department, took the case up with the police. Since then, the police continued to harass me, an innocent Black man who was solely being judged for the color of his skin. They had no proof that I was involved in the charges they had put up against me, but of course, they couldn't look past their racial bias, to them I was guilty the moment they saw the color of my skin. They charged me once but had no proof so had no other option but to drop all charges, but days later, they charged me again. And this time, the prosecutor further took my case up toward a grand jury, a bunch of white folks, who would fall for whatever convincing lies the prosecutor fed them. They ruled the judgment against me, and what followed was three year of living hell.

I remember facing many moments of defeat, but I continued to rise. I didn't step back. I didn't give up. Sitting in those courtrooms, I realized my purpose in life. I realized these people won't set me free without a fight, and why would they? I'm a Black man. I was guilty the moment I came out of my mother's womb. Every day was a struggle. Every day was a battle, and now it's my turn to raise my voice. It's my turn to let the world know what I went through and how the three people—the investigator, the police, and the prosecutor—wronged me for false charges and tried to take away everything I had ever achieved.

Acknowledgments

There is some chance this book may sound like venting my displeasure of the way I have been treated by the Commonwealth of Virginia justice system. I first must thank my wife and my sons for their support and patience. She and the boys have been encouraging me when I first began floating the idea of writing this book project. I want to thank my two sons for their input in the title of the book and their assistance in typing this manuscript. I want to thank my friends who have stood tall in support of me and my innocence, through my highs and lows. I will forever be grateful to all of you.

Chapter 1

After the civil war, which took place in the nineteenth century from 1861 to 1865, the Union and the Confederate States of America ended. The Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment, by which slavery and all such discriminatory practices were abolished. New dawn emerged in the history of the United States of America. Despite this revolutionary act that made slavery illegal, the exclusionary practices against people of color, especially Black people, continues to this day. Black people in America may have gotten all their rights on paper, but when it comes to practice, when it comes to accountability, and when it comes to giving one another an equal chance, dark-skinned people continue to face racial bias. They are pulled out or disregarded from many life-altering opportunities, and they on a day-to-day bases face prejudice, face hate crimes, and face discrimination from White people just because of different skin color.

So yes, we may have won the civil war; we may have fought, sweat, bled, and died for a better tomorrow; but in all these years, we haven't indeed won our agency, our respect, and our right to exist. However, we continue to stay resilient. We continue to not give up, to fight when the chances are slim, to speak up against the status quo, and to do whatever we can to earn back the respect we almost lost at the hands of those who tried to subdue our voices and snatch away everything we've achieved in our lives, just because of our skin color. I, Baibai Kamara, have gone through something very similar at the Prince William County in the State of Virginia; however, what made my experience even more difficult was the added prejudice against me, because I am not just Black, I am also an immigrant. The day I was born, I was born a criminal in their eyes. The day I entered this great country, hoping my life would become better, hoping for better chances, and hoping for a future, I became unwanted and unneeded, undeserving to survive in their eyes.

Toward the end of August 1999, I arrived into the United States as a refugee fleeing from the ten-year civil war in Sierra Leone. I remember that plane ride like it was yesterday. It was long and exhausting. I hoped I would pass my time sleeping, but I was so engrossed at my thoughts and decisions. I was thinking if I had