Pine Creek family ‘tried and convicted,' cop says

The day after $17,000 in damage was done to Greg and Lenae Thomas' house in an upscale Pine Creek subdivision, 14-year-old Brandon Johnson received a text message from the Thomas' 13-year-old daughter asking if he had done it.

When Brandon, a seventhgrader at Challenger Middle School, returned to school after spring break, word had spread that he vandalized the home.

He didn't.

"I'm known at the school, and I'm basically the only mixed (race) one there," said Brandon, a confident and articulate teenager who, according to his parents, is known for being loud and "obnoxious" but not mischievous. "So by reputation that black people have nowadays, they're automatically going to start pointing fingers at me."

What could have been an isolated incident of vandalism March 26 escalated into neighbors turning on neighbors.

On April 3, an e-mail circulated around Pine Creek alerting neighbors that Brandon was "BAD NEWS" and that he was trying to start a gang on the north end of town.

Its author, Mary Silva, wife of Pine Creek Golf Course manager and president Elcio Silva, attached an outdated photo of the Johnson family (pulled off the Universal Kempo Karate Web site that the Johnsons own) and identified Brandon as the boy in the picture who is actually the Johnsons' older son, Andre.

"I was numb when I read that e-mail," Bridget Johnson, Brandon's mother, said. "For someone to accuse somebody and put their name? We don't know who these people are, they don't know who we are. It is all information from children."

The situation worsened when Elcio Silva called Garland Johnson, Brandon's father, and accused Brandon of vandalizing the golf course, Garland Johnson said. Silva said Friday that concrete beneath a bridge on the golf course was spray painted with the same words and symbols the Thomas house was tagged with.

Though he knew his son was innocent, Garland Johnson - who is white - brought his family to meet the Silvas and clear Brandon's name. Thomas also was at the meeting.

There, Brandon was again accused of vandalizing the Thomas home, Garland and Bridget Johnson were told they were bad parents and the Johnsons learned their neighbors were watching them, they said.

"By the time they got there, they were tried and convicted and these people were in their face," said Colorado Springs police Sgt. Dale Fox. "Throughout my career I have seen times when stuff like this happens, but those never got quite as hostile as this situation."

The Johnsons said Mary Silva looked at Bridget Johnson and told her the accusations were not because she and her sons are black. Then she told Brandon there aren't many people in their community who look like him, and there were neighborhood reports that someone who fit his description was seen near the golf course.

"They weren't interested in anything I had to say," Bridget Johnson said. "I just knew in the end the truth would come out."

Four days after sending her original mass e-mail, Mary Silva sent out another retracting it and apologizing to the Johnsons for falsely accusing Brandon of the crimes.

"My wife got a little emotional and a little ahead of herself," Elcio Silva said Friday. "We've made our apologies, and it is a dead issue on our behalf. And in no way was it racially motivated."

Thursday, police said they had issued summonses to four other middleschoolers, alleging felony criminal mischief in the home vandalism.

Police say the youths were encouraged to tag the Thomas house by local Realtor Sandra Haddad, who turned herself in Friday.

Haddad is accused of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and conspiracy to commit criminal mischief, both felonies.

Fox said he understood the Thomases' frustration when police didn't have a lead for days after the vandalism, but he defended how police responded to the crime.

It was an officer who discovered the vandalism while investigating a call of a prowler elsewhere in the neighborhood, he said, and another officer responded to the home the next day.

Detectives at the subdivision level must wait until a report is complete, Fox said. Then it's usually handled in the order in which it's received.

The case rose to the "top of the pile" when the Johnsons called to report they were being harassed by people convinced their son was guilty, Fox said. Police decided to act fast before things got worse.

For the Johnsons, the arrests mark a crucial step in healing after nearly a month of fighting back anger toward their neighbors for wrongly accusing Brandon.

Garland Johnson asked members of the black community, who encouraged him to go to the ACLU and NAACP and seek legal action against the Silvas, to let him handle the situation his way.

"I could choose to focus my energy on getting even with these people, but that is not going to be any good," Garland Johnson said. "The way that we've been taught, a person needs love the most when they probably deserve it the least."