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[Back to index of May/June 2009 articles] Hate Caller Apologizes to EDOW and CASA By Lucy Chumbley On April 22, Wesley James Queen II stood before a room packed with day laborers and press to apologize for making threatening phone calls to CASA de Maryland staff last May – and to receive their forgiveness. In messages left for two staff members and the Rev. Simón Bautista, the diocese’s Latino Missioner and vice chair of CASA’s board, Queen used “strong language and threats to blow up a building and kill somebody,” said Kerry O’Brien, manager of CASA’s legal program. Following an investigation by District of Columbia and Montgomery County police, an arrest warrant was issued for Queen on Oct. 4, and on Oct. 14 he turned himself in, O’Brien said. Two days later, he made a public apology to CASA, the state’s largest immigrant service and advocacy agency. “At CASA we decided to see if we couldn’t approach a situation that started in hate with a spirit of love,” she said. CASA called in Mary Edwards, a mediator with the nonprofit Restorative Options, which works with victims who want to meet with the offender as part of their healing process. Edwards met with Queen and the families of those affected by his threats of violence over a two-month period. “In this case, the offender had to sit and listen to 10 or 12 people tell him how deeply they had been affected,” she said, adding that “it’s extremely rare that the offender said, ‘I’m sorry,’ right from the beginning.” As she spoke, Queen, a tall man with a blond ponytail, stood silently behind the podium, his wheelchair-bound father at his side. Stepping up to the microphone, he read a prepared statement, with Bautista translating his words into Spanish at the end of each sentence. “I’m here to publicly apologize,” he said, explaining that his behavior was influenced in part by his failure to take his “bipolar medication” and rhetoric he’d heard at a local Republican meeting. “I understand now from our victim impact meetings that the phone calls affected not only their families but the people around them,” he said. “Working with CASA I will be making sure that a mistake like this never happens again.” Queen said he will be attending a cultural competency class, an anger management class and will be volunteering for the Baltimore chapter of CASA. “I’m also in the process of writing a letter to Bautista’s Episcopal Diocese of Washington where one of the phone calls was directed,” he said. “Hopefully everybody that was involved directly or indirectly will know that I have apologized and I am sorry for what I did.” Speaking on behalf of the CASA board, Bautista said: “We do accept James’s apology this morning. We do believe in conscience that he is sincere about what he is committed to… We do celebrate [his] courage to accept that he made a mistake and we accept his willingness to excuse himself. At CASA we do believe in reconciliation – a safe path to healing – and we do believe this community does need a great deal of healing.” Bautista called for elected officials and the media to be more careful about the language they use and its potential consequences, a sentiment echoed by Sen. David C. Harrington (D-Md.), who also spoke about the need for respectful language when discussing issues of immigration. CASA’s communications specialist Marcio Quiroz-Servellón, another phone call recipient, also accepted Queen’s apology and thanked him for his courage. “I do honestly believe that you are sincere,” he said. On April 7, Bautista and Quiroz-Servellón attended Queen’s hearing at the Montgomery County Circuit Court, where they read a statement from CASA and spoke about the reconciliation process. Queen, who was indicted for two felony and two misdemeanor charges, will return to court for sentencing in July, and is expected to serve 18 months or less in jail at the judge’s discretion. “I think it is very important to inform our community about this [reconciliation] process, and that it is a good solution to this problem,” said CASA’s executive director Gustavo Torres. In response to repeated questioning from the press about Queen’s reference to the Republican Party in his statement, Harrington emphatically insisted that the event was not about politics. Maryland Republican Party Executive Director Justin Ready later told the Washington Examiner that he had “no idea” what meeting Queen was talking about. “The Republican Party does not condone or encourage violence of any kind toward groups or individuals,” he said. “I think we’re missing the point here,” Harrington said. “The point of this conference is reconciliation with a young man who got caught up in negative rhetoric to the point that he made a telephone call, and the point here is a lot of people get caught up in negative rhetoric that can make them do damaging things. “I hope that the message here is about community and a policy that begins to address the situation of people who come to this country in a meaningful way.” “What this community needs is to be united,” Bautista said. “To respect that human beings are created in God’s image regardless of what language we speak and what color skin we have.” Lucy Chumbley is the editor of Washington Window, the newspaper of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. [Back to index of May/June 2009 articles]
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