When Louisiana Judge Mike Erwin noticed a man share his seat with a black woman in crowded Baton Rouge, La., establishment Sammy’s Grill on Feb. 3, he allegedly spewed, “You should have made her get her fat nigger ass up.”
Kaneitra Johnson, a resident of Baton Rouge, shared her traumatic experience in a public Facebook post that has been shared 183 times to date. She went into even further detail with the Rouge Collection, stating:
“I’m halfway on the seat and the Lyft driver is on the other half of the seat,” Johnson said. “Then he asked for his jacket. All of a sudden I hear this older man behind me tell the Lyft driver, ‘You never give up your seat for a n*gger.’”
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As Johnson and the driver sat side by side, the older man continues, “You should have made her get her fat n*gger a** up.”
Johnson says that it was only after police arrived on the scene that she learned the racist white man in question was Judge Mike Erwin of Louisiana’s 19th Judicial District Court, which covers East Baton Rouge.
Neither police officers nor management at Sammy’s Grill held Ervin accountable in any way for his words at the time, Johnson said on Facebook.
That has since changed, according to Sammy’s Grill Manager Andy McKay.
“I wasn’t there that night, so I can’t comment on the details, but I know police were called,” McKay told The Root. “I can also tell you that the owner Sammy Nagem has made it clear that Judge Erwin is no longer welcome here.
“We will refuse his business,” McKay added.
According to the website for Louisiana’s 19th District, Erwin was an assistant city prosecutor in Baton Rouge City Court from 1979 to 1981. He then served as an assistant district attorney with the East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney’s Office from 1981 to 1990 before his election to the 19th Judicial District Court in 1991.
This means he’s had the lives of black men and women in his hands for a very long time. While racism is both covert and overt, if Erwin will call a black woman a nigger in a crowded restaurant, his capacity for institutional, racist violence is vast—and he should not be serving on anyone’s bench.
This should not be the end of the matter here, this man has for years held himself out as the impartial arbiter of law in cases where black persons were lawfully entitled to same. Now we discover that he was not impartial and that means the cases he tried and the cases that came before him, need to be looked at to see if his decisions were the cause the black party failed to make their case.
Obviously at law, if the judge is not impartial that puts an illegally huge and often insurmountable burden on the defense. This matter needs to be referred to the Justice Department, the ACLU, The Southern Poverty Law Center, The Innocence Project and any other civil, judicial and/or gov’t agency that has Judicial misconduct and unlawful prejudicial malfeasance in its sights like some inspector generals.
Fortunately most of these agencies and organizations are on the web, so search for them and post a notice to them about this judge, the more complaints the merrier!
I just tweeted them all, Lonnie. Thank you for the 411.
AMEN, Lonnie!
Thank you, Lonnie! Banning him from buildings is NOT ENOUGH. This mofo needs to be investigated.
https://twitter.com/pdquick1/status/829555726439702528
This is all these “banned” statements are about.
https://twitter.com/Jeannie_Hartley/status/829577849426292738
Beyond the pale! If the judge did this in a crowded restaurant, imagine what he did in his courtroom? Remove him from the bench and review his cases against black citizens.
This is the reality here in AmeriKKKa. This racist POS, I wouldn’t give him the luxury of calling him a judge.
He and likely, over 50% of judges like him are roaming the courtrooms, dishing out injustice. He needs to be disbarred and removed from the bench.
PERIOD