A Black Mother on Systemic Racism - Dear President Trump

 

Dear President Trump,

         After hearing you question whether systemic racism exists in the United States, I felt compelled to write you and share my family’s experience with systemic racism in Idaho Falls, Idaho. I have rewritten this letter several times because my desire is not to offend you, but the reality is that Black lives are destroyed and Black voices are suppressed when good White people, many who claim to love God, will walk away from God if it means upholding the rights of Black people when a White person commits a crime against a Black person. “And what does the Lord require of you? To Act justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God" (Micah 6:8).

          My name is Veverly Edwards. I am a Black mother, a patient safety 

advocate, and a consumer representative for FDA Neurological Device Panel. I 

became an advocate for safer patient outcomes after my daughter, Robyn, almost 

lost her life to medical negligence in October of 2007.  After Robyn’s life was 

altered, I learned that Black people are more likely than any other people to 

become victims of adverse medical events.

            Robyn was thirteen years old when Dr. Erich Garland, a neurologist in Idaho Falls, Idaho 

prescribed two powerful drugs to her for numbing sensations. I requested an MRI, but he denied my 

initial request because he said it was not necessary. When Dr. Garland prescribed an antipsychotic and a

 drug for migraines to my daughter, he assured me that her numbing sensations would eventually go 

away. But the numbing sensations were mini strokes.If Garland had requested an MRI when I asked, 

instead of prescribing these drugs, which caused a massive stroke, Robyn would probably be in

graduate school now. President Trump the harsh truth is, Black patients are seldom referred on for 

diagnostic testing when they need them even when accounting for economic differences. 

             President Trump, before Dr. Garland destroyed my daughter’s life, she was 

an A student. She was inducted into the honor society the spring of 

2007. She was the anchor of her seventh-grade relay team. She 

choreographed praise dances for the children at church, and she

 sang in the choir. After taking the medication prescribed by 

Garland, she had a massive stroke. She had to be airlifted to the 

Children’s hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah, and on October 8, 2007 the 

medical team at the Children’s Hospital, told my family and me that 

my daughter, Robyn, was brain dead.

                 While my daughter fought for her life, Dr. Garland was in Idaho Falls reconstructing her

 medical history to cover his tracks. After Dr. Garland falsified her records, she had a history of

 migraine headaches and had missed days out of school becuase of them. But President Trump, there 

are some things that cannot be concealed. My daughter did not have a history of illness because she had

 not been sick prior to the numbing sensations which 

occured sparodically. Dr. Garland concocted lies that I could not refute

 

because the officials in Idaho Falls refused to recognize her civil rights.

Again, I share this with you because I also saw the interview you had with 

Pastor Carl Day, and your response to him, “Well, I hope there's not a race

 problem. I can tell you, there's none with me,” troubled me - as an African

 American mother, who in 2012, found herself fighting systemic racism in

 

Idaho Falls, Idaho.

            Dr. Martin Luther King once said, “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most 

shocking and inhuman.”

            President Trump, in June of 2012, I had no alternative but to file pro se (Edwards vs Garland) in

 the civil courts in Idaho Falls, Idaho after my daughter’s lawyer, Lance Nalder, suddenly discovered,

 within six months of the trial date for the medical malpractice lawsuit that the case against Dr. Garland

 was nonviable. Nalder withdrew from representing the case. When Nalder could not convince me, the

 primary witness, to dismiss the case with prejudice, he began spreading false information about the

 case. He also informed me, in a letter, that if I withdrew, he would forgive the cost incurred at that

 point, but if I persisted with the lawsuit, he would bill me. President Trump, “Why would he be 

concerned with me refiling, and why would he threaten to bill me if I did?

        After I discovered that Nalder and the doctor’s lawyer appeared to be conspiring to undermine 

Robyn’s case by introducing false evidence into the civil court proceedings, which is a felony offense 

(Idaho Statute 18:2601 and 2602) in Idaho, I reached out to the Idaho State Attorney General’s office 

for assistance. I was told that the Bonneville county prosecutor in Idaho Falls handled such cases and 

that I needed to file a report with the Idaho Falls Police Department whose responsibility is to forward 

the report to the Bonneville County prosecutor.

            In my first attempt to file the report, the policeman assigned to speak with me, Officer Deedee,

 said “I don’t even know how to write such a report or what to do with it.” When I returned a few days

later, to, again, file a report, Officer Deedee became indignant and suggested that I was angry because 

Nalder withdrew from the case. He still refused to take a report. President Trump, I was so 

disheartened. My daughter’s life had been destroyed and this public servant was refusing to take a 

written report. I eventually made an appointment with Police Chief Steve Roos who also refused to 

take a written report from me. President Trump not only had they destroyed my daughter’s life, but my 

entire family was impacted.

        I then wrote the Mayor of Idaho Falls, Jared Fuhriman and asked him to intervene. I only wanted 

a report to be taken and forwarded to the county prosecutor. Mayor Fuhriman forwarded my request to 

the city attorney, Randy Fife. A few weeks later, I received a letter in which Fife concluded it would 

not be “proper” to prosecute the doctor. President Trump, why wouldn’t it be proper? Fraudulent 

information was introduced into a civil court process for the purpose of defrauding a civil court case.

        When the mayor’s office refused to act, I wrote the city council.  One White woman, Sharon 

Parry, on the city council, wrote the police department and asked their responsibility in the matter. 

Afterwards, the police department purportedly assigned a policeman to investigate. But, whenever I 

contacted him via email for an update, they were always looking into it but never took a report from 

me to forward to the county prosecutor. President Trump, have you ever heard of the police refusing to 

take a written report of an incident from a citizen?

        Another consequence of the medical negligence – my bank account and retirement funds were 

drained. My children and I had to move from our three thousand square foot home to a nine hundred

square foot apartment, and my sons gave up extracurricular activities. I was 

also working on a master’s degree at the time. I began to borrow the 

maximum amount in student loans to support my children and to rehabilitate 

Robyn whose brain was severely impaired. When we returned home, after

being in the hospital five months, Robyn was able to lift a fork and sit

upright.

While the systems of oppression in Idaho Falls suppressed Robyn’s case to protect Dr. Garland from taking responsibility for destroying her life, no one counted the cost to her or my family. President Trump this is why the Black Lives Matter movement is important. The same Jim Crow laws that allowed J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant to walk away after killing Emmitt Till, allowed Dr. Garland to walk away after his negligence almost killed my daughter – leaving her disabled for life; and they allowed Brett Hankison, Jonathan Mattingly, and Myles Cosgrove to shoot into Breonna Taylor’s apartment - killing her – violating her rights.

After returning to school in 2017 to work towards an MFA in Creative Nonfiction Writing at the University of Memphis, my soul still tormented by the violations of Robyn’s civil rights, I was compelled to study African American literature, art and history. As I read and studied the horrors of the past, I gained a better understanding of what happened to Robyn. When my daughter’s attorney, Lance Nalder, shouted to me in his office “You can’t win. You can’t win.” I didn’t fully understand the implications of his words then - that regardless of the evidence, no White official in Idaho Falls would allow this case to go forward in their civil courts. My daughter’s rights were subordinate to Dr. Garland.

While appealing to the police to take a report, I also filed a grievance with the Idaho Bar Association regarding Nalder’s fraudulent actions. Instead of investigating, they accepted his word. One of their reasons was that the expert whom Nalder retained for the case had recanted his statement. The expert witness, in an eight-page statement, wrote that Dr. Garland took away any chances of my daughter living a normal life. I have a letter from the expert witness; he never recanted his statement. The Idaho Bar Association, who is supposed to provide oversight of their licensees, also failed to do their jobs.

President Trump, about a few weeks after Nalder attempted to coerce me into dismissing the case with prejudice, an article appeared in the Idaho Falls Post Register – the local newspaper. Dr. Garland was receiving a gold seal from Joint Commission for his work in preventative stroke care. He couldn’t receive this award with an active medical malpractice case. This was a community initiative. It all started to make sense to me. Robyn’s life-threatening event conflicted with a community initiative in which multiple stakeholders in the community had an interest. I often wondered had Robyn been a white girl, would someone have stood with me to fight for her rights. As an American citizen she had a right to redress, but every door that I knocked on, a White face refused my request. President Trump systemic racism is still a problem in this nation.

  Lastly, President Trump, as a mother whose child’s life was destroyed and who experienced the gross negligence of not only the medical system but the justice system too, I understand the nagging pain and sleepless nights that torture the soul which may lead to protests and riots. I felt like burning something down too, but instead I placed the letters, lies and evidence within a book God’s Miracle Among Corruption in Idaho. It is incredulous that such a miscarriage of justice is possible within the United States of America today. Yet, everyday Black people, somewhere in these United States, experience some form of racism, but we don’t hear or see it because many voices are suppressed.

Best regards,

Veverly Edwards

Citizen of the United States

Memphis, Tennessee