TAY HEARD: EXTRA

NOLAN WELLS

NOLAN WELLS - WHEN JUSTICE LEAVES A BLACK MOTHER WITH MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS

Here the fuck we go again. Nolan Wells was 18 years old. He went to Horn Island and never came home. His body was found two days later, his cause and manner of death remain undetermined, his family still has questions, and now nobody is being indicted. And somehow, his mother is supposed to accept that shit and move forward. I’m angry, but I’m not surprised.

I’m not surprised because October 3 will make one year since I learned firsthand what happens when the person standing between a Black victim and a courtroom decides your case ain’t worth the fucking fight. I was unarmed and stabbed six fucking times. Six stab wounds in my body. There was video of me being stabbed. And the person who stabbed me even wrote an admission letter acknowledging that they stabbed me. Yet Deputy District Attorney Kyle Harrison still looked at all of that and told me no crime happened.

Let that shit sink in.

Unarmed. Six stab wounds. Video. A written admission. And Kyle Harrison told me no crime happened.

So I’m not interested in softening what that experience meant to me. Kyle Harrison had government authority behind him, and from where I stood as the Black man who had just been stabbed six fucking times, he used that authority to shut the door on my case despite the evidence I brought with me. I walked away believing that my life, my injuries, and what happened to me were not worth his effort. And yes, I questioned race then, and I question that shit now. Because when a white prosecutor has that much discretion over a Black victim’s access to justice, what exactly prevents his own racial biases—conscious or unconscious—from affecting whose case he gives a fuck about? That is precisely why this kind of power needs stronger guardrails.

Maybe somebody in that position doesn’t feel like dealing with another Black victim. Maybe he looks at a Black-on-Black case and decides it isn’t worth his resources. Maybe a Black victim simply doesn’t create the same urgency for him. I cannot climb inside Kyle Harrison’s head and tell you what he thought. What I can tell you is what I experienced: Kyle Harrison had an unarmed Black victim with six stab wounds, video of the stabbing, and a written admission from the person who stabbed him, and I still walked away without my case being prosecuted. I don’t need anybody to tell me how that shit felt. I fucking lived it.

And that is why Nolan’s case hits me differently. His mother lost her child; I survived my attack. Those are completely different levels of pain. But I recognize that feeling of looking at the justice system and asking, “How the fuck are you done when I’m still standing here with questions?” Once the system decides it’s finished, prosecutors get to go home. Investigators get to go home. Eventually the cameras go home. The victim and the family are the ones who have to live in that shit.

And let’s stop being scared to flip the racial dynamics. If an 18-year-old white boy named Todd went to an island with a group of Black people, never came home, and turned up dead two days later with unanswered questions surrounding his death, does anybody seriously believe those Black people would be receiving this same level of patience and benefit of the doubt? Because I damn sure question it. I question whether Black faces surrounding a dead white teenager would be treated with the same restraint, or whether somebody would already be sitting in fucking handcuffs while America dissected every phone call, every text message, every movement, and every word that came out of their mouths.

That is the question Black America has every fucking right to ask.

And this is exactly why prosecutorial discretion needs stronger guardrails. Justice cannot depend on whether somebody sitting behind a government desk thinks your case is worth the headache. It cannot depend on whether prosecuting your case helps somebody’s numbers. And it damn sure cannot depend on whatever racial biases the person controlling that door may carry into work with them. If one person can exercise enormous discretion over whether a Black victim ever reaches a courtroom, there needs to be meaningful accountability when that door gets slammed shut.

Because what the fuck was I supposed to bring Kyle Harrison that he didn’t already have?

My wounds?

He had them.

Video?

He had it.

An admission?

He had that shit too.

I was the unarmed man who got stabbed six times, and somehow I was the one left trying to understand why none of it was enough.

Getting stabbed six times was one trauma. What happened afterward became another. Being told the system wasn’t going to pursue what happened to me forced me to relive that shit from a completely different angle. Your body knows what happened. The video shows what happened. The person responsible admits what happened. Yet somehow you’re still standing there wondering what additional piece of evidence would have finally made your pain worthy of prosecution.

So when I look at Nolan’s mother, I understand a piece of that frustration—but her pain goes somewhere mine thankfully never had to go. Her son is dead. She cannot call Nolan. She cannot hug Nolan. She cannot wait for him to walk through her front door. She has to live with losing her baby while simultaneously fighting for answers about how she lost him.

And once again, here comes that fucking Superwoman cape.

Another Black woman who should be allowed to simply grieve her child now has to be strong enough to fight for him too. She has to ask questions. She has to challenge conclusions. She has to keep Nolan’s name alive while trying to process the fact that the child she brought into this world is never coming home. Everybody loves talking about how strong Black women are, but who the fuck is being strong for her?

I hope from the bottom of my heart that somebody is protecting that woman mentally and emotionally, because being told you aren’t getting the justice you believed would come can feel like experiencing the original trauma all over again. I know that feeling. I know what it is like to already be dealing with something that changed your life and then discover that you also have to fight the people you thought were supposed to fight for you.

People love saying, “Trust the system.”

Trust is fucking earned.

You cannot hand government officials enormous discretion, fail to put strong enough guardrails around that power, and then act confused when Black victims question whether race affects how seriously we’re treated. I should never have had to wonder whether Kyle Harrison would have fought harder for me if I were white. Nolan’s mother should never have to wonder whether the urgency surrounding her son’s death would look different if Nolan were white.

Yet here we fucking are.

I survived my attack. Nolan did not get to come home. Those are two very different outcomes, but both stories forced somebody Black to look toward a system that was supposed to provide justice and ask, “How the fuck is this where it ends?”

So no, I’m not shocked.

I’m fucking furious.

I’m furious that another Black mother has to fight when she should be allowed to grieve. I’m furious that Black victims can walk away from the justice system wondering whether our pain would have mattered more in a white body. And almost a year later, I’m still furious that Kyle Harrison could look at an unarmed Black man who had been stabbed six times, look at video of the attack, have a written admission from the person who stabbed him, and still tell that victim no crime happened.

But hell, what do I know?

I’m just the Black man who got stabbed six fucking times.

This is our America.