Houston – In a case that has lingered more than the requisite three years in the Waco court system, the wife of Victor Pool, a great nephew of the late Elijah Pool, leader of the Nation of Islam as the Prophet Elijah Muhammad, is in negotiations with Quannell X, a Fifth Ward activist from the “Sunnyside.”
“When I told him this is about a case from 2015 involving the beating of my daughter by a police officer, he said to come right on down and sign a contract with him,” said Melissa Pool, wife of Victor Pool.
The couple went to the Wal-Mart in Bellmead to see about a shoplifting case against their daughter on a frosty January night, and when they arrived at the loss prevention office, they could hear – but not see – the girl yelling in pain.
When the couple stepped into the office right off the entry vestibule, which is concealed by one-way mirrors, they found the child under attack by two police officers who were applying submission holds to her nose and nerve points under her jaw in a struggle for her telephone.
Ordinarily, the confrontation of a case of alleged minor theft by a juvenile would have resulted in the officers issuing a summons for the parents and child to appear at juvenile court.
When the incident was finished, all three were arrested – the parents for interfering with an arrest, and the girl for minor theft and a psychiatric examination.
Those cases were cleared in County-Court-at-Law and the couple were released with credit for time served.
When Victor Pool failed to appear, an unaided warrant for his arrest appeared on police mobile data terminals, and a Department of Public Safety arrested him inter alia. When they reached the McLennan County Jail, Pool allegedly uttered a a terroristic threat toward the officer in the presence of witnesses who were booking him into the jail as an inmate.
According to Mrs. Pool, there is video of both the arrest and the booking process.
“Victor is a free man,” said Mrs. Pool, when reached for comment.
It was during an appearance in 19th Criminal District Court that Pool represented himself, and roused the ire of Judge Ralph T. Strother when members of the prosecution staff informed the judge of his ways in his self representation in County Court-At-Law.
Strother reportedly became aggravated when Pool repeatedly insisted on being informed of the identity of the complaining party, and would not accept the instruction that the People of the State of Texas have taken umbrage at his words directed at the Highway Patrolman who apprehended him. He allegedly made reference to the man’s responsibility for his actions, and the nature of the remark has been interpreted an aggravated case of what would ordinarily be prosecuted as a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by two years confinement and/or a $5,000 fine.
It is Pool’s demand that the State put the injured party on the witness stand, not just the alleged complainant, but the actual party who was in fact injured by his remarks.
The offense has been held to be aggravated, and is to be prosecuted as a third degree felony that upon conviction would require a sentence to a two-year stretch in State Felony Jail.
Pool reportedly regained his status as competent to stand trial following the courtroom hassle over self-representation and the relevance of his defense in a motion to quash the indictment.
He remains in County Jail under a $50,000 bond.
Mrs. Pool, who is white and insists that she and her husband are not affiliated with the Nation of Islam, a black separatist movement, declined to comment on the stipulations of the contract proffered by Quannell X.
“That’s what I’m going down there to find out,” she replied. “It looks like he’s headed this way.”
Quannel X is noted for his confrontations with police throughout the state and throughout Harris County and the Bay Area in the Bayou City.
Typically, members of the Nation of Islam reject their “slave name” and adopt the last name of “X” to indicate they have rejected the designation of their former name, that of the slave owner who possessed his forbears as chattel during a period of involuntary servitude prior to the Emancipation Proclamation of President Abraham and the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Pool has corrected his citizenship through an affidavit that holds that he is not an African-American, but a person who is of Moorish and Native American extraction. The document proclaims that there is no proof that his ancestors arrived in North America as slaves.
“In this system, you have to catch a case to dispose of a case,” said Mrs. Pool, as she prepared to depart for Houston and her meeting with Qannell X.
Officer Sellers of the Bellmead Police is no longer employed as a cop