Its Where I Am focuses on the various mental health struggles that people all around the world face every day. Each episode covers a different facet of mental health with a new special guest. It's Where I Am airs on 91.5 Jazz & More every second Saturday of the month.
Wesley Knight 0:00
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Zandra Polard 0:43
Good morning Las Vegas. This is Andre Pollard. It's where I am, right here on 91.5 jazz and more. Today we're going to be talking about some heavy stuff. We're going to talk about when mental illness results into a crime. We have Mark Thomas on the line, and he's going to share with us his testimonial of a crime that occurred with him and his fiance. Mark unfortunately got into an altercation with his neighbor and ended up in the hospital from a gunshot a gun wound. So I invited him here on the show to tell us what happened, because this story is now going to be on your local cable show called, what is it? Mark,
Mark Thomas 1:47
residential rage? Is that what you're talking about on HBO?
Zandra Polard 1:49
Yeah, it's on HBO too.
Mark Thomas 1:53
Yep, it's on HBO Max. It's called residential rage, and it's the first season, or the first episode, and our episode towards the end. And
Zandra Polard 2:04
then there's also, aren't you on, like, Id crimes, or something like that?
Mark Thomas 2:08
Yeah, that's the one, yeah. Well, Id network, yes, oh. Id
Zandra Polard 2:11
network, okay, okay, so HBO and Id network,
Mark Thomas 2:17
yep, yep. So
Zandra Polard 2:18
I'm gonna have you explain everything. First of all, welcome to the show.
Mark Thomas 2:22
Thanks for having me, Sandra. Really appreciate it absolutely.
Zandra Polard 2:26
So you've been dealing with this situation for a while. So let's deal with it. Go ahead. For how many years now
Mark Thomas 2:36
I've been dealing with it since I've been dating Kelly, about 2019 and Kelly has been dealing with it since she moved into the her home little over 15 years ago. And
Zandra Polard 2:53
you know, but that's just when it started, because things kept happening, right? Things kept
Mark Thomas 3:01
happening. So the police kept ignoring her police reports, okay? And the city prosecutor kept ignoring us and our reports and our complaints to them. And it just came, as you already know, we were already assaulted by these people, October 2, 2022 okay,
Zandra Polard 3:22
but for the listeners who do not know Mark, let's set it up. How did it start? This residential?
Mark Thomas 3:33
Honestly, it started by him stock and Kelly being obsessed with her figure the way she looks. And as soon as he seen that I was on the scene, that turned into rage, really, and I, and I was very adamant about like, hey, his house was in disarray. The bushes and the trees were encroaching maybe five to six feet into Kelly's property. And when I got there, I was just like, hey, man, you gotta this. You gotta take care of this stuff. You know what? I mean, nobody lives in $150,000 house to always have to come home and say, Hey, why are you bothering me? Hey, why are you doing this? And he had like, five or six cameras pointing to her house, and I started to call the police, and I started to, you know, get a protection order, and, you know, try to have community mediation. And the more that I tried to address this in the civil manner, him and his family could not go down that road. They were just very aggressive,
Zandra Polard 4:40
because we don't know what he told his family, right? And so then his family gets involved. They're
Mark Thomas 4:47
all in it. No, no, no, that's not there. And I, and I appreciate that question, but they're all in it. They're they're enablers. They know that they daddy and they mama. Weird. And they've always been weird. If you can look at their background record, if anybody wants to, they go from house to house to house, house, house, house around the city, and they are very disruptive. So but so his family, they were always in on it. It wasn't a secret, like I can give you a for example, when Kelly will come home the oldest daughter and her sister, and they're in their 30s and 40s, they would just be yapping their Kelly from a, you know, across the gate or whatever, and threatening her, and it's only her.
Zandra Polard 5:33
But what do you mean? What were they telling her they
Mark Thomas 5:37
were sending, you know, you you fat, y, b, you in any type of name that would be
Zandra Polard 5:48
disrespectful. So his daughters would come to his house. They would see your girlfriend, and then they would begin calling her names,
Mark Thomas 5:57
God, just Yes. They would harass her, they would stalk her, they would do anything they could do to make her an unsettled person inside of her home.
Zandra Polard 6:07
Okay, so then fast forward, there's name calling from one side, and then I see you on the news. You're on the news because there's camera footage from your home, one of those ring lights, or something like that, or ring cameras, yes, and part of that is covered in the news with the neighbors attacking you and Kelly so how did that happen? How did they get on your porch?
Mark Thomas 6:48
Exactly, I wish this the County, the City prosecutors, would ask the same questions that you asked. How did these six people come from yellow property onto our front porch? So again, this is how aggressive they are. This is the testimony how aggressive they are. So I'm on October 2, 2022 you know, these six people assaulted us nearly to death, and they had no reason to do it. It wasn't anything that happened. It wasn't nothing there, there are people that they set up these circumstances, and we all know them. Everybody know them. Around the world, they set up circumstances, they set up lies, and then they entrap you. And so what they did was they just kept walking back past our house, back and forth. They kept being outside all out. Oh, you did this. No, you did that. And they created this whole scene so they can justify why they are on our property. Was
Zandra Polard 7:46
there any drinking involved with were they having any cocktails on the porch?
Mark Thomas 7:53
We live in the community called West Park, and West Park is just, it's what it sounds like. It's almost an extension of a suburb, okay, of Cleveland, Ohio, but it's still Cleveland, but it's a very nice area, so no that those type of things don't happen in in our neighborhood. It just doesn't. We have people who are walking their dogs, they are raising their children, raising their family, they go to church, they go to work. That's not the type of neighborhood that this is
Zandra Polard 8:21
okay, so we have the altercation on the porch. You're on the news, you go to court and they throw the case out. Why? They
Mark Thomas 8:37
dismiss the case without prejudice? Because once we once we were assaulted, October 2, 2022, we told the city prosecutor, like, hey, get on your job, like we told you about this before it should have never got to this. So we had them in a position where we were actually had our own right to Susan or to go after the city, and we just wanted them to do their job. Two months later, after I was assaulted, Akila Jordan, who is a city prosecutor in Cleveland, Ohio, she sent us a letter saying that she's bringing me into municipal court because I may be at fault. And there's and I mean, Zandra, there has been no video, there has been no pictures, nothing that would even hint that I would be at fault. Okay, so when we're going, while I'm a victim, well, me and Kelly are victims. They're also pushing us with corruption, and then they dismissed the case without prejudice, based on the city prosecutors charged against me after I was assaulted and when I went to trial, yes, this is crazy. And when I went to trial, they said I was not guilty. It was a jury of my peers. There was nothing that they could say or do. Two to say that, why is he here? And he's the victim, and now this same person has shot me in the back,
Zandra Polard 10:08
so the city prosecutor blamed you. You went to court. Your peers said, No, he's innocent.
Mark Thomas 10:22
Fauci never brought up that case again,
Zandra Polard 10:25
and then you get shot in the back by your neighbor
Mark Thomas 10:30
being chased. Yes, he was chasing me from our home. I was going to the library, and he was chasing me from my home. And I want to just say thank God, and thank for everyone who was working with us and stayed with me and Kelly and pray for us, but he chased me from my home. When I say that I made two or three turns to make sure that I knew that he was literally chasing me. I could not believe what we were going through and we had just been assaulted two years prior to this, and he may have had a gun. Then people was assaulting us. He may have had a gun, and they let them go, and now the same person is chasing me, and look, and I'll just be open with you, if don't chase me, you can't chase me. You can't chase no grown man in Cleveland, Ohio, and you already assaulted me two years earlier. So have a problem with that.
Zandra Polard 11:30
This man shoots you in the back.
Mark Thomas 11:33
He shoots me. He Oh, my God. He kicks his door open, and when I was running away, he shoots me in the back. Wow. On the main street. This is not, this is not, this is not on a side house, in front of his house, by my house. We are on the main street. We are across the street from a church and a school.
Zandra Polard 11:52
So where is this man? Now? He's in jail, correct? He is
Mark Thomas 11:56
free. His whole family, they are free, hanging out Christmas, Thanksgiving. Yes, yes. They have driven us at our home. Okay, okay. They have beat
Zandra Polard 12:11
us up for so you guys have moved
Mark Thomas 12:13
because racism, hate, and we had to move. We had to move. I can't even tell you how stressful it is on Kelly and I, you know, you know, this is very stressful for us. How long
Zandra Polard 12:24
was it until the from the fight on the porch when they assaulted you, until you actually moved out of the home? How much time was that?
Mark Thomas 12:37
Okay? Now we're going through this. If 2022 we're trying. We're working. I'm working. Kelly actually is so injured that she has to take time off her job because she needs surgery on her Achilles tendon. Okay, now I I'm still hurt. We both cannot not work, so I still have to go to work. We trying. We're trying to get the house together to move. But when I say that this man is a predator, he's a psychopathic predator. No matter what we do, you are keeping your house disgusting. You harassing us when we outside, trying to do our lawn. You harassing us. What we going on, dates trying to or people coming over to our house. And this is a black family, okay? And they are at they are doing the most. And essentially, wait, why do you mention Caucasian? Why
Zandra Polard 13:35
do you mention they're a black family? Why is that part important? Now,
Mark Thomas 13:38
this part is important because me and Kelly are in an interracial relationship. Okay, yeah, we're in an interracial relationship in Cleveland, Ohio, and that matters here.
Zandra Polard 13:49
So they had a problem with you guys being had a problem
Mark Thomas 13:53
with Kelly being a white woman dating a handsome black man and living her happy life after they had been harassing her for years, she still has a nice man and a nice house in a nice a family. We have a family, you know, because I come with a family, and now and now we're just here. You know what I mean, this man has shot me.
Zandra Polard 14:22
So you moved, but out from 2022 Until when did you move from the house? Oh, we
Mark Thomas 14:28
just moved. Oh, wow, we're actually, you know what, let's, let's, let me be 100 with you. We haven't moved completely. So when you were shot, there's a mortgage, there's a mortgage, there's a rent, there are so many bills that have stacked up against us. For these people and the politicians and the government in Cleveland, they have really put our backs against the wall because their house isn't sold, neither is it empty. Oh, okay, yeah. Yeah,
Zandra Polard 15:01
so you were still living there when he chased you in and shot you?
Mark Thomas 15:07
Absolutely, we were living. Yes, we were living. I was going to library. And no taking a step forward. We were already suing the city, okay, in the police department in Cleveland, and on my way to get paperwork to the library, this is when I get shot. So that's what, this is what I mean like, there's a, there's so many hands of corruption and deceit and manipulation inside of this. And then they turn the table say, Hey, it's your fault. Wow.
Zandra Polard 15:38
And then how did, how did production pick up your story?
Mark Thomas 15:46
Network? Yes, because it was after, after Kelly Kennedy. Thank you. Know, shout out to Kelly Kennedy at Channel 19 news here in Cleveland, Ohio, after Kelly interviewed us and she did the story. It was just so unbelievable that just us, two were being assaulted by six people that they got in contact with us. They they talked to us. They did their own research. Okay, you know, they looked into it. They looked into what I was saying, they looked into what Kelly was saying. And yet, and still they was like, Hey, you guys, this is wrong. You should not be going through this. Let's sit you guys down and talk about it. And we agreed because we just want to live a regular life, you know. And I mean, who would think that they would have to go talk about a predator or stalker or something like that, who's right next door in the police they won't let us make police reports that we need to make, but they're allowing him to make false police reports.
Zandra Polard 16:46
What do you mean? They're not allowing you to make police reports. We're going,
Mark Thomas 16:50
we're going to the police station and tell them like, hey, A, B and C, 123, people are doing this, this and that, and this is their collusion, and they do not let us file police report. They do. They stop us from filing police report, but they allow him to go in there and say, Oh, Mark is in the driveway with a shotgun, and they allow him to write that police report.
Zandra Polard 17:15
So when it's time for you to write yours, or for them to take your report, your police report, they say there's nothing we can do, or there
Mark Thomas 17:25
is nothing that we're going to do. We're going to do okay, right? We're not, we're not going to take your police report down. Nothing as soon it seems like they wanted it's Kelly and I said that this man is stalking us. He's harassing us. He's a sexual deviant. They're their job was to protect us. No, they sneered at us. Wow,
Zandra Polard 17:49
yeah. And you believe race has a big part to do with it. Thing
Mark Thomas 17:53
to do with it. Kelly is with a black man. We if you look up the first district Cleveland, they already have problems. So if Kelly is dating the black man, and they're the, you know, a crazy black family that stay next door, they're not going to they're not doing that. They don't care to do anything. They don't care. Let the you know how their feeling is about, Hey, man, I'm not y'all kill each other because we don't care. Now, if me being shot. If he would have shot Kelly, he would be in jail for sure, no questions asked, but he knew that the this corrupt system in Cleveland would let him get away with shooting a black man in the back. Now he had a rape charge in the past. He got it expunged. I don't know how you get a rape charge expunged, but he did. A week later, he has a gun, and he's he's threatening us the entire time, and if Kelly shoots him now she's a white woman that's shooting a black man. So they have, they have our backs against the wall, and now this man tried to nearly murdered me across the street from a school in a church. But was he ever arrested? Not tell that story. He was arrested. Okay,
Zandra Polard 19:11
he was arrested. How long did he spend time in jail? Oh,
Mark Thomas 19:15
my God. He spent one week in jail. Okay? And I'm still recovering Kelly and I still trying to figure life out after being shot, because we're we, we're a team, so we're one. We've been shot. So we're trying to figure things out here. And we get a call to say, hey, the judge gave him bail. What? Okay, like, how did he get bail? What do you mean? He got bail
Zandra Polard 19:45
after all this? So they didn't let him go. He has bail, and then he has to return to the court system. Right, right.
Mark Thomas 19:53
Okay, so we're going through, we're going through the trial. I'm still healing, and how system, the judicial system, work. Here is, you gotta get charged with felonious assault in the municipal court, and then then they take it to a grand jury, and then the county prosecutor prostitutes. However, Kelly and I had always told here and the politicians here what we've been going through. And if we're right, that means they're wrong, and we have every opportunity to go after these people. So now we have the city prosecutor and the county prosecutor and the police just have all colluded just to put the blame on us, and they let this man go scot free. Now I talked to the county prosecutor. What did you What did you say to the grand jury? Kelly Kennedy goes back to the prosecutor and does a totally different story, like, how, how is he not indicted by a grand jury? Now we're asking questions of, what did you say to these people? What did you present? Did you present that two people is this on the corner, and one of them irate with each other? No, this man was following me. He's been stalking us for this amount of time, and they never presented that. And who's defending you? The county? Okay, that's what I mean. The people that were, the people that have been doing us so wrong now are defending us so now we don't have trust in them. Yes, we don't trust the county prosecutor and city prosecutor in the judicial system here at all. At all. There is no trust to be had with them at all, because this is a hate crime that involves so many people. And if we are right again, they're wrong, and we have every reason. So now we're looking at them like, Hey, how can you not present to a grand jury? What are you presenting to them? What are you saying? And now I have a right now I have a what do you call it? A petition? Going Yes, and it's 25 people who signed it. So I just make that make sense. You can't you, you, you can't get 12 people to agree that this is or six out of 12, eight out of 12 to agree that this is a crime. I hate crime. That means that you just allowed this man to try to murder me and try to spin it on us.
Zandra Polard 22:18
Wow,
Mark Thomas 22:20
yeah. And they're protecting each other. And this is the, this is, this is corruption on the, the worst level, I can't say the highest level, but to me, it's on the highest level, because this man shot me in the back, yes, and it went out my lower chest. They took it. They had, I had to have surgery. Thanks. Shout out to the surgeon. I had to have surgery, but in the same life saving surgery, and when I wake up, I wake up to this, and it's, it's just really not right. It's more than not right. It's appalling, it's disgusting, it's it's people are terrible, and we're not getting justice, justice for Mark and Kelly. We not getting justice because we're right, and they don't want to just bite the bullet and say, Hey, we're sorry you came up to this, and we've never we had no Zandra. We did not care about suing the city until now, until it got so bad, like, Yo, why aren't you guys doing anything?
Zandra Polard 23:27
So how can people find out information about the petition, about the show that's going to talk about your story?
Mark Thomas 23:38
Hashtag, justice for Mark and Kelly, and that hashtag will take you to links. If you just do some research, you can find us. You can just search channel 19 news for Kelly and mark again, and you can look at residential rage on ID network, like I said, the first season, we're towards the end of the show, but you'll see everything that's happening. It's it's factual stuff that's happening. Now,
Zandra Polard 24:09
this is going to be a long fight, Mark,
Mark Thomas 24:12
it is going to be a long fight. But you know what? When you get shot in the back in broad daylight, you know, let's fight then, because that's where I am, like I, I, thank God I'm alive. I, thank God that we're alive and we have all our bodily functions. But if you don't threaten me, this is not the time to do that, because I'm fighting we're fighting back. There's no way that we are supposed to live like this. We're accomplished people. Kelly is a RN, I'm a great entertainer. I just don't understand how, when we go home, that these people can turn us into some a fantasy that they made up in their head. When I get home, the police and. And city councilman and the city prosecutor, these people are working against us, and we're these and we are good people, period, you know. So it is going to be a long battle, and I appreciate you saying that, because that's the reality of it's going to be a long fight, but I'm willing to fight because I fought in the afterlife. Already, the universe gave me this privilege. So I am ready to fight. I am so ready to fight.
Zandra Polard 25:30
Alright, well, the fight is yours. Hey, I want to give my condolences to Kelly out there, if you're listening, I'm so sorry for what you have to endure, and I thank you, Mark for coming on the show and letting us know your story and how we can find out more. And that is to go to hashtag. Mark and Kelly,
Mark Thomas 25:59
am I wrong or right? Hashtag hashtag. Justice for marketing, justice
Zandra Polard 26:03
for Mark and Kelly, okay, yes, all right. Well, thank you once again. Hey, I know this was some heavy stuff at 730 in the morning, but hey, we gotta let people know. We gotta let people know,
Mark Thomas 26:20
that's right. So thank you once again, Nevada, go Vegas.
Zandra Polard 26:23
This is Zandra bollard. The show is it's where I am every Saturday at 7:30am if you've missed any portion of this broadcast, you can always find me on your major podcast platforms. It's where I am with Sandra, thank you, and I'll be here next week. Bye. You.