A Crooked Cop, an Innocent Man, and an Unlikely Journey of Forgiveness and Friendship

And we continue with our American stories. It all went down in the city of Benton Harbor, Michigan, in two thousand and six. Andrew Collins was a narcotics officer. Jamel McGee was a new father of a baby boy. This is a story about forgiveness, brokenness, and true reconciliation from two guys who should have been hardened, bitter enemies. Without any further ado, let’s hear how Andrew and Jamel’s unlikely stories intersect, starting with Jamel.

February eighth, two thousand and six, was the day that forever changed my life.

February eighth, two thousand and six, really just another day for me.

All I wanted to do was go to the store and get some milk from my son.

All I wanted on that day was another conviction.

So I caught a ride for some guys that I knew that probably would be up to no good.

I had caught a guy with some crack. He knew a guy with some more crack, so he made a phone call.

So we get to the store, and this guy asked me to use the phone. At the time, I didn’t think anything of it, so I gave him my phone.

So I get to the store and I see the vehicle, just like I was told. One guy in the vehicle, and another guy comes out of the store. I’m not sure if he has something to do with it, but I’m gonna make sure he has something to do with it.

So I’m coming out of the store, and this guy’s approaching me, talking about he’s a cop. “Where’s the dope?” I’m like, “What dope? I don’t have any dope!”

“I ain’t got no dope. It ain’t my dope.” How many times have I heard this before? That’s what everybody says. So I had him lock them up.

How could I be going to jail for some drugs that is in mine? How is this possible trial?

“He’s gonna take it to trial. The way that I wrote that report, he’s gonna take it the trial. I would have wasted my time.”

Well, I wasn’t about to plead guilty to something that I know I didn’t do.

So I told my story and I got my conviction, and Jamel McGee was sentenced to ten years in federal prison. So, Jamel, could you share with us what it was like sitting in jail, sitting in prison, knowing you had ten years over your head?

It was rough, it was painful. I became a different person. I became very bitter, very angry, I mean, frustrated. I can’t figure out, why am I sitting here? Why am I in prison? I ain’t do nothing? Why am I here? So with that, I became unapproachable. You couldn’t talk to me. I wouldn’t talk to you, and no matter who you was, I just didn’t have no words for nobody. And then if you try to talk to me, that’s when the problem came in. I want to fight at that point. So, in prison, I’m sitting in prison, I’m just going through the motions. I’m acting out on everything I wanted to do to Andrew. I’m doing it to other people. So, hurt people, hurt people. Okay. So I sit there and not knowing, not caring, as I was hurting other people. Because I was hurt, I felt like I had lost everything. There was nothing else that mattered at this point. So my attitude was, I don’t care. So, sitting in prison, somehody. It’s really rough. I was becoming the person you didn’t want to even come across. Then I had to awakening, like I needed something different. I needed to do something different in my life because everything I’ve done in my life, I find myself in these very situations. So this one day, three years into my sentence, it’s a Bible sitting there on my desk, on my table. It’s been there the whole time, never looked at it. Gave my life over to Christ at age eighteen, then again at twenty one, because at eighteen I did it for my mom because I wanted it off my back. So at age twenty one I really got the graphs of, I need a relationship with Jesus myself. So I did that. But this time when I went to jail, I was like, “You know what, I’m not gonna lean on God for this because I did that all my other times.” And this is clear, it’s in black and white. I should be able to just present this or say this, and I can get out of here. That wasn’t the case. I had no voice. Nothing I said mattered at all, period. So I’m still sitting here, frustrated, man, the Bible sitting here on my table. I grat a Bible today. I just said, “You know, I’m read the Bible today.” Grat a Bible. Started the first five versions of Genesis, and then my mind just went blank, and I was just hit with this message of, “Let it go, let it go, let it go.” And if you’all familiar, at this time, Frozen was not out yet, so I have, I had no idea what this song was coming, well, what is thought? This words? Where they was coming from? And I wrestled with that, like, “No, this was done to me.” Like, “This is my hurt.” Like, “I need to avenge that, I need to take care of that.” I want to put my hands on him. I want to be the one to say, “I took care of that.” So that was my goal. So whenever I got home was to find him and hurt him. That was my goal. It didn’t matter when I was gonna do it. So, after battling with these thoughts, I’m getting headaches trying to block it out, okay, because I don’t want to hear them. I’m trying to put something else in my head to get this thought out of my head. So later on, I go out and walk on the yard, and I’m walking around the circle and I just begin to reflect on my life. You know what I’m saying, as a whole, as far as I can remember, and I quickly realized that every situation I had a choice before it even happened. I had a choice, but I chose the more convenient, easy way every time, which led me to foster care, juvenile, the lynks, the boys’ homes, the prisons, the jails. My decisions led me there. So I’m like, “You know what, God, it’s your way. I’m tired of being in my way. I’m tired of this. My way hasn’t worked all these years, so I need something different.” So I kept walking on the track and I’m just like, “You know what, I gotta change. I got to change my life. I got a sign. I want to see him. I want to be able to raise him. I want to be a part of his life. So I got to do something different with mine.” So I get back to my cell and I prayed before I went to sleep, and I was like, “You know what, God, I want to wake up tomorrow as if I’m at home. So I want to live every day after this as if I’m at home.” So I got up that morning. My first thing to do was speak to somebody, which was very hard for me to do. And I came out and I was just like, “All right, hey!” First person I saw, “Hey, how you doing?” They looking at me like, “This dude’s crazy.” It was this. But I didn’t here at that point what nobody thought, because I said I was going to go through with this. I’m gonna, I’m gonna adapt this change into my life. I’m gonna do something different, and boom. I started building more relationships, started talking to people, you know, people was getting to know me, and then they was asking me question like, “Man, what was so messed up with you all that many months and years ago?” I wouldn’t talk about that part because everybody that goes to prison says, “There,” and it’s said, “Yes.” So I didn’t want to be a part of that. So I was like, “Nope, just brush that part off.” So this one of the day. I go to work this one morning and the people were calling me soon as I got to work, and I’m like, my attitude was still kind of jacked up. So I’m like, “If you want me, you got to come get me.” So I got off work and when I got to you, and the guy was at the door, and it was like, “Hey, you know what, they’ve been calling you all day, probably go see what they want.” First thing I thought of was like, “Man, I’m probably gonna go to the whole now for some stuff I did previously.” And I was like, “Well, trying to face them as it is what it is.”

And you’re listening to Trammel McGhee tell his story. Thrown in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, set up by an officer, Andrew Collins. He tries doing it one way, the hard way, filled with anger and bitterness, and then one day he said, “I had an awakening. I needed to do something different in my life.” Their story continues, a crooked cop, an innocent man, and an unlikely journey of forgiveness and friendship. Here on our American Stories. And we continue with our American Stories, and we’ve been listening to Jamel McGee, having served three years of his ten-year sentence, a conviction that was based on a setup by a crooked cop, Andrew Collins. Even though Jamel was innocent. He came to the conclusion that it was his bad choices in his life that had put him in this terrible situation. So he decided, well, to do something different with his life. He decided to follow God. Here again is Jamel and Andrew.

So I go to the council office, and he was like, “Hey, where would you go if you was released today, tomorrow, what, six months from now?” And I’m like, “Hmm, probably my grandma house.” He’s like, “I need address.” “Give him to address.” And he was like, “Well, you got fifteen minutes to leave.” And I was like, “I can leave out of office right now. I didn’t actually come in here.” And he was like, “No.” The fax machine beat, and he handed me the paper, and it was a letter from the judge saying my conviction was overturned, and I had to lead the premises immediately, me letting that anger, that frustration go, God opened the door for me to go.

So there were some things going on with my life at that time. I had given my life to Christ at age seven in the back of a church. My uncle, who’s only three years older than me, led me to the Lord. I just didn’t understand what the heck it meant. Thank you, Jesus! So I went about my business as a high schooler, as a teenager, as a police officer. The more I was a police officer, the more wrong things I did. The more wrong things I did, the less I felt bad about them. It’s a funny thing about integrity like that, the more you do the wrong things, the less you fel like it’s wrong. So, February of two thousand and eight, I get caught with crack, heroin, and marijuana in my office, and in one day my life crumbled. All the money that I was making legally and illegally gone. Friends that I had built, friends who I thought would be there for a lifetime. Nobody knows a police officer like a police officer, y’all. My boys gone because they were worried about their careers! Rightly so, my family. Having to see my wife’s face when I was trying to explain to her that I just lost my job the day before, I was top cop in the county. I was a big deal, especially in my own mind, and in a day it was gone. So I went on a three-day journey. Day one, got caught. Day two, thought about suicide. There’s no way I can get out of this. Day three went, saw a pastor because on day two my wife came home from work and saw that I was depressed and said, “You need to go talk to that pastor that you’ve been going to,” because see, that whole being a Christian thing is a youth. God wouldn’t leave me a lit. So I called that pastor up and I said, “I got to talk to you.” Said, “Yeah, you do. I’ve seen the news.” So I said, down with him and I tell him I confessed everything. It felt so good to get it out of me, to finally admit what I had done wrong. And he listened patiently and he said, “Ooh, boy, you’re in trouble.” I remember thinking, like, “You, sir, are a terrible counselor.” Like, “I know, I’m in trouble. What do I do now?” And he said, “Where are you at with Jesus?” I’m thinking, “What I just told you. Where I’m at with Jesus. I am a terrible person.” “Man, I don’t deserve him.” And he said, “None of us do. That’s the beauty of grace. God’s riches at Christ’s expense. He paid it. You don’t have to.” He said, “Andrew, you accepted Jesus as your Savior. You’ve accepted the whole time that he saved you from your sins, but you’ve never let him be your Lord. Do you want that lordship?” I said, “I do, man, I do. This is my lordship.” Twenty-five years old, in your crying, thinking about suicide. He said, “Let’s pray.” So we melt down there in his office and he prayed. Because I felt like if I talked to God he’d strike me dead right there. I still couldn’t wrap my mind around grace. And he prayed for me that God would become, that Jesus would become my Lord. We said amen. I was balling, and I said, “What do I do next?” “Man, I’m a man.” “There’s like a list. There’s got to be a list of things I can do, because that’s how men operate. List. Give me a listen, I’ll check off the boxes.” He said, “Read your Bible.” “That’s it. Get to know your Lord.” I was like, “I don’t know if you ever read that thing, Pastor, but it’s kind of boring.” He’s like, “No, man, God did something in you today.” He gave me a Bible that was a little easier to read for me from what I grew up in. And I started reading. I was blown away at all the little bombs that were going off in my soul about Jesus dealing with people that were just as jacked up or even worse than me. And the longer I was away from police work, the less I felt bad I got caught, and the more I felt bad for what I had done. It’s a difference, y’all. So I went to the FBI and I said, “Look, I want to right my wrongs. There’s some things that need to be reconciled.” So I sat down. They put a stack of reports in front of me, and they said, “We need you to look through all these reports, and we need to tell you. We need you to tell us which ones are bad. Highlight the ones that are bad.” And I said, “Honestly, out of these two hundred cases, would be easier to highlight the ones that are good.” My corruption ran deep, and I started working it out, one case at a time, one case at a time, one case at a time. And one of those cases was Jamel McGee. I opened it up and I said, “That’s a bad case. It’s a bad case.” So because I gave my life to the Lord and because I did the right things, all my problems went away, and I’ve never had another problem since then. No, that’s not what happened. I still had to go to prison, y’all. So, January nine, I plead guilty. I go to jail. February nine, Jamel gets out. It’s like tag team. I mean, “You’re out, switch!” But the story don’t stop there. Twenty ten, August, I get out. I’m passionate about Ben Harbor. I feel like guy’s calling me back to the community. So I reached out to a pastor of a local church up there, and he says, “We’re having this thing in August of ‘eleven called Hoops, Hip Hop and Hot Dogs, H3 outreach event. We want you to be a part of it.” So I said, “I want to be a part of that.” So I’m standing in Broadway Park, like, “Okay, where are the people that I need to be reconciled with? Bring him, Lord?” And then all of a sudden, I see this man coming at me, like he wasn’t, he was coming at me. He wasn’t running, but he was coming at me. And he reaches out his hand, and it looks like you want to shake my hand. I’m thinking, “Oh, cool, reconciliation!” He said, “You remember my name?” And then he squeezed extremely tightly. I said, “Jamel McGee!” And he squeezed even harder. “I got the answer right!” And I don’t know, y’all, can. He’s got big hands. He ain’t letting go if you don’t want to let go. And he looks down at his son. He said, “I want you to tell my son why he missed out on all them years of his daddy’s life.” I wish he had hit me. Hit a hurt worse, hurt, a hurt less. I said, “Look, man, there’s nothing I can do to make up for what I did, but I’m sorry. I offer you my apology.” He didn’t say anything. You could see the little muscle in his jaw clenching. I said, “You know what, I’m, I got my daughter here at the park too.” “I know, hey, you know what, maybe this will help. I know what it’s like to be away from my daughter too, because I spent eighteen months in prison.” And he said, “I don’t give a what you had to go through.” And I was like, “That was the wrong thing to say.” I was glad he could speak, but then I was like, “Oh, shoot!” Because what I did is I took everything away that I had just said. I just made all these apologies, and then I just basically took it right away. That’s basically saying, “Yes, there’s a problem,” but everybody goes through problems, so it doesn’t really matter that much. I’m about to get on a tangent, Jamel, what was that day like for you in the park?

I call that the test, because that day was, it was a test. I got out, I got to meet my son for the first time, and he wanted to go to this park. He’s seen a lot of people standing out there. I’m an introverted person, so that was not going to happen for me. So I’m like, and he was like, “Yeah, I want to go over there.” So I didn’t want to disappoint him, so I’m like, “All right, come on, let’s go.” And I said to myself, “I’m just stay on the sidewalk and let him run through the park.” And walking down the sidewalk, I’m like, I thought I’d seen Andrew, and up under the pavilion. I’m like, “No, that can’t be him, not in Broadway Park, not at this park.” This park usually on end well when it’s a lot of people out here, and I know they just can’t be him right there. And he turned around and I’m like, “Yeah, that’s him!” In my mind. The first thing that popped that was kidd. And.

And you’ve been listening to Andrew Collins and Jamel McGhee tell the story of how their lives intersected it. And my goodness, “the test” is what Jammel called it. When we come back, their story continues, a crooked cop, an innocent man, and an unlikely journey of forgiveness and friendship. Here on our American Stories. And we returned to our American Stories. Jammel McGee spent three years in federal prison, and on a day went by that he didn’t think about his son we had never seen, and the crooked cop who had kept Jammel from seeing him for most of those three years. Jammel writes in his book, Convicted, “I promised myself that if I ever saw this cop again, I was going to kill him. I intended to keep that promise.” Here’s Jamaal and Andrew picking up with the moment the two saw each other for the first time in a park back home. Here’s Jamaal in my mind.