The Case For Billy Holcomb

The Case for Billy Holcomb

By Larry Nevels

Chairman, Political Action Committee

The Good People, Inc

On April 6, Camille Meivin "Billy" Holcomb, Inmate No. 128757, was returned to Jackson Prison after it was discovered that he had escaped from the facility in 1973.

Billy Holcomb was serving a three to fifteen-year sentence for assault with intent to rob or steal with a weapon. the result of a Royal Oak jewelry store robbery in 1971.

Now awaiting trial for escape, Billy, 26 years old.ean clearly recall the confusion that led him down the path of his early youth.

Billy's impressionable years were the height of the civil rights movement. Civil rights workers were murdered in Mississippi. A Sunday school class in Alabama was bombed, killing four black girls. Outspoken leaders like Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, the Kennedys, and Martin Luther King, Jr. were assassinated.

Billy dropped out of high school and became a member of a street gang, and eventually an inmate of the Michigan penal system.

In prison during the waning years of the barbaric Nixon era, Billy began to understand the reality of what was happening. He saw that many black youth from Detroit's ghetto were following in his footsteps. He decided to do something about it.

The gate of the prison being left open one day, Billy Holcomb walked to his new self-imposed sentence. He returned to Detroit's East Side to help the youth of his community become a positive force, rather than future inmates.

Billy's outstanding work with Detroit youth in the past three years has been recognized by many civil, church. and community organizations, including New Detroit, Black Causes, and the Detroit Board of Education.

We believe that Billy Holcomb did a better job rehabilitating himself than the prison system ever could, and has gone further to spare the State of Michigan the expense of incarcerating many East Side youths who are now on the right track, thanks to Billy's influence.

The charges against Billy Holcomb tor escape should be dropped, and he should be exonerated from his original sentence and returned to the community immediately.

We need him. We urge our readers to express their support for Billy Holcomb by writing Robert Brown, Jr., Deputy Director of Correctional Facilities, Steven T. Mason Building, Lansing, Michigan.