7 Years Later

Seven years ago, I came up from the basement of Buffalo Police Central Booking in an elevator and walked through a set of doors feeling defeated.

A few days ago, I found myself standing in front of those same exact doors.

The crazy part is, I wasn't planning to go there.

It was Black Restaurant Week here in Buffalo, and my roommate AJ and I were headed to brunch at Deco Lounge downtown. I parked my car around the corner, we crossed the street, and as we started walking down the block, I looked over at the Buffalo Police Central Booking building.

I've walked past it before.

But for some reason, this time felt different.

I looked through the glass doors and saw the elevator behind them.

And I just said to AJ:

"Damn. This is where they let me out seven years ago."

I stood there for a second.

I started thinking about that night.

I started thinking about who I was at 20 years old.

I started thinking about everything that had happened since then.

Then something in me told me to take a picture.

So I asked AJ to take one of me standing right in front of the doors.

At the time, I didn't really know what I was going to do with the picture. I just knew I needed to take it.

Later, when I looked at it next to my mugshot from seven years earlier, everything hit me differently.

Same hair.

Same face.

Same eyes.

But not the same man.

March 2, 2019

I was 20 years old and a junior in college at Buffalo State.

I was six to eight hours away from home, away from my family in Brooklyn, living on campus and figuring life out on my own.

At that point in my life, I would describe myself as a hardworking young man.

Honestly, I have always been that way.

A go-getter.

A hustler.

I get a lot of that from my mom, and just from up in Brooklyn put some of it in me too. If there was something I wanted, I knew I had to work for it.

I was a full-time student getting good grades, and I also worked on campus at the concession stands through Chartwells.

At the time, working for the food company on campus wasn't necessarily the cool thing to do.

But I didn't care.

It was convenient because I lived on campus, and more importantly, it put some money in my pocket.

That particular week, I remember working a lot of hours because March Madness was starting.

I was finally getting close to overtime.

I was supposed to work at 10:00 the morning of March 2, and if I made it in, I would have been in overtime hours.

That detail has always stuck with me.

Because while I was sitting in the back of a police car knowing I didn't do anything, one of the thoughts going through my head was:

Damn. I'm not even going to be able to make my overtime.

It might sound small compared to everything else that was happening, but that was where my mind was.

I was a 20-year-old college student trying to make some extra money.

And suddenly, none of that mattered.

The night started completely normal.

It was Friday night, March 1.

One of my friends hit me up and said we should go out to Venu, a club downtown on Chippewa.

It was four of us. Two guys and two girls.

We pregamed a little bit, called an Uber and headed downtown.

It was a regular college night.

Everybody was having a good time.

At some point, one of our friends got sick and threw up. A bouncer saw and told us she couldn't stay in the club anymore.

No problem.

We called an Uber so she and our other friend could head back to campus.

The app told us the Uber was outside, so we went looking for it.

Anybody who has been on Chippewa late on a Friday night knows how chaotic it can be.

People everywhere.

Cars everywhere.

Music.

Traffic.

Everybody moving in different directions.

We couldn't find the Uber right away, so we split up.

My friend went one way with one of the girls, and I went the other way helping my friend who had gotten sick because she wasn't feeling well.

Eventually, I found the car.

I walked up to the back passenger door and tried to open it so I could help her inside.

The door was locked.

I knocked on the window.

"This is our Uber. Open the door."

The driver started waving his hands and screaming:

"No, no, no."

At first I thought maybe he couldn't hear me or didn't understand what I was saying.

So I repeated myself.

"This is our Uber."

He was still saying no.

I walked around toward the driver's side of the car.

That's when I saw the blood.

He was bleeding heavily down the left side of his face.

Before I even had the chance to understand what had happened, two police officers came up from behind me.

"Excuse me, sir. Step away from the car."

I tried to explain.

"This is my friend's Uber. I'm trying to put her in the car."

They told me again.

"Step away from the car."

And because I knew the history between Black people and the police, I stepped away.

I wasn't trying to argue.

I wasn't trying to make the situation worse.

Then they asked the Uber driver if he was the person who had called in an assault.

He said yes.

They asked him who assaulted him.

He pointed at me.

And just like that, everything changed.

There was no investigation.

Nobody asked me where I had just come from.

Nobody asked my friends what they saw.

Nobody looked at the highlighter-green hoodie I was wearing and thought, if this man is bleeding that heavily and Chad attacked him, wouldn't there be blood somewhere on Chad?

Nobody said, we're in the middle of downtown Buffalo with cameras everywhere, let's see what actually happened.

They reached for me.

I pulled my arm back and started yelling.

"It wasn't me! I didn't do it! Ask him again! Ask him again!"

My friends were yelling too.

They were telling the officers that I didn't do anything.

I was pleading with them.

Nobody was listening.

The officers started telling me not to resist.

Eventually, I stopped.

I let them put me in handcuffs.

And I remember being put in the back of that police car still not fully understanding how something like this could actually be happening to me.

On the ride to Central Booking, I kept trying to explain myself.

"I didn't touch him."

"If I touched him, there would be blood on me."

"There are cameras everywhere down there. Go check the cameras."

I remember the officer basically telling me:

Tell it to the judge. You'll see her in the morning.

And at that point, I shut up.

Because I realized there was nothing I could say that was going to change what was happening.

That was the moment I lost hope that night.

And I remember thinking about something my mom had told me so many times growing up:

You can be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I knew what that meant.

But I guess there was still a part of me that was naive enough to think it wouldn't happen to me.

I remember sitting there thinking:

Damn. I made it all the way through Brooklyn. I came to Buffalo to go to college, and this is still happening to me.

I thought I was doing everything right.

School.

Work.

Good grades.

Trying to make some money.

Trying to build a life.

And none of that protected me in that moment.

The Basement

Once I realized nobody was going to listen to me, something in my mind changed.

I stopped trying to convince everybody that I was innocent and started trying to prepare myself for where I was going.

I had never been in jail before.

I didn't know what to expect outside of what I had seen on television.

So I told myself:

You have to hold your head high.

You can't show weakness.

You're here now. There's nothing you can do about it right now.

I went into Central Booking trying not to let anybody see what I was feeling.

Inside, I was scared.

Outside, I tried to keep my face straight.

They asked me questions.

I answered them.

They took my fingerprints.

Then they took my mugshot.

They took my shoelaces and put me into a waiting area.

I remember sitting next to another young guy.

He was white, probably somewhere around my age. I remember thinking he might have been another college student.

He was losing it.

Crying.

Pleading.

Scared out of his mind.

And somehow, even though I was feeling the exact same thing inside, I started giving him a pep talk.

I told him:

"Man, you can't go in there like that. You gotta fix yourself up. They'll eat you alive in there if you go in looking like that."

Looking back at it now, it's kind of crazy.

I was telling him everything I needed somebody to tell me.

I was scared too.

I just wasn't showing it.

Then came the part of that night that still affects me when I think about it.

Before they put me into the holding cell, they brought me into a room with two men.

They told me to take off all my clothes.

Then squat.

Then cough.

I asked them:

"Do I have to do this? Is this really necessary? I didn't do anything."

They repeated the instructions.

And that was the moment I broke.

Even writing this seven years later, I can still feel that moment.

Because that was when I really understood that I had no control over anything that was happening to me.

It didn't matter how many times I said I was innocent.

It didn't matter that I knew I had done nothing wrong.

It didn't matter what kind of person I was.

In that moment, they had all the power.

My freedom had already been taken away.

Now I was standing there being told to take off my clothes and do something that felt humiliating and dehumanizing for a crime I didn't commit.

I felt helpless.

I felt stripped of more than my clothing.

I felt like my dignity had been taken from me.

Eventually, I did what they told me to do.

Then they put me into a holding cell by myself.

I remember it being freezing in there.

I told myself I wasn't going to sleep.

I told myself I wasn't going to eat anything they gave me.

For some reason, I felt like if I ate the food or went to sleep, I was accepting the fate they were trying to force on me.

I don't completely remember what they gave me. I think it may have been a banana and a Pop-Tart.

Eventually, I ate.

Eventually, I fell asleep.

And even that felt like defeat.

Like I had finally given in to the system.

The next morning, they woke everybody up and started lining us up to see the judge.

The courtroom was upstairs in the same building.

I remember walking through and seeing that the judge was a Hispanic woman.

And for whatever reason, that gave me a little hope.

I remember thinking:

She's another minority. Maybe she'll understand.

In my mind, I thought I would finally get a chance to explain myself.

I thought I would tell her what happened.

Tell her about the cameras.

Tell her that I had nothing to do with this.

And she would look at everything and let me go.

Instead, when it was my turn, I remember the way she looked at me.

I felt as if she thought I was guilty before I ever had the chance to prove I was innocent.

I left that courtroom with nothing but a number for a public defender, court-mandated drug and alcohol classes and another court date.

That was what justice looked like to me that morning.

Coming Up

After seeing the judge, they tunneled me back downstairs.

Then the elevator brought me up from the basement.

Those doors opened.

The same doors I was standing in front of seven years later.

My friends were waiting for me on the other side.

I came out feeling defeated.

I wasn't thinking about some big lesson.

I wasn't thinking about how this was going to change my life.

I was thinking:

Damn.

Now I have to figure out this court case.

Now I have to figure out what I'm going to tell my job about why I didn't show up.

Now I missed my overtime.

Now I have to explain all of this to my family.

The ride back to campus was quiet.

When I got back to my room, one of the first things I remember doing was calling my older brother Carl and telling him what happened.

And just like that, life kept moving.

Except now, I had this hanging over me.

Innocence

When I look at the mugshot today, the first word that comes to my mind is:

Innocence.

I see a young Black man.

Almost a boy.

I see somebody who believed he was doing everything he was supposed to do.

Going to college.

Getting good grades.

Working.

Making his own money.

Staying busy.

Trying to create a future for himself.

And still, just like that, he could become another statistic simply because he was a young Black man standing in the wrong place at the wrong time.

That's a crazy thing to sit with.

I look at my eyes in that picture and I can see the anger.

Like:

What the fuck?

How did I end up here?

But I can also see hope.

Because at that point, I still believed everything would work itself out quickly.

I thought:

There are cameras everywhere.

My public defender is going to listen to me.

He's going to get the footage.

The footage is going to prove I didn't do anything.

My name will be cleared.

Simple.

That is what due process is supposed to be, right?

Fair treatment through the justice system.

At least that's what I thought.

What Happened Next

The case dragged on for months.

What felt like almost an entire year.

I had a public defender who barely returned my phone calls or emails.

Eventually, I had to physically go downtown just to get his attention.

Mind you, I was still a college student.

I didn't have a car.

So every time I needed to go downtown, I had to figure out transportation.

I had to work around classes.

I had to work around my job.

All for something I didn't do.

When I finally got a meeting with my public defender, I told him everything from the start of the night to the end.

I also told him:

"Get the camera footage."

It happened right outside a club in downtown Buffalo.

There had to be cameras.

He said okay.

I went to my first court date thinking everything was finally going to be cleared up.

I thought he would have done his due diligence.

I got there and asked if he had gotten the footage.

He hadn't.

He looked me dead in my face and said:

"No."

No reason.

No explanation.

Nothing.

Just no.

It almost felt like he didn't even know who I was.

The man who accused me didn't show up to court either.

So the case got postponed.

Then another court date came.

Same thing.

No footage.

The case kept dragging on.

The semester ended.

Summer came.

I went back home to New York City.

And I still had to take the train or bus all the way back to Buffalo every time I had another court date because I couldn't afford to miss one.

I was fighting a case for something I didn't do while also trying to be a student, trying to work, trying to live my life.

Eventually, I realized I couldn't keep depending on somebody else to save me.

So I tried to find the footage myself.

Technically, I wasn't even supposed to be in that area downtown because the Uber driver worked around there, and the court didn't want me anywhere near him.

But the footage was the thing I believed would prove my innocence.

So I went back downtown and started talking to some of the businesses around the area.

By then, too much time had passed.

The footage had been deleted.

That was one of the lowest points in the whole process for me.

Because that was what I had been banking on.

That was supposed to be the thing that proved the truth.

Now it was gone.

And all I could think was:

What happens now?

His word against mine.

And I didn't know how I was going to clear my name.

By the grace of God, the man who accused me eventually could not say with complete certainty that I was the person who assaulted him.

That was enough.

I went back into that same courtroom, stood in front of that same judge, and eventually the charges were dismissed.

My name was cleared.

Of course, I felt relieved.

I wasn't going to have this on my record.

But there was another feeling too.

Like:

Damn. I really had to go through all of that.

All because one person pointed at me.

All because nobody stopped long enough at the beginning to actually figure out what happened.

That part stayed with me.

dooProcess

Going into my senior year, I knew I wanted to finally start a clothing brand.

I had wanted to do it for a while.

Originally, I had a design called doPey.

I called my older cousin Dino, who already had his own clothing brand, and told him the idea.

He basically told me the name was terrible.

He said it wasn't marketable and everybody wasn't going to want to wear something called doPey.

At the time, I thought:

Man, he doesn't know what he's talking about. This design is fire.

But I respected his opinion enough to think about it.

I loved the way the d and the P looked together in the design, so I started brainstorming different words and phrases that had a d and a P in them.

I came up with everything under the sun.

Damped Perception.

Divine Prestige.

And then I came across:

Due Process.

I knew what the phrase generally meant, but I wanted the exact definition.

So I looked it up.

And what I found basically described it as fair treatment through the judicial system, something that every citizen is entitled to.

Something I did not receive.

Something many Black Americans do not receive.

I remember reading that and thinking:

That's it.

After everything I had just gone through, the name made complete sense.

dooProcess.

I changed the spelling because I wanted it to look and feel like a streetwear brand.

But the meaning was there.

The original doPey design eventually became my first dooProcess design.

I incorporated "due" into the d and "process" into the P.

And the message behind it became:

Don't judge a book by its cover. Do your process.

At first, I thought I was just going to create clothing with doPey.

But I started understanding that fashion could become a way for me to express everything I had been feeling.

Streetwear is art.

Art is one of the purest forms of expression.

And expression is simply the process of making your thoughts and feelings known.

dooProcess became a way for me to tell my story.

A way to shine a light on some of the injustices in the justice system.

And a way to hopefully reach somebody who might be going through something similar and remind them to keep going.

That there is always a light at the end of the tunnel.

Over the years, I've donated 15% of sales to organizations advocating for social justice.

After George Floyd was murdered, I created the Know Your Rights shirt series and gave those shirts away for free.

On the front:

People know your rules. Police know your rights.

On the back were parts of the Minneapolis Police Department's use-of-force policies, including the duty for officers to intervene when another officer is using excessive force.

Those shirts weren't created because I thought they looked cool.

I created them because I believed information could potentially save somebody's life.

And long term, I still want to build the dooProcess Defense Fund.

My experience taught me what it feels like to have a public defender who doesn't have the time or resources to truly fight for you.

As I did my research, I learned that many public defenders are overwhelmed, overworked and underpaid themselves.

So my dream is eventually to use a portion of dooProcess sales to create scholarships for law students who can, in return, help public defenders with some of their caseload.

Because this isn't about attacking one person.

It's about trying to improve a process that I experienced firsthand.

Seven Years of Life

When I stood outside Central Booking the other day, so many things started running through my head.

Because the 20-year-old who walked out of those doors had no clue what the next seven years were going to look like.

I definitely didn't think I would still be in Buffalo.

At that point, Buffalo was where I went to school.

That was about it.

Then dooProcess led me into the New York Business Plan Competition, where I ended up winning first place in my category.

That competition became one of the biggest reasons I stayed in Buffalo.

Through it, I met Marnie LaVigne, President and CEO of Launch NY, who eventually presented me with an opportunity that changed the direction of my life:

What if I could work on building my own company while also helping other entrepreneurs build theirs?

So I stayed.

I graduated from college during a global pandemic.

I joined the Buffalo Urban League Young Professionals in 2020 because I wanted to intentionally learn more about Buffalo and become more connected to the community I was now deciding to call home.

Until then, so much of my Buffalo experience had been centered around campus.

The Urban League helped me see the city differently.

It introduced me to people.

It brought me into the community.

It gave me opportunities to serve.

Today, I serve on its executive leadership team as Social & Culture Chair.

And there is something almost crazy about the fact that seven years later, Black Restaurant Week, a Buffalo Urban League Young Professionals initiative, is what brought me back down that same block.

The city where I once sat in the back of a police car thinking, I came all the way from Brooklyn for this to still happen to me, eventually became the city I chose to call home.

The city where I felt powerless became the city where I started building.

I worked at Launch NY from 2020 to 2023, helping entrepreneurs grow their businesses and helping connect companies to capital.

I continued building dooProcess.

In 2023, I helped start Buffalo Fashion Runway.

What started as an idea turned into something bigger than I could have imagined—a platform for designers, models, photographers, artists and creatives to come together, create opportunities and be seen.

At the end of 2023, I transitioned out of Launch NY and became a full-time entrepreneur, focusing on dooProcess and Buffalo Fashion Runway.

I've had the opportunity to speak to young people at places like Eagle Academy in the Bronx and the BOSS program at South Park High School here in Buffalo.

I've received awards and recognition I never would have expected.

I've entered leadership programs that have pushed me to become better.

I've been able to give money back to organizations through dooProcess and Buffalo Fashion Runway.

I've stood on stages I never imagined standing on.

I've had the opportunity to mentor young men in Buffalo and become a Big Brother to Ymarii, giving guidance to someone younger while continuing to learn myself.

I've met people who have changed my life.

And hopefully, somewhere along the way, I've been able to change a few lives too.

But I also don't want this story to sound like everything became perfect.

It didn't.

There are still financial struggles.

There are still moments where I have to figure things out.

There are still times when I don't know exactly what the next move is going to be.

I'm still learning how to be a better entrepreneur.

A better leader.

A better speaker.

A better man.

And that's okay.

I don't look at those things as what this journey has cost me.

I look at all of it as part of the journey.

Part of my process.

I feel like I have an amazing life.

I am beyond blessed to be able to do what I do.

And one thing that has continued to grow in me over the years is my faith.

I truly believe things happen on God's timing.

I believe that what is meant for me will find me as long as I keep doing the work.

And one thing I know about myself is that I mean well.

So I try to do well.

If I tell somebody I'm going to do something, I'm going to do everything in my power to do it.

That's who I have become.

That's who I AM.

Same Hair. Different Eyes.

For most of my life, I wore my hair in an afro.

That's how I looked throughout most of college.

That's how I looked in my mugshot.

In February 2021, I decided to cut it.

There wasn't some deep meaning behind it.

I had basically had longer hair since sixth grade and just wanted to see what I looked like with something different.

So I got waves.

Over the next few years, I met a lot of people in Buffalo who only knew me with waves.

Earlier this year, leading up to Black Carpet III, I unintentionally started growing my hair back out.

Eventually, I got my first lineup with the afro again.

And I immediately saw my younger self.

It was funny because for some people around me, this was a brand-new look.

For me, it was an old one.

Then AJ took that picture outside Central Booking.

When he first showed it to me, I just said:

"Damn. That's a good picture."

But then I put it next to the mugshot.

And that's when it really hit me.

I look almost exactly the same.

Same hair.

Same face.

A little older.

A goatee now.

But the biggest difference is in my eyes.

When I look at that 20-year-old in the mugshot, I see:

Innocence.

When I look into the eyes of the 27-year-old standing outside Central Booking, I see:

Conviction.

And there is something almost poetic about that word.

Not conviction in the way the criminal justice system uses it.

A different kind.

Conviction in myself.

Conviction in my purpose.

Conviction in my faith.

Conviction in what I believe.

Conviction in the things I'm building.

Conviction in knowing that my story belongs to me.

Seven years ago, somebody told me where to stand.

Somebody told me where to look.

And somebody took my picture because I was being accused of something I didn't do.

Seven years later, I stood outside that same building and I asked for the picture to be taken.

That means something to me.

One picture was taken during a moment when I felt like I had absolutely no control over my life.

The other was taken in a moment when I was able to stop, look back and recognize just how much life had happened since.

I even sat down on the ground outside the building and asked AJ to take another picture.

I still don't really know why.

Something was just pulling me toward that space that day.

Maybe I needed to sit with it.

Maybe I needed to acknowledge what happened there.

Maybe I needed to acknowledge that young man.

Maybe I needed to show myself that I could stand there now and be okay.

I don't know.

But it felt good.

At 20 years old, I came up from that basement in an elevator and walked through those doors feeling defeated.

At 27, I parked my own car around the corner and walked toward those same doors on my way to brunch with a friend.

Not just any brunch, either.

A Black Restaurant Week brunch connected to an organization I joined because I wanted to become part of Buffalo and an organization I now help lead.

There is something full-circle about that.

Seven years earlier, I walked out of Central Booking wondering what Buffalo was going to mean for my future.

Seven years later, I walked back toward those same doors while living a life I never could have imagined then.

I was still in Buffalo.

Still going.

Still building.

Still figuring things out.

Still becoming.

And if I could somehow get back into that elevator today, ride it downstairs and sit beside the 20-year-old version of myself in that freezing holding cell, I already know what I would tell him.

Nothing complicated.

No big speech.

Just:

You got this.

Because I know him.

I know how he thinks.

I know that even when he is scared, he is going to figure something out.

I know that even when he feels helpless, he isn't going to stay down.

I know that even when the tunnel gets dark, he is going to keep looking for the light.

There are people he hasn't met yet who are going to change his life.

There are people whose lives he is going to have the opportunity to impact.

There are rooms he hasn't walked into yet.

Stages he hasn't stood on yet.

Businesses he hasn't built yet.

Communities he hasn't found yet.

There are ideas he hasn't even thought of yet.

There are versions of himself he hasn't met yet.

He just has to keep going.

One of my favorite sayings has always been that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

I believe that.

And in the words of Pop Smoke:

"Shoot for the stars, aim for the moon."

Seven years ago, those elevator doors opened and I walked out not knowing what life was going to look like.

Seven years later, I stood outside those same doors and looked back at everything that had happened between then and now.

Same hair.

Same eyes.

Same person.

But not the same man.

Innocence then.

Conviction now.

And seven years later, I'm still going through my process.

- Chad Williams (Take 15% off your next dooProcess purchase with code 7YEARSLATER)