Help Aleesa Complete Her Cosmetology Training

Every week we learn of black women, men, children, and families who are facing brutal treatment, assaults & shootings by police officers.

Here in my community, this police violence is happening as well. 

In 2017, Aleesa Jordan was assaulted by police and wrongfully arrested just a few blocks away from her high school here in Kingston, NY. She was 16 at the time. 

At the time of Aleesa’s assault she was attending high school and she was also enrolled in a Cosmetology program- a free career training program for high school students at Ulster BOCES. Due to the repercussions of the assault and wrongful arrest, Aleesa was unable to complete this program. She is now settled in a new city and ready to go back to school. 


Let’s help Aleesa to go back to Cosmetology School!

Please help us raise:

$4000 for Aleesa's Cosmetology School Tuition & other professional development courses Aleesa will be attending

$3000 for Aleesa to use for a cosmetology kit & living expenses during the time she’s attending school

$2000 for Aleesa to start building savings towards her future

Please also sign this petition: Remove Police Officers from Kingston Schools 



Aleesa has chosen to continually share her story as a way to raise awareness about the need to remove SRO’s from schools and defund the police. SRO stands for “Student Resource Officers,”- a pretty name for a very dangerous and damaging role. SRO’s are actually police officers. They are a key part in the school-to-prison-pipeline and they regularly hurt students more than help them.


Aleesa’s story:


At age 16, Aleesa had set herself up on a very good track. She was getting ready to graduate high school and was taking classes towards getting her cosmetology license at Ulster BOCES. She had a job, she was involved with dance programs at The Center for Creative Education and she was often found doting on her nieces and nephews. 


Then in mid-November, 2017, she was assaulted by police officers while she was walking from school to work with a colleague. 


Every day, a co-worker of Aleesa's would take a school bus from the program she attended at BOCES and get dropped off at the bottom of the hill in front of Kingston High School where she would wait for Aleesa. When Aleesa was done with classes for the day, she would come out and the two of them would head to work together. Like Aleesa, her co-worker was a young woman of color, 16 or 17 years old at the time.  


On this particular day they had already started walking and were about 6 or 7 blocks away from the school when two other female high school students got into a fight near them. Two SRO's, so-called “Student Resource Officers”, came running from the high school. SRO's are officers of the Kingston Police Department that are assigned to work at the schools. One of the officer's who ran over to respond to the fight was Officer Hulbert. The two young women who were in the fight fled before the officers could get to them. Officer Hulbert and the other SRO demanded that Aleesa & her co-worker tell them where those girls went. They said they didn't know, and the officers told them that if they didn't tell them where the other girls went they would arrest Aleesa’s co-worker for trespassing on school grounds. This was after many months during which she regularly waited for Aleesa at the bottom of the hill in front of Kingston High School without an issue. Later, in legal proceedings, the SRO's would claim that she had been stepping on the grass which is school property and that this is what gave them grounds to arrest her. In reality, even if it were true that she had trespassed, it would not be an arrestable offense.


They again told the officer's that they didn't know where the other girls had gone. The Officers proceeded to arrest Aleesa’s co-worker. Aleesa pleaded with the officers, asking “when did she ever trespass? She stands there everyday waiting for me.” She repeatedly asked them to please stop hurting her, co-worker because they were being rough with her in the arresting process.


Officer Hulbert responded by punching Aleesa directly in the face and yelled “BACK THE FUCK UP.”


Despite her terror, Aleesa did as she was asked and backed up. A few minutes later a whole block full of police cars arrived on the scene (8-10 cop cars). Another officer who works as an SRO at the high school, Officer Woltman, came onto the scene and asked who else needed to be arrested. Officer Hulbert pointed to Aleesa, who had done nothing more than to advocate for her co-worker.


Officer Woltman grabbed Aleesa and slammed her into the cop car. He slammed her so hard that she was later diagnosed with chest wall contusions. It also caused her to have an asthma attack, and he used so much force on her arms when cuffing her that she was also later diagnosed with a sprained wrist.


Officer Woltman put Aleesa in the back of the police car. She was crying, saying "I can't breathe," because of the asthma attack. Officer Woltman used this as an excuse to 'look for her inhaler' and while he did so, he touched her inappropriately. Aleesa clearly stated to him "that's my ass.. my inhaler is right there (indicating the floor of the car).. I can't breathe!" Officer Woltman continues to say that when he touched Aleesa, it was because he was “frantically looking for her inhaler”, but it was visibly obvious that she had no pockets in the leggings she was wearing. Even after Aleesa pointed out the inhaler to him, he did not administer it. 


Instead, officer Woltman shut the door to the car without administering her inhaler and  didn't give it to her until they got done at the scene and all the way to the police station which was about 15 to 20 minutes later, all while she continued to scream "I can't breathe" in the back of the cop car. Her inhaler was right at her feet but she couldn’t get it because she was handcuffed. We are incredibly lucky that Aleesa survived. As Eric Garner's mother remarked to Aleesa's mother, we are incredibly lucky that the day wasn't a hot one, that the police station wasn't farther away.


Aleesa was diagnosed with facial contusions, chest wall contusions, and a sprained wrist. She was charged with Disorderly Conduct and Obstructing Government Administration, both criminal charges. Officer Hulbert and Officer Woltman left the incident in good health, uninjured & untouched, and weren't charged with anything. They were even allowed to continue working at Kingston High School. 


Aleesa had to miss a lot of school and work because of the doctor's visits she had to go to for her injuries, and because of the court dates she had to attend due to the charges brought against her. And of course she needed time to heal from the physical injuries and emotional trauma of the assault. Luckily, she was still able to graduate high school that spring. She had to make special arrangements to do so because she no longer felt safe at her school. She tried doing night school but the SRO's were sometimes present even then, so eventually she asked to be allowed to complete her schoolwork from home and was able to do so.


Unfortunately BOCES did not let her finish her cosmetology program because she had missed too many classes. Aleesa has wanted to start back at cosmetology school ever since but hasn't been able to do so because of the cost. Unlike the free program she was able to do at BOCES before they dropped her from it, regular cosmetology school is costly.  Additionally, it turns out it's very difficult to get financial aid for cosmetology school if you have already partially completed the program like Aleesa has, because of the portion she did at BOCES. 

Aleesa eventually took a guilty ACD plea on the charges that were brought against her. That's an Adjournment in Contemplation of Dismissal, where the offense gets dismissed from the person's record if the person doesn't have any further legal trouble in a certain timeframe. However, she never should have had to plea guilty and take an ACD since she didn't commit any crimes. At the time it was what was recommended by her lawyer and she needed to be able to move on with her life, so she went ahead with it. 

Since the incident, Aleesa has not felt safe living in Kingston and has struggled to find somewhere to settle down so she can stabilize her life and get it back on track the way she had imagined it. She is now settled in a new city and is ready to go back to school for her cosmetology license. 


Please donate to help Aleesa! No donation is too small. 


... and, if you're curious to learn more about the officers that did this, their names again: Chris Hulbert and Harry Woltman.