KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Next week, a Kansas City firefighter accused of assaulting a woman on the side of the road is heading to court.
Ahead of the hearing, the firefighter’s neighbors are pushing for a heavy punishment, saying he has harassed multiple people before and since the incident.
The case dates back to August 2019 and was delayed because of COVID-19. But now that it is headed to court the serious drama in one cul-de-sac is spilling into the public.
In Kansas City’s Rolling Meadows neighborhood on Friday a group homeowners and supporters aired grievances against Pleaze Robinson who is charged with first-degree assault, leaving the scene of a crash and operating a vehicle in a careless and imprudent manner.
The charges stem back to an indecent near Raytown High School on August 27, 2019.
“Upon arriving he punched the victim in the face, threw her to the ground, and continued to assault her. As many as 20 bystanders watched in horror,” Khadijah Hardaway, organizer of the news conference, said.
“My wife had her face disfigured. What he did to her. She didn’t deserve none of that. She was on her way to work,” Douglas Fleming, husband of woman who was injured, said.
“Well I’ve had guns pulled on me twice. When I come out of my home I’m being harassed by being called names. I’m being cursed at – just verbally abused,” Annetta Jackson, a neighbor on the cul-de-sac, said.
“And he assaulted me with a garden hose one day. And he’s just jacked with the whole neighborhood. You know, this guy needs to go to prison for a long long time. I’m a firefighter. He’s a firefighter and he’s a disgrace,” John Diibon, Robinson’s direct neighbor to the right, said.
But as neighbors spoke to reporters, police arrived and Robinson’s family started taking video. As time went on the depths of the decades long feud become more clear.
For the first time, Pleaze Robinson and his wife Carol talked about their perspective. They would not comment on the court case but they accused neighbors of being the real harassers an alleged the constant use of slurs against his family.
“We’re outside, we’re in our hot tub and we’re on our deck or mowing the yard – he’ll hide in the corner: ‘N****. N****,'” Pleaze Robinson said.
“Then his wife will come out and say ‘Yeah, you’re all alike,'” Carol Robinson said.
“But now they want to stand in front of our house and today is another example of them bullying us by bringing this to our house,” Pleaze Robinson said.
“Yes I am filing a civil rights complaint against him. It’s a hate crime,” he said.
The other neighbors say those accusations are untrue.
“This so-called man over here. And he beat that woman…it’s not right,” Shawn Jackson, a relative of Annetta, said.
“It’s hard for us to move on. We actually had to move out of our house to go somewhere else to live – because he kept coming out with guns in his pockets trying to taunt me,” Fleming said.
“He don’t deserve to be on the fire department period. This man is supposed to put fires out, not start them,” Fleming said.
The Kansas City Fire Department does not talk about their personnel decisions.
The assault case is currently planned to go to trial with the next step in the process happening next Friday with the arguments on the calendar for the following week.
