The Committee for the Greater Good
Fair Trial for Aamil Aziz

I am the mother of Aamil Aziz. My name is Hitaji Aziz. My main purpose and intention for this moment is to be  his best ally , to inform people about his case and the money needed to make sure he will have a fair trial. I initiated “The Committee for the Greater Good” which has turned out to be a very small band of allies supporting me and my son Aamil and others like him for this moment. I am grateful.

My name is Hitaji Aziz. I have volunteered in the non-profit sector with marginalized communities and organizations since I was 13 years old. I have been a long-term community activist, and I am now 70. I am a mother, and I am a grandmother. I am a holistic healer currently mindfully supporting my oldest son.

My son is a 48-year-old African American man facing 40 years in prison for an accidental death. My son got into a fight with his friend who he lived with over his stolen rent money. The friend’s girlfriend, who was also his friend, got in between the two  and she  was stabbed, died two weeks later, turning aggravated assault into a murder case.

There was a knife and a hammer involved. She made a formal statement to the police that it was an accident before she died. Currently he is housed at the Harris County jail in Houston. His trial is on May 11, 2024. Because of complex PTSD mental disabilities, he only partially remembers the event in which his friend died and after he was hit with a hammer.

He has been emotionally challenged for decades. He would hide in sewers and climb on top of buildings. He would often disappear for weeks or months, and his last disappearance was for almost seven years. He has presented symptoms of dissociative personality disorder—he has various nicknames, blackouts, has heard voices, and has been trapped in a matrix of suicide attempts and risky living for years. The judicial system failed Aamil and they failed to notice that he was emotionally injured and not simply a bad boy, as they might think. 

The mental health system failed Aamil and did not know how to help our family system holistically. His  mental illness  was planted with generations of mental illness within his family system along with dysfunctional parents who suffered with their own complex PTSD, raised in a violent family system, raped while still in elementary school by pedophile babysitters, abused by the police, abused in juvenile systems, raped, and abused in a Texas boot camp where he was made to wear tampons and came home with burn marks on his stomach. He was told to man up.

When Aamil became involved with the judicial system and the trauma was deepened while revolving in and out of the judicial system. He was always less of who he was every time he came home. His Spirit was slowly being killed, but he kept trying to be normal. 

I am not the only mother or father who has been in this position of having a loved one who is mentally challenged with complex trauma while involved with the criminal justice system and because of this my purpose is also to care about other families who are having the same experience. There are millions who have loved ones who are residents of the Harris County jail system in Houston, the Texas Department of Corrections, and the American prison system in general.

Some of you know that our GoFundMe account was taken down because of  the GoFundMe rules about criminal cases. The money that we had raised was returned to the donors and we now have less time to raise the funds .  So, we have created a whole new platform for receiving donations and it feels and looks wonderful.

I have consulted with one attorney who is trauma-informed with an integrated approach when dealing with complex trauma. Her quote was $15,000 for a retainer fee and $40,000 for her total fee. An expert witness could add extra cost.  So, we are raising $55.000 to cover what might be needed.

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has told my son and me that her brother was murdered, and it took her a while to take on any case like Aamil’s. She has mentioned that twice, as well as saying she is friends with the judge. We feel this is completely unprofessional. She has witnessed firsthand Aamil’s mental issues but never referred him to the special court for felony mental health. In addition, his last suicide attempt was last January when the Houston Fire Department pulled him out of a burning house.

My son will live longer and might have a chance to heal if he can be committed to a place like Rusk State hospital in Texas, which is a place where he wants to be, or in an institution that would provide a place to help heal his complex trauma. Decades of continuous trauma in the Texas prison system, which has already contributed to the state of his mental health, will serve no purpose, and escalate his illness. He now lives in one of the most dangerous jails in the country.

We realized that Rusk might not be an ideal place, but we hope it is a safer  and less traumatizing environment  than the Texas Department of Corrections. We realize that he is currently not safe alone with himself or  with others without supervision. We do not want him to be thrown away like trash, and we know mentally challenged poor Black men  are not valued in America or the prison system. The sad thing about it is that my son does not always appear or seem mentally ill which causes him to be misdiagnosed or overlooked. Aamil was never the same after the first rape. Emotionally we are still waiting for him to come home.