Source
# Story Highlights
# NEW: Witness says, "The boy didn't have no gun, he had a brush on him"
# Man had history of mental illness, AP reports, ignored orders to halt
# Police kill Khiel Coppin, 18, after reports of a family dispute and a weapon
# New York Times: Cops fired 20 shots, realized Coppin held only a hairbrush
Another neighbor, Wayne Holder, said police should be required to see a weapon before opening fire on a suspect. "At least see a gun before you start to discharge it," Holder said. Police "don't even have to see it, [if] they think you got one, you're going to get shot."
The AP reported that the teen had a history of mental illness and his mother had tried to have him hospitalized earlier in the day.
A bystander who said he saw the shooting told CNN affiliate WABC-TV that the man was unarmed. "He dropped the brush," said the bystander, Dyshawn Gibson. "He put his hands up. Police just started firing."
As the teen approached officers, police ordered him to stop, police spokesman Paul Browne told AP. The teen refused and continued to approach, Browne said, prompting police to open fire.
An initial police statement given to reporters Monday night said the man was seen earlier pacing around the apartment.
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Officers shot and killed an 18-year-old man who they believed to be armed, New York police said, but witnesses said Tuesday he was only holding a hairbrush.
The Monday night shooting followed a 911 call from the man's mother. Police described the situation as "a family dispute with a gun."
After officers arrived, the teen refused to halt as he approached police, prompting them to open fire, The Associated Press reported.
Police told The New York Times they believed the teen, Khiel Coppin, had a gun, but after five officers fired 20 shots they realized he was holding only a hairbrush.
"The boy didn't have no gun, he had a brush on him," said Andre Wildman, a neighbor who told CNN that he saw the shooting.
"He began screaming from the window at his mother and the police," the police statement said. "At some point, the male climbed out of the window and began crossing the sidewalk toward the police."
That's when police began firing, a police spokesman said.
advertisement
The police spokesman said officers were called to the apartment building in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood at about 7 p.m. by Coppin's mother who said she was having a dispute with her son.
According to a statement, police said Coppin's mother reported that her son was armed. But The New York Times quoted police who said Coppin himself was overheard on the mother's 911 call threatening to kill her and claiming "I have a gun." E-mail to a friend E-mail to a friend
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Rash of Noose Incidents Reported
By ERRIN HAINES – Oct 10, 2007
Source
ATLANTA (AP) — In the months since nooses dangling from a schoolyard tree raised racial tensions in Jena, La., the frightening symbol of segregation-era lynchings has been turning up around the country.
Nooses were left in a black Coast Guard cadet's bag, at a Long Island police station locker room, on a Maryland college campus, and, just this week, on the office door of a black professor at Columbia University in New York.
The noose — like the burning cross — is a generations-old means of instilling racial fear. But some experts suspect the Jena furor reintroduced some bigots to the rope. They say the recent incidents might also reflect white resentment over the protests in Louisiana.
"It certainly looks like it's been a rash of these incidents, and presumably, most of them are in response to the events in Jena," said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks white supremacists and other hate groups. "I would say that as a more general matter, it seems fairly clear that noose incidents have been on the rise for some years."
Thousands of demonstrators, including the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, converged on Jena on Sept. 20 to decry what they called a racist double standard in the justice system. They protested the way six blacks were arrested on attempted murder charges in the beating of a white student, while three whites were suspended but not prosecuted for hanging nooses in a tree in August 2006.
The noose evokes the lynchings of the Jim Crow South and "is a symbol that can be deployed with no ambiguity. People understand exactly what it means," said William Jelani Cobb, a professor of black American history at Spelman College in Atlanta.
He said the Jena incident demonstrated to some racists how offensive the sight of a noose can be: "What Jena did was reintroduce that symbol into the discussion."
Though the terror of the civil rights era is gone, the association between nooses and violence — even death — remains, Potok said.
"The noose is replacing the burning cross in the mind of much of the public as the leading symbol of the Klan," Potok said.
Potok dismissed the idea that the placing of a noose could be interpreted as a joke, even among people born after the end of segregation.
"I think that it's true that most of these kids don't know much about civil rights history," he said. "But every single one of them understands what a noose means at the end of the day."
As word of the Jena case began circulating, reports of similar incidents arose.
In July, a noose was left in the bag of a black Coast Guard cadet aboard a cutter. A noose was found in August on the office floor of a white officer who had been conducting race-relations training in response to the incident.
In early September, a noose was discovered at the University of Maryland in a tree near a building that houses several black campus groups.
On Sept. 29, a noose appeared in the locker room of the Hempstead, N.Y., police department, which recently touted its efforts to recruit minorities.
On Oct. 2, a noose was seen hanging on a utility pole at the Anniston Army Depot in Alabama.
Last week, the president of historically black Grambling State University in Louisiana announced he would seek sanctions against five teachers who participated in a lesson on race relations that included placing a noose around the neck of a child at a mostly black, on-campus elementary school.
The Columbia incident involved a black professor of psychology and education, Madonna Constantine, who teaches a class on racial justice.
The Columbia investigation also follows the arrest on Sunday of a white woman on hate-crime charges alleging she hung a noose over a tree limb and threatened a black family living next door in New York City. The two incidents were "the first noose cases in recent memory" in the city, said Deputy Inspector Michael Osgood, commander of the police Hate Crime Task Force.
Not that the use of nooses for racial intimidation is a new phenomenon.
In 2002, white employees at a Texas industrial company put a noose around a black co-worker's neck. Charles Hickman sued and was awarded more than $1 million last year.
Potok said the recent noose incidents could represent white backlash over the demonstrations in Jena.
"We're seeing a lot of generalized white resentment," he said. "The conversation among many white people, particularly in the South, amounts to the idea that Jena was a black-on-white hate crime that is being widely misconstrued as a case of racial oppression of blacks."
Source
ATLANTA (AP) — In the months since nooses dangling from a schoolyard tree raised racial tensions in Jena, La., the frightening symbol of segregation-era lynchings has been turning up around the country.
Nooses were left in a black Coast Guard cadet's bag, at a Long Island police station locker room, on a Maryland college campus, and, just this week, on the office door of a black professor at Columbia University in New York.
The noose — like the burning cross — is a generations-old means of instilling racial fear. But some experts suspect the Jena furor reintroduced some bigots to the rope. They say the recent incidents might also reflect white resentment over the protests in Louisiana.
"It certainly looks like it's been a rash of these incidents, and presumably, most of them are in response to the events in Jena," said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks white supremacists and other hate groups. "I would say that as a more general matter, it seems fairly clear that noose incidents have been on the rise for some years."
Thousands of demonstrators, including the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, converged on Jena on Sept. 20 to decry what they called a racist double standard in the justice system. They protested the way six blacks were arrested on attempted murder charges in the beating of a white student, while three whites were suspended but not prosecuted for hanging nooses in a tree in August 2006.
The noose evokes the lynchings of the Jim Crow South and "is a symbol that can be deployed with no ambiguity. People understand exactly what it means," said William Jelani Cobb, a professor of black American history at Spelman College in Atlanta.
He said the Jena incident demonstrated to some racists how offensive the sight of a noose can be: "What Jena did was reintroduce that symbol into the discussion."
Though the terror of the civil rights era is gone, the association between nooses and violence — even death — remains, Potok said.
"The noose is replacing the burning cross in the mind of much of the public as the leading symbol of the Klan," Potok said.
Potok dismissed the idea that the placing of a noose could be interpreted as a joke, even among people born after the end of segregation.
"I think that it's true that most of these kids don't know much about civil rights history," he said. "But every single one of them understands what a noose means at the end of the day."
As word of the Jena case began circulating, reports of similar incidents arose.
In July, a noose was left in the bag of a black Coast Guard cadet aboard a cutter. A noose was found in August on the office floor of a white officer who had been conducting race-relations training in response to the incident.
In early September, a noose was discovered at the University of Maryland in a tree near a building that houses several black campus groups.
On Sept. 29, a noose appeared in the locker room of the Hempstead, N.Y., police department, which recently touted its efforts to recruit minorities.
On Oct. 2, a noose was seen hanging on a utility pole at the Anniston Army Depot in Alabama.
Last week, the president of historically black Grambling State University in Louisiana announced he would seek sanctions against five teachers who participated in a lesson on race relations that included placing a noose around the neck of a child at a mostly black, on-campus elementary school.
The Columbia incident involved a black professor of psychology and education, Madonna Constantine, who teaches a class on racial justice.
The Columbia investigation also follows the arrest on Sunday of a white woman on hate-crime charges alleging she hung a noose over a tree limb and threatened a black family living next door in New York City. The two incidents were "the first noose cases in recent memory" in the city, said Deputy Inspector Michael Osgood, commander of the police Hate Crime Task Force.
Not that the use of nooses for racial intimidation is a new phenomenon.
In 2002, white employees at a Texas industrial company put a noose around a black co-worker's neck. Charles Hickman sued and was awarded more than $1 million last year.
Potok said the recent noose incidents could represent white backlash over the demonstrations in Jena.
"We're seeing a lot of generalized white resentment," he said. "The conversation among many white people, particularly in the South, amounts to the idea that Jena was a black-on-white hate crime that is being widely misconstrued as a case of racial oppression of blacks."
Hate crimes charges urged for six accused in torture case
CHARLESTON, West Virginia (AP) -- Hundreds of people gathered at West Virginia's Capitol on Saturday to urge prosecutors to add hate crime charges against six white people charged in the beating, torture and sexual assault of a 20-year-old black woman.
Authorities say the accused, three men and three women, held Megan Williams captive for days at a rural trailer -- sexually assaulting her, beating her and forcing her to eat human and animal feces.
"Hate crimes are out of control in America," Malik Shabazz, a legal adviser to Williams and her family and a founder of Black Lawyers for Justice, told the group.
"Nooses are being hung and our women are being raped by white moms. What happened to Megan Williams was a hate crime and we want this prosecuted as a hate crime."
Shabazz pointed to statements from suspect Frankie Brewster and her son, Bobby Brewster, that racial epithets were used every time Williams was stabbed.
Shabazz staged the rally despite a request by the city's black ministerial association and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People not to gather because it could harm the prosecution's case.
All six face kidnapping and sexual assault charges. Kidnapping carries a possible life sentence.
Abraham, who urged Williams and her family not to talk about the case or attend the rally, has said it might be difficult to prove a hate crime charge because Williams had a "social relationship" with one of the suspects for at least several months before the alleged assaults.
Williams attended the rally wearing a T-shirt with the message "Protect the Black Woman." In a brief speech, she showed her appreciation to her supporters.
The Associated Press generally does not identify suspected victims of sexual assault, but Williams and her mother agreed to release her name.
Joe Marchal said he drove three hours from Berea, Kentucky, with his wife and infant son to show his support for Williams.
"If no one came out today, imagine how that would make Megan Williams feel," said Marchal. "We're here for her."
In addition to calling attention to hate crimes, organizers hoped the rally would help raise money for Williams' medical care and future educational expenses.
Zayid Muhammad, the national minister of culture for the New Black Panther Party, came to the rally from Newark, New Jersey.
"As a father of a daughter and a child of African ancestry, the idea that I can sit by idly, (in) the face of one of the most violent and obscene acts committed against a black woman in my life, was too appalling," Muhammad said. "I had to come."
The Rev. Al Sharpton had been expected to participate but did not appear.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Genarlow Wilson considers his future
Source
Genarlow Wilson, the Georgia man who served more than two years in prison for a consensual sex act, has received several offers to pay for his college costs, including one from businessmen who helped raise $1 million in an unsuccessful attempt to get him released on bond in June.
Wilson, who was given a 10-year sentence for receiving oral sex from a 15-year-old girl when he was 17, was released Friday after the Georgia Supreme Court ruled that the sentence violated the constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment.
"I want to help people. I know how it feels to be without," says Wilson, who was a homecoming king and athlete with a 3.2 grade-point average at Douglas County High School in Douglasville, Ga. His conviction stemmed from a New Year's Eve party in 2003.
Wilson, 21, says prison forced him to mature. "I want to be a mentor," he says, to help young people "learn from their mistakes and help them make wiser decisions."
He hopes to enroll in college in January and study sociology. "This situation, what I had to endure, has a lot to do with sociology," he says.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Georgia | June | Genarlow Wilson | Georgia Supreme Court
His attorney, B.J. Bernstein, says Wilson has had several offers of aid. One came from Whitney Tilson, a New York investment manager who, with 10 friends, pledged $1 million to a bond fund in June in an attempt to get Wilson out of prison. A judge ruled him ineligible for bond while his appeal was pending.
Tilson, who has never met or spoken with Wilson, says he and two of those friends have agreed to help pay for Wilson's college costs, and he expects others to join them.
"We're committed to doing whatever's necessary to help Genarlow get back on his feet and establish himself so he can lead a happy and productive life," says Tilson, managing partner of T2 Partners Management and Tilson Mutual Funds.
Tilson says he hopes to connect with Wilson "when he's caught up on his sleep."
For the time being, Wilson says, "I'm taking one day at a time."
Of his first weekend out of prison, he says he enjoyed "being able to sleep in my own bed and eat all the food I want to eat."
Genarlow Wilson Story as told by ESPN Part One
Genarlow Wilson Story as told by ESPN Part Two
Genarlow Wilson Jail Release Coverage
Genarlow Wilson, Today, 10/29/07
Legislator calls West Palm Beach Housing Authority a 'ticking time bomb'
By Leon Fooksman | South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Source
Calling the management of the West Palm Beach Housing Authority a "ticking human time bomb," a state representative has called for its board to be dissolved.
In addition, state Rep. Priscilla Taylor, D-West Palm Beach, asked federal housing officials last month to take charge in resolving financial, security and other problems in the public housing projects overseen by the authority. She outlined her concerns in a letter to the U.S. Housing and Urban Development in the wake of a public outcry over June's brutal gang rape at Dunbar Village.
Taylor, who represents residents at Dunbar Village and most of the city's other housing projects, said her demands followed talks in recent months with public-housing residents and community leaders who complained about leaky apartments, lack of social services and the presence of "gang lords" in Dunbar Village.
"The present board does not seem well informed, nor involved or knowledgeable to the extent that would be expected of a board with such an important mission," Taylor wrote in the Sept. 24 letter to HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson. "Recent site inspections of the development indicate that security is virtually nonexistent, that the properties [externally and internally] have been poorly managed, many boarded up, become homes for gang lords and drug dealers."
HUD has received the letter, and Taylor's issues are under review, department spokesman Donna White said.
Housing authority board chairwoman Thyra Starr said she has not seen Taylor's letter and declined to comment on the complaints.
"As a legislator, she has the responsibility to put out [her concerns] and it's her right to do so," Starr said.
Authority Executive Director Laurel Robinson could not be reached for comment Tuesday despite attempts by phone.
Taylor said she decided to reach out to HUD when the authority did not provide her with a line-item budget and learned that the authority was not promptly responding to residents' complaints. She said she also was alarmed that board members and authority staff were not "in tune" with ongoing problems at recent meetings with her and city commissioners.
"The people deserve better," Taylor said.
Authority officials have said that they are attentive to residents' complaints and that Dunbar Village's crime problems come from people who visit the complex. At least three of the four youths accused of raping the 35-year-old woman and assaulting her son have lived at Dunbar Village.
The authority has gotten mostly high scores for financial management and other categories from HUD managers in recent years, records show.
Leon Fooksman can be reached at lfooksman@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6647.
For recently published stories on Dunbar Village and video reports, go to Sun-Sentinel.com/
dunbarvillage
Source
Calling the management of the West Palm Beach Housing Authority a "ticking human time bomb," a state representative has called for its board to be dissolved.
In addition, state Rep. Priscilla Taylor, D-West Palm Beach, asked federal housing officials last month to take charge in resolving financial, security and other problems in the public housing projects overseen by the authority. She outlined her concerns in a letter to the U.S. Housing and Urban Development in the wake of a public outcry over June's brutal gang rape at Dunbar Village.
Taylor, who represents residents at Dunbar Village and most of the city's other housing projects, said her demands followed talks in recent months with public-housing residents and community leaders who complained about leaky apartments, lack of social services and the presence of "gang lords" in Dunbar Village.
"The present board does not seem well informed, nor involved or knowledgeable to the extent that would be expected of a board with such an important mission," Taylor wrote in the Sept. 24 letter to HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson. "Recent site inspections of the development indicate that security is virtually nonexistent, that the properties [externally and internally] have been poorly managed, many boarded up, become homes for gang lords and drug dealers."
HUD has received the letter, and Taylor's issues are under review, department spokesman Donna White said.
Housing authority board chairwoman Thyra Starr said she has not seen Taylor's letter and declined to comment on the complaints.
"As a legislator, she has the responsibility to put out [her concerns] and it's her right to do so," Starr said.
Authority Executive Director Laurel Robinson could not be reached for comment Tuesday despite attempts by phone.
Taylor said she decided to reach out to HUD when the authority did not provide her with a line-item budget and learned that the authority was not promptly responding to residents' complaints. She said she also was alarmed that board members and authority staff were not "in tune" with ongoing problems at recent meetings with her and city commissioners.
"The people deserve better," Taylor said.
Authority officials have said that they are attentive to residents' complaints and that Dunbar Village's crime problems come from people who visit the complex. At least three of the four youths accused of raping the 35-year-old woman and assaulting her son have lived at Dunbar Village.
The authority has gotten mostly high scores for financial management and other categories from HUD managers in recent years, records show.
Leon Fooksman can be reached at lfooksman@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6647.
For recently published stories on Dunbar Village and video reports, go to Sun-Sentinel.com/
dunbarvillage
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
4 contractors fired after hanging nooses at Houston facility
Source
Four contract workers were banned from FMC Technologies after they hung nooses at one of the firm's Houston facilities, the company announced Tuesday.
The three men and one woman also were fired from their jobs with the contractors for FMC, an oil-field services equipment manufacturer, said Maryann Seaman, FMC spokeswoman.
"FMC has zero tolerance for workplace harassment," Seaman said.
Seaman said about a month ago an employee notified company officials that he had seen a noose hanging in the FMC's Gears Road facility.
Three workers were banned from FMC after they were discovered to have been involved in placing the noose, she said.
Last week, another noose was seen hanging in the same facility, Seaman said, and another person was banned from the firm because she was involved in placing that noose.
Seaman said the company is investigating the cases. So far, she added, the firm has has not contacted law enforcement authorities, but it will do what is ever necessary once its investigation is complete.
Seaman said the incidents are especially troubling on the heels of an incident about a year ago in Jena, La., in which nooses were hung from a tree at a high school campus and racial tension erupted.
"It's certainly sad," said Yolanda Smith, executive director of the Houston branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "It's taken us back to the days of the 1950s and 1960s. We have to be more cognizant of diversity. Education is the key."
Seaman said no one appears to have filed complaints related to the FMC incidents with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The number of lawsuits the EEOC filed related to nooses has dropped steadily from 10 in 2001 to two so far this year, said James Ryan, EEOC spokesman.
The EEOC recently won settlements in three harassment cases related to nooses, including one in the Houston area, Ryan said.
In May, the EEOC reached a $390,000 racial harassment litigation settlement with Pemco Aeroplex of Birmingham on behalf of a class of black employees who were subjected to racist graffiti, slurs and the display of nooses, Ryan said.
The EEOC settled a racial harassment suit in January for $600,000 against AK Steel Corp. of Butler, Pa., Ryan added, after nooses were displayed and Klu Klux Klan videos were shown in employee lounges.
In March 2006, Ryan said, the EEOC obtained more than $1 million in a case against Commercial Coating Service, Inc. of Conroe, Texas, in which a black worker was racially harassed and choked with a noose by his coworkers in a company bathroom.
Four contract workers were banned from FMC Technologies after they hung nooses at one of the firm's Houston facilities, the company announced Tuesday.
The three men and one woman also were fired from their jobs with the contractors for FMC, an oil-field services equipment manufacturer, said Maryann Seaman, FMC spokeswoman.
"FMC has zero tolerance for workplace harassment," Seaman said.
Seaman said about a month ago an employee notified company officials that he had seen a noose hanging in the FMC's Gears Road facility.
Three workers were banned from FMC after they were discovered to have been involved in placing the noose, she said.
Last week, another noose was seen hanging in the same facility, Seaman said, and another person was banned from the firm because she was involved in placing that noose.
Seaman said the company is investigating the cases. So far, she added, the firm has has not contacted law enforcement authorities, but it will do what is ever necessary once its investigation is complete.
Seaman said the incidents are especially troubling on the heels of an incident about a year ago in Jena, La., in which nooses were hung from a tree at a high school campus and racial tension erupted.
"It's certainly sad," said Yolanda Smith, executive director of the Houston branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "It's taken us back to the days of the 1950s and 1960s. We have to be more cognizant of diversity. Education is the key."
Seaman said no one appears to have filed complaints related to the FMC incidents with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The number of lawsuits the EEOC filed related to nooses has dropped steadily from 10 in 2001 to two so far this year, said James Ryan, EEOC spokesman.
The EEOC recently won settlements in three harassment cases related to nooses, including one in the Houston area, Ryan said.
In May, the EEOC reached a $390,000 racial harassment litigation settlement with Pemco Aeroplex of Birmingham on behalf of a class of black employees who were subjected to racist graffiti, slurs and the display of nooses, Ryan said.
The EEOC settled a racial harassment suit in January for $600,000 against AK Steel Corp. of Butler, Pa., Ryan added, after nooses were displayed and Klu Klux Klan videos were shown in employee lounges.
In March 2006, Ryan said, the EEOC obtained more than $1 million in a case against Commercial Coating Service, Inc. of Conroe, Texas, in which a black worker was racially harassed and choked with a noose by his coworkers in a company bathroom.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
DNA evidence led to teens in Dunbar Village rape
By Missy Diaz | South Florida Sun-Sentinel
August 22, 2007
Source
A 14-year-old charged in the brutal gang rape of a mother and her 12-year-old son confessed his involvement to police after they told him his DNA was detected on a condom recovered at the scene, according to evidence made public on Tuesday.
The DNA of a 16-year-old co-defendant was found on the outside of the same condom, according to more than 100 pages of evidence in the case, known as discovery.
The court records provide a detailed depiction of the horrors alleged to have occurred over the course of three hours June 18 in West Palm Beach's Dunbar Village public housing complex. The case has made international headlines and shined a light on the city's crime-ridden public housing community.
The evidence was made public a day after a judge denied a request to delay the release of certain parts of the investigation. Assistant State Attorney Lanna Belohlavek argued that the ongoing investigation could be jeopardized and additional suspects could avoid arrest if photo lineups and portions of police reports were made public. Circuit Judge Sandra McSorley declined to privately review that evidence, ordering discovery to proceed as usual.
Four males — ages 14, 15, 16 and 18 — have been charged as adults in a 14-count indictment that could send all of them to prison for life. Defense attorneys have argued that the victims failed to identify the same suspects from photo lineups and that they identified fillers — people not involved in the case — as perpetrators. In some instances they identified different people as the same person.
Four masked males
Hoping to steal money and jewelry, Avion Lawson, 14, said he and someone else wore masks when they entered the 35-year-old woman's apartment that night, according to the documents. Once inside, Lawson said, he and his accomplice, whose name is blacked out on the report, encountered the woman in bed with three other masked males around her. Lawson told police he sexually assaulted her and stole two video games and a truck.
Police later found the video games inside the Dunbar Village apartment of Lawson's grandmother, Jonnie Mae Wilkerson, with whom Lawson often stayed.
The victim returned home from her job delivering phone books about 9 p.m. the night of the attack, according to her statement to police. While fixing her son something to eat, a young male with braids knocked on her door to tell her the tires on her truck were flat. Once outside, she said, she saw a male with a large gun and two others armed with guns. They wore black clothing over their faces, she said, and ordered her back into the apartment, where they demanded money.
After being told there was no money, the attackers tore off the woman's clothes and raped her until five others arrived, according to the documents. The new arrivals took turns having sex with her and then sodomized her. The mother was then ordered into a tub filled with vinegar and water where they used hydrogen peroxide, alcohol, nail polish remover and ammonia on her. At gunpoint, the assailants forced the mother and son to have sex.
Throughout the attack, the victims suffered beatings, including having a bowl and lightbulbs smashed over their heads. The encounter was recorded on a cell phone camera, according to the mother.
Before leaving, the males looked for a lighter to set the two on fire but couldn't find one, she told police. They ordered the pair to stay in the tub and took off. About 30 minutes later one of the males returned to sexually assault the mother one last time. Before leaving, he scribbled a man's name and 6-CO, a gang, on a piece of paper and told the woman he hangs out on Sixth Street and that's where he could be found. He grabbed a Sony PlayStation 2 before fleeing.
Mother livid
During a six-hour interview with police, Lawson, the first to be charged in the case, confessed his involvement after being told his DNA was inside a condom found in the victim's home. En route to the Juvenile Assessment Center, Lawson called some friends and did not sound remorseful, according to police. His lawyer, Bert Winkler, declined to comment on the evidence.
The next to be charged was Nathan Walker, a 16-year-old who dropped out of the seventh grade after three attempts to pass. Walker's latent fingerprint was found at the scene along with his DNA on the outside of the same condom linked to Lawson, according to the documents.
Walker became so agitated at the police station that he had to be placed in handcuffs and leg restraints after he began throwing chairs at the walls and door, according to documents. His lawyer, Robert Gershman, has asked for a mental health evaluation of his client.
Jakaris Taylor, 15, was arrested July 12. A resident of Dunbar Village, he said his brother played with the 12-year-old victim, though Taylor denied ever being in the apartment. His mother, Jacqueline Minor, encouraged Taylor to give police a DNA sample. Lab results showed Taylor's latent print inside the home, near Lawson's and Walker's.
Minor was livid at her son, according to police.
"Jacqueline yelled at Jakaris and told him she hoped he would never get one night of sleep and that he sees [the victims] every night when he tries to sleep," a report stated.
On Thursday police charged Tommy Lee Poindexter, 18, with the crimes after physical evidence linked him to the scene.
The suspects are due back in court Oct. 31.
Missy Diaz can be reached at mdiaz@sun-sentinel.com or 561-228-5505.
August 22, 2007
Source
A 14-year-old charged in the brutal gang rape of a mother and her 12-year-old son confessed his involvement to police after they told him his DNA was detected on a condom recovered at the scene, according to evidence made public on Tuesday.
The DNA of a 16-year-old co-defendant was found on the outside of the same condom, according to more than 100 pages of evidence in the case, known as discovery.
The court records provide a detailed depiction of the horrors alleged to have occurred over the course of three hours June 18 in West Palm Beach's Dunbar Village public housing complex. The case has made international headlines and shined a light on the city's crime-ridden public housing community.
The evidence was made public a day after a judge denied a request to delay the release of certain parts of the investigation. Assistant State Attorney Lanna Belohlavek argued that the ongoing investigation could be jeopardized and additional suspects could avoid arrest if photo lineups and portions of police reports were made public. Circuit Judge Sandra McSorley declined to privately review that evidence, ordering discovery to proceed as usual.
Four males — ages 14, 15, 16 and 18 — have been charged as adults in a 14-count indictment that could send all of them to prison for life. Defense attorneys have argued that the victims failed to identify the same suspects from photo lineups and that they identified fillers — people not involved in the case — as perpetrators. In some instances they identified different people as the same person.
Four masked males
Hoping to steal money and jewelry, Avion Lawson, 14, said he and someone else wore masks when they entered the 35-year-old woman's apartment that night, according to the documents. Once inside, Lawson said, he and his accomplice, whose name is blacked out on the report, encountered the woman in bed with three other masked males around her. Lawson told police he sexually assaulted her and stole two video games and a truck.
Police later found the video games inside the Dunbar Village apartment of Lawson's grandmother, Jonnie Mae Wilkerson, with whom Lawson often stayed.
The victim returned home from her job delivering phone books about 9 p.m. the night of the attack, according to her statement to police. While fixing her son something to eat, a young male with braids knocked on her door to tell her the tires on her truck were flat. Once outside, she said, she saw a male with a large gun and two others armed with guns. They wore black clothing over their faces, she said, and ordered her back into the apartment, where they demanded money.
After being told there was no money, the attackers tore off the woman's clothes and raped her until five others arrived, according to the documents. The new arrivals took turns having sex with her and then sodomized her. The mother was then ordered into a tub filled with vinegar and water where they used hydrogen peroxide, alcohol, nail polish remover and ammonia on her. At gunpoint, the assailants forced the mother and son to have sex.
Throughout the attack, the victims suffered beatings, including having a bowl and lightbulbs smashed over their heads. The encounter was recorded on a cell phone camera, according to the mother.
Before leaving, the males looked for a lighter to set the two on fire but couldn't find one, she told police. They ordered the pair to stay in the tub and took off. About 30 minutes later one of the males returned to sexually assault the mother one last time. Before leaving, he scribbled a man's name and 6-CO, a gang, on a piece of paper and told the woman he hangs out on Sixth Street and that's where he could be found. He grabbed a Sony PlayStation 2 before fleeing.
Mother livid
During a six-hour interview with police, Lawson, the first to be charged in the case, confessed his involvement after being told his DNA was inside a condom found in the victim's home. En route to the Juvenile Assessment Center, Lawson called some friends and did not sound remorseful, according to police. His lawyer, Bert Winkler, declined to comment on the evidence.
The next to be charged was Nathan Walker, a 16-year-old who dropped out of the seventh grade after three attempts to pass. Walker's latent fingerprint was found at the scene along with his DNA on the outside of the same condom linked to Lawson, according to the documents.
Walker became so agitated at the police station that he had to be placed in handcuffs and leg restraints after he began throwing chairs at the walls and door, according to documents. His lawyer, Robert Gershman, has asked for a mental health evaluation of his client.
Jakaris Taylor, 15, was arrested July 12. A resident of Dunbar Village, he said his brother played with the 12-year-old victim, though Taylor denied ever being in the apartment. His mother, Jacqueline Minor, encouraged Taylor to give police a DNA sample. Lab results showed Taylor's latent print inside the home, near Lawson's and Walker's.
Minor was livid at her son, according to police.
"Jacqueline yelled at Jakaris and told him she hoped he would never get one night of sleep and that he sees [the victims] every night when he tries to sleep," a report stated.
On Thursday police charged Tommy Lee Poindexter, 18, with the crimes after physical evidence linked him to the scene.
The suspects are due back in court Oct. 31.
Missy Diaz can be reached at mdiaz@sun-sentinel.com or 561-228-5505.
Controversial DNA scientist retires
By MALCOLM RITTER, AP Science Writer Thu Oct 25, 11:45 AM ET
Source
NEW YORK - James Watson, famous for DNA research but widely condemned for recent comments about intelligence levels among blacks, retired Thursday from his post at a prestigious research institution.
ADVERTISEMENT
Watson, 79, and the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York announced his departure a week after the lab suspended him. He was chancellor of the institution, and his retirement took effect immediately.
Watson shared a Nobel Prize with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins in 1962 for co-discovering the structure of the DNA molecule. He is one of America's most prominent scientists.
In his statement Thursday, Watson said that because of his age, his retirement was "more than overdue. The circumstances in which this transfer is occurring, however, are not those which I could ever have anticipated or desired."
Watson, who has a long history of making provocative statements, ran into trouble last week for remarks he made in the Sunday Times Magazine of London. A profile quoted him as saying that he's "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours — whereas all the testing says not really."
He said that while he hopes everyone is equal, "people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true." He also said people should not be discriminated against because of their color, adding that "there are many people of color who are very talented."
Watson later apologized. But by then, London's Science Museum had canceled a sold-out lecture Watson was to give there, and London's mayor had branded the comments "racist propaganda."
In the United States, the Federation of American Scientists said Watson was promoting "personal prejudices that are racist, vicious and unsupported by science." And the Cold Spring Harbor lab said its board and administration "vehemently disagree with these statements and are bewildered and saddened if he indeed made such comments."
The lab suspended Watson's administrative duties last Thursday.
Watson had served at the lab for nearly 40 years, having been named director in 1968. He was its president from 1994 to 2003.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
DNA pioneer Dr James Watson dumped after Africa insult
Source
ONE of the world's top scientists, DNA pioneer Dr James Watson, has been dumped from his job after he said Africans were less intelligent than other people.
Dr Watson, who jointly won the 1962 Nobel Prize for discovering the double helix structure of DNA, was suspended from the top US laboratory where he was chancellor.
However Dr Watson, 79, in London to promote his new book, apologised for his remarks, saying that he did not mean to characterise Africans as genetically inferior.
Dr Watson was chancellor of New York's Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory. The lab joined a throng of other institutions and researchers in saying Dr Watson's comments were offensive and scientifically incorrect.
In a Sunday Times interview Dr Watson was quoted as saying he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours -- whereas all the testing says not really".
However, in apologising in London, Dr Watson said: "I am mortified about what has happened.
"I can certainly understand why people, reading those words, have reacted in the ways they have.
"To all those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I apologise unreservedly.
"That is not what I meant. More importantly, from my point of view there is no scientific basis for such a belief."
Dr Watson has previously said black people have greater sex drives and a woman should have the right to abort her unborn child if tests found it was destined to be gay.
Dr Watson's interview prompted an outpouring from other scientists.
"The comments, which were attributed to Dr James Watson earlier this week . . . are wrong, from every point of view -- not the least being that they are completely inconsistent with the body of research literature in this area," said Dr Elias Zerhouni, director of the National Institutes of Health.
"Scientific prestige is never a substitute for knowledge."
Federation of American Scientists president Henry Kelly said: "At a time when the scientific community is feeling threatened by political forces seeking to undermine its credibility, it is tragic that one of the icons of modern science has cast such dishonour on the profession."
- Reuters
An Update on the Young West Virginia Hate Crime victim
A TRUST FUND has been set up by Chase Bank for Megan Williams
A spokeswoman for Chase Bank said that donations to the trust fund
for Megan can be made at any Chase Bank.
The donations can also be mailed to:
Welana Megan Williams Trust Fund Donation Account
707 Virginia St. E.
Charleston, WV 25301.
View source - Link to Charleston GazetteMail
A spokeswoman for Chase Bank said that donations to the trust fund
for Megan can be made at any Chase Bank.
The donations can also be mailed to:
Welana Megan Williams Trust Fund Donation Account
707 Virginia St. E.
Charleston, WV 25301.
View source - Link to Charleston GazetteMail
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Lawmakers Seek US Action in Jena 6 Case
By DEVLIN BARRETT –
Source
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic lawmakers denounced federal authorities Tuesday for not intervening in the Jena Six case, citing racist noose-hanging incidents far beyond the small Louisiana town where a school attack garnered national attention.
The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing with federal officials and community activists examining the case of the six black teenagers charged with the beating of a white student. The incident happened after nooses were hung from a tree on a high school campus there — a symbol of the lynching violence of the segregation era.
Democratic lawmakers, many of them black, blasted federal authorities for staying out of the local prosecutor's case against the six, particularly that of Mychal Bell, who is currently in jail after a judge decided he violated the terms of his probation for a previous conviction.
"Shame on you," Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, said to Justice Department officials, directing most of her fury at Donald Washington, the U.S. attorney for Louisiana's western district — and the first black person to hold that position.
"As a parent, I'm on the verge of tears," Jackson Lee said.
"Why didn't you intervene?" she asked repeatedly, raising her voice and jabbing her finger in the air as some in the audience began to applaud.
Committee chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., called for quiet before Washington spoke.
"I was also offended, I too am an African-American," Washington told the panel. "I did intervene, I did engage the district attorney. At the end of the day, there are only certain things that the United States attorney can do."
Following that exchange, Conyers pointed out he had invited the local district attorney, Reed Walters, to testify, but he declined. At that, some in the audience yelled out, "subpoena him!"
Since the Jena case made headlines, there have been a number of other nooses found in high-profile incidents around the country — in a black Coast Guard cadet's bag, on a Maryland college campus, and, last week, on the office door of a black professor at Columbia University in New York.
The Department of Justice has created a task force to handle noose-hanging investigations in five states. It investigated the Jena matter but decided not to prosecute because the federal government typically does not bring hate crimes charges against juveniles, Washington said.
Black lawmakers and activists said more forceful action by the Bush administration was needed to squelch what they called a sharp rise in racism in the United States.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, a New York-based civil rights activist, said that decision shows unfairness in a criminal justice system that declined to charge white students for a hate crime because they are minors, but initially chose to charge the six teens in the beating case as adults.
"These nooses were hung over a year ago sir. So I know that the wheels of justice turn slow, but they seem to be at a standstill," said Sharpton. "That's why we're seeing nooses all over America."
The senior Republican on the panel, Lamar Smith of Texas, said, "more than anything what we need is an effort to reduce racial tension... What we do not need is stoking racial resentment."
Several other Republicans on the panel questioned whether the white beating victim, Justin Barker, had been forgotten in all the uproar, but Rev. Brian Moran, president of the Jena NAACP chapter, said that the most pressing issue is justice for the six teens facing criminal charges.
More than 20,000 demonstrators gathered recently in Jena to protest what they perceive as differences in how black and white suspects were treated, but the cases against the Jena Six remain unresolved.
Last week, a judge sentenced Bell to 18 months in jail after a judge determined he violated the terms of his probation for a previous conviction.
Racial tensions began rising in Jena in August 2006 after a black student sat under a tree known as a gathering spot for white students. Three white students later hung nooses from the tree. They were suspended by the school but not prosecuted.
Source
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic lawmakers denounced federal authorities Tuesday for not intervening in the Jena Six case, citing racist noose-hanging incidents far beyond the small Louisiana town where a school attack garnered national attention.
The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing with federal officials and community activists examining the case of the six black teenagers charged with the beating of a white student. The incident happened after nooses were hung from a tree on a high school campus there — a symbol of the lynching violence of the segregation era.
Democratic lawmakers, many of them black, blasted federal authorities for staying out of the local prosecutor's case against the six, particularly that of Mychal Bell, who is currently in jail after a judge decided he violated the terms of his probation for a previous conviction.
"Shame on you," Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, said to Justice Department officials, directing most of her fury at Donald Washington, the U.S. attorney for Louisiana's western district — and the first black person to hold that position.
"As a parent, I'm on the verge of tears," Jackson Lee said.
"Why didn't you intervene?" she asked repeatedly, raising her voice and jabbing her finger in the air as some in the audience began to applaud.
Committee chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., called for quiet before Washington spoke.
"I was also offended, I too am an African-American," Washington told the panel. "I did intervene, I did engage the district attorney. At the end of the day, there are only certain things that the United States attorney can do."
Following that exchange, Conyers pointed out he had invited the local district attorney, Reed Walters, to testify, but he declined. At that, some in the audience yelled out, "subpoena him!"
Since the Jena case made headlines, there have been a number of other nooses found in high-profile incidents around the country — in a black Coast Guard cadet's bag, on a Maryland college campus, and, last week, on the office door of a black professor at Columbia University in New York.
The Department of Justice has created a task force to handle noose-hanging investigations in five states. It investigated the Jena matter but decided not to prosecute because the federal government typically does not bring hate crimes charges against juveniles, Washington said.
Black lawmakers and activists said more forceful action by the Bush administration was needed to squelch what they called a sharp rise in racism in the United States.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, a New York-based civil rights activist, said that decision shows unfairness in a criminal justice system that declined to charge white students for a hate crime because they are minors, but initially chose to charge the six teens in the beating case as adults.
"These nooses were hung over a year ago sir. So I know that the wheels of justice turn slow, but they seem to be at a standstill," said Sharpton. "That's why we're seeing nooses all over America."
The senior Republican on the panel, Lamar Smith of Texas, said, "more than anything what we need is an effort to reduce racial tension... What we do not need is stoking racial resentment."
Several other Republicans on the panel questioned whether the white beating victim, Justin Barker, had been forgotten in all the uproar, but Rev. Brian Moran, president of the Jena NAACP chapter, said that the most pressing issue is justice for the six teens facing criminal charges.
More than 20,000 demonstrators gathered recently in Jena to protest what they perceive as differences in how black and white suspects were treated, but the cases against the Jena Six remain unresolved.
Last week, a judge sentenced Bell to 18 months in jail after a judge determined he violated the terms of his probation for a previous conviction.
Racial tensions began rising in Jena in August 2006 after a black student sat under a tree known as a gathering spot for white students. Three white students later hung nooses from the tree. They were suspended by the school but not prosecuted.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Black Teen Marked "KKK" At Deaf School
Source
(AP) A group of students at a Washington high school for the deaf scrawled "KKK" and swastikas on a black student's body with a marker while holding him against his will, police said Wednesday.
District of Columbia police are investigating the Saturday night attack as a possible hate crime, Chief Cathy Lanier said. The incident began in the dorms of the Model Secondary School for the Deaf, on the campus of Gallaudet University.
Seven students - six white and one black - took part in holding the black student, Lanier said.
University officials would not say whether they had been disciplined, but in a campuswide e-mail Wednesday, Katherine Jankowski, dean of the center that includes the high school, said the seven were sent home.
The school discussed the incident at an assembly Monday and has worked with students on issues of diversity and race, said Stephen Weiner, provost of Gallaudet.
"We do not tolerate any kind of action, any kind of behavior of this type," Weiner said.
Lanier said the attack began when two groups of students, one white, one black, were "horsing around" in the dorms. The groups eventually separated, but the seven students took the black student and held him for about an hour.
The student who was held contacted Gallaudet authorities, who called police early Sunday. He is at home with his family, the provost said.
No charges have been filed, but police said they have identified all seven students involved; they range in age from 15 to 19. "We take it very seriously," Lanier said.
Gallaudet, the nation's only liberal arts university for deaf students, was founded in 1864 by an act of Congress. The university had about 1,800 students last year.
About 170 students attend the Model Secondary School, with roughly 100 living in dorms on campus, Weiner said.
It is part of Gallaudet's Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center, which also includes an elementary school. The center works on developing courses and teaching methods for deaf and hard of hearing students.
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Deputy chief says he's not intimidated by noose
Source
Two days after a hangman's noose was found in the Hempstead Police locker room, Deputy Chief Willie Dixon vowed yesterday not to be intimidated.
"If anybody thinks this kind of cowardly act will keep me from doing my job as effectively as possible, they're badly mistaken," Dixon said in an interview.
Nonetheless, he called the incident deeply hurtful.
"It's the ultimate symbol of disgust if you know American history, especially if you're black. It's a great insult," said Dixon, 57, who is black and has been with the department since 1981.
"There's no difference between a noose and a swastika, except who they're aimed at," he said.
The noose was found hanging from a pipe and old newspaper stories about criminal charges Dixon faced in the early 1990s were found posted nearby, according to village sources who did not want to be named.
Dixon is the third-highest ranking officer on the 107-member force. His promotion in May made him chief of patrol and supervisor of department civilians, and may be behind the incident, according to the sources.
Dixon, who declined to discuss specifics of the incident, did say that he has previously heard that some officers were angry with him because of changes he made in some squads.
"In trying to increase efficiency and save on overtime, I made some changes," said Dixon. "Nobody was placed on a different shift, but some people ended up working with different officers. One comment was that I was wrecking families, and I don't understand that."
Corey Pegues, a New York Police Department captain who lives in Hempstead and is the president of the Long Island chapter of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, said issues related to race need to be explored.
"Some officers think they should not have to take orders from a black person," Pegues said. "And if that's the case here, we need to get to the bottom of it quickly before this becomes the norm."
Dixon said he is confident the district attorney and Chief Joe Wing, his longtime colleague, will thoroughly investigate the incident.
Hempstead Trustee Perry Pettus said he works closely with the police and doesn't know anybody who would commit such an act. "But somebody with access did this and has left a smudge on the village and its police department," he said.
Only police and janitors have authorized access to the locker room.
A janitor discovered the artifacts and reported it to Dixon.
The stories posted were about charges against Dixon for dragging a local woman with his car. A jury acquitted him of all charges in 1993.
Two days after a hangman's noose was found in the Hempstead Police locker room, Deputy Chief Willie Dixon vowed yesterday not to be intimidated.
"If anybody thinks this kind of cowardly act will keep me from doing my job as effectively as possible, they're badly mistaken," Dixon said in an interview.
Nonetheless, he called the incident deeply hurtful.
"It's the ultimate symbol of disgust if you know American history, especially if you're black. It's a great insult," said Dixon, 57, who is black and has been with the department since 1981.
"There's no difference between a noose and a swastika, except who they're aimed at," he said.
The noose was found hanging from a pipe and old newspaper stories about criminal charges Dixon faced in the early 1990s were found posted nearby, according to village sources who did not want to be named.
Dixon is the third-highest ranking officer on the 107-member force. His promotion in May made him chief of patrol and supervisor of department civilians, and may be behind the incident, according to the sources.
Dixon, who declined to discuss specifics of the incident, did say that he has previously heard that some officers were angry with him because of changes he made in some squads.
"In trying to increase efficiency and save on overtime, I made some changes," said Dixon. "Nobody was placed on a different shift, but some people ended up working with different officers. One comment was that I was wrecking families, and I don't understand that."
Corey Pegues, a New York Police Department captain who lives in Hempstead and is the president of the Long Island chapter of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, said issues related to race need to be explored.
"Some officers think they should not have to take orders from a black person," Pegues said. "And if that's the case here, we need to get to the bottom of it quickly before this becomes the norm."
Dixon said he is confident the district attorney and Chief Joe Wing, his longtime colleague, will thoroughly investigate the incident.
Hempstead Trustee Perry Pettus said he works closely with the police and doesn't know anybody who would commit such an act. "But somebody with access did this and has left a smudge on the village and its police department," he said.
Only police and janitors have authorized access to the locker room.
A janitor discovered the artifacts and reported it to Dixon.
The stories posted were about charges against Dixon for dragging a local woman with his car. A jury acquitted him of all charges in 1993.
Pair Held in Calif. Dragging Death
Source
YUBA CITY, Calif. (AP) — After he was beaten, kicked and robbed, a black man was killed when he was run over by a pickup truck and dragged face down underneath it. Police had two men in custody and were investigating whether race was a factor in the death.
Investigators said the man was attacked in an alley, then run over at least twice in a pickup early Saturday. He became caught under the truck and was "dragged for a considerable distance" before the men in the vehicle stopped and abandoned the truck, according to police reports.
Aaron Richard Ouelette, 21, and Michael Angelo Sanudo, 20, both of Yuba City, were each held Monday on $1 million bond on suspicion of murder, robbery, gang affiliation and parole violation.
Yuba City police described the victim as a black man in his 30s. They were still not identifying him Monday, until they could notify his family.
Sutter County District Attorney Carl Adams said Monday he was waiting for investigators' reports before deciding what charges to file.
A witness who identified herself as T. Perico, 37, said she saw the truck stopped in the alley with the passenger looking to see if the victim was still underneath the truck. The truck then drove off again with the victim still trapped, as neighbors screamed to one another.
After the suspects fled, "we ran to see if there was anything we could do," Perico said. "One woman was trying to push the truck" to get it off the man's body.
Police said the man was dead when they arrived.
Yuba City is about 40 miles northwest of Sacramento.
YUBA CITY, Calif. (AP) — After he was beaten, kicked and robbed, a black man was killed when he was run over by a pickup truck and dragged face down underneath it. Police had two men in custody and were investigating whether race was a factor in the death.
Investigators said the man was attacked in an alley, then run over at least twice in a pickup early Saturday. He became caught under the truck and was "dragged for a considerable distance" before the men in the vehicle stopped and abandoned the truck, according to police reports.
Aaron Richard Ouelette, 21, and Michael Angelo Sanudo, 20, both of Yuba City, were each held Monday on $1 million bond on suspicion of murder, robbery, gang affiliation and parole violation.
Yuba City police described the victim as a black man in his 30s. They were still not identifying him Monday, until they could notify his family.
Sutter County District Attorney Carl Adams said Monday he was waiting for investigators' reports before deciding what charges to file.
A witness who identified herself as T. Perico, 37, said she saw the truck stopped in the alley with the passenger looking to see if the victim was still underneath the truck. The truck then drove off again with the victim still trapped, as neighbors screamed to one another.
After the suspects fled, "we ran to see if there was anything we could do," Perico said. "One woman was trying to push the truck" to get it off the man's body.
Police said the man was dead when they arrived.
Yuba City is about 40 miles northwest of Sacramento.
At Fla. housing project, rape just another crime
Source
Updated: 8:36 p.m. ET July 10, 2007
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Mother and son huddled together, battered and beaten, in the bathroom — sobbing, wondering why no one came to help.
Surely the neighbors had heard their screams. The walls are thin, the screen doors flimsy in this violence-plagued housing project on the edge of downtown.
For three hours, the pair say, they endured sheer terror as the 35-year-old Haitian immigrant was raped and sodomized by up to 10 masked teenagers and her 12-year-old son was beaten in another room.
Then, mother and son were reunited to endure the unspeakable: At gunpoint, the woman was forced to perform oral sex on the boy, she later told a TV station.
Afterward, they were doused with household cleansers, perhaps in a haphazard attempt to scrub the crime scene, or maybe simply to torture the victims even more. The solutions burned the boy’s eyes.
The thugs then fled, taking with them a couple of hundred dollars’ worth of cash, jewelry and cell phones.
In the interview with WPTV, the mother described how she and her son sobbed in the bathroom, too shocked to move. Then, in the dark of night, they walked a mile to the hospital because they had no phone to call for help.
Two teenagers — a 14-year-old and a 16-year-old — have been arrested. Eight others are being sought.
Welcome to Dunbar Village, a place residents call hell.
$150-a-month rent
“So a lady was raped. Big deal,” resident Paticiea Matlock said with disgust. “There’s too much other crime happening here.”
Built in 1940 to house poor blacks in then-segregated West Palm Beach, Dunbar Village’s 226 units sit just blocks from million-dollar condos on the Intracoastal Waterway. Billionaires lounge on beachfront property just a few miles away on Palm Beach.
The public housing project’s one- and two-story barracks-style buildings are spread across 17 grassy, tree-lined acres surrounded by an 8-foot iron fence. The average rent is about $150 a month.
Almost 60 percent of the households in the area that includes Dunbar Village were below the poverty level in 2000, according to Census figures. Only 19 percent of the area’s residents had high school degrees. About 9 percent of the adults were unemployed, nearly triple the state average.
Teenagers with gold-plated teeth wander the streets. Drug dealers hang out on nearby sidewalks. Trash bin lids are open. Flies hover over dirty diapers. Clothes dry on sagging lines.
In the year leading up to the rape, police were called to Dunbar Village 717 times, or almost twice a day.
Since the June 18 attack, police have increased patrols in the area, blocked off one entrance and will soon install surveillance cameras.
“It took this to make that happen?” Matlock, a 32-year-old single mother of three, snarled.
As in other blighted neighborhoods across the country where criminals seem to have free rein, residents here live in fear. Snitches get stitches, they say. Or worse.
“I try to be in my house no later than 7, and I don’t come out,” said Citoya Greenwood, 33, who lives in Dunbar with her 4-year-old daughter. “I don’t even answer my door anymore.” On the Fourth of July, “we didn’t know if we was hearing gunshots or fireworks.”
'We've never really had a real home'
Avion Lawson, 14, and Nathan Walker, 16, will be charged as adults in the assault and gang rape, prosecutors said. They are jailed without bail.
Lawson’s DNA was found in a condom at the crime scene, and he admitted involvement, authorities say. Police say Walker’s palm print was discovered inside the home. He denies being there. His attorney says he will plead not guilty. Lawson’s public defender did not return telephone messages.
Walker and Lawson did not live at Dunbar but visited often. Lawson stayed with his grandmother there. Walker came to hang out and play basketball. Dunbar has become the place to be for wayward black teens, residents and neighborhood kids say.
Walker and Lawson both grew up mostly fatherless, bouncing between homes. Walker’s family sometimes lived in old cars or abandoned houses, said his mother, Ruby Nell Walker.
“We’ve never really had a real home,” said Naporcha Walker, Nathan’s 15-year-old sister.
He dropped out of school after spending three years in seventh grade. The family lives on food stamps and recently had to pawn their television and radio, Ruby Walker said.
“I just feel like he was at the wrong place at the wrong time. ... My son is not a rapist,” she said.
Ruby Walker said she herself was raped twice, at ages 7 and 12. She said that just days before the Dunbar attack, someone tried to rape her again, and “my son came to me crying and said he wouldn’t ever do that to anyone.”
She has had her own problems with the law — at least nine arrests on charges such as disorderly conduct, aggravated assault and battery, according to state records.
Avion Lawson was a headstrong kid, never listening to his mother, said his cousin, Cassandra Ellis.
“I knew he was bad, but I never pictured him to be that type of bad,” Ellis said. She said one traumatic experience may have scarred him — watching his older sister fatally stab a boyfriend.
“It was an accident. She killed her boyfriend. They was fighting, there was a knife,” Ellis said. “He was there when it happened.”
No safe spots
City officials are quick to note that neither Lawson nor Walker lived at Dunbar, and say they are doing their best to make the place safe.
As quickly as overhead lights can be replaced, they are shot out, so officials are now considering bulletproof lighting.
“Isn’t that quite a commentary on what the situation is there?” said City Commissioner Molly Douglas, whose district includes part of Dunbar. “Dunbar Village is a hell hole. They shouldn’t have to live in fear.”
More officers are hitting the streets, but “I just bow my head sometimes and think we just couldn’t possibly have enough officers ever to take care of all of this,” Douglas said.
Laurel Robinson, head of the city’s housing authority, said that up until about four years ago, the federal government provided the city with $160,000 a year for security in public housing projects, but Congress did away with the money.
“Every family housing project in the country has suffered because of it,” she said.
Dreams of a better life in the U.S.
The rape victim and her son have not returned to Building 1843, Unit 2, since the attack.
The woman fled Port-au-Prince, Haiti, with her son seven years ago in search of a better life. With no money, they landed in Dunbar. The two almost instantly became targets for crime, standing out as Haitians among the mostly American-born blacks in the housing project. Her car and the boy’s bicycle were stolen. Their house was ransacked.
On the night of the attack, she was lured outside by a teenager who knocked on the door and said her car had a flat. Nine more teens, their faces shrouded with T-shirts, barged in, she told authorities. They brandished guns and demanded money, then went beyond the imaginable.
“I was so scared,” the woman told WPTV. “Some of them had sex with me twice, some of them had sex with me three times. They’re beating me up. They make me do those things over and over. The man with the big gun, he put the gun inside of me.”
She said that when she was forced to perform oral sex on her own son, she told the boy: “I know you love me, and I love you, too.”
Investigators say it is not clear exactly why the thugs picked her house.
The boy’s sight has returned. Both mother and son are seeking counseling.
“I have to try and talk to him every day. He’s so angry,” the woman said. “He said we never should have moved to Dunbar Village.”
Updated: 8:36 p.m. ET July 10, 2007
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Mother and son huddled together, battered and beaten, in the bathroom — sobbing, wondering why no one came to help.
Surely the neighbors had heard their screams. The walls are thin, the screen doors flimsy in this violence-plagued housing project on the edge of downtown.
For three hours, the pair say, they endured sheer terror as the 35-year-old Haitian immigrant was raped and sodomized by up to 10 masked teenagers and her 12-year-old son was beaten in another room.
Then, mother and son were reunited to endure the unspeakable: At gunpoint, the woman was forced to perform oral sex on the boy, she later told a TV station.
Afterward, they were doused with household cleansers, perhaps in a haphazard attempt to scrub the crime scene, or maybe simply to torture the victims even more. The solutions burned the boy’s eyes.
The thugs then fled, taking with them a couple of hundred dollars’ worth of cash, jewelry and cell phones.
In the interview with WPTV, the mother described how she and her son sobbed in the bathroom, too shocked to move. Then, in the dark of night, they walked a mile to the hospital because they had no phone to call for help.
Two teenagers — a 14-year-old and a 16-year-old — have been arrested. Eight others are being sought.
Welcome to Dunbar Village, a place residents call hell.
$150-a-month rent
“So a lady was raped. Big deal,” resident Paticiea Matlock said with disgust. “There’s too much other crime happening here.”
Built in 1940 to house poor blacks in then-segregated West Palm Beach, Dunbar Village’s 226 units sit just blocks from million-dollar condos on the Intracoastal Waterway. Billionaires lounge on beachfront property just a few miles away on Palm Beach.
The public housing project’s one- and two-story barracks-style buildings are spread across 17 grassy, tree-lined acres surrounded by an 8-foot iron fence. The average rent is about $150 a month.
Almost 60 percent of the households in the area that includes Dunbar Village were below the poverty level in 2000, according to Census figures. Only 19 percent of the area’s residents had high school degrees. About 9 percent of the adults were unemployed, nearly triple the state average.
Teenagers with gold-plated teeth wander the streets. Drug dealers hang out on nearby sidewalks. Trash bin lids are open. Flies hover over dirty diapers. Clothes dry on sagging lines.
In the year leading up to the rape, police were called to Dunbar Village 717 times, or almost twice a day.
Since the June 18 attack, police have increased patrols in the area, blocked off one entrance and will soon install surveillance cameras.
“It took this to make that happen?” Matlock, a 32-year-old single mother of three, snarled.
As in other blighted neighborhoods across the country where criminals seem to have free rein, residents here live in fear. Snitches get stitches, they say. Or worse.
“I try to be in my house no later than 7, and I don’t come out,” said Citoya Greenwood, 33, who lives in Dunbar with her 4-year-old daughter. “I don’t even answer my door anymore.” On the Fourth of July, “we didn’t know if we was hearing gunshots or fireworks.”
'We've never really had a real home'
Avion Lawson, 14, and Nathan Walker, 16, will be charged as adults in the assault and gang rape, prosecutors said. They are jailed without bail.
Lawson’s DNA was found in a condom at the crime scene, and he admitted involvement, authorities say. Police say Walker’s palm print was discovered inside the home. He denies being there. His attorney says he will plead not guilty. Lawson’s public defender did not return telephone messages.
Walker and Lawson did not live at Dunbar but visited often. Lawson stayed with his grandmother there. Walker came to hang out and play basketball. Dunbar has become the place to be for wayward black teens, residents and neighborhood kids say.
Walker and Lawson both grew up mostly fatherless, bouncing between homes. Walker’s family sometimes lived in old cars or abandoned houses, said his mother, Ruby Nell Walker.
“We’ve never really had a real home,” said Naporcha Walker, Nathan’s 15-year-old sister.
He dropped out of school after spending three years in seventh grade. The family lives on food stamps and recently had to pawn their television and radio, Ruby Walker said.
“I just feel like he was at the wrong place at the wrong time. ... My son is not a rapist,” she said.
Ruby Walker said she herself was raped twice, at ages 7 and 12. She said that just days before the Dunbar attack, someone tried to rape her again, and “my son came to me crying and said he wouldn’t ever do that to anyone.”
She has had her own problems with the law — at least nine arrests on charges such as disorderly conduct, aggravated assault and battery, according to state records.
Avion Lawson was a headstrong kid, never listening to his mother, said his cousin, Cassandra Ellis.
“I knew he was bad, but I never pictured him to be that type of bad,” Ellis said. She said one traumatic experience may have scarred him — watching his older sister fatally stab a boyfriend.
“It was an accident. She killed her boyfriend. They was fighting, there was a knife,” Ellis said. “He was there when it happened.”
No safe spots
City officials are quick to note that neither Lawson nor Walker lived at Dunbar, and say they are doing their best to make the place safe.
As quickly as overhead lights can be replaced, they are shot out, so officials are now considering bulletproof lighting.
“Isn’t that quite a commentary on what the situation is there?” said City Commissioner Molly Douglas, whose district includes part of Dunbar. “Dunbar Village is a hell hole. They shouldn’t have to live in fear.”
More officers are hitting the streets, but “I just bow my head sometimes and think we just couldn’t possibly have enough officers ever to take care of all of this,” Douglas said.
Laurel Robinson, head of the city’s housing authority, said that up until about four years ago, the federal government provided the city with $160,000 a year for security in public housing projects, but Congress did away with the money.
“Every family housing project in the country has suffered because of it,” she said.
Dreams of a better life in the U.S.
The rape victim and her son have not returned to Building 1843, Unit 2, since the attack.
The woman fled Port-au-Prince, Haiti, with her son seven years ago in search of a better life. With no money, they landed in Dunbar. The two almost instantly became targets for crime, standing out as Haitians among the mostly American-born blacks in the housing project. Her car and the boy’s bicycle were stolen. Their house was ransacked.
On the night of the attack, she was lured outside by a teenager who knocked on the door and said her car had a flat. Nine more teens, their faces shrouded with T-shirts, barged in, she told authorities. They brandished guns and demanded money, then went beyond the imaginable.
“I was so scared,” the woman told WPTV. “Some of them had sex with me twice, some of them had sex with me three times. They’re beating me up. They make me do those things over and over. The man with the big gun, he put the gun inside of me.”
She said that when she was forced to perform oral sex on her own son, she told the boy: “I know you love me, and I love you, too.”
Investigators say it is not clear exactly why the thugs picked her house.
The boy’s sight has returned. Both mother and son are seeking counseling.
“I have to try and talk to him every day. He’s so angry,” the woman said. “He said we never should have moved to Dunbar Village.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
