Today's Democracy Now features a long discussion of the re-opened Central Park jogger case and Matias Reyes, the man who confessed to the crime back in January and was confirmed as an assailant by DNA testing in June. Fool that I am, I did a Google search for "blog central park jogger" to see if anyone else was writing on this.
Here's one:
THE RIGHT WING justifiably screams in outrage when an Al Sharpton goes out and celebrates the teenage "wilding" monsters who raped and beat a Central Park jogger and left her for dead as she lost 75% of her blood. "The Amsterdam News, a black newspaper, published the victim's name and labeled the prosecution a racist conspiracy."
That's actually from back in June, by something calling itself Max Power at The Sound and Fury. Charming little fucker. Can I start slinging around the term "white newspaper" with abandon?
Nothing more recent than June came up. Searching blogdex is no fun at all. Daypop is broken at the moment, and came up with no results or "Matias Reyes" or "central park jogger". Searches that work bring up error messages anyway.
Oh well, I expect the right-wingers will treat this like anything else that doesn't agree with their skewed version of reality. By hiding until the nasty ideas go away.
Update-a-rama: Jason makes with the sane version of this at his site, which is as it should be. He also queries MeFiMe, where you can find some intelligent comments once you get past the Sharpton jokes.
Which jokes serve to prove my original point, of course. Dumbasses.
It never ends: Note carefully how the last sentence of my original entry says "the nasty ideas go away." Not facts. Ideas. We still don't have all the facts, and possibly never will.
Not that this stops Max, who doesn't seem to believe in that whole permalinks for entries thing, from claiming that "[t]he reality is different."
Reality lets you attack Al Sharpton rather than dealing with the idea that people may have been sent to prison for a crime they didn't commit, apparently. But it's ok, because they did other shit. So it doesn't matter what they were convicted for.
Reality is different for Max. Unfortunately, he wants the rest of us to live in his world, and I'd rather not, thanks.
Remember the public outcry against 'wilding' and the calls for the death penalty over this? Yes, indeed. No one is talking about it with the same vitrol - as they did when the case broke. Interesting how DNA testing is aquitting many wrongly convicted of crimes. What can they do to give young men back years spent in jail?
The Amsterdam News calls itself a black newspaper. See and . If you don't like the characterization, complain to them.
"characterization" . . .?
No, I probably don't want to know.
Tracy, there was a disturbingly similar story mentioned on This American Life a few months back, only it took place in Chicago, and the supposed assailants were still in prison instead of having served their time. It's episode 210, "Perfect Evidence," if you're interested.
I remember the original public reaction well. Must have been seeing people like me demonized by the media made an impresion.
Different case, different crime, same idea. Have you already blogged about this? I'm too lazy to sign up at meta-filter right now...
Have I mentioned how utterly awesome it is to live in Texas? Kidding.
1) Max Powers does believe in permalinks for entries; the permalink can be obtained from the time posted. Here's the permalink to his reply.
2) You imply in comment three that there's something wrong with the word "characterization." What exactly? To reiterate his argument, if you go here, you will see that the Amsterdam News refers to itself several times as a black newspaper. Leaving aside the fact that Max was clearly quoting someone else.
3) If anyone cares, the reason Max was talking about these muggers was to attack the same critics for not being similarly outraged by the Italian-American celebration of John Gotti who he characterizes as worse.
Well I'll be. . . permalinks. Thanks.
Um, although the denotation of "characterization" is appropriate for this situation, the connotation makes me uncomfortable when used to mention the (self-)description of Amsterdam News as "a black newspaper."
Sorry. Linguistics degree. Try Semiotics for Beginners if I lost you there.
dru, I heard about that other story on Democracy Now a while ago, but couldn't think of anything to say about it. Some things are just too fucked up, even for me.
That whole "wilding" crusade in the tabloids always smelled funny to me, especially with the victim's amnesia. Something about the confessions at the time too closely confirmed white racism and paranoia, it seemed. (Not that I said much or did anything about it at the time, of course.)
Now this seems to relate to the idea of coerced confessions and the lies and tricks used to elicit them. There was a New Yorker article, I believe, on this last year.
Here is a blog that posted on this last week.
http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=jmhm&itemid=62448
I appear in the comments as a skeptical reader. I share what I will characterize as the view of the NY Times, that we might want to wait for some more facts before we exonerate these guys. The fact that the DNA did not match any of the accused was known at the time of their trials.
Regards,
Regards,
Er, so the fact that their DNA didn't match when they were convicted -- and this was known -- makes you more inclined to believe that they're guilty?
Christ, I've lived too long. . .
Because I'm stupid and seek out this kind of nonsense...perhaps I'm now more angry about this instead -
But it is impossible to disassemble the sexist construction of violence against women without also addressing the racial dimension of such violence. The dominant conceptions of rape, for example, were grounded in racist and sexist presumptions. Indeed, the concept of rape was racially encoded by defining the crime as what Black men did or threatened to do to white women.[61] The prevailing mental picture of rape nurtured in slavery and projected from the inception of mass media and popular images in D.W. Griffith's, Birth of a Nation[62] was that of a Black brute assaulting a virginal white female.[63] This imagery was used to violently suppress the Black community and, as the critical work of journalist and activist, Ida B. Wells documented, the rise in lynchings of Blacks at the turn of the century was in part justified by the evocation of this threat, although in many instances, the victims of lynchings were not even alleged
Page 245
to have been involved in interracial rape.[64] Instead, they most often were men who held some stature in the community and were thus perceived political threats to unmediated white oppression.[65] Wells recognized that the other aspect of racial patriarchy inherent in stereotypes which animated legal definitions of rape was the companion image of the Black woman as promiscuous, more highly sexual by nature and constantly seeking sexual gratification. This deeply embedded image of Black women has a long history and prolonged staying power. While there was no statutory rule that excluded Black women from protection under laws proscribing rape, under operative norms that defined rape as that which was done to women who were chaste, the cultural image of Black women as women who were always eager for sexual contact with any man meant that they could not be raped, as they could not claim the requisite sexual purity.[66]
While these images may no longer be openly extolled, they continue to form part of the received view of Black women and thus render violence done to them less visible, less cognizable and ultimately, less important. Witness the silence attendant to the violent rapes done to Black women the same week as the Central Park jogger's rape case, which came to dominate the news, culminating in the infamous ad by Donald Trump calling for a return of the death penalty.[67] As Valerie Smith points out in a compelling essay on interracial rape:
The relative invisibility of black women victims of rape also reflects the differential value of women's bodies in capitalist societies. To the extent that rape is constructed as a crime against the property of privileged white men, crimes against less valuable women -- women of color, working class women, and lesbians, for example -- mean less or mean differently than those against white women from the middle or upper classes.[68]
taken from The Washburn Law Journal
I'm guided to be more concerned about the Central Park Case than I am about the 30 or so other rapes that went on that week...again, who gets to tell the stories? Who gets to decide what's important?
"even my conditioning has been conditioned..."
I know I know I shouldn't be shocked that this isn't getting more press.....
But wha... It's a huge story,
So much was made of "Wilding", "Wolfpack" on and on, it became ingrained in the way we view rape and young men of color etc... I guess most (comfortable) people aren't ready to unravel those myths or think about what the police do to young people in certain, designated neighborhoods. The police are the predators, and what they knowingly did to those young men is horrific, and goes on all the time and is not a story. I don't know cause I grew up somewhat privileged, but it seems to me that many young people grow up in a stage of siege, they are not free, not with the occupying police force. But this is not a story.
well well...
The fact that the DNA did not support the case against the gang rapists was known when they were convicted. It has always been known that there was at least one other rapist who got away with it. That that rapist has come forward hardly exonerates the other rapists.
The boys were convicted because they were part of a predatory "wolfpack" that had assaulted at least nine other people the same night, were picked up as a result of that with weapons in hand, and then gave detailed and consistent confessions after knowingly and repeatedly waiving their rights on videotape, in each case with an adult relative or parent present. Four of the five of them then chose to take the Fifth Amendment at trial -- which is their right, but it also serves as a waiver to complain that they were forced or tricked into confessing. They weren't willing to tell a jury that tale under oath, why should we believe them twelve years later? (And, yes, Diana, a group of teenage males who assaults at least nine people in a single night is a bunch of predators, not victims. And history has taught us that people who commit these sort of violent assaults make a habit of it.)
That "occupying police force", by arresting criminals, has reduced the number of African-American victims of violent crime to its lowest level in thirty years. It's an insult to the non-criminal African Americans that you feel they're not entitled to the same "comfort" of whites in safe neighborhoods.
Jason, very few rapes make the news, period. The frat-house or street corner rapes don't make news no matter who the victims or perpetrators.
It's only when there are other details that they make news: a famous person is accused, or the rapes appear to be the handiwork of a serial rapist, or the victim is especially young or elderly, or the victim is treated unusually violently, or the rape is videotaped, or the rapist is abusing a position of authority and gets caught.
Thus, the horrific details of the Central Park jogger rape made it a front page story. It wasn't the rape that made the news, it was the fact that she was left for dead and lost 75% of her blood and made a miraculous recovery. You can make the case that it didn't hurt that she travelled in the same social circles as the Ivy League-educated reporters of the New York Times, but if she had walked away from the rape conscious, it wouldn't have been front-page news. There are thousands of instances of black-on-white crime, including black-man-on-white-woman crime, that don't get any publicity.
When a black woman, Tawana Brawley, came forward with a story of kidnapping and rape, she got every bit the amount of publicity that the Central Park jogger did, again, because of the details, and got that publicity without the help of the Sharptons and Maddoxes who later took the case for their own.
Why are they always so fucking verbose when they comment here?
Max, I can see that your mind is made up as to the other alleged rapists' guilt, the Splendid Wonderfullness of our criminal justice system and the conspiracy of theliberalmedia in hiding the true amount of black-on-white crime.
Any point in my wasting my time and yours trying to sway you on any of this? With, y'know, facts and stuff?
Well, Aaron, I cannot speak for Max Power, but for myself, I expect you will have more luck swaying my opinion with facts than with bad language. Or, tell us which facts Max Power has wrong.
Or, as a warm up, you might even explain the connotation of "characterization".
Regards,
Well Max how kind of you to stand up for the "non criminal African Americans" whom I insulted. Yeah well I do feel they are entitled to the same comforts that we are, like taxpayer funded grants to businesses, garbage removal, not locating sewage treatment in our backyards, not tearing down our businesses to build highways on and on... Hmmm but you seem to feel that constant harrassment and framing and worse are comforts... yet we don't enjoy those comforts.
Hey did you ever wonder what gets classified as a crime in those statistics touted as "the lowest in thirty years"? Does police brutality count as a crime? Does a cop raping a young woman who was picked up on some petty offense count as a crime? Does police mowing down a hostage along with the perpetrator count as a crime? Hmmm I don't think so.
I know that I am more likely to get raped by a white cop than by a black youth. I know that the legal system does squat to prevent rape. Too many women are raped cause they don't expect that it's gonna be their boyfriend/uncle/boss/friend, but expect it to be some young "wolfpack".
Whites celebrate white rapists as heros in movies such as "A Clockwork Orange" or more recently "Quills". Women are viewed as property by the white dominated Porn industry, and white men can't stand having their property stolen by men of color. They don't want to give up looking at women as object.
It is astonishing that even after the frame-up has been revealed that people like you refuse to let go of tribal myths, refuse to look at frat-house rape as a huge social ill. You even hold up the fact that "they knew all along" that they had no forensic evidence as proof that they didn't need evidence.
I'll tell you, this police system does NOT make me feel any safer, that's why I carry a switchblade.
Another thing, the concept of "black-on-black" crime has been used by race-baiters such as Ed Koch as coded racism. They act like they're moved by compassion for "non-criminal African-Americans" even as they shut down their hospitals and destroy the financial base of their communities. Fact is, racists like Koch, Giuliani, etc, aren't talking to the "Non-criminal African-Americans"... they're talking to white racists who want to keep their neighborhoods white.
Well, Tom, luckily I don't give anything vaguely resembling a flying fuck about your opinion.
You might feel the same about mine, but I'm not posting at your site.
Actually, I surf around various blogs checking out all sorts of opinions. I find it an interesting way to gain exposure to a variety of viewpoints, and I learn all sorts of new things. And I'm certainly sorry if you have the idea that I am not interested in your opinion. Believe me, I wouldn't be here if I weren't.
Now, you may not be interested in my opinion either. Fair enough, therre are plenty of times I am not interested in it either. But, you have a comments section, so here we are. And you did allude, in an earlier post, to the possibility of trying to change someone's mind with facts. Quotation? Here we go:
"Any point in my wasting my time and yours trying to sway you on any of this? With, y'know, facts and stuff?"
Well, my answer is still yes. Maybe present some facts, and stuff, and tell me why I should change my mind. Of course, you don't even know what I think, but try anyway.
Oh, I'll go first. I think this "new evidence" was recognized as a possibility twelve years ago, and a jury disregarded it. Pending further review, I am in no hurry to conclude that these five were wrongfully convicted. If and when NYC completes its review, I will assess the facts they present and see what I think.
OK, if you would like to change my mind, go ahead. Your blog. You had the right idea that facts and stuff are more likely to be effective, but the verbal abuse is probably kind of fun, so, whatever.
Regards,
Ok, let's try that with emphasis added:
I don't share Max's -- or, apparently, your -- assumptions about our criminal justice system, or the trustworthiness of the police, or the reliability of confessions, even those signed with one's parents present.
Not seeing much point trying to change your underlying assumptions, and I'm fairly certain there's nothing you can say or do that would cause me to question mine at this point in my life.
Which means I'm wasting my time even writing this much in response.
not locating sewage treatment in our backyards
Whose backyards?
Sewage treatment plants are more likely to be located in poor neighborhoods than rich neighborhoods because the land is cheaper. That's hardly a racist conspiracy. The plants' gotta go somewhere.
[You] refuse to look at frat-house rape as a huge social ill
You don't know squat about me, and certainly have no basis for this claim. I was one of the nation's leading anti-fraternity activists throughout college and law school precisely because I view frat-house rape as a huge social ill. That fraternity gang rapists are underpunished doesn't mean that other gang rapists should be let off the hook because of their skin color.
I know that I am more likely to get raped by a white cop than by a black youth.
Leaving race out of it, it's ludicrous to claim that cops rape more than youths.
It is astonishing that even after the frame-up has been revealed
See, I dispute your premise. No frame-up has been revealed. If an intentional frame-up is revealed, then the cops participating in the frame-up should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But don't confuse the fact that one of the gang rapists got away with it with the idea that the conviction is somehow tainted.
For Aaron, I ask: what more protections should there be? Only convict criminals who are caught on videotape in the act of the crime? It's hard to imagine a standard for guilt that convicts anyone if it exonerates those who confess, on videotape, after having the opportunity to consult a lawyer, after being arrested and identified by numerous witnesses having engaged in a rampage in Central Park where another victim lies close to death, and being caught red-handed with weapon in hand. The combination of direct and circumstantial evidence is more than a little compelling, and, in my mind, the most shocking part of this story is that any of the rapists are on the street today, less than 15 years after they committed the crime. What should the cops have done differently?
white racists who want to keep their neighborhoods white
I don't care about the color of my neighborhood, but I do want the criminals in it locked up.
For crimes they actually committed, or whatever the cops can get a conviction for?
Oh, man, all this blogging a waste of time? Next you’ll be telling me not to watch my Yankees.
OK, Aaron, I’ll accept your point that we have very different perceptions of the criminal justice system. However, we have plenty of common ground. The trick is finding it. Let’s come back to your comment that the right wing blogosphere will ignore this story. Well, as far as I can tell, everyone is, both right and left. On the other hand, Max Power has, both in real life and in the blogosphere, the power. He has spent some time on this, done some research – if he CAN’T get a good post out of this, he has wasted his time.
So, one plan would be for you to give him something he can work with. Change his mind, get him to post “Exonerate Now!” Fine, think big. But maybe “I Still Have My Doubts, But This Fellow Makes Some Good Points” will be enough to kick off some debate. The InstaPundit links to Max, or you, bloggers kick it around, maybe the mainstream media pick it up – hey, you started an avalanche. Nice going. Bit of a longshot, but hardly a waste of time.
Well, then, what can you give Max Power to work with? Bit of bad news – your argument, if I may quickly summarize, is “I disagree, but it’s too wrapped up in my life experience to explain.” I’m not saying that’s wrong. I will say, it’s not effective. We the People have a system, and, regrettably or not, my advice is that you are more likely to succeed playing within it.
So, next argument: the confessions are horribly flawed. Well, juries looked at the videotape, defense lawyers made all these same arguments, and here we are. David Dinkins was Mayor, NYC has mixed juries, this is not the Deep South – this argument is just not persuasive to a mainstream audience, regardless of your personal feelings.
NO, this is not endless, YES, I’m getting to a point. There are two questions that bother me about this case. I am sure they have been addressed somewhere, but not in the recent NY Times article. Homework for you, more work for Max Power.
1. Show me the blood. These five boys allegedly kicked, beat, and simulated sex acts upon the victim, who lost 75% of her blood. Where are the bloodstained shoes, clothes, etc.? Where is the forensic evidence? As I said, there may be a good answer to this - Hey, I’m not Columbo, the chance of my having an original thought on this case is roughly zero. But if no one has a good answer at hand, you have made a good point.
2. Show me the money. Right now NYC is investigating its own investigation. Might NYC be liable in big civil suit if they conclude there was improper police conduct? A group of black NYC policemen are asking for the Feds to take over the review. What fair-minded person could oppose that, hmm?
Fine, you’re a smart guy, come up with a few more. Or just use those. Give Max an argument, show the crowd some game, and the blogosphere will get into it. For you, or against you, I can not say.
As to my angle, I do not speculate. I still have hopes of rallying up an interesting post on this subject, but I lack the background, the emotional commitment, and the time to go after it properly. And could there be a worse week than this, with the 9/11 observance?
So, free advice. Just remember the price, and the source.
Regards,
Everyone seems to be forgetting a number of facts regarding the Central Park Jogger case. Everyone knows what happened to the jogger, but few know that she was not the only victim of violence in Central Park that evening. It is a matter of fact that these youths assaulted at least three other individuals who were out excercising in the park that evening. While the victims were not sexually assaulted (two of the victims were male, one was a female bicycling with her boyfriend), they were beaten with blunt object and closed fists-the couple managed to escape by pedaling to safety. It is also a little known fact that the police had acknowledged years ago, prior to the trial, that the five convicted of brutalizing this woman were not the only ones involved; they were merely the ones who were caught. Maybe the boys are innocent after all; and then again, maybe one of their accomplices just decided to speak up after all of these years. Either way, this isn't a case of a group of innocent, black youths railroaded for the color of their skin. In the words from the convicted's videotaped confession: "We went to the park looking for trouble, and we found trouble."
Will someone please post something about Buffy?
Before I start telling folks exactly what they can do with their unsolicited advice on how best to accomplish tasks I have no interest in performing?
Sam, that's fascinating. Now fuck off.
Damn, damn, damn! I will search far and wide for copies of the defunct City Sun. They posted transcripts of the "confessions" that show that these boys clearly did not commit rape in the park that night.
The racially charged atmosphere in NYC at the time convicted the Central Park 5. So did shoddy work -- or if you have a total distrust of New York's Finest as I do, the criminal railroading of innocent Americans -- performed by prosecutors and the police. A few of them have gone on to parlay this case (and others) into big money generators. Among them are novelist-prosecutor Linda Fairstein, police detective John McKenna (played by Danny Aiello in the movie about the "Preppy Murder Case") and most infamously, current FOX-5 reporter Mike Sheehan.
The silence from those three and other prominent "stars" from the prosecution teams speaks volumes, IMO.
The police already tried to connect Reyes to the Central Park 5 to no avail. They would have never even investigated his confession were it not for the fact that the CP5 lawyers were informed that there was an almost haphazard match of his (Reyes') DNA to the semen sample in their files. Not one of the boys matched any of the semen stains, they had none of the victim's blood on them at all and the "confessions" contracted each other and the physical evidence.
There should be arrests of prosecutors and police detectives; instead, there will be stonewalling and the infamous blue wall of silence will impede any attempts to affect justice.
Mike Sheehan hasn't been "silent" at all; I've seen him widely quoted saying that the allegations that the rapists' convictions were railroaded were "ridiculous."
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime_file/story/18038p-17072c.html
http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/56790.htm
One of the convicted rapists led police to the crime scene as part of his confession.
God, you're still alive, too?
Useless fucking Osama Claus, anyway.
Yes, obviously we can trust Mike Sheehan implicitly, because he's a former cop involved in the case and has nothing to gain by lying.
Congratulations. You win the debate with inferior logic and white skin privilege. Now get the fuck off my web site.
Max: I believe Sheehan made those statements after I posted the above. The NYPost story doesn't directly quote him at all. In any event, his statements (in the Daily News and elsewhere via the AP) were elicited by fellow reporters as he left the courthouse, therefore, not a ringing pronouncement of his innocence regarding his part in the railroading of justice.
Which defendant lead the police/prosecutors to the scene of the crime? From what I recall, the kids took them to several areas throughout the park. Reyes says he hit her in one area (an open path) and took her to another (secluded) area where he raped her.
The physical evidence doesn't match the "confessions," nor did any of it implicate any of the CP5. The only DNA matches were to Meili's boyfriend (an African American) and Reyes. There was no other DNA found. None.
For the sake of argument, let's just say these fine, upstanding young black boys had nothing to do with this particular case of barbarism. Crime statistics tell us that most of them, if not all, will be incarcerated sometime during their brief lifetime anyway.. So what's the problem?
Let's just say we've put them in jail for crimes that stats reveal they're likely to commit in the future.
Case closed
Take that idea to its logical conclusion, son.
I was always brave, and kind of righteous
Now I find I'm wavering
Crawl out of your grave you'll find this fight
Just doesn't mean a thing
Your game is weak, very weak.
Um, I just tired of seeing this comment on the recently commented side bar so I'm leaving something else.
Now back to your regularly scheduled program.
Hey, I'm trying to figure out who that comment was aimed at, and why random anonymous types insist on leaving them in the first place. I note that Jason seems unimpressed with this sort of thing, too. . .