Innocent of What Crime ?

Your noblesse oblige may be considered by some to be too generous, but not I.

I don't understand the question.

For the police to arrest a suspect when there is "probable cause" is not an issue.

For the police to force fake confessions from teenagers is a big problem.

The information available to the police was coerced by the police.

If you haven’t seen the 2012 movie The Central Park Five or the miniseries (2019) When They See Us, you missed an opportunity to see the whole story about what happened.

InfraBlue-

Thank you.

If that is true then the police are guilty.

I will try to read about it. Specifically, I wish to read:

1) What evidence does who have that the police coerced the young men. What was the mechanism of coercion (e.g., beating)?

2) I believe the young men received $41 million in recompense. Did the policemen or women who coerced the young men pay part of that sum?

This information is all readily available on any of a number of internet pages. I would start with Wikipedia.

The police were acting on behalf of local taxpayers.

Therefore local taxpayers paid the entire sum.

oralloy-

Thank you.

Then assuming you are correct about the actions (and inactions?) of the subject police officers (and others?), were they punished in any way (e.g., fired, letter of discipline, fines, named in a public action)?

I'm not sure. This isn't a case that I've followed super closely.

Others might know.

My anyone in central park of NYC with a dark skin should be assume to be there to commit a crime of some kind unlike the millions of people in the park with paper white skin until proven otherwise.

God how lucky I am to have Viking and English blood lines where the only thing I needed to worry about is a bad sun burn.

You know roughly ten years ago I had trouble sleeping and use to go walking around 3 AM.

The walks included a strip shopping mall from time to time, an not once repeat not once did either the private security or the police question me at what the hell I was doing walking around all those close businesses.

Even at the time this did amazed me but then I have a white skin an look like I fit into the area.

Can not dream of needing to put up with being assume to be a criminal by such people as Gollum and we are not talking about 3 am around closed businesses but central park of all places.

BillRM-

OK, maybe I'm mistaken. I'm not sure.

If I were a police officer and I was sent to a park where a rape had just occurred, I think that would look around for men in the vicinity. If I found any, I would construe each of them to be suspects. I would also recognize that they might be innocent. Also, one or more might be innocent but not all.

I would then question them. If I found that they lied to me, it would cause me to hold on to them and continue the investigation.

I am not sure if the five men lied, that is why I came to able2know.

They are innocent until proved guilty and don't have to prove anything.

When an innocent man is convicted of a crime, it does not necessarily follow that the police officer did anything wrong.

You would be a racist police officer.

izzythepush-

I am profoundly sorry that you conclude that. I pray that most people do not agree with your conclusion.

Don’t act like a racist then.

You pick on innocent men and accuse them of something because being a black man in a park after dark means criminal.

That’s how a racist thinks. If you don’t want people to think you’re a racist stop treating black people differently from white people.

izzythepush-

If while investigating the rape I had found five white men rather than five black men, I would have questioned the five white men.

These men were innocent, after spending years in prison the real culprit confessed to the crime.

Their innocence is established.

This is not about how you would have acted had you been the arresting officer, it’s about a serious miscarriage of justice.

You are talking about real people, innocent people, people who have served time in prison for a crime they did not commit, and now you are casting aspersions on their character, implying they must be guilty of something because they’re black and out after dark.

That is how racists think. Now I know you don’t consider yourself racist, most racists don’t.

Now you have a choice, you can try to see why people would consider you racist, and do something about it or you can carry on like before, deny being racist and try to argue the odds.

You are racist, and only you can do something about it. Arguing with me about not being racist isn’t doing something about it. You can pray as much as you like, but unless you change your behaviour people will consider you racist.

You remind me of a woman I used to work with. She was livid when the Birmingham Six were exonerated. I remember her shouting angrily about how they were celebrating their release.

She could accept that they were the innocent victims of a miscarriage of justice. Just being Irish and in Birmingham during the pub bombings meant they had to be guilty of something.

Just like you assuming being black and in the park at that time of night meant they had to be guilty of something. Sticking them in prison should keep other black men from breaking the curfew people like you have in their heads.

I forget the details, but the police officers in the Central Park Five case did quite a bit wrong.

The Central Park Five case was a lot like the Amanda Knox case, only Amanda Knox has a lot more class than these Central Park guys do.