By Nicholas Stix
When I first saw the WTVU video, “Family promises to fight for teen accused in sexual assault cases,” with reporter Eric Rasmussen’s story on this case back in January, the defendant’s grandmother, Mary Boone, made a positive impression on me. After all, she did bring him in, albeit after his name and description had been broadcast on TV as the suspect, but she didn’t claim he was an honor student, and had a refreshingly no-nonsense attitude.
Here follow my first impressions.
Positives
1. The Grandmother: I like this lady. She’s a throwback. Nine-nine percent of the time when a young black alleged cut-throat is in the news and his family speaks, we hear the litany, “He’s a good boy.” “He’s an honor student.” “He was turning his life around.” It’s been years since I heard a defendant’s family member acknowledge a bad history.
Negatives
1. The boy already had a history of robberies, and had spent time in Juvenile Hall. Whatever his grandmother and aunt may want to believe, criminals—especially black criminals—graduate from robbery to rape every day. And a14-year-old already with a “history of robbery” is not a solid citizen, and shows little sign of becoming one;
2. There are thousands of skinny, black, 14-year-old boys in Oakland, but the police got enough of a description to conclude that this kid was the doer, and his name; and
3. The defendant’s relatives contacted the NAACP, which is practically an admission of wrongdoing: ‘We’re going to get over and get paid, by playing the race card!’
Grandmother Mary Boone told WTVU’s Eric Rasmussen:
They ran out on him like he was John Gotti today. I said, Hello, we [unclear] through a gun, Detective….
I aksed him [N.S.: her grandson], “Tell me the truth.’ I can deal with lies, just let me know what kinda lies I got to deal with. He said, “Grandma, I don’t know nothin’ about no woman.”
Unfortunately, things went downhill from there.
The defendant’s aunt, Sheilah Patterson, said,
Now, if they said he might a did a robbery, I might agree with them. But a rape and a assault? They need to stop puttin’ that on him.
The “family” also told KTVU that the defendant is “mentally disabled.” That sounds like a variation on the crazy card, in which one admits that the defendant is guilty as hell of the crime, but insists that he is not legally culpable for his actions. So, which is it—innocent or guilty?
The outraged family contacted the NAACP, which is a racist shakedown operation, and a defender of guilty black miscreants, and a civil rights attorney.
Oakland Police Department spokeswoman Johnna Watson told the press, “We strongly believe that if we did not put this information out in the interest of public safety, he would not have turned himself in.”
KTVU’s written story casts Mary Boone and Sheilah Patterson in a much harsher light than their respective interviews.
“I ain't going quietly into the night. I'm going to file my $3 million lawsuit for slandering a 14-year-old kid's life,” said Boone.
Patterson emphasized that the defendant still can't read or write.
He's a mentally ill child and they got his name exploited like this!
Emphasizing that a 14-year-old career criminal can’t read or wrote, and asserting that he is insane, is not the best way to gain the public’s compassion.
Note that no one related to this story has expressed any compassion for the two crime victims. Were they perhaps the wrong race? Or have the defendant’s relatives just too busy going on the offensive, to worry about crime victims? After all, isn’t the defendant the victim?
Note, too, that no one related to this story has so much as mentioned the defendant’s parents. Something tells me that they also have inglorious pasts.
How do you “slander” the good name of a 14-year-old career criminal who has been identified as a serial rapist? What I’m hearing about this kid reminds me of Seattle’s Billy Chambers, who at the age of 15 murdered “Tuba Man” Ed McMichael, and who more recently, tried to murder a woman for reporting him for burgling her car. Of course at this point, out of about 19.5 million black boys and men in this country, of which one-third or more of those 21-30 years old have criminal convictions, there may be a couple million like Chambers.
In mid-January, Alameda County authorities said they wanted to try the boy as an adult, but when I tried to find more recent stories on him, there was nothing. That suggested that they had sent the case down the juvi rabbit hole, and the story with it.
We may not hear about this kid again until he’s up for his first murder, in which case he’ll claim to be a victim of racial profiling, and even then, we won’t know that it’s the same victim of racism, because his juvi record will be sealed.
The only reason we know about Billy Chambers, is because he has bragged about getting negligible punishment for murdering Ed McMichael, and said that he will continue to get little or no punishment for his future crimes, a prediction that has so far proven correct.
14-year-old Oakland boy charged with robbery, sexual assault
Posted: 10:08 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012
WTVU
OAKLAND, Calif. —
A 14-year-old Oakland boy was charged Wednesday with four felony counts for allegedly robbing and sexually assaulting two 28-year-old women, according to court documents.
The boy turned himself in at the Alameda County Juvenile Hall in San Leandro on Monday, two days after Oakland police asked for the public's help in locating him.
Oakland police spokeswoman Johnna Watson said that in the first attack on Jan. 6, a woman was walking in the 1200 block of Market Street around 10 p.m. when a male who appeared to be armed with a gun approached her and demanded her wallet, police said.
The robber then forced the woman to an isolated area, where he sexually assaulted her, police said.
The second attack occurred around 9:15 p.m. on Jan. 12 in the 600 block of 11th Street.
Watson said that in that case, another woman was approached by a stranger on a bicycle who simulated a handgun and demanded her purse, police said. As in the first attack, the woman was taken to an isolated area where she was sexually assaulted.
Watson said it appears the attacker simulated a handgun in both incidents.
The boy is charged with two counts of robbery and one count each of sexual assault and kidnapping for sexual assault.
Mary Boone, the suspect’s grandmother, told KTVU Tuesday she walked with him to the authorities.
“I said, 'Can I hug my grandson?' The man let me and then he handcuffed him,” said Boone.
Boone said she believed that her grandson was not guilty of the two sexual assault charges but she had no choice but to turn him in because police had already put out his name to the public.
“I talked to him and he said he don't know nothing about no woman,” said Boone.
But the boy's family members said they're furious over the release of his name and have contacted the NAACP as well as a civil rights attorney.
“I ain't going quietly into the night. I'm going to file my $3 million lawsuit for slandering a 14-year-old kid's life,” said Boone.
A 14-year-old, who they said still can't read or write.
“He's a mentally ill child and they got his name exploited like this!,” said the boy’s aunt, Sheilah Patterson.
While the Oakland Unified School District confirmed Tuesday that the suspect was enrolled at Oakland High last semester his family says he's been in and out of juvenile hall since then. Boone said her grandson admitted only to stealing a bike and not to the sexual assaults Tuesday.
Alameda County District Attorney spokeswoman Teresa Drenick said the boy is charged as a juvenile at this point but her office will file a motion to ask that he be remanded to adult court after a behavioral study is completed.
The boy is being held in custody and is scheduled to have a detention hearing in Alameda County Juvenile Court at 1:30 p.m. on Thursday.
No comments:
Post a Comment