Month: February 2019

In The Central Park Five by Ken Burns, it was about a case where a white woman got raped in 1989. She was found in Central Park and suffered many injuries that many believed that she was going to be dead. The police believed that five Latino and black males were responsible for her rape. These suspects were just teenagers, and they had nothing to do with the rape. These five were still charged and served time in prison for years until they were released.

The way the police acted in this investigation was unethical. They interrogated the kids for hours, and forced them to false confessions. They had the kids’ hopes up that by confessing, they would be released, but really, they brought themselves to prison. The police didn’t even have evidence that the kids were involved; they were just assuming because of the media pressuring them to solve the case. The kids didn’t even have a fair trial because they were going to be convicted anyways. People always assume that people of different color were seen as criminals and nothing else. It showed on how even in the late 1900s, racism was still a thing, and it played a huge role in this case.

People look up to the police as source of protection and the protection of their rights, but they didn’t apply the same ethics to these five suspects. It led the kids to rot away their childhood and adulthood by serving time for a crime they’re innocent of. When they were finally released, the court vacated the original records and wiped their records clean. But the court can’t wipe their time in prison, and when they were free, they were too old to begin a life. The five eventually sued the state, and it took years for a settlement to be agreed on.

In “Backpacks vs. Briefcases: Steps toward Rhetorical Analysis” by Laura Bolin Carroll, it was about how rhetoric was used in every day life. Every day in life,we’re always observing people and things around us and judge it- whether approve of it or not. The way people look and act causes us to think of them differently.

When we first meet someone, we act differently than  we would around our friends. The reason why is because we’re comfortable and close enough to our friends that they would understand it’s how act, but around strangers, they might consider it weird, and we’re not trying to give them that impression. Sometimes, we might also judge the person based on how they look and dress. Our conclusions might be wrong or might be right, but we never give a chance to thoroughly talk to that person to see if we’re right or not.

This article also applies to my life because when I was younger, I was so close minded. I would judge people based on their dressing and appearance, and sometimes I would be wrong. But I just didn’t care enough to meet them because I was too stubborn to realize my claim could be false. However, as I grew older, I became more open-minded and decided to stop judging people and make friends instead. For example, in middle school, I stayed away from kids that wore expensive clothing such as Jordans because my style didn’t fit them, so I thought it would be a waste of time to talk to them. It was until high school that some people that wore these clothing aren’t so self-centered. They just wear it to look good, and despite my clothes not matching them, I started talking to them, and now they just tell me where to buy these stuff.

In the Netflix series, “The Confession Tapes”, the first two episodes were about the murder of the Rafay residence, and how the investigation was conducted unethically and imprisoned two innocent people to life in person with no parole- Atif Rafay and Sebastian Burns. The Bellevue police at the time had no witnesses except Rafay and Burns, and that’s when they started to pin the case on them. However, I disagreed with their actions because they didn’t have solid evidence that Rafay and Burns were involved . For example, when they found hair in the shower that belonged to Burns, it didn’t make sense to automatically accused Burns because he was staying the household a few days before the murder even happen; so obviously, his hair count is going to stack up in the shower. There was also another hair found that didn’t match anybody, so that meant that somebody else was in the household. The police even had a reliable informant that talked about how he was with the real murderers at the time, and that they were part of an extremist organization that planned the attack on the Rafays because of the father’s statement on the True East. Despite this testimony, they ignored it and still wanted to pin it on the kids. The police didn’t have hard evidence at all, and when solid evidence was given to them, they ignored it and wanted the kids to take the blame.

Another unethical practice was the Mr.Big operation that was conducted in Canada. This operation is illegal in the United States because it violates the Fifth Amendment – a person can’t self-incriminate for a crime. The Constitution wouldn’t allow this evidence at all in court, but the court still considered it admissible. In the tape, it was believed that Burns and Gary were doing criminal braggadocio- they were making false confessions to impress the gangsters because they felt threatened and wanted to fit in. Also, the arrogance personalities the two had was a defensive mechanism: Burns stated himself that he wanted to act tough so he wouldn’t break down in front of the media, and really, he was grieving about the case.

When I was reading this, I didn’t realize how dark it would be in just the first paragraph. It started off normally where the woman was working, and then she came home and took a jog. However, when the story said she took a jog at central park late at night, I knew something bad was going to happen; and I was right. She got raped and suffered inhumane injuries that would scar anyone for life. The jogger was hospitalized and took many months to fully recover. After fifteen months, her brain was still damaged, and that prevented her from functioning normally. She couldn’t focus her eyes or walk without assistance, lost her sense of spell, and couldn’t read without experiencing double vision. Doctors believed that she lost these functions permanently.

It was believed that African-Americans were responsible for this incident, and it led to an “emotional undertow” in American black history. People used to believe that deep inside African Americans, they fantasize raping white woman. Black men were accused of raping white woman despite that they weren’t, and yet, black women were being raped by their slave master white man, and that sometimes even lead to a birth of a mixed baby. If a white woman ever says that a black man gave them a look, that black man would be hung with a white audience enjoying their view.

Prosecutors targeting minors for this case, and it was common to hide the names of minors from the public, but this time, they released the names because they believed the case to be very serious. One kid named Yusef Salaam was fifteen years old at the time, and he was being interrogated. New York state law required that kids fifteen years old and under require a parent for an interrogation, and the district attorney lied that he was sixteen years old. Then during court, the district attorney told David Nocenti, Yusef’s attorney, that Yusef had no legal standing in the case because of his age, but yet, she still interrogated him without his mom by his side.

This incident brought out unlawful, hypocrisy actions being down by authorities, and stirred the racism that was deep down in people.

 

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