1 - Introduction

Summary

This case has been portrayed by the news media as being about race. But the case is not, and never has been, about race. It is about finding justice for an innocent victim and holding people accountable for their actions.

Jena, Louisiana, District Attorney Reed Walters, explaining his decision to charge six African-American high school students with attempted murder after they beat a White student but declining to charge White students, who hung nooses from a school yard tree, with hate crimes

If you can figure out how to make a school yard fight into an attempted murder charge, I'm sure you can figure out how to make stringing nooses into a hate crime.

Latese Brown, protesting District Attorney Walter's decisions in Jena

On August 9, 1997, Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant, was arrested outside of the Rendez-Vous Club in Flatbush, Brooklyn, where police arrived to break up a fight. On the way to the police station, the officers beat Louima. Unfortunately, this treatment became far more sadistic when, upon arrival at the 70th Precinct Police Station, one officer (Justin Volpe) sodomized him with a toilet plunger rod. Although Volpe is currently serving a thirty-year sentence, the other three officers had their convictions overturned in February 2002 by a federal appeals court for lack of evidence. Louima later settled with the city of New York for $8.7 million.