Last Dec. 29 Blake Shamar Officer, a 17-year-old African-American, was on his way home from work at a local sandwich shop when he stumbled onto a crime scene in South Minneapolis. A middle-aged Latino man had been shot nonfatally during a robbery in front of an apartment building at Pillsbury and 28th avenues south. As Blake happened by, he caught the attention of police officers who believed the tall teen-ager matched the victim’s physical description of the shooter. After officers questioned him, the innocent yet nervous teen-ager was arrested, charged with four felonies and placed on house arrest. In a kind of legal limbo, he waited several months before charges against him were finally dropped.
And if we needed more evidence refuting the accuracy of witness identifications:
The alleged shooter was African-American, dressed in all black, and somewhere between 5 feet 8 and 5 feet 10. Despite the fact that Blake was wearing a gold shirt and stands 6 feet 5, the victim twice positively identified Blake as the culprit.
No comments:
Post a Comment