PhonZhi
Veteran
story is blowing up
How big is this story now breh? Im not on Twitter. I google "dothan alabama" and the last stories on it is from 2-3 days ago. Dr. Boyce Watkins hasn't even spoke on it and he's usually on top of stories like this.
Dothan,AL PD PLANTED GUNS & DRUGS on Blacks; DA CoverUp—POLICE CONFIRM DOCS REAL; Local News Reports
- Thread starter ☑︎#VoteDemocrat
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How big is this story now breh? Im not on Twitter. I google "dothan alabama" and the last stories on it is from 2-3 days ago. Dr. Boyce Watkins hasn't even spoke on it and he's usually on top of stories like this.
Me either
Even though the mainstream media gets accused of being too "liberal", they really aren't, in that sense that:
They want stories that create a constant discussion (such as shootings, whether its mass shootings or white on black shootings), but they aren't gonna go for clear cut cases like this that are easy to see and are not double sided.
They want stories that create a constant discussion (such as shootings, whether its mass shootings or white on black shootings), but they aren't gonna go for clear cut cases like this that are easy to see and are not double sided.
Reginald Noble
Banned
People got to tweet this out more man
this can't just die after 5 days
If this was happening in even some Middle Eastern country it would be on the news back and forth for MONTHS
I thought everybody knew cops did this
Exactly! What the hell is so shocking about this? No shyt cops plant drugs, guns, and all sorts of other things to imprison Black men.
JulesWinfield
TheBrehdrenMovement
What's scary is that this is just one specific police department that got caught. How many others do you think do this and keep it quiet? It took 20 years for this to come out so just imagine how many different police departments that haven't been caught (yet). My heart goes out to all those across the States that have been affected by these cops who took it upon themselves to incriminate innocent young black males.
This "story" is on the verge of becoming a non-story. Either it's shoddy investigative journalism(Rolling Stone's rape debacle comes to mind) or an organized effort to kill the report's credibility. There's a possibility that it could be a case of both with some variations, and that's probably why the mainstream media is hesitant to jump on board. To be fair, the media hasn't exactly been best friends with police departments as of late. The link below is from The Washington Post and they're about as liberal as you can get and even they're questioning the report. Both this reporter and The Southern Poverty Law Center (who racists hate with a a passion) are expressing skepticism about this report.
Doubts raised about report that Dothan, Ala. police planted drugs on young black men
At first blush, the documents provided by author Jon Carroll certainly seem damning. But in most cases, the site only provides access to portions of those documents. And though the report claims that several officers have been accused by colleagues of planting drugs, it focuses and provides documentation only for the allegations against one, and the accusations there concern the mishandling of evidence, which could include — but doesn’t necessarily indicate — the planting of evidence on suspects. The report also mentions that Parrish and other officers were members of a group that the Southern Poverty Law Center calls “racial extremist,” but didn’t specify which group. (More on that in a moment.) The article also included a photo of Parrish and other officers posing in front of a Confederate flag.
I tweeted the story, along with a follow-up tweet about racial bias in the criminal justice system. In retrospect, I wish I hadn’t.
The story quickly went viral. Shortly after, I poked around for more information on the Alabama Justice Project, the Henry County Report, and Jon Carroll, who looks to be the main (and it appears only) person associated with each. I also began asking some trusted contacts and sources in Alabama if they knew anything about Carroll, the website, or the organization. None had heard of any of them.
On the other hand, no one I talked to who has done criminal defense work in Alabama was surprised by the allegations, and all had negative things to say about Dothan, Houston County, and District Attorney Doug Valeska in particular. (Valeska has been DA there for more than 20 years.) One prominent defense attorney in the state says the county is so rife with racism that he had advised black clients to take plea bargains even when they have corroborating witnesses, simply because white jurors there just tend to assume that black people are lying. He described the racism in the area as so casual and ingrained that the people who practice it are unaware of it. “It’s the scariest kind of bigotry,” he added. Another defense attorney who has practiced in the state said Valeska was the worst DA he’d ever seen. Another said he’d heard “scary stuff” coming out of Dothan for years.
Here are some other things we know about Dothan, DA Valeska, and Houston County.
Jon Carroll didn’t return my request for an interview, but he did speak with Leon Neyfakh at Slate, who raised some of the same questions about the report. Carroll told Neyfakh he’ll be releasing more of the 800+ documents he claims to have obtained “over time.” He also said his primary goal is to trigger a Justice Department investigation. Neyfakh also points out that Carroll himself claims to have had drugs planted on him.
Like Neyfakh, I think that while the documents Carroll has released so far are troubling, they don’t back up his very serious claim that Dotham police have been planting evidence on young black men since the late 1990s. Perhaps future documents will, but Carroll should have waited until he was ready to release those documents to post the story.
The rest of us shouldn’t have been so quick to bite. I regret tweeting out his article without more skepticism. There are some real, documented problems in Alabama’s 20th Judicial District. If these new allegations don’t ultimately check out, it will be that much more difficult to get anyone to take those other problems seriously.
Doubts raised about report that Dothan, Ala. police planted drugs on young black men
At first blush, the documents provided by author Jon Carroll certainly seem damning. But in most cases, the site only provides access to portions of those documents. And though the report claims that several officers have been accused by colleagues of planting drugs, it focuses and provides documentation only for the allegations against one, and the accusations there concern the mishandling of evidence, which could include — but doesn’t necessarily indicate — the planting of evidence on suspects. The report also mentions that Parrish and other officers were members of a group that the Southern Poverty Law Center calls “racial extremist,” but didn’t specify which group. (More on that in a moment.) The article also included a photo of Parrish and other officers posing in front of a Confederate flag.
I tweeted the story, along with a follow-up tweet about racial bias in the criminal justice system. In retrospect, I wish I hadn’t.
The story quickly went viral. Shortly after, I poked around for more information on the Alabama Justice Project, the Henry County Report, and Jon Carroll, who looks to be the main (and it appears only) person associated with each. I also began asking some trusted contacts and sources in Alabama if they knew anything about Carroll, the website, or the organization. None had heard of any of them.
On the other hand, no one I talked to who has done criminal defense work in Alabama was surprised by the allegations, and all had negative things to say about Dothan, Houston County, and District Attorney Doug Valeska in particular. (Valeska has been DA there for more than 20 years.) One prominent defense attorney in the state says the county is so rife with racism that he had advised black clients to take plea bargains even when they have corroborating witnesses, simply because white jurors there just tend to assume that black people are lying. He described the racism in the area as so casual and ingrained that the people who practice it are unaware of it. “It’s the scariest kind of bigotry,” he added. Another defense attorney who has practiced in the state said Valeska was the worst DA he’d ever seen. Another said he’d heard “scary stuff” coming out of Dothan for years.
Here are some other things we know about Dothan, DA Valeska, and Houston County.
- According to the Equal Justice Initiative, from 2006 to 2010, prosecutors from Houston County used preemptory strikes to exclude 82 percent of black jurors from death penalty cases.
- Because of those challenges, every single death penalty case in Houston County over that period had an all-white jury or a jury with a single black juror. Houston County is 27 percent black.
- Valeska’s office has had several cases overturned by appeals courts due to the systematic exclusion of blacks from juries. He has also had verdicts overturned due to illegal evidence and improper comments to juries.
- Despite a population of just 103,000, Houston County has sent 17 people to death row, a staggering rate that leads the state and, as best I can tell, is the highest rate in the nation among counties with three or more death sentences — by quite a bit.
- In June, federal district court judge Myron Thompson refused to throw out a racial discrimination suit by longtime Dothan police officer Keith Gray. In that suit Thompson noted that Parrish was not only a member of a group called “Sons of the Confederacy,” he named his own son after Nathan Bedford Forrest, the first “grand wizard” of the Ku Klux Klan. Parrish, who again is currently the Dothan police chief, recently confirmed his membership in Sons of the Confederacy to the Dothan Eagle. “I am a history enthusiast,” Parrish told the paper. “My ancestors fought for the South during the Civil War, and I’m proud of it.” Dothan is 30 percent black.
- Gray’s suit alleges numerous incidents of Dothan officers using racial slurs and incidents of racial bigotry.
- His suit further alleges harassment and mistreatment of minority citizens, including at least one incident in which a young black man was arrested on what Gray deemed to be “trumped up charges.”
Jon Carroll didn’t return my request for an interview, but he did speak with Leon Neyfakh at Slate, who raised some of the same questions about the report. Carroll told Neyfakh he’ll be releasing more of the 800+ documents he claims to have obtained “over time.” He also said his primary goal is to trigger a Justice Department investigation. Neyfakh also points out that Carroll himself claims to have had drugs planted on him.
Like Neyfakh, I think that while the documents Carroll has released so far are troubling, they don’t back up his very serious claim that Dotham police have been planting evidence on young black men since the late 1990s. Perhaps future documents will, but Carroll should have waited until he was ready to release those documents to post the story.
The rest of us shouldn’t have been so quick to bite. I regret tweeting out his article without more skepticism. There are some real, documented problems in Alabama’s 20th Judicial District. If these new allegations don’t ultimately check out, it will be that much more difficult to get anyone to take those other problems seriously.
THere shrinking numbers doesn't mean their power and wealth is going to sway to us. The more they shrink, the more violent and bold they will come.
