BY ALYSON KENNEDY AND SARAH KATZ
CHICAGO - At an August 16 press conference at the Beth-El
All Nations church in Englewood, a Black working-class
community on the south side of Chicago, community residents and
church leaders protested the unjust and racist treatment of two
Black youth. These children, ages seven and eight, were
arrested and charged with the murder of an 11-year-old girl,
Ryan Harris, on August 9.
Rev. Gregory Daniels, spokesperson at the press conference and president of Voters United for Truth and Change, said, "These boys are being treated like adult criminals. They haven't been proven guilty." The media has made these boys into "the poster boys of mini-murderers," he added.
Harris, who is also Black, was found dead on July 28 in weeds in a vacant lot in the Englewood area. She had been hit in the head with a blunt object, fracturing her skull, and died of asphyxiation. She had leaves and grass stuffed in her nose and her underpants shoved in her mouth.
The girl's body was seminude and initial reports claimed that she had been sexually violated with a foreign object. The boys were not charged with sexual abuse.
After the girl's body was discovered, every detective available from the Wentworth police station blanketed the Englewood area, going house to house questioning residents. After questioning the accused boys two times, the cops arrested them and took them to the Wentworth Area Headquarters.
Police claim the children were brought in because they had information that only authorities and the perpetrators would have known about the case. At the police station the seven- and eight-year-old were interrogated by five police officers without a parent or legal counsel in the room.
In the initial massive house-to-house questioning, at least four eyewitnesses gave information they saw Harris with an older man just before she disappeared. This same information was given by one of the accused boys the first time detectives questioned him. Police say they have followed that lead, but got nowhere. The August 17 Chicago Sun Times reported that "police are not looking for other suspects."
Nevertheless, the 16-year-old uncle of the eight-year-old was picked up by police who "put him in the car, rode him around for almost two hours ... interrogating him about the murder," the teenager's mother said. Attorney Lewis Myers, lawyer for the eight-year-old, spoke out against this intimidation of his client's family by police August 17. "There were no charges, no warrant," against the boy's uncle, he said.
The case "smacks of the Rolando Cruz syndrome," the attorney added, referring to the case of a Chicago man who spent 13 years on death row, framed up for murder.
Judge Gerald Winiecki ruled August 10 that there was enough evidence to hold the boys in custody. The Chicago Tribune's Tuesday headline roared, "Police say suspects not too small to kill." But in the newspaper the next day it was stated that "there is little, if any, physical evidence linking the boys to the crime. In describing how they came to charge the two Chicago boys, police made no mention of any physical evidence or eyewitnesses."
This case has made national news and has been on the front page of the major Chicago papers for over a week. The youth are being portrayed in the media as guilty. This came through in an editorial in the Chicago Tribune August 12, which stated that the boys are "salvageable souls with the potential for long productive lives ahead of them. Sadly, that is not always true, even for youthful offenders, but it is the duty of the juvenile court to presume that to be the case until proven otherwise."
The case has also sparked a flurry of opinion columns on "child crime."
The Rev. Paul Jakes Jr., pastor of Old St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church and one of the leaders in the fight against the police beating of Jeremiah Meardy, a Black youth, told the Chicago Defender, "Racism is alive and well in Chicago. They have flipped with the Constitution. A person is supposed to be innocent until [proven] guilty, but some media have portrayed them as guilty before their day in court."
Hearings continued for four days over what to do with the boys. Under Illinois law, children under 10 can not be placed in a locked facility. During the hearings the boys were kept at the Hartgrove Hospital psychiatric facility.
The mother of the 7-year-old, labeled the "aggressor" by police, said she was told after her son was charged that she "had to sign him over to the hospital or they would give him to [the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services] and I wouldn't see him until the trial. I didn't want them to take him away like that. I said, `Where's the papers?'"
After the second day's court session, the mother was able to spend a few minutes with her son under the watchful eye of the court bailiff. She was not allowed to touch him, however, even to give him a hug.
A final decision was made on August 13, when, after testimony from two child psychology experts that the seven and eight year old are not a danger to themselves or others, Judge Winiecki sent them home. They are restricted to the house, however, and are required to wear custom-made electronic monitoring devices on their ankles that trigger a computer at the police station if the children stray more than 150 feet from a sensor device. Juvenile probation officers conduct unannounced visits to their homes.
Rev. Gregory Daniels, at the press conference demanded that "the home monitoring system be removed, the charges be dropped, and an official public apology from the police department and Mayor Richard M. Daley."
Sarah Katz is a member of Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees Local 61 and Socialist Workers candidate for Lt. Governor of Illinois. Alyson Kennedy is a member of Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Local 7-507 and Socialist Workers candidate for U.S. Senate.