“In September, police took a 17-year-old African-American boy out of high school in Cincinnati, Ohio, and arrested him on the suspicion that he had participated in an armed mugging. There was no evidence connecting him to the alleged crime, his public defender contended, save that the alleged victim brought the boy’s Facebook photo to the police. The charges were dismissed, but only after the boy spent a month in detention, including time in isolation, according to a lawsuit filed last month.
The class-action lawsuit, filed on behalf of juvenile plaintiffs against two officials at Hamilton County juvenile court system, claims that the boy’s case is part of a systematic problem in Hamilton County — and possibly throughout Ohio — where officials authorize warrants for arrest and incarceration without probable cause determination, which has a disproportionate impact on black children. The lawsuit also is filed against the Hamilton County Board of County Commissioners.
Pamela Matthews, 46, the legal guardian of the boy, “S.W.”, said that when she heard her son had been taken out of history class and put in jail, “I assumed it was a joke; I started laughing.” Her son is a good student with no juvenile criminal record, according to his sworn court testimony, and Matthews said that he had a solid alibi: “He was at home, asleep.””* The Young Turks hosts John Iadarola (TYT University), Steve Oh and Jimmy Dore (The Jimmy Dore Show) break it down.
*Read more here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/10/criminal-justice-ohio_n_6296880.html
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