Page 20 - Florida Sentinel 1-15-19

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Four Black Men Accused Of 1949 Rape Of White Woman In Florida Are Pardoned
From left, Lake County Sheriff Willis McCall and an uniden- tified man stand next to Walter Irvin, Samuel Shepherd and Charles Greenlee in Florida in 1949. The three men and a fourth man were accused of raping a white woman in 1949 in a case now seen as racial injustice.
Jazmine Barnes’ Accused Gunman Denies Any Involvement In Fatal Shooting
Larry Woodruffe, the al- leged trigger man in the fatal shooting of Jazmine Barnes, 7, denies any in- volvement in the murder that rankled the nation. He claims he was nowhere near the scene on Dec. 30, according to Houston ABC affiliate KTRK.
During a court appearance Thursday, Lisa Andrews, Woodruffe’s attorney, pointed the finger at his client’s co-defendant, Eric Black, Jr.
Both men are both charged with capital murder in Jazmine’s death, which oc-
JAZMINE BARNES
curred during a drive-by shooting in a parking lot. The
shooting was reportedly a case of mistaken identity, with the shooting coming as retaliation for an earlier fight that involved a rival, the re- port said.
Woodruffe was arrested Saturday on an unrelated drug charge. The capital mur- der charge was filed Tuesday afternoon during Jazmine’s funeral.
A tipster led investigators to Black and Woodruffe after a little over a weeklong search. Black confessed to being the getaway driver and quickly implicated Wood- ruffe as the shooter.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — After a dramatic, hour-long meeting that recalled events from nearly seven decades ago, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state's three-member Cabinet granted posthumous pardons Friday to four African- American men accused of rap- ing a white woman in a 1949 case now seen as a racial injus- tice.
The case of the men known as the Groveland Four has been documented in a book and is considered a blight on Florida's history. One of the four was killed before he could be charged and the other three were convicted on dubious ev- idence.
The families of the men ac- cused of the assault told De- Santis and the Cabinet — meeting as the clemency board — that there is overwhelming evidence the men were inno- cent and there was no rape. The woman who was 17 when she said she was raped, sat in a wheelchair and later told Gov. DeSantis and the Cabinet the rape did indeed happen, saying she was dragged from a car, had a gun put to her head and was told not to scream or they would "blow your brains out."
At one point, the two sides briefly clashed. Beverly Robinson, a niece of one of the Groveland Four, was speaking to the governor and the Cabinet when she turned to the woman and her sons.
"It never happened. You all are liars," Robinson said.
"That's enough out of you," the woman said.
"I know it's enough out of me. It's always enough when you're telling the truth,"
Robinson replied.
The unanimous vote to par-
don came almost two years after the state House and Sen- ate voted to formally apologize to relatives of the Groveland Four and to ask then-Gov. Rick Scott to pardon the men. Scott, now a U. S. sena- tor, never took action. DeSan- tis replaced Scott on Tuesday and made the pardons a prior- ity.
"I don't know that there's any way you can look at this case and think that those ideals of justice were satisfied. In- deed, they were perverted time and time again, and I think the way this was carried out was a miscarriage of justice," De- Santis said.
The ordeal began in Lake County in 1949, when the then-17-year-old said she had been raped. Three of the men were arrested and severely beaten; a fourth, Ernest Thomas, fled.
A posse of about 1,000 men was formed to hunt down Thomas. He was shot 400 times when they found him sleeping under a tree. White residents also formed a mob and went to a black neighbor- hood, burning houses and fir- ing guns into homes in a disturbance that took days to quell.
Charles Greenlee, Wal- ter Irvin and Samuel Shep- herd were convicted by an all-white jury. Other evidence that could have exonerated them — such as a doctor's con- clusion that the teen probably wasn't raped — was withheld at their trial. Greenlee was sen- tenced to life, and Irvin and Shepherd to death.
Alpha Sorority For Alleged Hazing
Mother Of College Student Who
Committed Suicide Sues Alpha Kappa
The mother of Northwest- ern basketball player Jordan Hankins, who committed suicide by hanging in her dorm room in 2017, is suing the Alpha Kappa Alpha soror- ity for allegedly hazing her daughter.
Felicia Hankins, Jor- dan’s mother says that haz- ing on the Illinois campus of the prestigious university con- tributed to her daughter’s de- pression and ultimately her suicide.
The lawsuit doesn’t specif- ically outline what kind of abuse but states: Jordan Hankins was “subjected to hazing, including physical and mental harm,” Yahoo reports. “While post-initiation pledg- ing, Jordan Hankins was subjected to physical abuse in- cluding paddling, verbal abuse, mental abuse, financial exploitation, sleep depriva- tion, items being thrown and dumped on her, and other forms of hazing intended to humiliate and demean her,” the suit states.
Hankins is reportedly suing Alpha Kappa Alpha and two of their chapters and has also named nine individuals in leadership positions.
Jordan was a 19-year-old sophomore at Northwestern University. She was found dead in her dorm room in 2017.
Felicia Hankins’ attor- ney Brandon Vaughn re-
JORDAN HANKINS
leased a statement on the fam- ily’s behalf.
“Jordan Hankins was at the prime of her life and seek- ing to join an organization she believed was dedicated to sis- terhood and personal and professional development. In- stead, as a condition of her membership, it is alleged she was subjected to severe phys- ical and mental abuse by members of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority,” the statement reads.
The suit states that “Jor- dan Hankins communi- cated to members of AKA sorority, including individu- ally named defendants, that the hazing was triggering her PTSD, causing severe anxiety and depression and that she was having suicidal thoughts.”
The lawsuit accuses the de- fendants of multiple counts of negligent supervision and negligent entrustment and makes several wrongful death
claims.
According to Jordan
Hankins’ bio on the North- western Athletics website, she was a member of her Indi- anapolis high school’s Na- tional Honor Society and had planned to study biological sciences in college.
A spokesman for North- western University, which is not a defendant in the lawsuit, said in a statement, “North- western remains deeply sad- dened by the death of Jordan Hankins two years ago, and we continue to send our kind- est thoughts and condolences to her friends and family.”
Alpha Kappa Alpha soror- ity is also currently suspended from Northwestern Univer- sity, according to the state- ment.
According to Fox 2 News, police did investigate Hank- ins’ death in 2017 but the in- vestigation did not lead to criminal charges
PAGE 20 FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND TUESDAY, JANUARY 15, 2019