France in Shock at Gang-Rape Trial of Police from Famous BRI Unit
Court hears how Canadian woman was allegedly raped by terrorism officers at 36 Quai des Orfèves
Kim Willsher in Paris | The Guardian UK
Emily Spanton grew up with police officers – her father had been a high-ranking officer in the Toronto force – so when two French officers she met while drinking in a Paris bar invited her to see their famous headquarters, she agreed.
Spanton was, she says, drunk and shaky on her feet. “I knew I wasn’t in a state to find my hotel. And I thought that going to a police station would sober me up as there would be plenty of lights and people,” the Canadian said.
But after she went upstairs at the celebrated 36 Quai des Orfèvres to the fifth floor and entered room 461, Spanton said she walked into “the worst night of my life”. Continue reading
USA: Florida’s new governor makes welcome moves – by Mohamed Hamaludin
They came to be known as the Groveland Four – African American youths living in Lake County in 1949 whom a 17-year-old white girl falsely accused of rape. One of them, Ernest Thomas, fled and a 1,000-strong posse hunted him down and shot him 400 times after finding him sleeping under a tree, the Associated Press recently recounted. Walter Irvin and Samuel Shepherd were sentenced to death and Charles Greenlee to life in prison but future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall won them a new trial.
Lake County Sheriff Willis McCall shot Irvin and Shepherd, claiming they tried to escape, while being handcuffed. Shepherd died but Irvin survived, although, the AP pointed out, an ambulance refused to take him to a hospital because he was black. He was again convicted, was paroled in 1968 and was found dead in his car as he drove back to Lake County for a funeral in 1969. Greenlee was paroled in 1960 and died in 2012. Continue reading →
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