Posted by Faith of Acts of Faith In Love and Life blog.
There will be no plea deal for Dunbar Village assault defendant Tommy Lee Poindexter, a judge ruled Wednesday.
Public Defender Carey Haughwout asked Circuit Judge Krista Marx to force the state to make good on a plea offer of 25 years, extended in December with the proviso that Poindexter provide a truthful statement about the June 2007 armed gang rape on a mother and her son, 12. Poindexter, 20, also gave authorities information about three homicides. Sun Sentinel
Don’t let a slight build - or relative youth fool you. There are killers, rapists and other deviants walking amongst us in broad daylight. There are six more suspects that have yet to be apprehended. They look just like you, me, the next door neighbor or the kids down the street. It’s time to get real, be prepared and leave these unsafe residential areas. Your life depends on it!
13 comments ↓
Thank you for keeping us informed on this.I did’nt hear about it in the news and this is important for us to keep in mind at all times . Things such as this are happening far too often in our “communities”.We have to be vigilant but we cannot take action even when we see wha’ts going on because we have stayed in dysfunctional environments far too long.By staying where some of us are we have allowed ourselves to be desensitized to the pain and heartache.This staying put is certainly going to lead us into permanent mental health issues that will be passed down to the children to come.We must get out .We cannot let human sufferings continue to be the norms of our everday lives.There should be no expectation of our children to have to suffer always.May justice be served.
I don’t have anything profound or thought provoking say except that I am shocked that he had information on THREE murders. Having information on one murder is one too many but 3. Wow, I’m just stunned. I feel blessed to have an education and career that have afforded me the chance to avoid living in poverty stricken communities but what about those left behind? How does someone help others without being dragged within?
Any why hasn’t the FBI, ATF, NAACP, NAN, AFL-CIO and any other acronymed organizations been mobilize to find the six psychos that are still running around? Would any other group of folks have 6 war criminals running around and be silent?
Because they’re crazy negroes and as long as they don’t go into other communities they could care less, Plus remember some black people don’t snitch anyway.
As long as criminality is accepted as the norm in the “black community” this type of situation will escalate. The blowback of course is the police overreaching at times in apprehending suspects. Stop protecting the criminals then you can hold law enforcement accountable.
3 homicides?!?!?! WTF!!! I’d wish death on all of them while they were imprisoned, but that would open the floodgates for the sorry and trifling relatives to file civil suits to collect financial rewrds.
I remember the flyers from the rally that “the black community” held in their honor. They were referred to as “tender and precious”. Tender and precious enough to violently RAPE and attempt to murder a single black woman and her son. Tender and precious enough to be implicated in 3 murders!!!
I know this is an aside, Faith, but do you think the black community’s inaction on the victims’ behalf has anything to do with the fact that they are Hatian?
@blkseagoat No I don’t think her ethnicity has anything to do with it the apathy expressed by the locals and the knee-jerk response of the NAACP & Sharpton to rush to protect the (alleged) rapists/would-be murderers. Of course no other group of people would be silent while a threat like this was imminent. A task force would have been deployed 2 years ago, reward money would have been offered and all suspects would be in custody. Perhaps if someone in FL puts up a Billboard like the NC citizens have done it will spur others to take positive steps.
Ooh… I have pictures of the little thugs that I used to make signs for my protest. If anyone needs photos for the billboard idea, I’d be happy to provide them. Not sure how good the resolution is, but you are welcomed to them.
The victim is being victimized all over again. This is the defense’s strategy – http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2009/06/17/a3b_dunbarsettle_0618.html?cxntlid=inform_artr
@blkseagoat That defense tactic is vile but criminal court is pretty vile. I hope she did get a settlement. I’m sure she would’ve rather NEVER needed one and would prefer that the attack on her and son had never taken place instead. You have to be…something…to be able to defend a rapist that you know to be guilty. I couldn’t do it.
Faith,
You said, ” You have to be…something…to be able to defend a rapist that you know to be guilty. I couldn’t do it.”
I understand the urge to hinder the work of defense attorneys. I would simply caution everyone to be careful what they wish for. Any obstruction of the ability to provide a complete and effective defense would most likely only affect those accused people who are marginalized in this society. In other words, the poor and racial minorities. This means Black people, including INNOCENT Blacks who are accused of crimes.
I can’t speak for why others do defense work, but I do defense work because I am defending the availability of having a reasonably impartial PROCESS for people who have been accused of crimes. This includes having a reasonably impartial process for those who are actually guilty.
Now, there are certain individuals that I can’t stomach to represent. I don’t take their cases, or I’ll give their files to coworkers.
What people tend to forget is that there’s really only 3 ways for governments to handle accusations of criminal activity:
Either we can have: (1) an impartial process of some sort; OR (2) we can have public lynch mobs composed of government employees (police officers and prosecutors); OR we can have private lynch mobs composed of the victims’ friends and family. There’s really no in-between option.
I started off as a prosecutor. Past a certain point, I could no longer stomach working in that type of office. In theory and by official law, prosecutors are supposed to be working in the public’s interest. That’s NOT what most of my former coworkers and the majority of prosecutors I currently know are doing. They are working in the best interest of their CAREERS.
Winning their trials at all costs is what is in the best interests of their careers. After all, their bosses have to run for election. It doesn’t sound good to the public for their bosses to say things like, “I insist that my employees drop charges that are not warranted by the available evidence.” No—They talk about the convictions they obtain.
The goal is not necessarily to only win convictions against the guilty. The goal is to obtain convictions. Period.
Also, prosecutor’s offices have a large percentage of hardcore racists. Racists who are often making mockery of the victims the public naively assumes that they care about.
One of the few brave AA prosecutors I know got into it with her WM colleagues because they had running “jokes” about the (Black) sexual assault victims in their cases. For one example, a young boy had been sodomized with a stick. These White ASAs laughingly referred to him as “stick boy” whenever his case was up. The other Black ASAs were too cowardly to confront these ASA Klansmen, but she did. She endangered her career by doing that.
Most of the Black ASAs I know won’t do anything like that. They sit silently while “their” police officer witnesses make “jokes” about Rev. Jackson and other prominent AAs. Some of them whine about it after the fact, but continue to do nothing. If these people won’t stand up to stop the telling of racist “jokes” in their presence, does anybody really think they’ll stop an innocent person from being convicted? Nope.
When these people allow police officers to “joke” in their presence about “testi-lying,” does anybody really think they’ll stop an innocent person from being convicted? Nope. ["Testi-lying" is a common in-joke among local law enforcement officers. Including the Black ones that I know who are relatives and friends of the family.]
[Needless to say, there was a LOT of tension between me and those racist/dishonest/crazy police officers I encountered while I was a prosecutor. Mostly revolving around my refusal to entertain the above behaviors.]
A word about “railroading:” It’s been my observation that the local police and prosecutors mostly do this with petty criminals, gangbangers, etc. People who are most likely guilty of other crimes.
It’s not that they necessarily set out to “frame” anybody. It’s that they generally don’t care whether or not the person they’ve got is the right one. The first “convictable” person will do, because the goal is to get convictions. Period. And then people’s egos often get involved once they’ve settled on a particular defendant. They are loathe to admit that they made a mistake.
A while back, the local Republican paper (The Chicago Tribune) temporarily lost its editorial “mind” and did an expose on the antics of the local prosecutor’s office. In addition to detailing the apparently widespread prosecutorial misconduct that they were shocked to uncover, the paper reported on a running bet that the ASAs in one court builiding had.
The prosecutors were looking at the weights listed for the defendants on police reports, and betting who among them would be the first to convict a ton of n-words.”
The vast majority of the judges in my jurisdiction are former ASAs. Including folks like the ones who were competing to be the first to convict “a ton of n-words.”
This is why when police officers are arrested, they almost always choose to have bench trials in front of judges (instead of jury trials). They know that most of the judges are ex-ASAs who were their colleagues. They know that these judges are predisposed to acquitting them. And so that’s how it works.
Unfortunately, Black crime victims are often caught between the Janjaweed (violent Black criminals) and the Klan (racist White police and prosecutors). I used to think that these court systems could be reformed from the inside; but I now believe that the rot is too far gone for that.
Peace, blessings and solidarity.
@Khadija Justice is blind for a reason! I watched a few episodes of Raising the Bar and thought it was giving a more realistic but still sanitized version of prosecutors & defense attorneys. I’ve noticed the push for a win above all else. Just as I believe that cop Jim CROWley is not without racism…but the system is only as good as its participants, right?
Glad that the deal was denied. And thanks for continuing to highlight this story.