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The time is 1980. The place is the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn in New York City. The man is 18-year-old Colin Warner. Its a familiar scenario. An unarmed black man is walking through his own neighborhood, minding his business, when, within the blink of an eye, his whole life changes. Police officers pull up, tires screeching, and Warner is alarmed and confused because hes being arrested. And, immediately, were faced with one of Americas harshest truths: Black men (and men of color) are often deemed guilty until proved innocent. And, often, no one is trying to prove that black men are innocent.

Warner is brought into the precinct and basically told that hes murdered a man. And Warner has no say in his own fate. There are no choices for him to make as the officers try to make him confess, which Warner never does because he didnt do it. But the guttural pleas of innocence from Warners lips fall on deaf ears.

The film Crown Heights forces the viewer to face Americas demonsracism, a crooked justice system and the dehumanization of prisonersall in one emotional ride. The knot in my stomach ached for a teenage Colin (Lakeith Stanfield) having to face mental and physical anguish in prison, knowing he was an innocent man.

From the arresting officers to the prosecutors to the prison guards and Warners own legal counsel, the movie takes us down a long, frustrating road of something were mostly all aware: a system that doesnt work for people who cant defend themselves. And its usually people of color, namely black men, just like Colin Warner, who cannot defend themselves.

Crown Heights shows you that clear evidence doesnt even implicate Warner. But the evils of law enforcement are determined to finger him and make him pay for the crime. And as a viewer, youre left wondering why, even though youre fully aware of the dangers and circumstances of racism.

I just thought they would be fair, Warners mom says at one point in the film.

We all have the hope that the justice system will actually bring forth justice, even though we know better. We all held our breath, waiting to hear that George Zimmerman, Michael Dunn, or Blane Salamoni and Howie Lake were all found guilty of murder.

And even though you know Warners fate, you still hold your breath when the judge reluctantly reads the verdict.

Most prisoners know deep down they put themselves here. I dont have that comfort. Colin Warner (Lakeith Stanfield)

But perhaps the biggest star of this entire film isnt a person at allits Warners support system in the form of his longest and dearest friend, Carl King (Nnamdi Asomugha).

As soon as he hears about the arrest, King is at the precinct to bail his friend out, only to be told that he has been denied bail. This will be the beginning of a 21-year battle King willingly takes on to help his friend see freedom again.

How long would it take for you to lose hope? I know that I am a good friend, but to have a dedication like Kings and stick with Warner through 21 infuriating years of rejected justice is just a level of friendship Im not so sure Id have been able to reach.

At one point, even Warner is over the constant disappointment and he chastises King for being there for him and begs him to stop. But King (Asomugha) counters with: Its not just about you. Its bigger than that. It could be me in here. Sometimes I feel like it is me.

And it is us, all of us. Mass incarceration and wrongful imprisonment affect us all. People go to jail more than 11 million times every year. Many of them are criminals, yes, but not everyone fits into the same mold.

Colin Warners story is one of many, and thats what made me sad leaving the theater. While hes now free and able to champion for others falsely accused, the fact that people like him even exist makes you feel like this country is never going to value people of color in a way that humanizes us.

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Crown Heights Exposes a Very Common American Problem: Wrongful Conviction - The Root

Guy Miles was not a model citizen. In 1998, hed broken the conditionsfor parole (he had been incarcerated on charges of stealing cars from a valet parking service) by moving to Nevada from California. Thinking he was still concealing his true whereabouts, he traveled back to California to meet with his parole officer there, andhewas subsequently arrested.

But his arrest was not for theparole violation, instead it was for bank robbery. Two eyewitnesses to a robbery in Orange County, California, identifiedMiles as one of the robbers. Despite compelling evidence of Miles innocence, he was convicted and sentenced to 75 years in prison. In 2013, however, more evidence (including a confession from a co-defendant in Miles trial) that implicated two other men was uncovered whichremoved Miles from the scene of the crime. His appeal is still awaiting a court decision in California.

Even in the age of DNA evidence and advanced forensics science, the claims of an eyewitness still carry a lot of weightin court, in the media and in our heads. But reversals of convictions due to later evidence, and revelations of eyewitness misidentifications continue to mount. Of the first 130 convictions that were ever overturned by later DNA evidence, 78 percent of the caseswere initially decidedviamisidentification by witnesses, according to the Innocence Project. In addition, studies have shown that one-third of identified perpetrators were instead fillers deliberately put in a police lineup; these fillers had nothing whatsoever to do with the crime.

So, is eyewitness testimony worth anything? While the latest headlines and court cases might indicate no, neuroscientists and criminal justice scholars say that eyewitnesses can have value, as long as we have a solid understanding of how the brain takes in visual or audio memories and how those memories can change over time.

George Zimmerman

There are many ways eyewitness testimony and memory can change. In the famous trial of neighborhood watch coordinator George Zimmerman, accused of second-degree murder in the shooting death of a young black man named Trayvon Martin, eyewitness testimonywas inconsistent:

For many neuroscientists, the value of eyewitness testimony depends on timing when testimony was collected, as well as how well the eyewitness truly saw what was happening at the time of the crime.

A lot of howpersonal accounts arecreated depend on how the brain stores memories. Richard Wise, a University of North Dakota forensic psychologist, told Scientific American:

To reconstruct a memory, the eyewitness draws upon several sources of information, only one being his or her actual recollection. To fill in gaps in memory, the eyewitness relies upon his or her expectation, attitudes, prejudices, bias, and prior knowledge. Furthermore, information supplied to an eyewitness after a crime (i.e., post-event information) by the police, prosecutor, other eyewitnesses, media, etc., can alter an eyewitnesss memory of the crime.

To understand how memories can be filled in, changed and otherwise affected, its become important to know how both theeyes and brain work.

The eye, of course, takes in light through the lens and aligns images to the retina. Then, images are picked up and transmitted to the brain, via the optic nerve. At that point, things can get complicated. The brains various regions code information, and decide where it should be stored, or how it should be reacted to. This process can result in a number of optical illusions. These illusions, or false

An MC Escher print

images, include spots that arise when the eyes focused on very bright lights, optic migraines that produce shadows or other (nonexistent) light changes, or cognitive illusions, which occur when the eye records one image, but the brain encodes (or remembers) another. Prints by MC Escher, or pictures that seem to alternatively show an image of a horse and a tree exemplify this type of illusion.

These illusions can affect how a witness remembers somethinglikea crime and memories can be changed by much more than illusions. A U.S. National Research Council analysis on eyewitness testimony reported in 2014 that:

Factors such as viewing conditions, duress, elevated emotions, and biases influence the visual perception experience. Perceptual experiences are stored by a system of memory that is highly malleable and continuously evolving, neither retaining nor divulging content in an informational vacuum. As such, the fidelity of our memories to actual events may be compromised by many factors at all stages of processing, from encoding to storage and retrieval.

Timing of the eventmay be another issue with eyewitness testimony. Ahead of Zimmermans acquittal at trial, several witnesses changed their story from their initial impressions, but this was not isolated to the Zimmerman case. Scientists have started looking at how certain a witness was of his or her first impressions of a crime; often, if theyre not certain at first, they can later be coaxed (either by their brains or a prosecutor) into greater certainty, even if that certainty is wrong. Conversely, knowing a witness certaintyduring the initial investigative interview can help put that memory into some context.

To remedy these issues, psychologists have teamed up with the US Justice Department (which set up procedures for handling eyewitness accounts only in 1999) and criminal prosecutors to determine how eyewitness evidence is handled. These included procedures that mimic scientific studies, including a warning to witnesses that a suspect may not be in a police lineup, and double-blind situations in which a detective cannot influence a witness memory.

But the National Research Council report indicated that far more needed to be done, particularlyon the research side. The reportcriticized inadequate collaboration between police, courts and researchers, cited a lack of transparency of research methods on eyewitness handling, and found a lack of reproducibility with data reporting.

So for now, in eyewitness testimony, what you see isnt necessarily what you get. But at least now science canshow us how what we see changes what we get.

Andrew Porterfield is a writer and editor, and has worked with numerous academic institutions, companies and non-profits in the life sciences. BIO. Follow him on Twitter @AMPorterfield.

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Can we trust the eyes of those who witness crimes? - Genetic Literacy Project

As a social justice activist , trauma is an ever-present factor in my work. In fact, witnessing or experiencing a traumatic event is often the spark that ignites people to take action in the first place. It was for me. And as you can imagine, steeping yourself in pain to effect change can get exhausting. To combat this, theres a practice within the activist community known as step up, step back, which refers to activists and organizers taking turns being on the front lines of an initiative versus playing a more supportive role. This practice is necessary for the sustainability of movementsand for the sake of the people involved.

This past weekend I was in step-back mode, watching events unfold in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a white supremacist rally had sprung up in response to the scheduled removal of a Confederate statue. After being in conversation with clergy who were organizing a demonstration to counter the white supremacists, I watched in real-time as the religious leaders joined arms and marched into danger, standing firmly in the spirit of nonviolence and truth. I felt inspired but also deeply concerned for their safety as news began emerging of violent clashes and a delayed police response.

Apart from sending my friends encouraging words, the most I could do was use my platform to amplify what was happening and why it was significant. I committed myself to that role, using both social and traditional media outlets to help get the word out.

As 8 p.m. approached on Saturday, I sent out a final tweet for the day, announcing it was time for me to practice what I preach and take some time for self-care in a black joy space.

I'm an introvert, so I often enjoy time in quiet and seclusion, but I also find joy and healing in being around friends and loved ones. In either instance, I practice mindfulness being fully present in the momentas a way of centering myself and clearing my head.

I already had plans to attend a gathering of local artists on Saturday night, but after a day focused on the traumatic events unfolding in Charlottesville, it became even more important for me to be intentional about attending.

I havent always been so disciplined about self-careI have a tendency to go, go, go until I burn out. In times past, I likely wouldve skipped the artists' gathering and continued to tweet while following the breaking news beat by beat. Balancing activism with self-care didn't come naturally to me at first. But since committing myself to fighting for social justice a few years ago, it's something I've developed out of necessity.

Trayvon Martin's murder in February 2012 and the subsequent acquittal of his killer, George Zimmerman, were deeply traumatic for me. As Zimmerman was acquitted in July 2013, North Carolina was waging an attack on voting rights after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling struck down key parts of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Although Id always been socially conscious and politically active, this combination of events convinced me of how easily and quickly my rights could be taken away. I had to do more to ensure that didnt happen.

I volunteered to be arrested during a voting rights sit-in at the North Carolina statehouse and shortly thereafter traveled with a group of youth activists from North Carolina to Florida to join the Dream Defenders. They were occupying the statehouse in Florida in protest of the stand-your-ground laws that had permitted Trayvon Martins murderer to walk free. Over the next two years, I committed myself to protesting in the streets and raising awareness around the continuing problems of systemic racism in America. I organized many protests and meetings in my hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina, as I gradually transitioned into the role of becoming a community organizer.

Thats the work I was engaged in when, in June 2015, a white supremacist walked into Mother Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, and murdered nine black parishioners during a prayer meeting. My decision to participate in lowering the Confederate flag at South Carolinas statehouse was a response to this trauma, along with many historical traumas as well: the four little girls killed in the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, the enslavement of my ancestors in South Carolina, the assassinations of so many civil rights activists over the years.

In preparing to scale the flagpole, I spent a lot of time in contemplative prayer, during which I made peace with the danger I was facing and the possibility of my own death . When that didnt happen and the flag removal was successful, I faced another scenario of circumstances I hadnt spent as much time preparing for.

I had to adjust to having a national platform for my advocacy. I spent much of that year traveling the nation and speaking at various colleges and universities about the legacy of slavery in America and the issues confronting our society.

There was one question audience members asked most frequently regardless of where I spoke: What do you do for self-care? This question was most often posed by young black women, indicating to me a particular need for black women to emphasize self-care and to make sure I was practicing self-care as well.

Images and conversations depicting me as a black female superhero are amazing and empowering, but they also remind me that black women are often called upon to demonstrate superhuman strength, usually to the detriment of our health and well-being . We're living in a society that was built upon the enslavement and dehumanization of black people, a society that targets black women in specific and heinous ways. Being intentional about caring for ourselves and each other and carving out moments and spaces for joy is itself a radical form of resilience and resistance.

I'm still engaged in both leading and supporting various efforts and initiatives in the fight for social justice. However, Ive finally learned to pause and step away when I need to, unplugging from the work and plugging into my immediate surroundings, finding moments of stillness and peace. The movement began before I arrived, and I can be certain it will still be here when I return.

Bree Newsome is an artist who drew national attention in 2015 when she climbed the flagpole in front of the South Carolina Capitol building and lowered the Confederate battle flag following the white supremacist terrorist attack at Mother Emanuel AME in Charleston.

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Charlottesville Reinforced That Self-Care Is an Essential Part of My Activism - SELF

Saturday afternoon, President Trump, in a statement that should taint his family name until human extinction, decried the violence on many sides. He personally did not mention white supremacy specifically until Monday, and then only under fierce pressure from the public and the media. Abruptly but unsurprisingly, on Tuesday afternoon, he doubled back to his original stance and again blamed both sides.

On one side, you see, you have white nationalists and neo-Nazis carrying assault weapons and advocating for a white, Christian, fascist ethno-state in America. On the other side, you have people who would prefer not to be systematically exterminated. Both are equally bad! To put it another way, on one side, you have the guy who law enforcement officials say deliberately ran a woman over with his car and the people who are celebrating her death. On the other, you have the woman who got run over by the car. Both are to blame! (By the way, if you are a good liberal grousing about how some anti-fascists are just as bad as fascists, you are riding Trumps wake on this logical highway.)

During Trumps two-day silence, congressional Republicans smelled a P.R. disaster and responded decisively. Senator Orrin Hatch, of Utah, tweeted: We should call evil by its name. My brother didnt give his life fighting Hitler for Nazi ideas to go unchallenged here at home. Senator Marco Rubio, of Florida, described the events in Charlottesville as a terror attack by #whitesupremacists. Senator Chuck Grassley, of Iowa, called it homegrown terrorism. Senator Cory Gardner, of Colorado, wrote, These were white supremacists and this was domestic terrorism.

Speaker Paul Ryan tweeted: The views fueling the spectacle in Charlottesville are repugnant. Let it only serve to unite Americans against this kind of vile bigotry. And then, White supremacy is a scourge. Senator Jeff Flake, of Arizona, declared: The #WhiteSupremacy in #Charlottesville does not reflect the values of the America I know. Hate and bigotry have no place in this country.

Really? Which America is that? Surely not the America that was stolen from indigenous peoples, that was built by slaves, that interned the Japanese, that has the highest maternal death rate in the developed world, that acquitted George Zimmerman, that has had one black president, zero female presidents, zero Jewish or Muslim presidents, and zero openly gay or trans presidents in its 241-year history. There might be freedom and love and audacity in the weft of our national fabric, but hate and bigotry are in the warp.

The views fueling the spectacle in Charlottesville have been meticulously seeded and nurtured by the Republican Party for decades. Sure, pre-Trump Republicans traded more in dog-whistles and plausible deniability than overt Nazi sloganeering, but the goal was the same: white men in charge, white women at their elbows. Systematically enforced poverty turning millionaires into billionaires. Bigots may have swapped subtext for the Jumbotron, but what is the substantive difference? David Duke used to have to winkingly pretend to be a little bit less racist?

It is easy to denounce Nazis. Republican lawmakers, if you truly repudiate this march and this violence, then repudiate voter-ID laws. Repudiate gerrymandering. Repudiate police brutality. Repudiate mass incarceration and private prisons. Repudiate the war on drugs. Repudiate the fact that black Americans have still not been compensated for the unpaid forced labor that was foundational to white financial stability. Repudiate gun control obstructionism. Repudiate the Muslim ban. Repudiate the wall. Repudiate anti-abortion legislation. Repudiate abstinence-only education. Repudiate environmental deregulation. Repudiate birtherism. Repudiate homophobia and transphobia. Repudiate your own health care bill, which would have led to the deaths of thousands more people than a Dodge Challenger driven into a crowd. Repudiate your president.

None of that will happen (except maybe the last one, as soon as it becomes politically advantageous), so heres whats actually important: White people, this is all being done in your name. If you dont want it, prove it. Put your body in between fascists and the future. Start now.

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Republicans, This Is Your President - New York Times

Barack Obama had been president for roughly as long as Donald Trump when, on July 16, 2009, the black Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates was arrested on his front porch in Cambridge, Massachusetts, by a white police officer who thought he might be a burglar. At a news conference a few days later, Obama said the officer, Sgt. James Crowley, had acted stupidly. Conservatives were furious, saying Obama had sided against a policeman doing his job.

To defuse the tension and set an example of racial reconciliation, Obama hosted the professor and the policeman at the White House for a beer. He also conceded error: I could have calibrated those words differently, Obama said. He called the episode a teachable moment for the nation.

Story Continued Below

In his explosive Tuesday news conference, President Donald Trump seized a far more dramatic moment not so much to teach as to fight. He admitted no fault, calibrated no words, and in the eyes of Republicans and Democrats alike inflamed rather than defused racial tension.

It wasnt just that Trump defended the pro-Confederate sympathies of a group of demonstrators heavily populated by anti-Semitic white supremacists, or that he seemed to draw equivalence between them and what he called a very violent group of alt-left counter-protesters who opposed them.

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Along the way, he castigated Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who is fighting brain cancer; refused to endorse the job security of his embattled senior aide Stephen Bannon (or Mr. Bannon, as Trump called him); snapped at the dishonest reporters who questioned him; and turned a question about Charlottesville, a city mourning a 32-year-old resident killed on Saturday, into a plug for the vineyard he owns nearby. (I own actually one of the largest wineries in the United States. Its in Charlottesville.)

It was a Trump familiar to those who followed his wildly unorthodox campaign, but one rarely on display since his election unpredictable and politically incorrect to a degree unseen since his visit to the Central Intelligence Agency a day after he was sworn in, when he raged at the media over reports about the crowd size at his inauguration.

And even by the standards of a politician who has repeatedly shocked his critics and dazzled admirers with his flouting of convention, Trumps performance stood out.

A team of the country's most eminent behavioral psychologists, cultural historians, statesmen and clergy could have been asked to design the worst leader imaginable for this moment and Trump would have exceeded their imaginations, said Mark Salter, a former longtime chief of staff and speechwriter to McCain. (Trump lashed out at McCain for voting against a Republican health care bill last month.)

Leaders of the Republican establishment also scrambled to distance themselves from Trump and his comments his third effort since the violence erupted on Saturday. "We must be clear," House Speaker Paul Ryan tweeted. "White supremacy is repulsive. This bigotry is counter to all this country stands for. There can be no moral ambiguity."

But segments of the pro-Trump right were downright delighted. Potus Comes Roaring Back With Press Smackdown at Trump Tower, cheered one Breitbart News headline. Doubles Down, declared another.

Such headlines raise the question of whether Trump is consciously scandalizing the political mainstream in an effort to re-energize voters who thrilled to his taboo-busting style during the 2016 campaign.

But to Trumps harshest critics, Tuesday was merely a sign that Trump who aides said was not supposed to take questions at a news event meant to promote his infrastructure plans has no self-control or sense of propriety.

I think this guy is deeply ill. I really do, former Democratic Vermont Gov. Howard Dean said on MSNBC shortly after Trump spoke.

Either way, left in the dust was any sense of tradition or continuity with the way past presidents have handled similar moments and the subject of race in America. An empathetic, lip-biting Bill Clinton, whose first term included the racial trauma of the O.J. Simpson trial, kicked off a national dialogue on race, appointing a panel of esteemed race relations experts.

Speaking at the memorial service for five Dallas police officers murdered by a radicalized black man last July, former president George W. Bush cited scripture, spoke of empathy and urged Americans to reject the unity of fear for the unity of hope, affection and high purpose.

Obama repeatedly confronted Americas open racial wounds as president.

Asked to contrast Obamas 2009 beer summit with Trumps response to Charlottesville, Dan Pfeiffer, Obamas former White House communications director, was almost at a loss for words.

It's hard to compare Obama and Trump or Trump and any other sentient human with an ounce of empathy or self-awareness, Pfeiffer said. Obama made a statement when more facts came out and made it clear that first statement was incorrect, he took responsibility. Trump has proven time and time again that he is incapable of such an approach.

That was hardly Obamas only response to racial strife. In July 2015, Obama sang "Amazing Grace at the funeral of a pastor who was one of nine African-Americans massacred by a white gunman in a Charleston, South Carolina, church.

And after a Florida jury acquitted George Zimmerman in July 2013 on charges that he murdered the black teenager Trayvon Martin, Obama offered words that echo Tuesdays bipartisan response to Trump.

"Those of us in authority should be doing everything we can to encourage the better angels of our nature, Obama said at the time, "as opposed to using these episodes to heighten divisions."

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Trump chooses fighting over healing - Politico