Florida man freed thanks to DNA evidence

According to an AP story I just read, Alan Crothers, 45, an African-American man originally from Tampa, Fl. has been freed thanks to DNA evidence after spending 24 years in prison from a false convinction of an armed robbery and rape in 1981 which rendered him with a 130 year prison sentence. Gov. Jeb Bush (R) agreed to pay Crothers $2 million as a settlement for the wrongful conviction. Upon his release Crtohers told the AP "It's been a long time, thank God for this."

 The news comes two weeks after DNA evidence from here in Virginia proved that a Grundy man, Roger Coleman, was indeed guilty of the rape and murder of Wendy McCoy. The findings in that case, which were only performed thanks to the political courage of Gov. Mark Warner (D), and had been opposed by our state's previous attorney general and gubernatorial candidate Jerry Kilgore (R). Kilgore lost his scandolous campaign to our present Gov. Tim Kaine (D), who was undoubtedly assisted by Kilgore's theatrics over Kaine's personal (but alas not political) objections to the death penalty.

There were many distressing headers post by racists over Crotehrs' release which benefited from the efforts of the Innocence Project- a project which looks to redem wrongfully convicted individuals and is the focus of the documentary film "After Innocence," on the Yahoo! boards.

Here is a sample of some of these horrific hate messages:

1) Feeling BAD about this guy? DON'T!

2) He'll rape again within 6 Months

3) He'll be rearrested in 2 weeks

Other headers, which I believe to have been promptly removed by Yahoo! censors, included a heinous suggestion that Crothers should recive a free bucket of KFC chicken. Another offending message with the header "Why do Gorillas make so much noise? " also disappeared.

Having seen militants on a Roanoke Times message boards call those of us who oppose the death penalty 'thug huggers' and another one which said that we 'deserved to killed by homicidal maniacs,' none of this is remotely surprsing.

While I acknowledge that there are militnats who agree with my views as well, I think these messages and the recent incidents of youths beating a homeless man to death in Fort Lauderdale, Fl., illustrate there is an 'angry white man' epidemic in America which suggests that as a society we may be unable to adjust to changing social norms and the transforming landscape of our ethnic makeup. There appear to be similar problems in western Europe, where my ethnic group (people of Turkish heritage) have been subject to hate campaigns.