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Short read about a 15 yr old boy who was beatin and forced to sign a confession...

Grandola

By Grandola
in Channel Zero

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Grandola

Grandola

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The boy is crying and his eye is swelling. He sits, miserable, in the back seat of the police car, a cop at his side, another in the front seat. He is headed back to jail, and he is very afraid.

 

He has reason to be.

 

The boy, 15-year-old Brenton Butler, has already been in police custody for 10 hours. A gangly ninth grader, Butler has eaten almost nothing since morning, and had no contact with anyone besides homicide detectives. His repeated requests to speak to his parents have been ignored, and, unbeknownst to him, his parents haven’t even been notified that he is in custody. (At 9 p.m., Butler’s terrified parents filed a missing persons report on the teen.)

 

In short, he is every bit as alone as he feels.

 

Within two hours of the car ride, the interrogation will end and Brenton Butler will be allowed to speak with his parents. But by then, he will have confessed to killing a 64-year-old woman.

 

In the confession, handwritten by a police detective and signed by Butler, the teen admits to shooting Mary Ann Stephens in the face in order to get money for food. According to the confession, he didn’t intend to kill the woman, a Georgia tourist staying with her husband at a Southside Ramada Inn. He claims he shot her accidentally, after the woman called him a “nigger” and gave him a dirty look. According to the confession, Butler fired the gun, then grabbed the woman’s purse and ran. Later, the confession said, he placed both the gun and the purse on a tractor trailer rig, which drove away, and used the woman’s money to buy candy.

 

Each page of the confession was signed by Butler, and was obviously compelling: It would become the centerpiece of the State Attorney’s case against the teen.

 

The only problem was it wasn’t true. None of it. Butler didn’t kill Stephens (two other suspects have since been charged with the crime). He wasn’t hungry the morning of the murder — he’d just had some yogurt — and he didn’t buy any candy that day. The victim never called Butler a nigger; her husband swears the exchange never happened. In short, the confession — start to finish — was false.

 

According to Assistant Public Defender Patrick McGuiness, the confession is “a fiction. It matches reality at no point.”

 

So why did Butler sign it? The explanation Butler offers is as simple as it is terrifying: He was forced. During his 12-hour interrogation, he says, two police detectives — Michael Glover and Duane Darnell — terrorized and intimidated him. He claims they hit him in the face and punched him in the solar plexus, called him a “nigger” and a “nasty roach,” and threatened to harm his parents. When he begged for help, for mercy, Butler says, the officers responded with additional menace, unsnapping their gun holsters and stroking their weapons.

 

For Butler, an Englewood High School freshman with no prior record, the day was unendurable. By 9 p.m., he was terrified, exhausted and, finally, hopeless. Sobbing, he signed the confession. He was charged with first degree murder and taken to a cell. He would remain behind bars at the Duval County jail for the next six months.

 

On Nov. 22, 2000, thanks to a pair of good defense attorneys and a jury of reasonable people, Butler was found not guilty of the crime. But the case didn’t disappear. Within hours of the verdict, the jury foreman demanded an investigation of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and the State Attorney’s Office for their handling of the case.

 

Though both agencies initially balked at the demand, public outcry over the case — and the emergence of two new suspects in the killing — forced them to relent. The JSO is currently under investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and the State Attorney’s Office is being reviewed by a special prosecutor.

 

As a civil matter, Butler’s family intends to sue the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office for at least $8 million. The family is awaiting the outcome of both investigations before finalizing their claims, but according to family attorney Tom Fallis, expected charges include false imprisonment, false arrest, Miranda rights violations and police brutality.

 

“Somebody has to explain why this young man confessed to something he didn’t do,” says Fallis in a cigarette-scarred New York accent. “He’s not insane. He’s not retarded. Somebody made him do it.”

 

That somebody?

 

“Glover.”

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Guest Stapler

Guest Stapler

Posted
Posted

It seems the police in America like to beat their detainees alot.......Does this sort of shit happen alot and not get into the news????

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SteveAustin

SteveAustin

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woah, thats fucked up.

I'll never understand why cops do this shit.

If they have such a hard-on about catching the criminal that committed a crime...you'd think they would want to arrest the right guy.

fucking morons.

 

brotha needs 3 gold caps with the letters F, T, P inscribed on each tooth.

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Guest angry xbox

Guest angry xbox

Posted
Posted
Originally posted by Stapler

It seems the police in America like to beat their detainees alot.......Does this sort of shit happen alot and not get into the news????

 

you ever watch MTV and see that stupid clip where it says life imitates music???

 

fuck them

 

the sad truth is art is the representation of life and that includes every creative media.

 

and no the so called liberal media is run by the ones who are in power. If they dont want you to know they will make it so my friend.

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Pistol

Pistol

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Personally I think it's funny how alot of kids are quick to yell out "Fuck tha Police" like some suburbanite NWA cover band but when someone beats them up and take their cans or steals their guitar, skateboard etc. they are the first to call the cops asking for help.

 

Pistol I know oner.

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Mechanism

Mechanism

Posted
Posted

Re: Re: Short read about a 15 yr old boy who was beatin and forced to sign a confessi

 

Originally posted by ctrl+alt+del

 

 

where?

 

underneith the ribcage in the front where the bones meet in the middle of your chestat the bottom .. soft part.

hurts...

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casekonly

casekonly

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Posted

that's really fucked up. the sad thing is, our generation, well, mine, the mid-twenties kids, are next in line to control this country. what are we doing about this shit? why do we still have these old ass senators in office? why do we not train our police properly or at the very least screen them thoroughly for pre-existing psychological problems that might cause or be part of the cause of these pigs beating up, etc. a 15 year old kid? something has to give. it's really sad. i'm moving to amsterdam.

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When

When

Posted
Posted

all you kids screaming 'fuck the police'

need to shut your mouths.

you all sound like 12 year olds that just heard of the nwa

 

oh look at me im so fucking cool 'fuck the police' teeheehee.

you wont be yelling that when your mom is getting raped

or when someone steals your car, deusche bags.

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