AAN Association of Alternative Newsmedia

Discrimination Case Triggered by Alt-Weekly Finally Sees Trial

By AAN Staff

january 24, 2007 04:29 pm

Discrimination Case Triggered by Alt-Weekly Finally Sees Trial

Four years after the AAN-member paper Illinois Times challenged an official police account of how a black officer responded to an incident involving rape, the case will finally go to court, reports the The State-Journal Register. Dusty Rhodes' series about the case in the Springfield, Ill. alt-weekly sparked public outrage and led a number of African-American cops to step forward in a group lawsuit against the city alleging racial discrimination. The so-called "black officers case" goes back to Halloween night, 2001, when a 35-year-old rookie cop named Renatta Frazier responded to a call at the apartment of the daughter of another police officer. Frazier was originally criticized for not doing enough to stop the assault, but the Illinois Times later showed that she was never in a position to do so.

View full article at The State-Journal Register