Parallels Between the Central Park 5 and the Minnesota “ISIS Trials”
By Ramla Bile | Edited by Nekessa Opoti
The notion of who is and who is not criminal is something that evolves over time, and the super predators of yesterday have been replaced with the terrorists of today. Dr. Yusef Salaam’s recent visit to Minneapolis was a reminder that we need to be constantly vigilant about the criminalization of Black youth.
“Who protects us from you... I stand accused,” Dr.Salaam of the Central Park 5 (CP5) rapped to an audience at the Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church in Minneapolis on August 5. Salaam explained that he made his first and last debut as a rapper in court – before serving seven years for a crime he did not commit. Dr. Salaam’s remarks were in response to Ava DuVernay’s mini-series When They See Us, which depicts the case of the Central Park 5. A dramatized telling of real-life events, we see how a group of youth of color, mostly Black, were falsely accused and convicted of rape (among other crimes) in 1990. They were imprisoned and only exonerated in 2002 – nearly 12 years after the convictions. DuVernay taps into the power of television to inspire us to 1) see bias in the justice system, and 2) reinforce the basic premise that men of color must be seen as people. Media has traditionally served a key role in affirming, rather than critiquing, bias within the legal system.
In the Twin Cities, we have an opportunity to take an introspective look at the ways in which a group of Black Muslim youth have similarly been criminalized by the system. The nine Somali men who were involved in the so-called “ISIS trials” of 2016 present a harrowing parallel to the exonerated CP5. In each case, the role of the media in affirming bias within the legal system allowed for prosecutors to abandon discretion without accountability.
Confronting Narrative Challenges
Married to the narrative of “crime in the streets,” which defined the Reagan era, confirmation bias informed by racist narratives served as the public jury of the CP5. Armed with thin evidence and a highly racialized understanding of “wildin,’” the court and papers branded the five boys as monsters. Similarly, young Muslim men – primarily those of African descent – were doubly convicted by the court of public opinion and the criminal justice system. Like the New Yorkers who were accused of “wildin,’" a primary piece of evidence against the local men was that they “went to a local mosque where they played basketball and watched propaganda videos that glorified religious violence,” as outlined in multiple affidavits by the FBI. Replace "terror cell" with "gang-affiliated" and it’s easy to identify the narrative problem.
To the outside world, the so-called “ISIS trials” revolved around a few young men with connections to the Cedar-Riverside community of Minneapolis. The investigation, which led to their arrest and eventual sentencing, was fraught with problematic practices, such as the use of paid informants and agent provocateurs. The prosecution's key witness was a young man who was paid about $100,000 by the FBI to entrap friends. Instead of working to protect youth or correct behavior, law enforcement entities are investing significant time and money to manufacture criminals within Black and Muslim communities. And the judge himself seemed to have made up his mind prior to the trial.
Ultimately, Somalis and anti-surveillance advocates saw the court as a “show trial” – meant to further justify surveillance of Black Muslims in Minnesota. These trials and the profiling of black Muslim youth have been institutionalized with the bolstering of the federal government’s Countering Violent Extremism surveillance program. With a Black judge behind the bench, few in the broader community questioned the problematic tactics and politically-charged words that marginalized the young men. According to MPR, “U.S. District Judge Michael Davis acknowledged the severity of the punishment for Omar, Farah and Daud. At the time, Davis said he hoped the harsh deterrents would help incapacitate a ‘"terror cell’ in Minneapolis.” There has been no evidence of such terror cells existing.
How Biased Narratives Fuel “Show Trials”
The eventual charges brought against the young men – known by friends in the community as “the bros” – would be conspiracy to commit murder abroad and material support for a designated foreign terrorist organization. Despite never having left the country, never touching a weapon, never promoting violence publicly, never planning anything reasonably close to harmful activities, they were still given excessively long sentences. Michael German, a former FBI agent and a current fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, accused the FBI of “manufacturing terrorism” in these type of cases. It was stunning to witness the ease with which the media narrative spread and became entwined with the prosecution’s case. This phenomenon made it possible to ignore the internalized biases that define who a “criminal” or “terrorist” is, and who is deserving of a second chance.
These men were between the ages of 18 and 21 when they were convicted, and even younger when the entrapment/conspiracy took place. Now trapped in federal prison cells throughout the country, we have young men in our community serving upwards of 35 years because a local judge was convinced there was a terror cell in Minneapolis and wanted to make an example of them.
Delving into the Facts
It is undeniable that young Black men continue to be criminalized; the common threads between the CP5 and the Minnesota cases are striking:
The extent to which the men were vilified due to bias, particularly the public, media, and judicial hysteria that sought to demonize the Central Park 5 and the local Muslim men;
The overwhelming lack of evidence and the aggressive and criminal efforts law enforcement made to develop the case (i.e., the use of extended and coercive interview tactics in one, and the practice of entrapment in another).
Moreover, in both cases, the outcomes were dictated by biases versus facts. With the Central Park 5, the boys were assumed to be guilty of mischief and mayhem, regardless of whether or not they could be directly tied to the assault. Similarly, consider these facts regarding the proceedings and the November 2016 sentencing of the Somali men:
The Minnesota men had not committed previous crimes, never traveled to Syria, and were not accused of planning attacks on the U.S. Instead, they were convicted of conspiracy charges related to “material support to a designated terrorist organization” and “murder abroad.” In the past, the U.S. government has arbitrarily defined “terrorism” to include “Black Identity Extremists" (i.e., Black Lives Matter movement), Nelson Mandela, as well as armed resistance against oppressive governments. It’s worth noting that on May 15, 2014, the U.S. Secretary of State amended the terror watch list to include the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS and ISIL) as alias of al-Qaeda, while many of the alleged activities of the men began before this designation. Finally, the burden of proof is significantly lower with “conspiracy” cases compared to typical criminal cases:
The prosecution primarily relied on recordings captured by a paid informant by the FBI to entrap the others. Even worse, the transcriptions of the recordings were laced with “overlapping voices” and “unintelligible” audio, which would not have sufficed in other cases.
Attempts to get passports were facilitated by the FBI informant and were a part of the FBI’s operations. More leading than a standard “sting,” the informant ultimately made the federal government’s case. Without his coaxing, there is no case.
The practice of reducing punishment to promote cooperative behavior with sources/informants is a significant parallel in the two trials, and is a practice that prioritizes complacency over justice. Moreover, there’s no way to ensure that those working with authorities are being truthful.
Bruce Nestor, an attorney for one of the men, said via MPR that his client was punished for going to trial: "The people who plead guilty engaged in the same conduct he was convicted of and received substantially lower sentences."
Moreover, as the local men are up for appeal this year, steps were taken to actively prevent their chances of a fair appeal of their sentences. Efforts to fundraise through GoFundMe and MightyCause were promptly shut down and funds returned to donors. There’s mixed speculation about who is responsible: the platforms themselves, banking institutions, or law enforcement. The bottom line is that someone is preventing these young men from accessing adequate legal representation, which is another injustice as most of these young men are from working-class and disenfranchised families who cannot otherwise afford an attorney. Obtaining adequate legal representation is one of the apparent cornerstones to the U.S. justice system, and yet, it remains out of reach for these men.
Spotting Injustice in Real Time
While the local men made mistakes by engaging with the informant’s effort to entrap them, they remain victims of inequity in the justice system: Conclusive evidence of their criminality was lacking in their cases, which hinged on the pursuit of an informant, and the severity of sentencing is not proportional to the crime they were convicted of committing. Sadly, Judge Davis failed to consider the pleas of community and civic leaders urging for a restorative approach.
An inability to see the young men as fully human continues to thwart their court experience, length of their sentencing, and ability to appeal. The fact that Judge Davis gave harsher sentences to those who went to trial over those who settled with the prosecution for time served compromises the court’s integrity and subverts the opportunity of a fair trial and sentence. It also says more about our community’s collective fear of Black and Muslim men than it does about correcting a problem.
We fall short of honoring the Central Park 5 if we do not sit with the discomfort of the Minnesota “ISIS trials.” Unsurprisingly, once vilified, the CP5 are now celebrated as icons of resilience. Dr. Salaam’s talk and DuVernay’s mini-series should not be information we consume and pat ourselves on the back for finally “getting it right.” Instead, we must use these experiences as a lens to spot the injustices and missed opportunities that our community is faced with today.
We live in a community that frequently and fundamentally sees its Black, Muslim youth as a threat, as evidenced by local efforts that promote Countering Violent Extremism and other surveillance programs specifically targeting Black youth. It’s easy to reflect on the wrongs of history, but it’s much harder to spot and disrupt present-day manifestations of inequity.
We need to go beyond exoneration and acknowledge the harm that was done to the Minnesota men and to their communities who were impacted by the zealotry and carelessness of law enforcement. In the words of Malcolm X, “If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there's no progress. If you pull it all the way out that's not progress. Progress is healing the wound that the blow made. And they haven't even pulled the knife out much less heal the wound. They won't even admit the knife is there.”
Take Action
Here are some practical ways to support the young men in Minnesota and their community:
Donate to Guled Omar’s appeal online and/or attend this upcoming fundraiser for him on October 18, 2019, at the Northstar Ballroom at the U of M from 6-8 p.m.
Sign up to receive newsletters written by the young men in prison by sending your email to: prisoneducationsponsorship@gmail.com.
Talk about Islamophobia, and not just when it’s an easy, convenient conversation, but also when it's challenging and uncomfortable. Liberals are quick to criticize Trump-style Islamophobia, but not when its perpetuated by other progressives.