NY - 3 Univ. of Albany students charged with assault and falsely reporting a crime

When Ariel Agudio called 911 in January, she told a dispatcher that she had been the victim of a racially charged crime.

“They were calling us [N-word] and all this stuff,” Agudio told a dispatcher, the Albany Times Union reported. “And if someone doesn’t come and take this down or something, I’m going to call the news.”

Agudio, Alexis Briggs and Asha Burwell, all three 20-year-old black students at the State University of New York at Albany, claimed they had been targeted by a group of white men and women on a bus at about 1 a.m. on Jan. 30.

The story made national headlines. There was a rally in the wake of the news, which reportedly drew hundreds. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton even tweeted about it.

• Agudio has been charged with assault, falsely reporting an incident, attempted assault, and attempted criminal mischief

• Burwell has been charged with assault and falsely reporting an incident

• Briggs has been charged with assault

All three are expected to appear for arraignment Monday.

Authorities said the actual victim of the incident was a 19-year-old woman from Congers, N.Y., who also was a bus passenger.

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The evidence gathered against them included interviews with 35 bus passengers, video from a dozen security cameras on the bus and mobile videos taken by passengers.

"No male struck the three women," the police statement said. "The evidence indicates they were actually the aggressors ... and that they continued to assault the victim despite the efforts of several passengers to stop them."

The 19-year-old woman the students allegedly assaulted was not identified.

"What happened on the bus was not a 'hate crime,'" Wiley said. "The only person we heard uttering racial epithets was one of the defendants."

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jjenny said:

If you are gonna falsely claim somebody beat you up, at least pick a place with no cameras. Did these women think nobody is going to investigate their claims?
:facepalm:

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MHOrgel said:

They know that the story runs on the front page and the retraction on page 23. JMO

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popsicle said:

This is what to expect imo... :thinking:

Alice Green, a well-known Albany social activist and director of the Center for Law and Justice, was one of the few people who was invited by the Albany County District Attorney to watch the bus video.

“I would not lock them up, but if it comes to be that they made false claims, there needs to be an apology perhaps,” she said of the young accusers.

http://news10.com/2016/02/24/ualban...victims-of-racial-bus-attack-to-face-charges/


On the other hand, you have this senior student ... His interview and the personal letter he sent to President Jones, asking him to publicly apologize for his rash decision in indicting these 10-12 students.

http://news10.com/2016/02/25/studen...any-president-asks-him-to-publicly-apologize/


Also, a website for fake hate crimes http://www.fakehatecrimes.org/fakes?page=1

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Racism Charges in Bus Incident, and Their Unraveling, Upset University at Albany

ALBANY — The allegation set social media ablaze, sowing shock and outrage as it went: Three black students at the University at Albany had been attacked on a city bus by a group of white men who used racial slurs as other passengers and the driver sat silently by.

The Jan. 30 episode, reported to the police, would draw hundreds of people to a campus rally against racism; an emotional response from the university’s president; and even the attention of Hillary Clinton, who condemned the attack on Twitter.

But only a few weeks later, what seemed to be the latest iteration of a now-familiar debate about race on campus — the protests, the anguished soul-searching, the calls for greater faculty diversity and administrative changes — has metastasized into a controversy of an even more scorching kind: the allegation, the authorities said, was a lie.

Sami Schalk, an assistant professor in the university’s English department, who has devoted class time since the bus episode to talking through the implications with her students, said she was concerned that the women’s detractors had failed to consider the prejudice and “racialized language” the young women may have encountered on campus or before the bus ride that could have played a role in provoking the fight.

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Three students, who won the support of thousands including Hillary Clinton after claiming they were victims of a race-hate attack, are now charged with beating the white woman they said attacked THEM

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False reports can have far-reaching implications

If there’s any lesson to be learned from this ugly affair, it might be that taking a deep breath and waiting a beat is not the worst approach to sensational claims of victimization. An unfortunate but entirely predictable result of the bus story blowing up on social media and going viral was that calls to expel the white students supposedly involved in the attack were almost immediate. Those calls now seem misguided, harmful.

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SUNY must come down hard on students who made up a ‘racial assault’

Now it’s time for the State University’s top leadership — board Chairman H. Carl McCall and Chancellor Nancy Zimpher — to make it clear that there is no place for racial fakery at any of the 64 institutions they oversee.

Not just that would-be hoaxers won’t be tolerated. It should go without saying that those who try it will be directed to go elsewhere for their education — but, sadly, it does need to be said.

More importantly, administrators and staff need to understand that the university’s default when race-based charges surface is this: First, verify; then commiserate.

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