News media, N.Y. state authorities, wage smear campaign against Tawana Brawley

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SOCIALIST ACTION AUGUST 1988 З Tawana Brawley, a Black teenager from upstate New York, was found last Nov. 28 bruised, burned, and wrapped up in a plastic bag. Feces were smeared all over her upper torso and head, chunks of her hair were cut off, and racist epithets were scrawled on her chest. Her assailants, who she says were six white men, have yet to be apprehended.

In the ensuing six months, however, a virtual full-scale offensive has been waged to transform Tawana Brawley from a victim into a criminal. And, in the process, the state authorities are using the case to attack the legitimate claims of the Black community for justice against racist attacks.

"There may not have been any crime!" New York Attorney General Robert Abrams told reporters on July 15. Abrams concentrated his fire on Brawley's team of advisors.

"What we're saying to them is put up or shut up," he went on. "If the grand jury does not receive any information, we can assume that there is no information." Abrams, appointed by Governor Cuomo as special prosecutor on the case, would like everyone to share this assumption.

Indeed. L, in the wake of a sensationalistic media blitz, the public in general has begun to accept the main contention of government officials that the Brawley family and their advisors are simply lying about the events that transpired during the four days Tawana Brawley was missing.

A June 27 New York Times-CBS News poll indicated, for example, that the majority of New Yorkers, both Black and white, felt that this was the case.

Half-truths in the media The barrage of media coverage came in response to statements by two men, Perry McKinnon and Samuel McClease, aimed at discrediting the Brawleys and their advisors. National magazines ranging from Newsweek to the magazine of the supermarket check-out lanes, People, prominently featured their allegations.

But when the testimony of the two men collapsed within days, the prominent coverage was not repeated. McKinnon assured the New York Times on June 21 that he "never alluded in this whole thing that [he] knew what happened to Tawana." McClease's much-vaunted tapes were found to be blank.

Unfortunately, government officials and the media have been able to utilize mistaken tactics employed by the Brawley family and their supporters. Refusing to cooperate and testify at this time only deepens the doubts that people are expressing. (See the July issue of Socialist Action for more on this topic.)

The involvement of the Rev. Al Sharpton as a central advisor to the Brawley family also adds to the confusion. Sharpton has admitted to having been an occasional FBI informer—a fact that has caused serious militants to distrust his actions.

However, the most important questions about this case have been left unanswered —not by the Brawley family but by local, state, and federal officials and the major capitalist-owned media.

"What are officials hiding?"

While People magazine, with a circulation of 26 million, concentrated its resources on printing partial truths and innuendoes, The City Sun, a weekly paper circulated mostly in New York's Black communities, offered readers a two-part investigative report and an exclusive interview with Tawana's mother, Glenda Brawley. (Mrs. Brawley still faces a fine and 30-days imprisonment for failing to appear before the grand jury.)

To those who wonder whether anything happened to Tawana, her mother says, "If Tawana is lying, the Dutchess County officials would have handled it that way— as a lie-and the case would have been done with. What are the officials hiding?"

"Obviously," she continues, "they must Jim & Tammy Bakker: They're b-a-a-a-ck to people suffering experience).

But an article in The City Sun states that Nackerson's "correction" is untrue. The final diagnosis shown on a hospital computer printout was not "alleged sexual abuse." It was "rape."

Also, among the earliest notations from St. Francis Hospital, is one that indicates that the young woman was interviewed by the police, told them she had been attacked, and gave them descriptions of her assailants.

Glenda Brawley states in The Cily Sun that she had interviews with police on about a dozen occasions during December but became frustrated when no action was taken.

Suspects on the police force No one ever showed Tawana any pictures of local law-enforcement officers for identification-despite her indications that at least one man who assaulted her had a badge.

The sheriff's department officer present at St. Francis Hospital at 4:00 P.M. on the day Tawana Brawley was found appears to have been George Brazzale, who signed the hospital records as the investigator in charge at the time.

Brazzale was given the rape kit and Tawana Brawley's clothing. Exactly what became of the rape kit is not clear. But the next day, the county sheriff's office reported to the local media that there was no evidence Tawana had been raped It should be noted that Brazzale, an arson investigator in the Dutchess County sheriff's office, works closely with the assistant district attorney in charge of arson prosecutions, Stephen A. Pagones—-who has been named as a key suspect in the case.

One of the other men whom the Brawley lawyers and advisors have identified as being involved in the attack was a part-time police officer in nearby Fishkill, N.Y., who reportedly committed suicide four days after Tawana was found.

His body was found by a friend, a state trooper who removed the gun and the suicide note from the scene. The note's contents have not been made public. The dead man's description matches one that Tawana Brawley gave officials.

Obvious questions about this case abound. From Tawana's being given a "complete bath" hours before she was examined for rape, to the failure of the sheriff's office to aid her in identifying her attackers, it is clear that authorities have been interested only in covering up this crime.

If the coverup succeeds, it will only embolden the racists. The best method of insuring that the perpetrators of this heinous attack are brought to justice is to arm supporters with all of the facts known so far.

Mobilizations of all supporters of civil rights are required to demand that the appropriate authorities begin to investigate the case of Tawana Brawley in earnest. •