The Nation : Officers Cleared in Death

Six officers of New York City’s transit police were acquitted of all charges in the death of a man arrested for writing on a subway station wall. The jury deliberated seven days in the case of Michael Stewart, 25, who was hospitalized, bruised and comatose, after his arrest in 1983 and never regained consciousness. Stewart was black; the defendants all are white and there was no black on the jury. The verdict prompted a protest from a group of about 20 persons outside the courtroom, who shouted, “Murderers!” and “South Africans!” The defense had maintained that Stewart was drunk and died while violently resisting arrest.