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Article: Howard Beach Trial Opens Today; Outcome May Depend on Which Portrayal of Victims Jury Believes
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- September 8, 1987
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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To the prosecution, the three black men who walked into a Howard
Beach pizzeria last Dec. 20 were innocent victims stranded by a
broken-down car whose search for help ended in a vicious beating by
race-baiting white teen-agers who caused the death of one of the
fleeing blacks.
To defense lawyers, the blacks were "the true villains," as one
put it, three dangerous men with criminal records, one of whom now
admits that he brandished a knife during the incident. And they
stress that Michael Griffith, the 23-year-old construction worker
killed by a car on the Belt Parkway as he fled from the whites, was a
cocaine user and was wanted on an arrest warrant for failing to
appear at a hearing in ...