Friday, January 30, 2004
A group of community leaders put together by Mayor Allen Joines of Winston-Salem will begin next week studying how the apparent wrongful imprisonment of Darryl Hunt has affected the community.
The idea, Joines said, is for the group members to sit down, discuss the far-reaching effects of the case, and then find ways to help residents heal.
Hunt was released from prison Dec. 24 after serving about 18 years after being convicted twice in the 1984 stabbing death of Deborah Sykes. Winston-Salem police charged a new suspect, Willard E. Brown, with rape and murder in the case after DNA taken from Brown matched a semen sample from the Sykes case.
A Feb. 6 hearing will determine whether Hunt's murder conviction is overturned.
"I think folks have expressed support for a way we can heal, both from the white community and black community," said Joines, who first announced plans for the committee Dec. 30. "I feel like this is an opportunity, a catalytic event to deal with issues that have existed for some time."
The case against Hunt, who maintained his innocence from the beginning, helped divide the city along racial lines for years, with many people saying that police and prosecutors ignored evidence that pointed to Hunt's innocence. DNA testing in 1994 ruled out Hunt as the man who raped Sykes, but the courts have consistently ruled that it did not eliminate him as a suspect.
Hunt was released after Brown, when confronted with the DNA evidence, confessed and told authorities that he had acted alone.
Police Chief Linda Davis, who will serve on the mayor's committee, said she is personally disturbed by the case.
"To think that a man who may not have been involved in this case has been in jail for 18 years. I can't comprehend what that could be like," Davis said.
The mayor's committee has 11 members, including church leaders, representatives of the local chapter of the NAACP, the Forsyth County Human Relations Commission and the Center for Community Safety.
The committee will meet for the first time Tuesday to brainstorm ways to change attitudes among those who no longer trust the police and the judicial system, Joines said.
The idea, Joines and other committee members said, is for a community that has been divided to find a way to come together.
"I feel, if we all have the right spirit, this is an opportunity that will come only once," Davis said.
The initial discussions likely will focus on what the word "healing" means, said Sylvia Oberle, the director of the Center for Community Safety. The center works with the police department to curb crime and fosters partnerships among community agencies.
"Healing is an often overused word," Oberle said. "To me, it is not letting what has happened, whatever that is to people, divide our community.
Oberle said she can already sense mistrust in the community among people who have long worked together. "I have talked with some people in the community who don't seem to believe what's seemingly obvious, that mistakes were made," she said. "I hope that's not for racial mistrust reasons."
She and others have said that talking about the problems won't be enough.
"We have to be willing to look at the systemic racism in our systems," said Lynn Rhoades, the director of a performance-based education program for youth, and a member of the mayor's committee. "We have to ask how do we really address it in our community, our city, our nation? It is vital that there be action connected with our conversations."
Joines said that the committee will not get involved with the criminal investigation of the Hunt case. Rather, he said, the intent is to look closely at how the outcome of the case has affected people. He has raised the possibility of holding community forums and distributing some type of survey to gauge how residents feel.
In addition to work that will be done by the committee, the city staff is researching the police department's policies and procedures when the case began in the 1980s to compare them with what exists today. The idea is to make sure that the city and the police have dealt with shortcomings of previous eras. A report on the city staff's findings should be presented to the city council's public-safety committee by the spring, said Lee Garrity, the assistant city manager for public safety.
"The goal, obviously, is to learn from the Darryl Hunt case and, more importantly, to deal with the issues it has created," Joines said. "The specifics of the case are not the focus, but the community perceptions that are out there."