Brown v. City of Oneonta

In the morning of September 4, 1992, Oneonta police received a report that an individual with a knife broke into a private home within the city; a woman sleeping inside awoke and struggled with the intruder, who quickly fled the scene.[1] The woman, in her report, admitted that while she had not seen the intruder's face, she had witnessed a dark-skinned forearm. She also allegedly reported that during her struggle with the intruder, they had cut their own hand. Police also reported she believed the intruder was young and male from the speed at which he moved.[4]

A canine unit allegedly tracked the intruder's scent a few hundred yards away from the residence towards the State University of New York College at Oneonta. Suspecting the individual to be a student, the city police decided to question each African American male enrolled at the university. Using a list provided by the school, nicknamed "the black list", police approached Black students on and off campus, asking for each to provide an alibi and show their hands for possible cuts.[1][5]

Finding no clear suspects, police chose to conduct a citywide sweep of Oneonta's African American residents. One police officer told reporters the purpose of the sweep was “to examine the hands of all the Black people in the community."[1] During the sweep, police stopped cars occupied by Black individuals and prevented Black individuals from boarding busses unless they participated in physical examination and questioning.[6] More than 300 individuals were questioned during the sweep, however no suspect was identified.[1]

In 1993 individuals questioned during the sweep, including those on the list of Black university students provided to the police filed a class-action lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York against the City of Oneonta, State of New York, the university, and local police, including individual police officers. The plaintiffs asserted that law enforcement and the university had violated the Fourth Amendment and Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution, among a number of other local and federal anti-discrimination and privacy laws.[4]

In February of 2002, CBS News obtained the police records from the 1992 investigation, which reportedly include a number of major discrepancies with information presented during the lawsuit. According to the records, the woman only describes a hand of dark complexion, entirely lacking any reference to a cut or description of the individual as young, key identifiers police reported during their sweep of the city. Additionally, the record shows that the police dog moved away from the university campus, contradicting information presented to the public by law enforcement.[7][8]