Read up on Colin Warner's case, listen to the podcast about it and watch "Crown Heights," the newly released feature film by IFC Films and Amazon Studios.
After all of that, if you get a chance to interview Warner, you’ll have so many questions, and they’ll all feel small and stupid.
There aren't words big enough to describe the injustice rained down upon Warner, who spent more than two decades in prison after being convicted on the flimsiest of evidence for a murder he didn't commit. The mere act of taking yet more of his time to talk about it feels like adding to his plight.
"The movie itself brought up a lot of feelings I'd rather not feel right now," Warner said during our recent interview.
"The community the crime happened in knew the wrong person was arrested for this murder, but they remained silent. To me that is an act of condoning a situation that you know is wrong. The police work in my case was so mediocre."
His wife, Antoinette, was by his side during the interview, just as she was for much of his outrageous incarceration. They married while he was still in prison and she never gave up believing in him or in the justice that would someday, at long last, come.
"I got the strength from my ancestors," she said. "As a mother, as a woman of African descent, it hurts. For too long our fathers, our sons, our brothers have been walking this path."
Read more here.
