CITY

City

>> RACE AND THE RAPIST

The arrest of Troy Graves, 29, in connection with the rape and murder of Shannon Scheiber and numerous other rapes in Philadelphia and Fort Collins, Colo., is just the beginning of the prosecutorial process, says Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham. But the disclosure that Graves is a light-skinned black man, not a dark-skinned white man, as was widely suspected, may be the beginning of something else, too. "One of the major false justifications for lynching was the rape of white women by black men," says Rev. Clarence L. James Sr., an adjunct professor in Temple University's African-American Studies department. And according to James, Graves' arrest may awaken that kind of stereotyping. "It just means that there's going to be an increase in how we are [profiled] any time we're in a white community," he says. Milton McGriff, a local activist in the slavery reparations movement, says Graves' arrest, while troubling, will not make much difference in his day-to-day existence. "I don't think it will affect me any differently than anything else affects me. I'm more concerned when an Amadou Diallo gets killed by the police. I'm vividly aware that that could be me. He wasn't doing anything and he got killed, so that was of more concern to me than this alleged rapist here." Michael Coard, a local attorney who has been involved in numerous cases involving black men whose civil rights were allegedly violated by police, says Graves' arrest will make it hard on other black men. "From my standpoint, profiling as a result of this recent disclosure is going to increase," he says. "In the past, all black males--especially black males in their 20s or 30s--have been the usual suspects. Now, in light of the race disclosure in this case, things are going to get worse." Coard says the increase in profiling as a result of September's terrorist attacks, combined with the increase in local profiling that may come as a result of Graves' arrest, add up to trouble. "It's a sad day for black folks," he says. (Solomon Jones)

>> FORENSIC TRACE

It was DNA evidence that fingered Troy Graves as the Center City Rapist, responsible for at least six sexual assaults since 1997. At the height of the hysteria surrounding those crimes, when law enforcement was under intense pressure to bring the perpetrator to justice, police tried everything--including sticking Q-Tips in the mouths of any willing passerby walking through Rittenhouse Square in the vain hope that whoever committed these crimes might be blissfully unaware of how DNA evidence works. With this in mind, PW spoke with Alan Keel, a Richmond, Calif.-based forensic scientist with Forensic Science Associates. The bulk of Keel's days are spent sifting through evidence sent to him by Barry Schreck's Innocence Project, which seeks to overturn the wrongful conviction of prisoners on death row whose trials occurred before DNA evidence was considered admissible in court in 1988. Although the Philadelphia police department is refusing to disclose just what DNA evidence connected Graves to the local crimes--semen, blood or hair samples--Keel is 99 percent sure it was semen, given the nature of the assaults. "You only need 70 to 80 sperm cells to make a match," says Keel. "A typical ejaculation contains 300 million sperm cells." (Jonathan Valania)

>> A HISTORIC DECISION

West Philadelphia residents became historians this week as opposition continued to mount against the proposed Spruce Hill Historic District. Several hundred, including a sizeable contingent of neighborhood activists from Neighbors Against McPenntrification (NAM), turned out last Wednesday for a town meeting convened to discuss the hotly contested proposal to designate part of West Philly a historic district. Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell showed up with her staff but kept quiet after saying she was simply interested in supporting "the majority of the wishes of the community." The bulk of the presenting was handled by Laura Spina, a historic preservation planner with the Philadelphia Historical Commission, and Dr. George Thomas, an architectural historian who was a longtime resident of West Philadelphia. "Living in the community, I worked to try to stop the expansion of Penn and would have given anything for [a historic district] kind of protection," said Thomas, who didn't bother to mention to the largely anti-Penn crowd that he's also a University of Pennsylvania professor. "This is a force for stabilization rather than drastic transformation." Spina and Thomas not only explained how Spruce Hill could benefit from the designation but also presented facts and figures as to why gentrification (which both sides seem to agree would take place if the historic designation were conferred) would not force lower-income residents out of the neighborhood. According to a New York Times article they circulated throughout the crowd, when neighborhoods gentrify, turnover rates actually drop and poor and working-class residents are more likely to stay. Although the meeting at the Spruce Hill Christian School was intended to be informational, many residents were unsatisfied by the answers offered. "This was pap," said Al Krigman, a local landlord opposed to the historic-district designation. "I don't think they addressed the concerns at all. They focused almost 100 percent on procedural questions when most people were interested in the basic issue of why are we doing this?" Despite the organizers' efforts, Krigman thinks that, in the end, the meeting worked in his favor. "A lot more people who were on the fence fell off on our side, in part, because I think that meeting was a disgrace," he says. "The fact that they were avoiding the real issues of what this means to people, I don't think that escaped people the way they hoped it would." (Jeffrey Barg)

>> BIG ANGE EATS BREAKFAST

These days former mob associate Angelo Lutz wakes up around six for breakfast. It's normally a cereal-and-muffin-type deal, "but every couple days they give us something warm," says the now-incarcerated South Philadelphian. "On good days it's like eating at the Melrose. On bad days it's like the food carts." Nearly a year removed from his days as the unofficial mob spokesman at Joey Merlino's federal racketeering trial, Ange says he's settling in just fine at the medium-security federal correctional facility in Pekin, Ill. Having surrendered to authorities last August, he'll be behind bars for nine years. (But he's hoping his appeals will bear fruit.) Even though he's more than a thousand miles away, Lutz was none too pleased to learn that mob-turncoat Tommy "Horsehead" Scafidi's testimony against Merlino et al. would grant him a spot in a new Witness Security Program home by Christmas. "How'd you like to wake up with Horsehead as your neighbor? He's a one-man crime wave and he's gonna keep it up when he gets out," Lutz said on the phone Monday, using some of his 300-minute monthly allotment. But if Ange is bitter, it's hard to tell. Since arriving at Pekin--where co-defendant Marty Angelina is also being held--he's been on a steady diet of self-improvement. Not only has he taught some paralegal classes, he's become concerned with fitness--when he's not playing cards. (There's also the perk of being able to procure enough ingredients from the prison's commissary to whip up a mean pasta gravy.) "I've been working out every day, dropped about 40 pounds already," says Lutz, who was never formally inducted into La Cosa Nostra. "If you don't watch your health in here, you'll be leaving with a toe tag." (Brian Hickey)