December 13, 2023
While police are required to read children their “Miranda Rights” juvenile justice advocates say most minors don’t understand when they are waiving constitutional rights.
Vincent Ellerbe was 17 in 1995 when he was arrested and interrogated by NYPD detectives for several hours without his mother or older sister in the room.
He and two other teenagers then spent over two decades in prison after they all later argued they were forced to confess to the horrific arson killing of a Brooklyn transit worker who was set ablaze in a token booth.
“My mom and my sister were downstairs but they wouldn’t let them come in the room with me,” Ellerbe, 45, told THE CITY.