Similarities Between Walter Dean Myers 'Monster And Murder On A Sunday Morning'

We have a system in place that is meant to serve the American people and incarcerate those who are a menace to society. A system like this seems good on paper, until the people in the system and those who contribute to it, taint it with their bias. We see this predominantly evident in the story written by Walter Dean Myers “Monster” and the documentary “Murder on a Sunday Morning”. Though these things show us the same theme, they have their individual differences separating them. In the book by Walter Dean Myers, we follow the story of a 16 year-old African American Steve Harmon, who lives in Harlem. He gets arrested and is put in custody for being an alleged accessory in the murder and robbery of Alguinaldo Nesbitt. Steve is labeled by the prosecution as a monster (this is how the book earns its title). Throughout the book we see Steve reflecting on his experiences trying to figure out who he is as a person. A teenager by the name of Osvaldo Cruz and a man by the name of Bobo Evans get a plea bargain and accuse Steve as being the look out to the crime. In

The case involves the murder of a man's wife and stolen property( this would be the woman’s purse ). The man was talking to the homicide detectives and classified the murderer as African American, knowing this they called young Brenton to come as he was walking and the man told the police it was him, he was the murder. Brenton and his family suffered as he was thrown in jail. The whole investigation was done sloppily, the beat him to get him to say what would fit the detective’s story, and they drafted a paper to say he was admitting to the crime and made him sign it. At the end the jury found him not guilty, he was released. Shortly after, the police ran a more thorough investigation and found the man who committed the crime. The man was of Mexican descent ( note he was not African American