Ryan Harris is back in the news. But the outrage is long gone.
On a hot July day in 1998, 11-year-old Ryan was riding her bike in Englewood. Then, the pretty little girl was gone. Her frantic mother turned to the police. Sabrina Harris later recalled that one officer suggested that maybe Ryan had gone off on a sexual interlude with a man. No outrage there. To those in power, there is no innocence in the 'hood. In communities like Englewood, murder and rape come cheap. Neighbors conducted a search, and Ryan was found, brutalized and raped, then dumped in a weed-choked lot. Initially, it didn't get much play in the media. Just one more murder in a city with way too many. Days later, police detectives arrested and charged two neighborhood boys, ages 7 and 8, with the crime. It seems they had ''confessed.'' They locked them up. Now there's a story! News organizations parachuted into Englewood from around the nation. The headlines screamed: Chicago is home to the youngest killers ever! Then came the real outrage. I'll never forget my telephone ringing the morning the news hit. The African-American community was asking, ''What is this? How could the media be reporting this? How could the police even go there?'' [more 
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