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Jul 7 '19
TORONTO -- Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, the former American boxer who became a global champion for the wrongfully convicted after spending almost 20 years in prison for a triple murder he didnt commit, died at his home in Toronto on Sunday. Lonnie Johnson Jersey . He was 76. His long-time friend and co-accused, John Artis, said Carter died in his sleep after a lengthy battle with prostate cancer. "Its a big loss to those who are in institutions that have been wrongfully convicted," Artis told The Canadian Press. "He dedicated the remainder of his life, once we were released from prison, to fighting for the cause." Artis quit his job stateside and moved to Toronto to act as Carters caregiver after his friend was diagnosed with cancer nearly three years ago. During the final few months, as Carters health took a turn for the worse, Artis said the man who was immortalized in a Bob Dylan song and a Hollywood film came to grips with the fact that he was dying. "He tried to accomplish as much as he possibly could prior to his passing," Artis said, noting Carters efforts earlier this year to bring about the release of a New York City man incarcerated since 1985 -- the year Carter was freed. "He didnt express very much about his legacy. Thatll be established for itself through the results of his work. Thats primarily what he was concerned about -- his work," Artis said. Born on May 6, 1937, into a family of seven children, Carter struggled with a hereditary speech impediment and was sent to a juvenile reform centre at 12 after an assault. He escaped and joined the Army in 1954, experiencing racial segregation and learning to box while in West Germany. Carter then committed a series of muggings after returning home, spending four years in various state prisons. He began his pro boxing career in 1961. He was fairly short for a middleweight, but his aggression and high punch volume made him effective. Carters life changed forever one summer night in 1966, when two white men and a white woman were gunned down in a New Jersey Bar. Police were searching for what witnesses described as two black men in a white car, and pulled over Carter and Artis a half-hour after the shootings. Though there was no physical evidence linking them to the crime and eyewitnesses at the time of the slayings couldnt identify them as the killers, Carter was convicted along with Artis. Their convictions were overturned in 1975, but both were found guilty a second time in a retrial a year later. After 19 years behind bars, Carter was finally freed in 1985 when a federal judge overturned the second set of convictions, citing a racially biased prosecution. Artis was also exonerated after being earlier paroled in 1981. Carter later moved to Toronto and became the founding executive director of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted, which has secured the release of 18 people since 1993. Win Wahrer, a director with the association, remembers Carter as the "voice and the face" of the group. "I think its because of him that we got the credibility that we did get, largely due to him -- he was already a celebrity, people knew who he was," she said. "He suffered along with those who were suffering." Though Carter left the organization in 2005, the phone never stopped ringing with requests for him, Wahrer said. "He was an eloquent speaker, a passionate speaker. I remember the first time I ever heard him I knew I was in the presence of a man that could move mountains just by his presence and his words and his passion for what he believed in," she said. Carter went on to found another advocacy group, Innocence International. "He wanted to bring people together. That was his real purpose in life -- to get people to understand one another and to work together to make changes," said Wahrer. "It was so important for him to make a difference. And I think he did. I think he accomplished what he set out to do." Association lawyer James Lockyer, who has known Carter since they were involved in the wrongful conviction case of Guy Paul Morin, remembered how Carter called him just before sitting down with then-president Bill Clinton for a screening of his 1999 biopic "The Hurricane." The call was to ask for advice on how to bring the U.S. leaders attention to the case of a Canadian woman facing execution in Vietnam. "Even though this was sort of a pinnacle moment of Rubins life -- to sit at the White House with the president and his wife on either side of him watching a film about him -- he wasnt really thinking about himself," said Lockyer. "He was thinking about this poor woman who was sitting on death row in Vietnam that we were trying to save from the firing squad." The film about Carters life starred Denzel Washington, who received an Academy Award nomination for playing the boxer turned prisoner. On Sunday, when told of Carters death, Washington said in a statement: "God bless Rubin Carter and his tireless fight to ensure justice for all." Carters fight continued to the very end. Never letting up even as his body was wracked with cancer, Carter penned an impassioned letter to a New York paper in February calling for the conviction of a man jailed in 1985 to be reviewed -- and reflected on his own mortality in the process. "If I find a heaven after this life, Ill be quite surprised. In my own years on this planet, though, I lived in hell for the first 49 years, and have been in heaven for the past 28 years," he wrote. "To live in a world where truth matters and justice, however late, really happens, that world would be heaven enough for us all." DeAndre Hopkins Youth Jersey . Although the deal cannot be made official until the free agent moratorium period is lifted on July 10, Patterson has agreed to a three-year, $18 million extension to remain in Toronto, sources confirm to TSN. Lonnie Johnson Texans Jersey . He wants to seize that opportunity. The trouble is, Firus has had more bumps on the road to Sochi than most. Last year, Firus had the skate of a lifetime in the short program at the Canadian championships when he landed his first triple Axel in competition and finished third in a stacked field.A junior hockey player who died suddenly at a training camp this week was a large but gentle boy who had recently started to show academic promise, his former principal said Tuesday. Paul Kitchen, head of school at Rothesay Netherwood in New Brunswick, said staff and students have been hit hard by the death of Jordan Boyd. The 16-year-old boy died Monday after collapsing during a skating drill at tryouts for the Acadie-Bathurst Titan of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. Kitchen said the 270-student private school in Rothesay is reaching out to offer support to Boyds parents, who had been thrilled by their sons academic progress. "Jordan is a fine, fine young man who worked hard at his academics, who worked hard at his relationship with others," Kitchen said in an interview. "He was ... this gentle, gentle large boy with this smile on his face." The league said a physical therapist provided CPR after Boyd fell on the ice, lost consciousness and stopped breathing at a rink in Bathurst, N.B. Results from an autopsy are expected later this week. Kitchen said Boyds hockey skills blossomed during the 2012-13 academic year when his team won silver at the World Sport School Championships in Calgary. He recalled hed often meet the Grade 10 student hurrying between the dormitory and the rink for additional ice time, where the youung man honed his skating and scoring skills. J.J. Watt Youth Jersey. Boyd was improving his grades and coming to understand the importance of academic excellence, said Kitchen. He said the death of the six-foot, 176-pound youth has left staff and students struggling to understand how a person who appeared so physically strong would suddenly collapse. "Hes been taken from us and it doesnt make sense to any of us," he said. Photi Sotiropoulos, a spokesman for the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, said its too early to speculate on what lessons -- if any -- can be learned from the death. He said the league will examine the autopsy results carefully and consider if improvements to medical evaluations can be made. Sotiropoulos noted there has been one prior, similar death in 1978, when 17-year-old Daniel Richard of the Quebec Remparts collapsed and died during a practice after suffering a heart attack. A media report at the time said the teams medical doctor said Richard suffered from a rare congenital condition that can bring about the shrinking of an artery from the heart. The doctor said the death could have occurred at any time in the youths life. Kitchen said he hopes the cause of Boyds death is established soon. "Anything we can ever do to prevent this kind of tragedy from happening for one other family is crucial." Wholeslae Jerseys NFL Jerseys CheapWholesale NBA Jerseys Cheap NHL Jerseys Cheap MLB Jerseys Wholesale Soccer Jerseys Cheap College Jerseys Cheap Football Jerseys Cheap Basketball Jerseys Cheap Baseball Jerseys' ' '
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