In September 1992 a 77-year-old woman living in Oneonta reported she had been robbed. She didn't see the man, but "thought" he was Black. And, she said, he cut his hand during the robbery.
After the robbery was reported, police went to the nearby SUNY campus (which has one of the most visible concentrations of Black people in the area). A school administrator there gave the State Police a list of every student on campus who was not white--125 people. Police used that list to track Black students down in their dormitories and on their jobs. Meanwhile, out in the streets of Oneonta, hundreds of Black men were questioned. Some were even pulled off buses.
