A True Story

by PNN staff

The following is about a story that was investigated by the Poverty Journalism class at POOR. The reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle who broke the story manipulated the story to make it seem as though a murder was committed. In a later, tiny back-page story, we saw that the first Chronicle report was incorrect.

1st article; MOM KILLED HER OWN BABY

2nd article;Charges dropped against mother of baby

Process of investigation; The story was analyzed by the class, questions were raised to be answered as we gathered more information. Two letters were sent to Ping Du’s attorney to request more information. Other calls to the jail for more information were made also. Asian activist agencies were contacted to see if they could help Ping Du.

One of the student journalists has written his interpretation of the Ping Du story. We for now have not heard the last of Ping Du.

Ping Du, Who Needs to Have Her Story Told

By Vlad Pogorelov

An Asian woman dressed in an orange jumpsuit sits on a small narrow bed in her rat-infested cell. She stares at a leaky ceiling from which rusty water drips onto the cement floor, drop after drop. The cell is 6x4 feet, has no windows and through a door composed of thick metal bars she can see a segment of gray wall and piece of dirty tile floor. There is a small toilet in the corner and a sink on the opposite side. A large, German cockroach appears from underneath the sink and makes his way to a water faucet. The insect drinks plenty of water and then slowly returns back from where he came. The woman sees him but doesn’t show any interest in him. She just stares at the gray cement wall above the sink hardly seeing anything. Her face is motionless as a Chinese mask. But if you look more closely at her eyes you see a deep despair and enormous emotional pain.

An hour passes. And then another hour. A warden opens a window in a cell door and shoves in an aluminum bowl with some mushy green liquid —split pea soup, perhaps, and a slice of “Wonder” bread. But the prisoner doesn’t touch her lunch. She just sits, motionless, and stares into the space in front of her without even blinking. Another hour passes. Suddenly, the woman jumps up and starts hitting her head against a wall. She does it in a methodical fashion with a split second period in between which is almost synchronized with water dripping from the ceiling. She continues to hurt herself until her face is completely covered with blood and all she can see is a red glare. Finally, she collapses on the floor and cries. A warden enters her room and handcuffs her.

Later, the prisoner is transported into the mental ward of a jail in a neighboring county. She is stripped of her clothes, put into a straight jacket and given a shot of a medication which immediately takes her out of this grim reality and into an infinite blackness. A note on the heavy, thick, glass door, reads “Suicide Watch.” A prison guard is posted to observe the prisoner through the glass door at all times.

But this woman, whose name is Ping Du, is not aware of the guard or her whereabouts. She is dreaming and in her dream she sees herself playing with her little 6-month-old daughter in the back yard of her house up in Daly City. Her husband, together with her 10-year-old son, is nearby preparing a barbecue. It is a Sunday morning and the sun is shining brightly from the blue California sky above. The air is clean and saturated with happiness and joy. Ping Du’s husband calls her name. She leaves her baby on a blanket in the middle of the lawn and walks to her husband. As she approaches him she sees a big shadow sliding through a yard. When she turns back she sees that her baby girl is seized by a giant eagle that carries her away in its claws. Both parents run toward her, but it’s too late. Their baby is gone. Gone forever.

Unable to cope with her nightmare, Ping Du wakes up only to find herself restricted by a straightjacket and a realization that her nightmare is not over, but has only really begun. She tries to move her dry lips to ask for water. When she is finally able to say, “Water! I am thirsty. Water, please!” the guard doesn’t understand her—Ping Du has spoken in her native Cantonese. And so she stays thirsty, deeply affected by the despair of her situation in which, within a matter of a few hours, she lost her 9-month-old child, was accused of murder and incarcerated.

I first heard about Ping Du when the San Francisco Chronicle, on it’s front page, reported the sensational news Mom Killed Her Own Baby. From that article I’ve learned that this 36 year-old mother of two, an immigrant from China, was accused of murdering her 6-month-old baby girl while giving her a bath. Police, who investigated the drowning of Jiawen Young, became suspicious because paramedics were not immediately. Almost immediately Ping Du, who does not speak English, was arrested and put into San Mateo county jail, where, stricken by grief, the immigrant mother had a nervous breakdown. Following deterioration in her mental condition she was transferred into the psychiatric facility at Santa Clara County Jail. When I called the jail in order to schedule an interview with her, I was told that she was inaccessible at the time. “By the way,” an information officer added, “she would require a Mandarin translator, which we could not provide to you.” Apparently her jailers did not even know what her real language was. I was advised to call back the next week. It was clear to me that Ping Du was caught up in an inhumane legal system, uncaring about her tragedy. When I called Santa Clara County Jail the next week I was told that she was no longer there. “She was released to another county,” an officer informed me. “Do you mean that she was released? Perhaps on bail?” I asked. “Oh, no sir. I just told you that she was not released, but released to another county into another jail.”

As I investigated her story more, I learned that when Daly City Sgt. Donald Griggs questioned Ping Du, she did not have an appropriate translator and, considering that her 6-month old baby just drowned in a bathtub as result of accident, she naturally blamed herself for the tragedy. Without proper facts to back up his story, the Chronicle’s reporter Jonathan Curiel immediately fired up an article which was written in the best traditions of yellow journalism, in which he essentially accused the grief-stricken mother of nothing less than a premeditated murder. The Chronicle, following the “if it bleeds, it leads” logic of the mainstream press, published his report on its front page, titled Mom Killed her Own Baby.

The reader can see the word “alleged” is not in the title- and when reading the second, smaller back page article, it is easy to see how this report was manipulated by the reporter. As well, Ping Du’s reputation and that of her family was permanently stained if not destroyed, and her older son was taken into a protective custody.

A few weeks passed and I got the news that Ping Du finally had her day in court, where she was represented by public defender Kevin Nowack. The falsity of the premature conclusions and accusations came to light, and Ping Du’s charge was reduced to involuntary manslaughter. Her bail was set at $50,000. Unfortunately, because her husband Zheng Yang was the only provider for their family, there was no money for her bail. As a result of poverty she remains a prisoner.