[Antiracism] Action on Police Misconduct & Racism

Tue Dec 19 12:14:30 EST 2006

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[WMass] International Action Center
JAIL KILLER COPS: Hands Off Assata Shakur!
Updated with links to news reports and resources
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Public anger continues to grow in the wake of 2 recent shooting deaths by 
police: 23-year-old Sean Bell in New York and 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston 
in Atlanta. Thousands gathered at New York Police Department headquarters on 
Dec. 6 for a defiant rally that ended in a non-permitted march. About 40,000 
staged a (largely) silent march on Saturday, December 16 (see press reports 
below) and thousands more are expected to participate in a December 21 NYC 
protest.

The NYPD has tried several tactics to quell the outrage over the latest 
police killing of Bell, an unarmed Black man. First, cops claimed they 
thought one of the men at the scene had a gun. Then, a week later, they 
changed their story saying there was a fourth man, and that he had a gun. 
This claim was followed by a dragnet which rounded up Black men throughout 
southeast Queens. But no "fourth man" was ever found.

Now police are trying a new strategy tied to an old story. On December 12, 
the New York Daily News and several local television news broadcasts carried 
stories attacking the Community Center at CCNY named in honor of Guillermo 
Morales and Assata Shakur. This story took up the Daily News' front page, a 
full page article inside, along with an editorial. This tabloid termed 
Assata a "terrorist" and "cop-killer".

The Community Center was named after Guillermo Morales and Assata Shakur in 
1989. After 17 years, where is the breaking news justifying a front page 
story? The only new development is that now -- as the NYPD is facing 
worldwide condemnation for killing Sean Bell -- New York Patrolmen's 
Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch has launched this attack on 
CCNY students to divert public attention from killings committed by NYPD 
officers. Unable to justify their actions, Lynch is
trying to change the subject.

Who is Assata Shakur?

Assata Shakur was a member of the Black Panther Party who, like many other 
Black activists in the 60s and 70s, became a target of COINTELPRO. As part 
of the FBI's campaign against the Black Panther Party, Assata was falsely 
accused of bank robberies and other crimes up and down the East Coast in the 
early 1970s. Her real "crime" was fighting for the liberation of Black 
people and other nationalities subjugated by racist oppression.

After she was acquitted six different times, on May 2, 1973, Assata, 
Sundiata Acoli and Zayd Malik Shakur were ambushed by state police on the 
New Jersey turnpike. A state trooper shot Assata in the arm and back as she 
had her hands in the air. Another trooper was killed. Zayd Malik Shakur was 
killed. Sundiata escaped and was later captured after a massive police 
manhunt.

Following her arrest, Assata was chained to her hospital bed as the police 
guarding her shouted racist invective, beat her with shotgun butts and 
threatened to kill her.

One of the state troopers admitted he shot and killed Zayd Malik Shakur. But 
Assata was charged with the killing of Zayd (who she described as her 
"closest friend and comrade") as well as the death of the trooper. Sundiata 
Acoli was also charged with both deaths. No evidence linked either of them 
to the shooting of the state trooper. Defense testimony from several expert 
witnesses made it clear Assata was not involved in the shooting. 
Nevertheless, in 1977 Assata was convicted by an all-white jury and 
sentenced to life plus 33 years in prison. Sundiata was sentenced to life 
plus 30 years. He remains a political prisoner.

Assata Shakur escaped from prison in 1979 and fled to Cuba, where she still 
lives in political exile. The United States government has offered a $1 
million award for her capture.

Commenting on the newly-increased bounty, political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal 
wrote: "For centuries, nothing has so stirred up American fury like the 
escape of a slave. That ain't just distant history. For daring to slip her 
bonds and escape from brutal and unjust bondage, the Empire now labels her a 
terrorist. That's because to them, nothing is more terrifying than 
resistance to their imperial will. As for terrorists, if they really wanna 
find some, it shouldn't be too hard to find them. Just check the White 
House."

A statement from CCNY students in response to this PBA-initiated controversy 
read, in part: "We know that many Black people that fought for better 
conditions in the 70's were framed. We consider Assata Shakur to be one of 
the people who were wrongfully and purposefully framed for her activities. 
And we consider her a hero and role model for standing up for our people and 
putting her life on the line."

Guillermo Morales, a Puerto Rican freedom fighter, was a member of the FALN 
who also now lives in Cuba. (For more on Guillermo Morales, visit 
http://www.ps1.org./official/1980/prpow/textprpow.html)

For the past 17 years, the Guillermo Morales/Assata Shakur Community and 
Student Center has provided many valuable services to the community, 
including lower-cost textbooks, mentoring, printing facilities, and soup 
kitchens.

Now, Patrick Lynch, the PBA, and the NYPD are demanding the Center's name be 
changed. They are stirring up racist hysteria against Assata Shakur and 
Guillermo Morales as a distraction. Saturday's mass protest showed their 
smear campaign isn't working.

The International Action Center (IAC) stands in solidarity with the student 
activists -- members of Students for Educational Rights, the Student 
Liberation Action Movement and Dominicans 2000 -- who share the Guillermo 
Morales/Assata Shakur Community and Student Center. We denounce the racist 
campaign to demonize Assata Shakur and Guillermo Morales.

The IAC has urged participation by all progressive and anti-racist activists 
in 2 NYC marches:

December 16 - "Shopping for Justice": Participants congregated on 59th 
Street and Fifth Avenue at noon and marched down Fifth Ave. The rally was 
organized by Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network, Local 1199 of the 
Service Employees International Union, and a number of Black and Latin@ 
elected officials, church and labor leaders. For more information, call 
212-603-3704.

December 21 - Day of Outrage: Shut Down Wall Street. The march will assemble 
at noon at Liberty Street and Nassau Street (One Chase Manhattan Plaza). 
Organized by the Black Men's Movement and the December 12th Movement. For 
more information, call 718-398-1766. (See "Cop shooting protesters to march 
on Wall Street," NY Newsday, Dec. 18 @
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/am-bellside1218,0,610402.story)
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SELECTED NEWS COVERAGE
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* New York Times, December 17
(Excerpts) Protesters Denounce Police Killing

A protest march cut a solemn swath through crowds of Christmas shoppers and 
the joyous mood of the holiday season in Midtown Manhattan yesterday in a 
rebuke to the police for the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man in 
Queens on his wedding day last month.

Three weeks after Sean Bell was killed and two friends were wounded in a 
hail of 50 police bullets, a coalition of civil rights groups, elected 
officials, community leaders, clergymen and others marched down Fifth Avenue 
and across 34th Street in a “silent” protest that sputtered scattered 
chants, but was largely devoid of shrieks, speeches and most of the usual 
sound-and-fury tactics of demonstrations...

Here and there, marchers shouted “No shopping, no justice,” or “Shot” and 
numbers from 1 to 50. Others carried signs proclaiming: “Stop NYPD Racist 
Terror,” and “Justice for Sean Bell.” But most stared straight ahead, 
ignoring those on the other side of the barricades.

The size of the protest, strung out for 10 blocks, was anybody’s guess. The 
organizers said thousands marched. The police, as is customary, gave no 
estimate. In any case, there were no confrontations, arrests or untoward 
incidents during the march, the police said...

[Rev.] Sharpton, who called the Queens shooting a case of excessive force, 
said the march was a moral appeal to the city to change police policies.

Hours before he was to be married on Nov. 25, Mr. Bell was killed and his 
friends, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield, were wounded in a barrage of 
police bullets as they left a bachelor party at a strip club. The police, 
conducting an undercover operation at the club, said they believed the 
victims were going to get a gun, and opened fire when the men’s car hit an 
officer and an unmarked police minivan.

Mr. Bell and his friends were black; the officers were white, Hispanic and 
black. No guns were found among the victims, and while the police say they 
are examining reports that a fourth man who ran away may have had a gun, the 
case has generated vigils and protests that culminated in yesterday’s 
march...

The protesters, many of whom arrived in buses from Queens, Brooklyn and 
elsewhere, were joined by Representative Charles B. Rangel, City Comptroller 
William C. Thompson Jr., and other politicians; by the singer Harry 
Belafonte; by leaders and members of the N.A.A.C.P.; the Rev. Jesse 
Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition; Mr. Sharpton’s National Action Network; 
and relatives and friends of Mr. Bell, Mr. Guzman and Mr. Benefield.

The group included Mr. Bell’s fiancée, Nicole Paultre, who has taken the 
surname Bell, and one of their two children, Jada, 4, and Abner Louima, the 
Haitian immigrant sodomized with a broomstick by a police officer in a 
station house nine years ago. Mr. Benefield rode in a wheelchair, but Mr. 
Guzman, shot numerous times, remained at a rehabilitation center...

* New York Daily News, December 17
Support for Sean on Fifth Ave.
A sea of demonstrators flooded the heart of Manhattan yesterday on one of 
the busiest shopping days of the year to protest the police shooting that 
killed Sean Bell on his wedding day.
VIEW THE ENTIRE ARTICLE at
http://www.nydailynews.com/12-17-2006/news/crime_file/story/480833p-404641c.html

* NY Newsday, December 18
Victim's dad seeks Kelly's resignation:
Father of man killed by cops joins call for ouster of police chief,
Queens DA; and asks for special prosecutor
FOR THE FULL REPORT, open
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/ny-nykellvr5020589dec18,0,7764500.story?coll=ny-nynews-print

FOR MORE ON ASSATA SHAKUR, go to:
http://www.assatashakur.org
http://www.handsoffassata.org
For videos, open: http://panafrican.tv/index.php?cPath=23_37
Order her autobiography from leftbooks.com @
http://www.leftbooks.com/cgi-local/SoftCart.exe/online-store/scstore/p-blhrac1987aaa.html?E+scstore
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CENTER/TROOPS OUT NOW! ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
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