MUMIA COMMENTS ON DIALLO VERDICT

[jacdon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Following are portions of an article written by death row
political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal on the Diallo
verdict and related matters.  It was printed in 3/16
Workers World.
Jack Smith, Mid-Hudson National People?s Campaign/IAC

By MUMIA ABU-JAMAL

The Amadou Diallo trial of four white cops charged in the
firestorm slaughter of the West African has ended in the
predictable acquittal of his killers.

When is a killing not a killing? Apparently, this is so
when the victim is someone slain by the police. When police
kill, it is an accident, a "mistake," an "oops!"

Let us examine how the police achieved this judicial
sleight-of-hand.

As soon as the case arose, the legal forces defending the
state fled the very area that the police claim to be
"serving."

Why is it okay to enforce the law in a given neighborhood,
yet automatically wrong to have citizens of that same
neighborhood try to enforce (as jurors) some of that same
law when it comes to these particular "public servants?"

In New York City in recent months, Black and Latino men
have been shot for having keys, candy bars, wallets in
their hands. This deadly rain of "accidents" is an official
expression of Negrophobic oppression, and it can only
escalate after this unholy acquittal of the four killer
cops from the Bronx.

When the case began, the police immediately opted for a
bench trial, before a judge, not a jury. When an African
American jurist was selected, they put in a change of venue
motion that put them on the first-thing-smoking to Albany,
in upstate, white-bread New York. So much for the
"community" that they "serve!"

THE SERVICE THAT THE STATE DELIVERS IS DEATH!

What of the recent case of the Orthodox Jewish man, Gidone
(n? Gary) Busch, who was cornered by four cops in Boro
Park, New York City? Busch, a Ba'altshuva (newly Orthodox
Jew), was shot 12 times outside of his home.

Immediately, New York's Mayor, Rudolf Giuliani, and Police
Commissioner, Howard Safir, attacked the dead youth, and
painted him as a "fanatic," whose shooting was "justified."
Key to their justification theory, was their claim that
Busch "attacked" an officer with a hammer.

Eyewitnesses uniformly disputed this claim, but
nonetheless 3 months after the August 1999 shooting, a
Grand Jury exonerated all four cops, and pronounced the
killing "justified."

WELCOME TO THE TERRORDOME.

The vile and violent attacks on Black and Puerto Rican
life in the nation's capital of capital cannot long be
limited to their communities. Consciousness does not obey
the laws of geography, and repression, like water, seeks
the lowest level.

A conservative, pro-Giuliani, Orthodox Jewish community,
is still, essentially, a Jewish community. And the social
forces that truly run New York regard them as another
flavor of difference.

Busch's life, like Diallo's life, was expendable in the
larger interests of the consolidation and projection of
state police power.

Both men were executed twice, once in the streets near
home, and next in the court system, where their sacrifice
was deemed acceptable to the larger political interests of
the status quo.

According to published reports, one resident of Boro Park
confided to a black reporter, "Yesterday I believed that
when the police would shoot down a Black man, they had a
reason. Now I realize that the police can be animals--and
they have the power to cover it up at all costs. The next
time a Black man gets shot, I'm marching with you."

Let us hope that really happens, so that a vast movement
can be built.
(end)