IN 1978, FRANK RIZZO, Philadelphia's mayor and formerly its police chief, blew up at a press conference, threatening what he called "the new breed" of journalists. Readers, he said, "believe what you write and what you say, and it's got to stop. One day--and I hope it's in my career you're going to have to be held responsible and accountable for what you do."
What the "new breed" was doing in 1978 - and is still doing today in Philadelphia and elsewhere- was exposing police misconduct. A cop had been killed in a confrontation between Philadelphia police and the radical group, MOVE (the same MOVE that was fire-bombed by the city seven years later), and the police version of who fired the first shot hadn't been accepted without question. Rizzo feared a new trend, and he was right.
Today, the Rodney King case, the Mollen Commission, the New York City Police Department "party" in Washington, D.C., and hundreds of other local scandals have exposed police misconduct nationwide. Ironically, one of the prominent "new breed" journalists at whom Rizzo's outburst was directed is awaiting execution on Pennsylvania's Death Row - the victim, many believe, of a police frame-up.
Mumia Abu-Jamal began his journalism career with the Black Panther Party. Abu-Jamal (then Wesley Cook) was Minister of Information for the Philadelphia chapter at age 15 - a heady beginning--for a West Philly lad. After the Panthers fell apart (helped by FBI), Abu-Jamal turned to broadcasting. He had the voice, the writing talent and the ambition; by age 25 he was one of the top names in local radio, interviewing such luminaries as Jesse Jackson and the Pointer Sisters and winning a Peabody Award for his coverage of the Pope's visit. He was president of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists, and labeled "one to watch" by Philadelphia magazine.
But Abu-Jamal was still a radical. The Philadelphia Inquirer called him "an eloquent activist not afraid to raise his voice," and this fearlessness proved to be his undoing. His vocal support of MOVE's unconventional and unpopular lifestyle (which included, among other things, eating raw food and refusing to kill rats or roaches) lost him jobs at black stations, and he was forced to moonlight as a cab driver to support his family. The mayor's outburst marked the beginning of a police harassment campaign, according to Abu-Jamal, that included such subtleties as a cocked finger and a "bang-bang" from a smirking cop.
In December, 1981, the harassment escalated to a late-night beating of Mumia's brother on the street. Abu-Jamal was driving a cab that night. It is undisputed that he intervened. It is undisputed that both he and Officer Daniel Faulkner were shot, and that Faulkner died. What is in dispute is who killed Faulkner. Abu-Jamal says it was someone else, and several witnesses, interviewed by the police but hidden from the defense, said they saw another shooter flee the scene. Abu-Jamal's legally registered .38 was never decisively linked to Faulkner's fatal wounds.
Abu-Jamal's murder trial was a policeman's dream. Denied the right to represent himself, he was defended by a reluctant incompetent who was later disbarred (and who has since filed an affidavit detailing his delinquencies). Abu-Jamal was prosecuted by a district attorney who was later reprimanded for withholding evidence in another trial. Abu-Jamal was allowed only $150 to interview witnesses.
But best of all was the judge. A life-time member of the Fraternal Order of Police, branded a "defendant's nightmare" by the Philadelphia Inquirer, Judge Albert F. Sabo has sentenced more men to die (31 to date, only two of them white) than any other sitting judge in America. A fellow judge once called his courtroom a "vacation for prosecutors" because of his bias toward convictions.
Sabo wouldn't allow Abu-Jamal to defend himself because his dreadlocks made jurors "nervous." A black juror was removed for violating sequestration, while a white juror was given an court escort to take a civil service exam. During voir dire,the district attorney struck 11 qualified prospective black jurors. A policeman who filed two conflicting reports was never subpoenaed. Abu-Jamal's Black Panther past was waved like a bloody flag. Had he said, "All power to the people"? Yes, he admitted, he had said that. Character witnesses, including renowned poet and scholar Sonia Sanchez, were cross-examined about their "anti-police" writings and associations.
Thus, with Judge Sabo's help, an award-winning journalist with no criminal record was portrayed as a police assassin lying in wait since age 15. Alter Abu-Jamal's conviction, Sabo instructed the jury: "You are not being asked to kill anybody" by imposing the death penalty, since the defendant will get "appeal after appeal after appeal." Such instruction - ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in Caldwell vs. Mississippi in 1986 - was allowed in Abu-Jamal's case.
Abu-Jamal's lawyers, including New York City defense attorney Leonard Weinglass, have petitioned for a new trial with an unbiased judge and a competent lawyer. They claim that at least two witnesss are prepared to testify that he did not shoot Faulkner. The struggle became a race against time last month, when Pennsylvania Gov.Thomas Ridge, fully aware of the many questions in the case, signed a death warrant scheduling Abu-Jamal for execution August 17.
Mumia Abu-Jamal was not surprised. Several of the essays in his book deal with America's frantic "march toward the death chamber." As he wrote several years ago in the Yale Law Journal: "States that have not slain in a generation now ready their machinery: generators whine, poison liquids are mixed, and gases are measured and readied."
Unless Abu-Jamal's last ditch appeals are answered and he finally gets the fair trial he deserves, America will witness what may be its first explicitly political execution since the Rosenbergs were put to death in 1953. Frank Rizzo's angry threat will be fulfilled, for one "new breed" journalist at least. It will stop. We won't hear any more criticism of the police from Mumia Abu-Jamal. Forever.
