CUAPB Newsletter from 12/20

Communities United Against Police Brutality
EMAIL NEWSLETTER
December 20, 2005
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CUAPB HOLIDAY MEETING SCHEDULE
CUAPB board members have decided that we will hold our regular weekly meetings at 1:30
p.m. on Saturday, December 24th and Saturday, December 31st but that these meetings will
be abbreviated. We made this decision based on the importance of projects we are
currently working on. We meet every Saturday at 1:30 p.m. at Walker Church, 3104 16th
Ave S and our meetings are open to the public.
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UPCOMING EVENTS
Court Watch
Although not much is happening for the rest of this month, some of us are taking
advantage of days off from work to do a bit of court watching. If you'd like to join us
for a few hours, call our hotline at 612-874-7867. The courts can be a fascinating place
to be--you never know what you'll see.

Minneapolis City Council's Public Safety & Regulatory Services Committee
Hearing on Police Hiring and Diversity
January 4, 2006
1:30 p.m.
Minneapolis City Hall
350 S. 5th Street, City Council Chambers
The community has just plain gotten disgusted that the last several new hires to the
Minneapolis police department have been white men, despite specific provisions in the
Federal mediation agreement directing the city to engage in hiring practices that would
diversify the force. The community is organizing to send a message to the NEW
(post-election) PS&RS committee that their continued failure to diversify the force is
not acceptable. Be there to see the sparks fly!

IT'S FINALLY HAPPENING! PACK THE COURTROOM! ONE DAY ONLY!
Federal Court Hearing on Our Community Lawsuit!
February 1, 2006 at 9:00 a.m.
Federal District Court
300 S 4th St, Minneapolis
At long last, our community lawsuit is going to court. To remind you, this was the
lawsuit that was filed when it became clear that the city had hijacked the federal
mediation process. The purpose of the lawsuit has been to force policy and practice
changes within the Minneapolis police department. The city has settled on a number of
the community's demands but there are still some issues outstanding, including justice
for Darryl Robinson, the main named plaintiff in the lawsuit.

Darryl was beaten by a Minneapolis cop while another watched, when all he had been doing
was walking down the street. His eardrum was ruptured when the officer pounded on his
head, and the cop who did it then poured seltzer water into his ruptured ear, causing
excruciating pain. Officers left him lying in the alleyway and never charged Darryl with
any crime or even filed a police report.

Darryl took himself to the hospital and demanded to make a complaint against the officer.
MPD sent a Sergeant to HCMC to interview him, but somehow the audiotape of that
interview was "lost." Darryl tried to follow up, but no one at the City would do
anything. A year and a half later, he contacted us when it was clear the MPD was not
going to do anything to investigate criminal charges against one of their own. He feels
that this shows a systemic problem in the MPD, and we agree. That's when Darryl decided
to be part of a legal action designed to force changes. Word on the street is that this
lawsuit is behind McManus' revamping of Internal Affairs but so far, it's not enough.

Darryl is a brave man and a true hero to the community. Since becoming the named
plaintiff, he has been harassed repeatedly and has even had to give up driving due to
constant traffic stops. Yet he has continued to stand strong in his demand for justice
and for changes within the Minneapolis police department. This court hearing will be the
opportunity for the community to hear first hand Darryl's story along with issues related
to accountability within the MPD. COME TO COURT AND STAND WITH DARRYL AND OTHERS WRONGED
BY POLICE VIOLENCE AND MISCONDUCT.
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ANNUAL DINNER A WONDERFUL SUCCESS!
Thanks to all who attended our annual survivor/family/volunteer/friends dinner on
December 11th. We had a great turnout and folks supped on some outrageously delicious
food prepared by survivor and volunteer Derrick W. with help from Buddy H., Cindy C.,
Stephen T. and others. Sweet friends and supporters Peter M., Janelle C., Dave B. and
others contributed wonderful goodies to the meal. We're also very grateful to our five
student interns Jamie S., Alison L., Mallory S., Bobby M. and Mohamed B., who have worked
hard all semester on our false reporting bill project and then stepped it up during the
dinner--cooking, serving, cleaning, you name it. Even Jamie's friend John joined us in
the kitchen and became one of the cooks. Thirty-five pounds of chicken and ten pounds of
pasta later, everyone had full bellies and happy hearts.

It was so nice to look out into the dining area and see people we met through out hotline
talking together, exchanging phone numbers, offering to help. We'll have more of these
events in the new year and would definitely encourage you to take part.
___________________________________________________________
WHERE'S JUSTICE? Analysis of a Campaign Ad
During the recent mayoral election, candidate Peter McLaughlin sent out a slick,
last-minute advertisement entitled "Where's Officer Waldo?" with the tag line "150
reasons crime is out of control in Minneapolis."

The front page of this piece shows a TV store and a large parking lot or street (it's not
altogether clear which) with several people around it. The bridge and buildings in the
background seem to indicate that this locale is a short distance from downtown
Minneapolis. Within the space around the store, there are approximately 90 people (some
are cut off by the title banner across the center of the picture and are only partially
visible) and 31 separate crimes are depicted.

People
Of the people depicted, the racial breakdown is as follows :
Caucasians: 53, or 58.9% of the total
People of Color: 35, or 38.9% of the total
Unable to be determined: 2, or 2.2% of the total
People of color are 34.9% of Minneapolis residents, so are somewhat over-represented in
this ad. Interestingly, the police officer shown appears to be a person of color.

Crimes
Quite a range of crimes are depicted, include murder, auto theft, looting, armed robbery,
drug dealing, pick pocketing, assault with a weapon, public drunkenness, loitering, auto
fire, other illegal fire, child abuse/domestic assault. Many of the crimes involved guns
or knives.

Of the "people" involved in the crimes, here's the breakdown. Bear in mind that some of
the crimes depicted were "victimless," i.e. public drunkenness, loitering, etc. Some of
the crimes depicted involved multiple perpetrators or victims.

Perpetrators:
White = 30 (76.9%)
People of Color = 9 (23.1%)
According to the BCA, whites are 72.6% of arrests for crimes statewide while people of
color are 27.4% of arrests. Although arrests include those who are not convicted later,
it would appear that this ad has things in almost the right proportions. Interestingly,
though, Minneapolis police seem to have turned reality on its head with their arrests.
Their 2003 annual report (the latest year available) indicates that whites are 28.4% of
those arrested while people of color are 71.6% of those arrested by MPD.

Victims:
White = 3 (18.7%)
People of Color = 13 (81.3%)
There do not appear to be statistics that track crime victims by race within Minneapolis
or within the State. However, the Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics indicates that
people of color are about twice as likely to be crime victims as whites (11.2 per 1000
vs. 6.3 per 1000 population). Unless Minneapolis is far outside national trends, this ad
depicts people of color as crime victims far out of proportion to reality. Perhaps this
depiction was meant to appeal to people of color, who were considered pivotal in the
outcome of the election.

Rate of Crime
According to the BCA, the crime rate for Hennepin county in 2004 was 4.38 crimes per 100
people. The ad depicts 31 crimes per 90 people. Clearly, this far exceeds the actual
rate, fueling the false sense conveyed in the tag line that "crime is out of control in
Minneapolis." Moreover, according to both the BCA and the Federal Bureau of Justice
Statistics, rates are down for all categories of crime.

Police Personnel
The ad depicts one police officer in the crowd of 90 people. Interestingly, that cop is
shown walking or running with gun drawn, though it is unclear which specific situation
the officer is responding to. It is arguable that the officer waiving the gun without
apparent cause could also be counted as a crime.

According to the BCA, Minneapolis has 2.7 officers per 1000 population, while most other
municipalities in the state have significantly lower rates of officers (1.8 officers per
1000 is typical).

Analysis
This ad relies on the depiction of a very high number of crimes in a small area to create
a sense that Minneapolis is wildly out of control and that there is a severe shortage of
police officers to respond to a high rate of crime. Thankfully, the ad did not resort to
racist depictions of people of color as perpetrators, though people of color were
depicted as victims at a rate far exceeding reality.

Although Minneapolis employs a higher rate per capita of police officers than any other
city in the state, the main message in the ad is that there is a severe shortage of cops
in Minneapolis and that adding more cops would somehow stem crime. Given the rate of
police brutality in this city, our experience shows that the crime of police brutality
would likely actually increase with an spate of new cops, if policies and accountability
are not improved.

While this ad was no doubt a tactic meant to sway voters toward candidate McLaughlin, it
is a pretty outrageous attempt to portray the city as a violent, dangerous place where
people of color are highly likely to experience crimes and where more cops somehow equals
less crime. It's interesting that this ad did not address the horrific disparities in
arrests of people of color in Minneapolis or how hiring more cops would fix THAT problem.

It's important for voters to dig past the glossy exterior and see these kinds of ads for
what they are--an attempt to appeal to our more base instincts. Apparently, the
community didn't "buy" the goods, as candidate McLaughlin was not elected. Nonetheless,
these kinds of ads plant seeds in people's minds and only by carefully analyzing them can
we dispel the myths they propagate.
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DANCING IN THE STREET LANDS HOMELESS MAN IN JAIL
We got the following from friend and homeless activist Margaret Hastings. It is strange
but true that Minneapolis has an ordinance against dancing in the street. Mpls. Ord.
427.240 ("No person shall dance or engage or participate in any dancing upon any public
street or highway in the city"). Leave it to Minneapolis to have such a ridiculous law
and then to enforce it on a homeless man. Strange how we've never seen it applied during
the Holidazzle, Aquatennial or other street festivals.

Jig is up for Cheery Homeless Man who Dared to Dance
Sometimes a guy feels so good he just wants to start dancing.
Doug Grow, Star Tribune
December 17, 2005

Sometimes a guy feels so good he just wants to start dancing.

Ah, but don't let that happen in Minneapolis. If you break out in dance on a Minneapolis
street you can be hit with a $112 fine.

It happened to 45-year-old Paul Wicklund early in the morning of Dec. 2. He was dancing
-- and, according to University of Minnesota police, singing at the top of his lungs --
in the 300 block of Washington Avenue SE. He was stopped and ticketed for being in
violation of city statue 427.20.

"No person shall dance or engage or participate in any dancing upon any public street or
highway in the city; and no person shall provide for, promote or conduct any dance or
dancing upon any public street or highway in the city, except at a block party."

On the surface, you wouldn't think Wicklund would have much to dance about. His spouse
booted him out of his home about a month ago, leaving him homeless. In addition, he's
been bedeviled by alcohol for years.

Yet at 5:30 a.m. Dec. 2, Wicklund was a happy man.

Earlier, he'd been visiting his seriously ill grandson at the University of Minnesota
Medical Center.

"I was up in the family waiting room, and the nurse said he was doing well," Wicklund
said. "That was an improvement from stable. Made me very happy."

Wicklund said he slipped into the chapel to offer a prayer of thanks. (He's a very
religious man, though he can cuss a blue streak.) He also took a few nips of vodka.

"Bringing the bottle in was my mistake," Wicklund said. "I was high, but quiet -- but
somebody saw me take a drink."

Three people from the hospital staff escorted Wicklund from the building.

Once on the street, he decided to listen (on a portable disc player he says someone lent
him) to his favorite CD, "American Idiot," by Green Day. Wicklund, a self-deprecating
fellow, loves the title.

"You could stamp that on my head," he said, laughing.

He said he was "grooving to the tunes" as he went down the sidewalk outside the hospital.
But when he saw a police car behind him, he figured the sidewalk might be hospital
property. He moved to the street and the police stepped in.

The police version of events isn't much different. According to Steve Johnson, the
University Police Department's deputy chief, two officers were having a smoke outside a
station near the hospital when they spotted Wicklund.

The officers wrote a colorful report of Wicklund "singing his own song and cussing the
police and the world." He also was dancing. The officers said they feared Wicklund would
dance into traffic.

Even when they stepped into his groove, the officers said, Wicklund continued to cuss at
them and flipped them the bird, yelling, "the world sucks." Thus the ticket for dancing.

(Johnson speculates that the ordinance, which came into existence in 1960, likely was
born of overexuberance at outdoor concerts. Hootenannies, perhaps?)

Wicklund finds the ordinance absurd. "I want to take this to the Supreme Court," said
Wicklund.

So far, though, he says no lawyer has stepped up.

"I've gone to a bunch of law offices telling them I've got a case that will bring them
some great public relations," he said.

Apparently the lawyers won't dance until they see the money.
__________________________________________________________
UPDATE ON THE POLICE STATE
Continued, timely reminders of the ties between the war at home and the war abroad...

Article 1: Bush Vigorously Defends Domestic Spying
By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051220/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush

Accused of acting above the law, President Bush forcefully defended a domestic spying
program on Monday as an effective tool in disrupting terrorists and insisted it was not
an abuse of Americans' civil liberties.

Bush said it was "a shameful act" for someone to have leaked details to the media.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said it was "probably the most classified program that
exists in the United States government"--involving electronic intercepts of telephone
calls and e-mails in the U.S. of people with known ties to al-Qaida and other terrorist
groups.

At a news conference, Bush bristled at the suggestion he was assuming unlimited powers.

"To say `unchecked power' basically is ascribing some kind of dictatorial position to the
president, which I strongly reject," he said angrily in a finger-pointing answer. "I am
doing what you expect me to do, and at the same time, safeguarding the civil liberties of
the country."

Despite Bush's defense, there was a growing storm of criticism from Congress and calls
for investigations, from Democrats and Republicans alike. West Virginia Sen. Jay
Rockefeller, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, released a
handwritten letter expressing concern to Vice President Dick Cheney after being briefed
more than two years ago.

Rockefeller complained then that the information was so restricted he was "unable to
fully evaluate, much less endorse these activities." He registered concern about the
administration's direction on security, technology and surveillance issues.

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said he would ask Bush's
Supreme Court nominee, Samuel Alito, his views of the president's authority for spying
without a warrant.

"Where does he find in the Constitution the authority to tap the wires and the phones of
American citizens without any court oversight?" asked Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. Sen.
Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said Bush's interpretation of the Constitution was "incorrect
and dangerous."

Bush said he had asked, "Do I have the legal authority to do this? And the answer is,
absolutely,"

The spying uproar was the latest controversy about Bush's handling of the war on terror,
after questions about secret prisons in Eastern Europe, secrecy-cloaked government
directives, torture allegations and a death toll of more than 2,150 Americans in Iraq. As
a result, Bush's approval rating has slumped as has Americans' confidence in his
leadership.

Appealing for support, Bush used the word "understand" 25 times in a nearly hour-long
news conference. "I hope the American people understand--there is still an enemy that
would like to strike the United States of America, and they're very dangerous," he said.
Similarly, he said he hoped that blacks who doubt his intentions "understand that I care
about them."

Bush challenged Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. Hillary Rodham
Clinton, D-N.Y.--without naming them--to allow a final vote on legislation renewing the
anti-terror Patriot Act, saying it was inexcusable to let it expire. "I want senators
from New York or Los Angeles or Las Vegas to go home and explain why these cities are
safer" without the extension, he said.

Reid and Clinton both helped block passage of the legislation in the Senate last week.

Bush noted that U.S. intelligence agencies have been faulted for failing to "connect the
dots" about threats to the nation's security. He said the Patriot Act and the spying
program help take care of that problem.

Reid fired back: "The president and the Republican leadership should stop playing
politics with the Patriot Act," he said in a statement that added he and other Democrats
favor a three-month extension of the expiring law to allow time for a long-term
compromise.

The legislation has cleared the House but Senate Democrats have blocked final passage and
its prospects are uncertain in the congressional session's final days. Scolded by Bush,
key lawmakers reopened talks by setting out the rough parameters of a deal: Extending the
act for one to four years.

Bush said the electronic eavesdropping program, conducted by the National Security
Agency, lets the government move faster than the standard practice of seeking a
court-authorized warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. "We've got to
be fast on our feet, quick to detect and prevent," the president said.

The president said the authority to bypass the court derived from the Constitution and
Congress' vote authorizing the use of military force after the 2001 terror attacks.

"I can fully understand why members of Congress are expressing concerns about civil
liberties," the president said. "I want to make sure the American people understand,
however, that we have an obligation to protect you, and we're doing that, and at the same
time, protecting your civil liberties."

Former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle said he was briefed by the White House
between 2002 and 2004 but was not told key details about the scope of the program. "Even
with some of the more troublesome--and potentially illegal--details omitted, I still
raised significant concern about these actions," Daschle said.

Daschle's successor, Reid, said he received a single briefing earlier this year and that
important details were withheld. "We need to investigate this program and the president's
legal authority to carry it out," Reid said.

Senate Intelligence Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., has been regularly briefed and believes
the program is consistent with U.S. laws and the Constitution, his office said. A
statement said he was talking with Senate leaders about how to expand Congress' oversight.

Bush was cool toward investigations, saying, "An open debate would say to the enemy,
`Here is what we're going to do.' And this is an enemy which adjusts." He said the
administration had consulted with Congress more than a dozen times.

On another issue, Bush acknowledged that a pre-war failure of intelligence--claiming
Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction--has complicated the U.S. ability to
confront other potential emerging threats such as Iran.

"Where it is going to be most difficult to make the case is in the public arena," Bush
said. "People will say, if we're trying to make the case on Iran, `Well, if the
intelligence failed in Iraq, therefore, how can we trust the intelligence on Iran?'"

Article 2: Agents' Visit Chills UMass Dartmouth Senior
By AARON NICODEMUS, Standard-Times staff writer
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/daily/12-05/12-17-05/a09lo650.htm

NEW BEDFORD -- A senior at UMass Dartmouth was visited by federal agents two months ago,
after he requested a copy of Mao Tse-Tung's tome on Communism called "The Little Red
Book."

Two history professors at UMass Dartmouth, Brian Glyn Williams and Robert Pontbriand,
said the student told them he requested the book through the UMass Dartmouth library's
interlibrary loan program.

The student, who was completing a research paper on Communism for Professor Pontbriand's
class on fascism and totalitarianism, filled out a form for the request, leaving his
name, address, phone number and Social Security number. He was later visited at his
parents' home in New Bedford by two agents of the Department of Homeland Security, the
professors said.

The professors said the student was told by the agents that the book is on a "watch
list," and that his background, which included significant time abroad, triggered them to
investigate the student further.

"I tell my students to go to the direct source, and so he asked for the official Peking
version of the book," Professor Pontbriand said. "Apparently, the Department of Homeland
Security is monitoring inter-library loans, because that's what triggered the visit, as I
understand it."

Although The Standard-Times knows the name of the student, he is not coming forward
because he fears repercussions should his name become public. He has not spoken to The
Standard-Times.

The professors had been asked to comment on a report that President Bush had authorized
the National Security Agency to spy on as many as 500 people at any given time since 2002
in this country.

The eavesdropping was apparently done without warrants.

The Little Red Book, is a collection of quotations and speech excerpts from Chinese
leader Mao Tse-Tung.

In the 1950s and '60s, during the Cultural Revolution in China, it was required reading.
Although there are abridged versions available, the student asked for a version
translated directly from the original book.

The student told Professor Pontbriand and Dr. Williams that the Homeland Security agents
told him the book was on a "watch list." They brought the book with them, but did not
leave it with the student, the professors said.

Dr. Williams said in his research, he regularly contacts people in Afghanistan, Chechnya
and other Muslim hot spots, and suspects that some of his calls are monitored.

"My instinct is that there is a lot more monitoring than we think," he said.

Dr. Williams said he had been planning to offer a course on terrorism next semester, but
is reconsidering, because it might put his students at risk.

"I shudder to think of all the students I've had monitoring al-Qaeda Web sites, what the
government must think of that," he said. "Mao Tse-Tung is completely harmless."

Contact Aaron Nicodemus at <mailto:anicodemus [at] s-t.com>anicodemus [at] s-t.com

Article 3: Miami Police Take New Tack Against Terror
By Curt Anderson, Associated Press Writer
November 28, 2005

MIAMI --Miami police announced Monday they will stage random shows of force at hotels,
banks and other public places to keep terrorists guessing and remind people to be
vigilant.

Deputy Police Chief Frank Fernandez said officers might, for example, surround a bank
building, check the IDs of everyone going in and out and hand out leaflets about terror
threats.

"This is an in-your-face type of strategy. It's letting the terrorists know we are out
there," Fernandez said.

The operations will keep terrorists off guard, Fernandez said. He said al-Qaida and other
terrorist groups plot attacks by putting places under surveillance and watching for flaws
and patterns in security.

Police Chief John Timoney said there was no specific, credible threat of an imminent
terror attack in Miami. But he said the city has repeatedly been mentioned in
intelligence reports as a potential target.

Timoney also noted that 14 of the 19 hijackers who took part in the Sept. 11 attacks
lived in South Florida at various times and that other alleged terror cells have operated
in the area.

Both uniformed and plainclothes police will ride buses and trains, while others will
conduct longer-term surveillance operations.

But at the same time, we don't want people to feel their rights are being threatened. We
need them to be our eyes and ears."

Howard Simon, executive director of ACLU of Florida, said the Miami initiative appears
aimed at ensuring that people's rights are not violated.

"What we're dealing with is officers on street patrol, which is more effective and more
consistent with the Constitution," Simon said. "We'll have to see how it is implemented."

Mary Ann Viverette, president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, said
the Miami program is similar to those used for years during the holiday season to deter
criminals at busy places such as shopping malls.

"You want to make your presence known and that's a great way to do it," said Viverette,
police chief in Gaithersburg, Md. "We want people to feel they can go about their normal
course of business, but we want them to be aware." © Copyright
<http://www.boston.com/help/bostoncom_info/copyright> 2005 The New York Times Company

Article 4: A Bit of Good News
Court limits cause for police searches
Conrad Defiebre, Star Tribune
December 3, 2005
http://www.startribune.com/stories/467/5760965.html

An agitated, suspicious driver and a drunken passenger did not justify a vehicle search
by police, the Minnesota Supreme Court has ruled in a case that broadens state
constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure.

The ruling on Thursday brought the dismissal of felony charges against a Winona woman on
grounds that an early-morning search in February 2004 that turned up crack cocaine in her
car and on her person was illegal.

"To allow a vehicle search solely because an adult passenger smelled of alcohol would be
to permit highly speculative searches against a large group of entirely law-abiding
motorists, including designated drivers," Justice Russell Anderson wrote for the court.
"Such a rule would not comport with the substantial privacy interest in motor vehicles
that the Minnesota Constitution ensures."

The court also ruled out the woman's alleged nervous behavior after being stopped for
speeding as a basis for a search without a warrant.

But Winona County Attorney Chuck MacLean, who prosecuted the case, said the court ignored
important evidence that a Winona police officer relied upon to reach a reasonable
suspicion that drugs would be found.

"He recognized that she was under the influence of a stimulant," MacLean said Friday.
"She wasn't nervous. She was tweaking on the drugs. The cop did the right thing. He
couldn't let her get back in the car and drive off."

Urine testing after the arrest showed marijuana and cocaine in the woman's system.

The court noted, however, that the woman, Peggy Burbach, 43, of Winona, passed a raft of
sobriety tests, including a breath analysis that showed no alcohol, leaving only the
officer's observation that she was "significantly more nervous, fidgety and talkative
than a normal person in a traffic stop."

The court also found police narcotics squad intelligence that Burbach was known to carry
crack cocaine in her car -- information the arresting officer had received a week or two
earlier -- did not justify the search.

Chuck Samuelson, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota,
praised the decision. "Certainly this was a very, very subjective case," he said. "The
police have to have more to back up a search than just a hunch."
___________________________________________________________
TWO PRISONERS NAMED WILLIAMS
by DAN BERGER
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051226/berger

In denying Stanley Tookie Williams clemency, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
said the former gang leader had failed to prove his redemption. Part of his argument
rested on the fact that Williams had dedicated one of his books to a group of political
activists, mostly black, who have all served time in prison, as well as a general
dedication to those "who have to endure the hellish oppression of living behind bars."
The governor was particularly incensed that Williams included George Jackson in the
dedication list, saying that the late black militant's inclusion "defies reason and is a
significant indicator that Williams is not reformed."

In 1958, at the age of 18, George Jackson was given the brutally vague sentence of
one-year-to-life for his role in a $70 gas station robbery. While in prison, Jackson
began to change his life: He read voraciously, was an outspoken political analyst and
became a leading figure in the Black Power movement of the late 1960s and early '70s. The
Black Panther Party made him a field marshal, and support committees sprang up nationally
after he was charged in 1970, along with John Clutchette and Fleeta Drumgo, of murdering
a prison guard. Jackson's book of prison letters, Soledad Brother, became a bestseller,
complete with an introduction by noted author Jean Genet. Jackson was killed August 21,
1971, during an alleged escape attempt from San Quentin.

By 2005 George Jackson is far from a household name, and yet Schwarzenegger found him
appalling enough to merit silencing forever the 51-year-old Williams, who had endeavored
in the last ten years of his incarceration to dissuade young people from joining gangs.
On December 13, the state of California executed Williams by lethal injection for four
1979 murders. To the end, Williams maintained he was innocent.

Five days before Tookie Williams's execution, another man by the name of Williams died in
prison. Fifty-eight-year-old Richard Williams came from a different background but shared
some similarities with the Crips co-founder. From a white working-class area outside
Boston, Richard Williams had several brushes with the law and by the time he was 23, was
serving time for robbery. It was 1971--George Jackson had been killed and one month later
the rebellion at Attica Correctional Facility took place. Richard Williams began
organizing for better conditions in the New Hampshire prison, where he was incarcerated.

He got out a few years later and threw himself into an array of antiracist organizing
efforts: Among other things, he helped organize the historic 1979 Amandla Concert at
Harvard Stadium, an antiapartheid benefit show featuring Bob Marley. On November 4,
1984--his thirty-seventh birthday--Richard was arrested in Ohio with four others. All
were accused of membership in the United Freedom Front (UFF), a group of white activists
who bombed a select collection of government or corporate buildings in the early 1980s,
mostly in and around New York City--including General Electric, IBM, Union Carbide, Army
and Navy offices--to protest US financial and political support for the apartheid regime
and death squads in Central America. No one was injured in the blasts.

Richard faced a series of trials with seven others--two of whom, Jaan Laaman and Tom
Manning, remain in prison. In 1986 he was sentenced to forty-five years for his role in
five bombings and, with Manning, given a life sentence in 1991 for the death of a New
Jersey state trooper, killed during a 1981 shootout. With two of his comrades, Williams
was tried of seditious conspiracy in 1989, a rarely used law passed in 1918 that bars
"two or more persons...to overthrow or put down or destroy by force the Government of the
United States." The jury failed to convict the trio, and despite the millions of dollars
it had spent on the case, the government did not pursue the case after the judge declared
a mistrial. Still, Williams already had a lengthy sentence, and he remained in prison.

After the attacks of September 11, 2001, however, Richard was inexplicably placed in
isolation for fifteen months at Lompoc prison in California. According to Diane Fujino, a
professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara who monitored his case,
Richard's health soon deteriorated: He had a heart attack, was treated for cancer and
suffered assorted maladies without adequate medical care, including hepatitis C, which
caused liver failure and ultimately led to his death. He was transferred to the Federal
Medical Center in Butner, North Carolina, last month; he died there on the morning of
December 8. Neither his post-9/11 isolation nor his death captured headlines.

So in less than one week, two prisoners have died--flawed men, each of whom had tried in
some fashion to promote social justice. One was executed openly and deliberately, because
his antiviolence work with young people was somehow nullified in part by dedicating a
book to black radicals. The other was killed slowly and quietly, because he fought quite
literally against the pernicious acts of his own government on behalf of the oppressed
people of South Africa and Central America.

Although the two men had different life experiences, emerged from different communities
and never met, their lives--and deaths--intersect. The government feared both men, not as
individuals but for what they represented: Stanley Tookie Williams, an ex-gang member who
commemorated the lessons of Black Power into antiviolence messages for youth, and Richard
Williams, a committed anti-imperialist who never divorced himself from movements opposing
war and racism. Whether they entered prison with a political consciousness or developed
it on the inside, Richard Williams and Stanley Williams both were inspired by a unique
legacy of radical social justice.

It is not just tough-on-crime and tough-on-terror policies that led Stanley Williams to
be executed and Richard Williams to be sent to solitary confinement for more than a year.
It is that both men were inspired by anti-establishment heroes--from George Jackson to
Nelson Mandela, from struggling black urban youth in America to Third World peasants and
beyond. Both men embraced the difficult task of remembering. Memory can be burdensome,
even uncomfortable, because to remember requires a conscious choice to pay attention to
human tragedy. To remember is to choose sides.

The memories Stanley Tookie Williams and Richard Williams invoked were, it would seem,
more than the government wanted to deal with. But the issues their lives and deaths
raise--the specter of Black Power, anti-imperialism, personal redemption and political
commitment--will not be buried with them.
___________________________________________________________
Communities United Against Police Brutality
3100 16th Avenue S
Minneapolis, MN 55407
Hotline 612-874-STOP (7867)
Meetings: Every Saturday at 1:30 p.m. at Walker Church, 3104 16th Avenue South
http://www.CUAPB.org