Global
Covering Mumia’s childhood in the North Philly projects, a turbulent youth in Oakland and New York, a promising career in radio journalism, and a fateful sidewalk altercation that changed everything, Bisson’s colorful sketches tell the story of one of the stormiest periods in American history, and of a young rebel who came of age in its crucible.
$12.00/£8.00, Softcover, 240 pages, 36 photos, ISBN #0874869013 Discounts for 10 or more copies. To order phone:
US: 800-806-3079, UK: 0800 018 0799, INT: 44 (0)1580 883 344
Email: editor@litmusbooks.com
Presented at May 4, 2001 Philadelphia Press Conference by Mumia Abu-Jamal’s new lawyers, Marlene Kamish and Eliot Lee Grossman:
AFFIDAVIT OF ARNOLD BEVERY
I, ARNOLD R. BEVERLY, state that the following facts are true and correct: I was present when police officer Daniel Faulkner was shot and killed in the early morning hours of December 9, 1981 near the corner of Locust and 13th Streets. I have personal knowledge that Mumia Abu-Jamal did not shoot police officer Faulkner.
I was hired, along with another guy, and paid to shoot and kill Faulkner. I had heard that Faulkner was a problem for the mob and corrupt policemen because he interfered with the graft and payoffs made to allow illegal activity including prostitution, gambling, drugs without prosecution in the center city area. Faulkner was shot in the back and then in the face before Jamal came on the scene. Jamal had nothing to do with the shooting.
I wouldn’t call the public discussion that we’ve been subjected to about McVeigh and his motivations debate. Not many facts informed the words that have been said about the whole affair. Mostly people talked past each other. The media carefully avoided acknowledging some things that actually made him look more like a monster.
As an anti-fascist, anarchist, leftist, revolutionary, respecter of human life, and generally nice guy, I’m supposed to be against capital punishment. Generally I am. As much as I am politically against state-murder, the case of Tim McVeigh strains my beliefs. Knowledge of his death came to me like a dirty pleasure.
In the meantime, local governments will be asked to pass a resolution in support of a Death Penalty Moratorium. There are presently activists in about 12 states organizing local governments and civic organizations to pass resolutions. In neighboring Pennsylvania, both Pittsburgh and Philadelphia have endorsed a resolution. Ironically Philadelphia has supplied about half of the inmates on Pennsylvania’s death row.
Locally in Columbus, activists are presently in conversations with some City Council members to explore the possibility of a moratorium resolution. Such conservatives as George Will and Pat Robinson have stated their support for a moratorium. For more information call Gary Witte at 443-6044.
As I was sifting through my agenda for the week, trying to figure what I was supposed to write about, I saw that Mojo Nixon was coming to town for the Libertarian state convention. I guess we all have bills to pay and it sounded better than the usual Monday night city council meeting—that and the fact I have been a Mojoholic for a while now. For years Mojo used to wear a blue t-shirt on stage that said Vote Libertarian. He had been practicing for this gig forever.
In Mojo’s opinion, “the Republicans and Democrats are selling us the same bag of shit with different colors on it! They have a monopoly on politics. If you don’t go through them you’re screwed, except in a few little places…like Vermont, apparently anything goes in Vermont.”
More devastating may be a continually divided Board. A Board that has deep philosophical, ideological and practical differences; and further a Board that still doesn’t truly trust its members.
I was going to Israel as a member of a small delegation to visit Christian Peacemaker Teams, a small group of committed Christians who are, somewhat quixotically perhaps, trying to help improve the situation in the Middle East through their simple non-violent presence. They are based in Hebron, a large city located south of Jerusalem in the West Bank. Hebron is one of the tensest locations in the ongoing conflict, with plenty of extremists on both sides, and I had been warned that I would be going into something very much like a war zone. Of course, all the literature I had read was insufficient preparation for what I was going to see.
Before the march began, Leisure thanked the demonstrators gathered at Fountain Square for “standing up for what is right and just.”
“I pray every day. I pray my son will be the last one to die. But I don’t think he will be. They have not made any changes to ensure that this will not happen again,” she said. “Who will be the next parent to lose their child?”
The multiracial crowd made its way through the Cincinnati streets chanting, “No justice, no peace! No racist police!” Banners were carried on the edges of the crowd reading, “Amnesty! Release all prisoners from the mutha fuckin’ rebellion!” and “Stop police brutality, Shoot back!”
The fatal shooting occurred early April 7 when a Cincinnati policeman, Steven Roach, chased Timothy Thomas into an alley and shot him in the chest at close range. The cop pursued Thomas because he fit the description of an individual sought by the police for 14 warrants, all of them misdemeanors or traffic violations.
Friends said Thomas had left the apartment he shared with his fiancée, Monique Wilcox, and his 3-month-old son, Tywon, to buy cigarettes. Thomas had recently earned his general equivalency diploma and secured a job as a laborer. He was planning to marry his fiancée in June.
By the morning of Monday, April 9, protesters were gathering in the streets, demanding justice. Thomas was the fourth black man killed by Cincinnati police since November, and the fifteenth such victim since 1995. A police news conference about the death of Thomas suggested a whitewash.