From: nyxfer%panix.com@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu (N.Y. Transfer)
Subject: NEWS:Cops Wage War on Black America/WW
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Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
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Resent-From: "Rich Winkel" <MATHRICH@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu>
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 20:11:11 GMT



Via The NY Transfer News Service ~ All the News that Doesn't Fit

                Cops wage war on Black America

                     By Monica Moorehead


No day passes without police brutality raising its ugly head,
especially in the poorest urban areas across this country.

Consider three recent incidents in New York City and Newark, N.J.
These unrelated events were nevertheless similar, since all had
Black victims and in none is any real justice expected.

The first case involved Annie B. Dodds and her two sons, who
reside in Bedford-Stuyvesant, a neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Dodds is a local school board chairperson and member of the
planning board and 81st Precinct Council.

On July 24, Dodds summoned the police to have them verbally
persuade one son to leave the house. What happened instead is
that the police physically abused her son, clubbing and kicking
him as he lay on the ground handcuffed.

As Dodds was attempting to get the badge number of the cop
abusing her son, she was called names, pushed down and punched in
the back of the head, according to witnesses. When Dodds'
daughter protested the attack against her mother, another cop
grabbed the daughter by the chin, pushed her head back and struck
her in the mouth.

Another son was assaulted as he videotaped the police atrocities.
As a result his camera was destroyed.

Dodds' sons were arraigned on numerous charges ranging from third
degree assault to resisting arrest. None of the five police
officers were arrested on any charges; they were put on sick
leave instead.

The Dodds family is Black and all the police are white. Due to
Dodds' reputation in the community, many officials and residents
have come to her defense as she brings charges of excessive force
against the police to the Civilian Complaint Review Board.

People set up a Committee to Stop Police Brutality in
Bedford-Stuyvesant in response to this outrage.

Jamaican van driver paralyzed

The second incident of police brutality also took place in
Brooklyn but this time in a predominantly Caribbean section. On
Aug. 18, cops took Robert Ealneish, an immigrant from Jamaica, to
the notorious 63rd police precinct. There eight white cops beat
him savagely.

According to reports in the Amsterdam News and Carib News, the 26
year-old Ealneish became the latest victim of a racist cop named
William Murray who has a sordid history of harassing and beating
gypsy van drivers particularly those who are Black and from the
Caribbean. Murray is hated and feared by those drivers, says
Carib News (Aug. 25).

Murray cornered Ealneish for an "outstanding warrant for a minor
traffic violation." The cop called for backup from his fellow
officers in order to bring Ealneish to the precinct.

EalNeish never made it to the precinct. He ended up at Kings
County Hospital with a broken neck, broken spinal column,
bleeding from the nose and paralyzed from the neck down. None of
the officers involved in this heinous assault have even been
suspended, much less charged with attempted murder. Ealneish,
while in danger of losing his life, has been charged with driving
with a suspended license and resisting arrest!

This incident comes just one month after the death of a Black
mentally disabled man, Earl Black, who was shot at point blank
range by officers from the same precinct. Black's mother
witnessed the killing. Again no police were arrested.

Two Newark, N.J., youth killed

The third incident occurred in Newark, the largest city in New
Jersey. Just five years ago, the Census Bureau acknowledged that
Newark had more residents on public assistance per capita than
any other city. Newark has gained the reputation as the "stolen
car capital" of the U.S.

In the wee hours of Aug. 22, two Black teenagers, 18-year-old
Barry Shelton and 16-year-old Michael Chapman, were fatally shot
by two off duty cops, who also happen to be Black. The teenagers
were riding in a stolen car when they were approached by the
cops, who had been drinking at a bachelor party. The teenagers
were shot as they attempted to escape from the police.

This development goes beyond the question of police brutality.
These deceased youth and millions more like them are not only the
victims of police brutality but of a devastating economic crisis
that puts profits before people. Chapman's mother commented that
her son had been seeking a summer job but was dismayed when he
was turned down time and time again. How many other mothers have
similar stories to tell?

Barry Shelton and Michael Chapman are the latest statistics of
young people who may be forced to turn to drugs, stealing cars or
other anti-social behavior because of the lack of decent paying
jobs, community centers and other avenues of positive expression.
If anyone is to blame for their deaths and others like them, it
is this decaying, corrupt capitalist system that unleashes the
violent arm of the state, the police, to declare war on the youth
as well as on all poor and working people.

                              -30-

(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted
if source is cited. For more info contact Workers World,46 W. 21
St., New York, NY 10010; "workers@igc.apc.org".)

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