DC Activists Join Fight for Mumia
Steve Donkin

June 2001
Volume 38, No. 5

On the morning of Saturday, May 12, a contingent from the DC-metro area drove up to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to join the International Day of Action for Freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal. The day before, a court victory had been won by the activists at Camp Mumia, a tent city set up on the sidewalk outside of Philadelphia's City Hall, when a ruling came down acknowledging the right of the encampment to remain throughout the weekend. When we arrived, we joined hundreds of other Mumia supporters in a spirited rally and march through downtown Philly.

Camp Mumia and the International Day of Action initiated an important turning point in Mumia's nineteen-year struggle to stay alive in the face of the trumped-up murder charge that placed him on Pennsylvania's death row. Besides being a commemoration of the May 13, 1985, bombing of the MOVE headquarters by Philadelphia police which killed 11 people -- including children, the weekend was also a celebration of recent developments in Mumia's legal case.

We heard a member of Mumia's new legal defense team, attorney Marlene Kamish, report to the crowd that three new affidavits have been filed in court which, for the first time, detail the events that happened in the early morning hours of December 9, 1981, when Police Officer Daniel Faulkner was killed and Mumia was arrested for his murder.

One of the sworn statements is by Mumia himself, and is his first public testimony about that fateful night. (Mumia refused to testify at his trial, at which important evidence was suppressed and false testimony was given by prosecution witnesses, because he did not want to lend legitimacy to such an illegitimate process.) A second statement was filed by Mumia's brother, William Cook, who was also at the crime scene that night, and, like Mumia, was himself gravely wounded from being physically assaulted by the police. Cook has been in hiding since then out of fear for his life.

The third sworn statement is by Arnold Beverly, who says that he was the hit man hired by the mob to murder Faulkner that night. The statement says that Faulkner was investigating corruption within the Philadelphia police force (in which illegal activity and ties to organized crime are a long-standing tradition), and was targeted for assassination for his activities. Apparently, if Faulkner could be removed, and the crime blamed on Mumia and his brother, both of whom were active and influential within the black radical movement in Philly, then two problems could be solved in one fell swoop. Mumia particularly was long known to the feds as a source of trouble because he was a widely respected journalist who repeatedly reported on police brutality and corruption.

Things went awry, however, when Mumia and Billy did not die from their wounds. Things have since gone further awry for the authorities as Mumia's case has focused national and international attention on the racist and classist criminal justice system in this country, wherein blacks, immigrants, the poor, and political radicals are routinely railroaded into the prison-industrial complex and often subjected to perfectly legal, state-sanctioned lynchings, also known as the death penalty.

The next phase in Mumia's case will be an evidentiary hearing in which the affidavits, as well as other new evidence, will be examined. Now is the time to reinvigorate the movement to FREE MUMIA!

To get involved locally, contact the DC Working Group to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal at (202) 973-2177. Weekly meetings are ongoing: Noon on Sundays, at 2425 18th Street NW. Also visit the websites: www.j4mumia.org, www.mumia.org and www.freemumia.com, or e-mail mumiaonamove@yahoogroups.com.