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-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted
from the July 11, 1996
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
Two members of the Ann Arbor City Council plan to introduce a resolution to investigate police activities during a June 22 Ku Klux Klan rally and counter-demonstration. On that day, police provided extraordinary protection to the Klan, including allowing them to conduct their rally from the roof of City Hall.
Police attacked anti-racist counter-demonstrators with tear gas and mace. They arrested eight, charging seven with felonious assault, and releasing one juvenile to his parents.
In a telling show of racism, the court set bail only for the two African American defendants.
Councilwomen Tobi Hanna-Davies and Pat Vereen-Dixon will introduce their resolution July 1. It calls for an independent investigation into police actions and creation of a civilian police review board.
They also want the city to research ways to deal with hate groups without using massive police presence, and to find ways to legally show the Klan ·they are not welcomed in our community.º
Anti-Klan organizers from a variety of organizations plan to speak at the city council meeting in favor of the resolution. They will describe the many acts of police brutality that took place on June 22, including macing of arrestees who were already in handcuffs and of a man holding a baby.
Organizers are also demanding that all charges be dropped against the seven defendants.
The KKK rally and its aftermath has been very big news in Ann Arbor, a small city that is home to the University of Michigan. The local media went on a rampage for several days, smearing the anti-racist demonstrators as a ·mobº out looking for ·trouble.º
The media quoted Police Chief Carl Ent as saying that one anti-Klan group, the National Womenµs Rights Organizing Committee, was ·more dangerous than the Klan.º Ent is a notorious racist who last year ordered hundreds of African American men rounded up as suspects in a serial rape case and forced them to give blood samples in order to be cleared of suspicion.
The final tally on costs to the taxpayers for the massive support given to the Klan by the cops? Over $85,000 in equipment and overtime.
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(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if source is cited. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: ww@wwpublish.com. For subscription info send message to: ww-info@wwpublish.com. Web: http://www.workers.org)