Police account raises more questions than
answers
Former Black Panther: 'I'm innocent of shooting
charges'
By Dianne Mathiowetz
Atlanta
At an appearance in Federal Court in Montgomery, Ala., on
March 21, Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin--formerly known as H. Rap
Brown--declared that he is innocent of the charges that he
killed a sheriff and wounded a second deputy in Fulton County,
Ga., on March 16.
Al-Amin, a respected leader in the Muslim community of
Atlanta for close to 25 years, had reportedly fled after the
incident on March 16. He was the subject of a nationwide hunt
led by the FBI until he was captured four days later in Lowndes
County, Ala.
Al-Amin is being represented by C.L. Chestnut, a famed Black
civil rights attorney and one of the first Black lawyers in
Alabama. Chestnut will fight the order to extradite Al-Amin to
Georgia.
An army of about 150 FBI and other police agents, aided by
tracking dogs and an infrared radar helicopter, arrested
Al-Amin in White Hall, Ala., a small town between Montgomery
and Selma.
Al-Amin has a long history with the Black community of
Lowndes and its neighboring counties. That is where, in 1965,
he spent his first years as an organizer for the Student
Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) registering Black
voters.
At the time, this area was a stronghold for ardent
segregationists who ruled with a violent fist against any who
challenged the status quo. In response, a mass rally of
sharecroppers and farmers formed the Lowndes County Freedom
Organization and took the black panther as its symbol.
Over the years, Al-Amin has returned many times to Lowndes
County.
Al-Amin's old civil rights associates, as well as many of
the residents of White Hall, expressed disbelief in the police
charges. He is regarded as a hero for standing up to the
entrenched racist hierarchy 35 years ago and as a friend who
still works to better the condition of the majority Black
population.
Many of today's Black elected officials, including White
Hall's local sheriff and mayor, credit Al-Amin for making their
elections possible.
What really happened?
With each day since the shooting, the details released by
the authorities in Atlanta have changed, raising more questions
in the minds of many about what really happened on March
16.
Officials said that the Fulton County sheriff and deputy
were serving a warrant on Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin.
The arrest warrant was issued following the failure of
Al-Amin to appear in a Cobb County court on charges arising
from a traffic stop on May 31, 1999. At that time, police
charged him with driving without proof of insurance, and theft
by taking and impersonating a police officer.
But these charges would not have been difficult to address.
Al-Amin reportedly had bought the car a few months before. And
the badge that the cop saw in his wallet was issued to him as
an auxiliary police officer in White Hall, Ala. The badges were
given to civilians who assisted at events like parades or
football games.
The police version of the events on March 16 is as follows.
The sheriff and deputy went to the address on the warrant at
about 10 p.m. The community store that Al-Amin has operated for
years was locked and no one there, so they got back in their
car and drove around the block. When they returned, a black
Mercedes was parked at the corner near the store.
Police claim that when they ordered the occupant to get out
of the car and to show his hands the person began firing a .223
caliber assault rifle. Although the two sheriffs were wearing
bullet-proof vests, each was shot several times in the lower
body and extremities. They fired their guns at least 10
times.
Investigators discovered a blood trail leaving the scene and
followed it to an abandoned house a couple of blocks away.
Meanwhile, the Mercedes was reportedly driven away by an
unknown person.
Police asserted that the shooter had been wounded. Yet
paramedics examined Al-Amin on March 20 and found that he had
no injuries.
Immediately after the March 16 shootings, the four-square
block area surrounding the scene was cordoned off. More than
100 police began a house-to-house search. Helicopters with
search lights circled overhead throughout the night. SWAT team
members and police with attack dogs roamed the streets.
This area is home to more than 100 Muslim families who have
settled in the West End community since Al-Amin founded a
mosque there in 1976.
Police, media demonized Al-Amin
The very first news stories described the incident as an
ambush by a gunman who "had a vendetta for police officers."
Al-Amin, despite being a respected community leader and Muslim
cleric for almost 25 years, was immediately labeled as violent
and dangerous by Atlanta law enforcement spokesmen. Following
the death of one of the officers, the inflammatory rhetoric
escalated.
Every newscast and newspaper story identifies Al-Amin as a
former Black Panther Party member, complete with 1960s images
of him in dark sunglasses and black clothing.
While this demonizing is an obvious attempt to sway public
opinion against Al-Amin, it makes clear that it is his central
role in the Black Power movement which shook the racist
foundations of this country that has earned him the undying
hatred of the ruling class.
Born in 1943 in Baton Rouge, La., Al-Amin attended Southern
University from 1960-1964. His experiences growing up in
segregated Louisiana served to fuel his passion to fight
injustice and in 1965, he became an organizer for the Student
Non-Violent Coordinating Committee in Alabama. He later became
its chairperson.
Along with Kwame Toure--known then as Stokely
Carmichael--and other young Black activists, Al-Amin developed
a revolutionary analysis of both domestic and foreign
issues.
Throughout the colonized countries of Africa, Asia and Latin
America, national liberation movements were fighting to free
themselves from economic and political domination by the U.S.
and European powers.
During that period of time, the U.S. was actively involved
in suppressing popular struggles for independence and freedom
through military intervention and assassination. From Guatamala
to Iran to the Congo, U.S. foreign policy was set to preserve
the control of the rich few. The Vietnam War with its daily
"body counts" and massive air assaults was escalating.
In the U.S., the civil rights struggle against Jim Crow
segregation, led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was being met
by murder, bombings, arson and beatings. Organized racist
thugs, such as those in the Ku Klux Klan, operated
openly--often in collusion with local police authorities.
It was in this context that Al-Amin and others formulated
the demand for "Black Power" and advocated the right of armed
self-defense against attack. His oft-quoted statement that
"violence is as American as cherry pie" is an accurate
commentary, then and now, about government policy.
The Black Panther Party for Self Defense had drawn the wrath
of the government with its community organizing against police
brutality, the infusion of drugs into Black neighborhoods and
the low level of social services provided for Black people.
Al-Amin was made an honorary member of the Black Panther
Party in 1968 and named a Minister of Justice.
Political and social unrest was sweeping the country.
Al-Amin and others were targeted by the police as part of the
infamous COINTELPRO. Thousands of anti-war activists, leaders
of Black, Native, Latino, and Asian liberation organizations
and civil rights advocates were arrested and jailed, often on
bogus charges. False and planted evidence, coerced and phony
testimony, and set-ups tainted their convictions by police
informers and provocateurs.
Al-Amin was charged with inciting riot and arson in 1967 in
Cambridge, Md. Following a speech he made at a rally, he was
shot and wounded by an unknown assailant. A rebellion broke out
in the community and a number of buildings burned down.
Al-Amin went underground before his trial on the incitement
to riot charges. A nationwide hunt was launched. He was
arrested in 1971 in New York City near the scene of a bar
hold-up.
While serving five years in prison for robbery, he converted
to Islam and took the name Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin.
He moved to Atlanta in 1976 after being paroled from prison.
Al-Amin opened a grocery and community store in an area of
Atlanta devastated by poverty and drugs. A leader of the
Atlanta Community Mosque, Al-Amin became a powerful force in
the neighborhood against drug dealers, slum landlords, brutal
cops and neglectful city agencies. He is widely credited by the
residents with having saved the community from these criminal
and anti-social elements.
Although no longer identifying himself as a political
revolutionary, Al-Amin advocated the teaching of the Islamic
principle that it is righteous to resist tyranny and
oppression. He continued to assert the right to
self-defense.
In 1995, Al-Amin was arrested by members of the FBI
Anti-Terrorist unit and ATF agents along with Atlanta police
for shooting a man in the leg in West End Park. The case fell
apart after the victim asserted that he had never identified
Al-Amin as the shooter, but that he had been coerced by the
police to name Al-Amin.
Police have publicly complained in Atlanta about the lack of
cooperation they are receiving from the West End community.
Many neighbors have been quoted as saying the police version of
events does not square with the man they have known almost 25
years.
Muslim leaders throughout the city have urged the media not
"to accuse, try and convict Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin."
Al-Amin only had a brief moment to speak to reporters at his
Montgomery hearing. He stated that his arrest was the result of
a "government conspiracy."
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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