AL-AMIN CASE
Picture emerges of intense police pressure
By S. Tomlinson
Atlanta
Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin called his arrest on charges of
killing an Atlanta sheriff's deputy and wounding another the
result of a "government conspiracy." Reports appearing in the
Atlanta media since his arrest reveal that Al-Amin has, at
the very least, been the target of extreme government
scrutiny for decades.
Al-Amin is charged in the March 16 shootings of Fulton
County sheriff's deputies Ricky Kinchen and Aldranon English.
Kinchen died the day after the shooting. The deputies were
attempting to serve Al-Amin with a warrant for a non-violent
offense.
Since the 1960s, when Al-Amin was known as H. Rap Brown
and was leader of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating
Committee, the government has taken a keen interest in his
activities. For example, in 1967 FBI documents released under
the Freedom of Information Act, investigators detail any time
Brown ever mentioned violence, even though these comments
were made in the context of revolutionary resistance against
racist governments and oppressors.
This scrutiny apparently continued beyond Brown's days as
a civil-rights leader. Now that Al-Amin is charged with
killing a deputy sheriff in Atlanta, police and media are
painting a portrait of him as a dangerous, violent
radical.
Al-Amin's brother, Ed Brown, spoke out publicly to decry
the behavior of the Atlanta media and police officials. Brown
said police and media have acted with "the frenzy of a lynch
mob" in releasing irresponsible statements. He said they have
created an atmosphere in which it will be difficult for his
brother to get a fair trial.
Al-Amin's lawyers have just filed motions charging
prosecutors and police with ethics violations. They asked a
judge to bar prosecutors from seeking the death penalty.
Lawyers Jack Martin and Bruce Harvey also filed a motion
requesting a gag order to silence prosecutors, stating that
the police have given "reckless" and "unfounded" statements
to the media.
The April 1 Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that
from 1992 to 1997 the FBI and Atlanta police investigated
Al-Amin, trying to tie him to everything from domestic
terrorism to gun running to a number of murders in his
neighborhood. The article included a list of shooting victims
as if to imply he had some involvement in the deaths, even
though no charges were ever filed.
"The improper, unfair and prejudicial publicity, in large
part furthered and generated by officials involved in or
closely tied to the prosecution of this case, may have
already made it impossible for Mr. Al-Amin to receive a fair
trial," the motion said. The motion also criticized law
enforcement officials for "leaking" information to the
media.
According to the April 1 article, the FBI paid informants
inside Atlanta's Community Mosque where Al-Amin is the imam.
In a separate investigation, the Atlanta Police Department
compiled a list of over 100 people associated with Al-Amin,
most of them members of the mosque.
The FBI investigation is said to have ended in February
1996. Atlanta police say their investigation ended in August
1997. No charges were filed against Al-Amin.
Despite the years-long investigations into every aspect of
Al-Amin's life, surviving deputy English said that he and his
partner didn't know who Al-Amin was, nor that he was labeled
as dangerous by the state. Yet police have now said that the
words "aggravated assault, possibly armed" appeared among the
warrant documents the deputies carried.
For more information on how to help, readers can contact:
Imam Jamil Al-Amin Legal Defense Fund, 547 West End Place,
SW, Atlanta, GA 30310; (770)521-5386;
ImamJamil@hotmail.com.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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