Former civil rights leader H. Rap Brown
Al-Amin charges frame-up in Georgia murder case
By Dianne Mathiowetz
Atlanta
Jury selection begins soon in the trial of Imam Jamil
Abdullah Al-Amin, formerly known as H. Rap Brown, one of the
most influential leaders of the Black liberation movement of
the 1960s.
It is expected to take a month, with the actual trial
beginning in October. In a most unusual move, the judge hearing
the case, Stephanie Manis, has ordered the jurors'
identifications to be kept secret from the public. Only the
prosecution and defense attorneys will know their names.
Al-Amin will face the death penalty if convicted of
murdering Fulton County Sheriff's Deputy Ricky Kinchen on March
16, 2000. Kinchen's partner, Aldranon English, was wounded as
well.
On March 20, 2000, when Al-Amin was arrested in White Hall,
Ala., he declared to news reporters present that the charges
were the result of a government conspiracy. For the last 18
months, while detained in the Fulton County Jail, he has been
under a court-ordered gag rule that prohibits him from
professing his innocence through the media.
For many longtime civil-rights activists, students and
community residents, there is no doubt that Al-Amin is
innocent. They believe the political system of racism and class
privilege that he has consistently challenged for more than 35
years is attempting to railroad Al-Amin into the death
chamber.
Police version of shooting
According to police authorities, Kinchen and English went to
Al-Amin's home in the West End neighborhood of Atlanta late at
night to serve a warrant from Cobb County, a suburban area
north of Atlanta. The warrant had been issued when Al-Amin
failed to appear in court on charges arising out of a traffic
stop almost a year earlier.
Again, according to police, after not finding anyone at home
on their first attempt, Kinchen and English returned a short
time later and were shot by an assailant standing beside a
parked car. Kinchen died at the scene and English was badly
wounded.
The very first news reports of the shooting included
English's description of the suspect as someone with gray eyes
and of average height--around five feet, nine inches. He
claimed to have wounded the assailant.
The media made much of a "trail of blood" which police said
led to a nearby abandoned house. Atlanta cops cited this bloody
trail in their request for a search warrant of Al-Amin's home
and business to look for evidence, such as bloody clothing and
bandages. They found no evidence of blood, but seized financial
records and computer files in the raid.
Shortly after the shooting occurred, 911 received a call
from a motorist saying a bleeding man had flagged him down just
blocks from the site, asking for a ride.
Following surgery to remove four bullets from English, he
was shown Al-Amin's picture. The deputy identified Al-Amin as
the shooter from the photo.
Atlanta's police chief, Beverly Harvard, immediately held a
press conference declaring that the deputies had been
"ambushed" by Al-Amin.
Four days later, after an intensive national manhunt, Jamil
Al-Amin was arrested in rural Alabama, showing no signs of
having been shot. Rail-thin, Al-Amin is six feet, five inches
tall and has brown eyes.
Police case riddled
with discrepancies
The much-ballyhooed "trail of blood" disappeared from news
accounts, as did references to the 911 call. In testimony at
pretrial motions, police now say there never was a trail of
blood and any blood found at the scene was dried and probably
from an animal.
Al-Amin's supporters point to this flip-flop as just one of
the examples of how the facts are being twisted, deleted or
ignored to fit the prosecution's case. Likewise, an affidavit
signed by a man now held in police custody in Colorado claiming
that he shot Kinchen and English has gotten little attention
from police investigators or the media.
Further deepening their suspicion of a government frame-up
have been revelations that the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco and Firearms have had undercover agents watching
Al-Amin and other members of his mosque for years. For more
than a decade, they have investigated his alleged ties to
gunrunning and possible involvement in international terrorism,
without any charges ever being brought. Lawyers for the FBI and
ATF sat with the prosecutors from Fulton County all during
pretrial motions hearings.
Al-Amin was born in Baton Rouge, La., in 1943. For most of
his adult life, government agents have watched his activities.
His experiences and those of his community in the segregated,
Jim Crow South fueled his passion for political activism
against racism and injustice.
In 1966, he became an organizer for SNCC, the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, in rural Alabama, where he
helped sharecroppers and farmers to register to vote and
initiated antipoverty programs. This challenge to the political
status quo made Brown and his coworkers in SNCC "enemy #1" to
local and state law enforcement, as well as to J.Edgar Hoover's
FBI.
The federal Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO)
targeted all individuals and organizations involved in
activities deemed dangerous to civil order. This included such
prominent civil rights leaders as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,
along with local anti-rate hike protesters.
Every day throughout the long and bitter fight now referred
to as the Civil Rights Movement, acts of violence were
committed against those who sought to end segregation. White
supremacists committed bombings, beatings and assaults,
harassment and intimidation, surveillance, wiretapping and
sabotage, and brutal murders in an attempt to derail and defeat
the growing struggle.
During those same years, the U.S. was increasing its
military efforts in Vietnam. The Pentagon drafted tens of
thousands of young men, many from the South, to carry out an
imperialist war in Southeast Asia. The U.S. military used
"carpet bombing," napalm and selected assassination and daily
gave "body counts" to measure their victories.
H. Rap Brown evolved from a voting-rights activist in
Lowndes County, Ala., to a national leader of the Black
liberation movement. He spoke at rallies across the country,
urging people to organize and resist all forms of racism and
inequity, to unite their communities and to struggle in every
way possible for their full political, economic and human
rights.
Both at the time and now in advance of his trial, the media
has made much of Brown's statement that "violence is as
American as cherry pie," as though this is evidence or proof
that he had committed a violent crime.
H. Rap Brown was offering a political analysis to his
audience, drawn not just on his own experiences in the
segregated South and the war that was currently raging in
Vietnam. It viewed U.S. history from the massacre of Native
people, the slave trade and the revolutionary war, through the
seizure of Mexico, the seizure of Puerto Rico, the Philippines
and Hawaii to the lynching of thousands of African
Americans.
Brown was explaining why the right of self-defense is a
necessary part of the struggle for self-determination.
A lifetime of struggle
In 1967 while speaking at a rally in Cambridge, Md., Brown
was the target of an assassination attempt. A rebellion broke
out in the community and Brown was accused of inciting a
riot.
For the next several years, Brown was on the FBI's
most-wanted list. During that time, the Black Panther Party
named him its honorary Minister of Justice and he wrote his
autobiography.
In 1971, H. Rap Brown was captured in New York City near the
scene of a holdup. He was convicted on robbery charges and
served five years in prison. While incarcerated, Brown
converted to Islam and took the name Jamil Abdullah
Al-Amin.
Fought drugs in his neighborhood
Following his parole in 1976, Al-Amin moved to Atlanta,
where he opened a small grocery store in the West End. He soon
became a leader in the Atlanta Community Mosque. He is credited
by many in the neighborhood for stopping the rampant drug trade
and prostitution that plagued the area.
Al-Amin could be found daily in the park across the street
from his store organizing basketball games for children,
counseling addicts, and instilling a sense of community and
responsibility to residents.
Local and national police agencies maintained their
surveillance of Al-Amin, planting informants in his mosque to
monitor his activities. In 1995, a man involved in the drug
trade was shot in the park and accused Al-Amin of the crime. He
later denied his accusation, saying police had intimidated and
threatened him into identifying Al-Amin as his assailant.
At the time, many felt that the drug dealers, slumlords,
pimps and corrupt cops who were profiting from illegal business
were behind these bogus charges.
Members of Al-Amin's mosque in Atlanta and its affiliates,
as well as his family, have been in the forefront of leading
his defense effort. Across the country, rallies and benefits
have been held to raise awareness of his case and to help pay
for legal expenses. Those active in supporting Mumia Abu-Jamal
have been quick to see the many parallels to silence the voices
of the voiceless.
For more information, contact the International Committee to
Support Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin at (770) 215-2152 or at
www.imamjamil.com. Contributions can be sent to The Justice
Fund, PO Box 93963, Atlanta, Ga. 30318.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)
HOME
:: U.S. NEWS ::
WORLD NEWS ::
EDITORIALS ::
SUBSCRIBE ::
DONATE
Email
this article
Printable
page