The police have a brotherhood. A brotherhood they are rarely ever seen to betray. A code of silence where they do not testify against other officers. They believe anyone guilty of the murder of an officer should receive the death penalty- no questions asked. But a question comes to mind, if Mumia is not guilty and his coverage of the police raid of the home in 1978 already left him as a person of interest for the government, why was he under FBI surveillance since he was 14 years old? Ask yourself, is he on trial for what he allegedly did the night of December 9th because he is the person who would fit the description of who they would want to be responsible- a strong, articulate, self educated African man who would not deny his culture or watch his family and friends abused by a notoriously racist police dept? Is he the person who fits the description of what you need guilt to be in order to justify the way you see the world.

I ask this to those that would view this with skepticism because that skepticism created by the right wing to counterbalance reason does Daniel Faulkner a disservice as well as Mumia. It leaves his killer at large and destroys what's left of the credibility of the justice system. The harder they squeeze the more reality slips through their fingers and when it is all said and done, what is the legacy of this trial. Justice? Retribution? None of the above, it is simply the fact that for the past 26 years an innocent man has been behind bars and slowly but surely media outlets like our own BET have been pressured to maintain their distance from him. Black and Latino politicians have been pressured to stop bringing him up. The Murder of an officer is a serious crime, and so anyone that would add doubt to the government's version of the events is attacked by the right and abandoned by the left. An interesting transition of events that seems to repeat itself with other things and is why the Democratic party is so weak. But the management of this trial and the way that this government has run its police dept. leaves no question that they wouldn't go through all the trouble if they weren't hiding something.

* Footnote: Mumia was not a violent man, he was not a sadist like officer Geist who carried out the first assault on the MOVE home in 1978, and whose own wife shot him to death after years of merciless abuse. This occurred after the trial over the raid of the MOVE home in 1978 and was kept out of the court because officer Geist's wife was pressured not to speak on it by police.

No one asks to be a Revolutionary Martyr, no one asks to be Nelson Mandela, Mumia, Shaka Sankofa, or Hurricane Carter. Mumia Abu Jamal didn't leave his house that morning thinking "I'm going to spend the next quarter of a century in prison so that I may provide an example to the world of police corruption and injustice done in a land that professes to be the most advanced and civilized nation in the world." But when he left his house that day for work that's exactly what he became and unless you know your rights and unless you arm yourself intellectually and are able to understand the legal system and the changes that are occurring quietly but rapidly in our legal system asking questions can bring you the same fate. Continued on page 4 »