DETROIT MARCHES IN WAKE OF ZIMMERMAN VERDICT

 Grandmother of Aiyana Jones, 7, speaks in wake of killer cop hung jury

Participants stress the fight against racism, unlike US AG Holder

Hamlin calls for real battle against “a violent enemy” 

By Diane Bukowski 

July 17, 2013 

DETROIT – Over 500 Metro Detroiters packed the streets on short notice July 14 to protest the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s killer George Zimmerman the night before. They marched from Grand Circus Park to the Federal Building on Michigan Avenue, chanting “No Justice, No Peace!” 

The march was organized by a broad spectrum of the city’s social justice organizations. 

Mertilla Jones, grandmother of Aiyana Jones, 7, stood out among the speakers at the initial rally. The trial of Detroit police officer Joseph Weekley, who shot the child to death May 16, 2010 during a military-style police raid on her home, ended in a hung jury June 18.  Jones noted the parallels between the trials of Zimmerman and Weekley, including the apparent fact that the prosecution in both cases did not appear intent on winning.

Weekley is scheduled for a new pre-trial hearing in front of Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway Thurs. July 25 at 9 a.m. according to court records. 

“The verdict they put down last night on Trayvon’s murderer was not right,” Jones told the crowd. “I don’t think that they’re going to convict Weekley either. I’m out here for all the Aiyanas and Trayvons, and Aiyana is here too, because she speaks through her grandmother. To Trayvon’s family, you have my sympathy. We are in this battle for the long run. Nobody can take away my memory of watching my 7-year-old granddaughter get her brains blown out. It was horrible, very, very ugly, and I don’t wish that on anyone. I hope that every time Weekley looks in his daughters’ eyes, he sees Aiyana’s face.” 

Wayne County Prosecutor Robert Moran prosecuted Weekley and, in an evident conflict of interest, is also prosecuting Aiyana’s father Charles Jones for first-degree murder in the death of Je’Rean Blake. His chief witness is jail-house snitch Jay Schlenkerman. 

During the Weekley trial, Moran failed to object to numerous improprieties, including the constant unfounded characterization of the Jones home as a crack house and repeated references to Chauncey Owens, the long-time boyfriend of Aiyana’s aunt, also charged in Blake’s death, as a “murderer.” Jones and Owens have yet to be tried. 

The one lengthy objection Moran did make was to the presentation of photos taken from the Facebook page of one of Aiyana’s uncles, which defense attorney Steve Fishman said showed various relatives with guns at undisclosed locations and times.  However, Moran made that objection out of the presence of the jury, and only briefly noted it had been made while the jury was there. 

As in Trayvon’s case, where the judge forbade the use of the term “racial profiling,” Moran never attempted to say racism was involved in the killing of a Black child living in a poor Black neighborhood by a white police officer living in the well-to-do, predominantly white suburb of Grosse Pointe Park. 

In Zimmerman’s trial, many including renowned prisoner/activist Mumia Abu Jamal have said the prosecution handed the trial to the defense. 

“I’ve never seen a defense lawyer utilize, so skillfully, the ju-jitsu-style techniques of witness flipping,” Abu Jamal wrote. “In all honesty, the state’s prosecution witnesses became defense witnesses. And where the defense was adroit, the prosecutor bumbled and fumbled.” 

The prosecution apparently failed to do a forensic voice analysis of the 911 call a neighbor made during Trayvon’s killing. Trayvon’s family testified it was his voice heard in the background shouting in horror for help, while Zimmerman’s mother said it was her son’s voice. 

In keeping with the judge’s dictum, the Zimmerman prosecutor did not attempt to make a case that Zimmerman was motivated by racism, although testimony was given that Zimmerman had repeatedly made 911 calls regarding the presence of Black youths in his neighborhood. 

In both trials, the juries were all white except for one Black member. 

The demonstrators in Detroit July 14 vehemently disagreed with the “see no racism” approach, carrying signs that declared “Justice for Trayvon! Say NO to Racism!” 

Cassandra David attended the march with her son Alex Lamar, 15. 

“I’m down here for my son,” David said. “He’s 15 years old. It’s a shame that Black kids are being killed like this. They shouldn’t be stereotyped. My son has a 4.0 grade point average, and is an accomplished athlete. He is very respectful, he holds the door for people. We are here to oppose people being profiled by the color of their skin.” 

Lamar said, “This is crazy. This is like the case of Emmett Till, which we’re just learning about in class. That was almost half a century ago, and it’s still going on, as if history is repeating itself.” 

Likewise, Angela Thomas, who attended the march with her sons Demetrius Collins, 12, and Canaan Thomas, 11, said she was there for them. 

“I brought my boys out here to back democracy and to show them what’s right,” Thomas commented. 

Chantel Simmons commented on VOD’s previous post on the Zimmerman verdict, “My heart hurts for my people; it will never change[how] I feel. We are losing more of our children every day because people feel they have the right to hurt our kids. This was all about color. No one on earth can stay it was not. Why are we the only ones that have to tell our children about color at a young age like something is wrong with them? I love my color and teach my children to love their color. When will this ever change?” 

Mike Hamlin, a co-founder of Detroit’s renowned League of Revolutionary Black Workers in 1969, stressed that the struggle against economic, political and social racism must progress to the level of a real fight, not just rallies and marches, to succeed. 

“This year marks the 50^th anniversary of the assassination of Medgar Evers,” Hamlin said, referring to the civil rights leader who was gunned down in his driveway in  Decatur, Mississippi by Byron De La Beckwith, a member of the White Citizens’ Council, on June 12, 1963. 

Hamlin also brought up the cases of Emmett Till, 15, brutally lynched in 1955, and Cynthia Scott, a Black Detroit woman killed by police July 5, 1964. A demonstration of 5,000 took place outside police headquarters to protest her murder on July 13, 1964 according to the book, “On the Ground: Black Panther Parties in Communities Across America,” edited by Judson Jeffries. 

Hamlin focused on the centuries-long oppression of Black people in the U.S., from slavery to 5,000 recorded lynchings in the 20^th century, to prison labor in the south, where Black men were kidnapped and forced to work as slaves long after slavery allegedly ended. 

“People are saying, ‘We just want justice,’ but I ask where the hell have you been for the last 350 years?” Hamlin said. “Malcolm said non-violence only works if you have a moral people. Our enemies are arming themselves; there are stand your ground laws in 34 states. Justice is not going to happen without a fight, because we are not dealing with a non-violent enemy.”

The march concluded with a rally at the Federal Building on Michigan Avenue in downtown Detroit. Many in the march called for federal civil rights charges to be brought against Zimmerman.

However, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and spokespersons for the Obama administration have stressed the difficulty of bringing charges based on civil rights violations against Zimmerman, noting that it will be difficult to prove “intent.” 

Following are excerpts of Holder’s speech to the NAACP National Convention July 16, 2013, with a link to the full text at the end. The word “racism” never appears in his talk.

“Today I’d like to join President Obama in urging all Americans to recognize that, as he said, we are a nation of laws, and the jury has spoken. . . .

“This afternoon I want to assure you of two things: I am concerned about this case and as we confirmed last spring, the Justice Department has an open investigation into it. Now while that inquiry is ongoing, I can promise that the Department of Justice will consider all available information before determining what action to take. . . .

“We must also seek a dialogue on attitudes about violence and disparities that are too commonly swept under the rug, by honoring the finest traditions established by generations of NAACP leaders and other nonviolent advocates throughout history; and by paying tribute to the young man who lost his life here last year, and so many others whose futures have been cut short in other incidents of gun violence, that pass too often unnoticed, in our streets. And we must do so by engaging with one another in a way that is at once peaceful, inclusive, respectful and strong. 

As we move forward together, I want to assure you that the Department of Justice will continue to act in a manner that is consistent with the facts and the law. We will not be afraid. We are committed to doing everything possible to ensure that in every case, in every circumstance and in every community, justice must be done.”

Holder also spent a large part of his talk declaring that progress is being made on assuring the voting rights of Black U.S. residents, despite the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down part of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder.

For full text of Holder’s talk, click on AG Holder on Trayvon Martin at NAACP 7 16 13.)

President Barack Obama and Holder, however, have repeatedly failed to act on instances of blatant racism, rampant police brutality, economic devastation, and the abrogation of Black voting rights here in Detroit and Michigan.

The Justice Department NEVER opened an investigation into the Aiyana Jones murder on May 16, 2010, despite promising it would do so once the state investigation had concluded. That investigation ended in 2011. While killer cop Joseph Weekley remains employed and goes home to his family every night, Aiyana’s father Charles Jones has been locked up since Nov. 2011, while he grieves the loss of his only daughter.  Her male relatives continue to be harassed and arrested by Detroit police, according to Mertilla Jones and others in the family, with nary a word from Holder.

The Justice Department exonerated FBI agents and Dearborn and Detroit police who brutally shot Imam Luqman Abdullah to death 21 times, during a set-up raid at a warehouse in Dearborn Oct. 28, 2009. The Imam’s autopsy showed that he was savagely attacked by police dogs as well. Iman Abdullah was a Black cleric who headed a mosque in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Detroit, which ministered to the needs of the community. He was known to be associated with Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (formerly H. Rap Brown of the Black Panthers), who was framed up on charges of murdering a Georgia law enforcement official and is now incarcerated for life. Imam Al-Amin also led similar efforts to address the needs of the Black community in Georgia, while working to bring Black youth together to fight for a positive future, as did the Black Panthers.

Why anyone should ever have expected the USDOJ and Holder to do anything other than exonerate their own people begs reason.

Finally, President Barack Obama and Eric Holder have NEVER responded to pleas from the Black citizens of Michigan, more than 51 percent of whom are effectively without voting rights due to emergency manager laws.

U.S. Rep. John Conyers wrote Holder on Dec. 2, 2011 asking him to open a Justice Department investigation into Public Act 4. A staff member told VOD that the last they heard was Holder’s declaration that the voting rights of Michigan’s Black citizens are a matter for the cities and state to solve. 

In the nascent stages of the emergency  manager takeover of Detroit, the largest Black majority city in the U.S., Pres. Obama never even deigned to visit the city during his last campaign, despite the fact that droves of Detroiters turned out to the polls to vote both for him and for Proposal 1, which overturned PA 4. Now Detroit is subject to PA 436, a reincarnation of PA 4 which threatens the city’s very existence. WHERE ARE PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA, ERIC HOLDER, AND THE U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT?

The belief that the Obama administration will bring justice in the Trayvon Martin case, which many people continue to cling to, only delays the struggle that is needed to win real victory for Trayvon, his family, and the Black residents of this Jim Crow police state and prison nation, the struggle to which Mike Hamlin referred when he spoke at the July 14 rally.