Seattle protest over police shooting shuts down interstate

By Chris H. Bennett
and Connie Cameron

Seattle, Washington, Apr. 24– About 200 people shut down Interstate 5 for 30 minutes on Apr. 16 as they marched to King County Courthouse to demand police accountability in the shooting death earlier this month of Robert Lee Thomas Sr. by a sheriff’s deputy.

Traffic backed up for more than three miles during evening rush hour on the state’s busiest freeway, I-5, running through downtown Seattle, after a funeral service and procession. The group then made its way to the courthouse where symbolic blood was smeared on the building.

Rev. Leslie Braxton, pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church, promised more civil disobedience. “This is only the beginning,” he told reporters. “Our tactics will only get more severe from here.”

The Black community is angry about the death of Thomas and how the investigation is being handled and deeply resentful over alleged racism. King County Deputy Melvin Miller is on paid administrative leave while the shooting is being investigated.

“I had to watch my Dad die,” said Robert Thomas Jr.of the Apr. 7 shooting. Thomas Jr. was shot twice in the hand.

Thomas Jr.spoke from his father’s home in Ballard hours after being released from the hospital.

According to King County Sheriff spokesman Sgt. Greg Dymerski, a woman contacted her neighbor, Deputy Miller, about a truck blocking a driveway. The truck and its occupants, two Black men and a White woman, looked “suspicious.”

The truck, a 2002 red Chevrolet extended-cab pickup, was registered to Thomas.

Inside were Thomas Jr., who was driving, his son on the passenger side, and a 40-year-old female companion of the younger Thomas, who was in the cab of the truck.

The woman reportedly said she heard the people in the truck arguing. But Thomas refutes that statement. “We were not arguing. My Dad was playing loud country music.”

Miller, in plain clothes, was armed when he approached the truck, according to Dymerski.

Thomas, his father and their friend were on their way to welcome a friend to his new home, which was a few blocks away. They had made a wrong turn and were lost. They were glad to see the “elderly-looking white man” when he approached their vehicle, thinking he could give them directions.

But before they could say anything, the man in the white jogging suit, later identified as Miller, demanded that they move their vehicle. “He said, ‘Move your vehicle now!’” said Thomas. “A few seconds later, he said, ‘You don’t understand, move it right now! I’ll give you one more chance to move your vehicle, now!’”

Thomas Jr. said Miller then started shooting from the passenger side. “There was no altercation, no confrontation, no communication, he just started shooting.”

Thomas raised his hand to gesture to Miller that they meant no harm and didn’t want to cause any trouble. But Miller kept shooting, firing three rounds from his weapon.

“I was saying, ‘Sir, who are you?’ My Dad said, ‘Calm down, son, calm down.’ It was like a scene out of a bad movie.” Thomas Jr. was shot twice in the hand and part of his finger flew in the back seat of the truck and struck his girlfriend.

His father was shot in the chest.

Thomas Jr. said Miller threatened him when he tried to touch his father’s stomach to stop the bleeding.

“He wouldn’t let me help my Dad. I had to watch my Dad die.”

Police arrived -- apparently after another neighbor called 911. Thomas’ hand was bleeding from the two gunshot wounds but officers handcuffed him anyway. The woman in the truck escaped injury.

Thomas said Miller never identified himself as a police officer and he was shocked when he found out the next day. “I found out about it the next day when I was watching TV,” he said.

Details are still sketchy as to exactly what happened. Dymerski said the elder Thomas pulled a .40-caliber semiautomatic Glock handgun and pointed it at Miller, a 19-year department veteran.

According to the King County Sheriff’s Office department manual on off-duty police involvement: “Off duty members should use discretion when becoming involved in any law enforcement action. Off duty members shall not become involved, particularly in their own neighborhood, unless the situation could possibly result in someone being injured or loss of/or damage to property. In all other situations, members should notify the appropriate law enforcement agency having jurisdiction, if required.”

The King County Sheriff’s Office, however, insists that the deputy had no choice when he shot and killed Robert Lee Thomas Sr., and injured his son.

The King County Medical Examiner’s Office reported that Thomas died from a single gunshot wound to the chest.

Thomas was 59, and his son 39. The elder Thomas had worked all his adult life as a truck driver for Glazier Concrete. The younger Thomas, following in his Dad’s footsteps, was a driver for Stoneway Concrete for 14 years. Family members say the two were very close.

Miller, 49, who is assigned to the Maple Valley area, was placed on paid leave pending investigation, a routine procedure after a fatal shooting.

Source: San Francisco Bay View

Michigan lawmakers defend secret warrants

By John Wisely

Apr. 25— Michigan legislators are defending two new laws that limit public access to court documents.

The laws, which took effect this week, stop the public from gaining access to search warrants and affidavits. It deems them nonpublic records.

Lawmakers -- who unanimously voted for the measures in the Senate and House of Representatives -- said the laws protect crime victims, informants and witnesses from criminals and the media.

But civil libertarians and First Amendment lawyers argue they invite police abuse and curtail public scrutiny.

State Sen. Bill Bullard, R-Highland Township, who co-sponsored one of the bills with Sen. Shirley Johnson, R-Royal Oak, said despite specific wording that makes the records “nonpublic,” he believes affidavits still are subject to Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Johnson could not be reached for comment.

“FOIA trumps that,” Bullard said Wednesday. “If we had wanted to amend FOIA, we would have done that.”

But a Friday memo from State Court Administrator John Ferry Jr. to courts across the state makes no such distinction. The memo tells clerks that access to the records is restricted.

When an Oakland Press reporter sought a search warrant from a district court Tuesday, a clerk said “they can’t be released” and handed over a copy of the memo about the new law.

The new law “makes all search warrants, affidavits and tabulations in any court file or record retention system nonpublic,” according to the memo.

“How else is that to be interpreted?” said Dawn Phillips, a First Amendment lawyer with the Michigan Press Association. “People in law enforcement want to follow laws. If they are looking at that memo, they are not going to release those records.”

The bills were part of an anti-terrorism package that passed the Legislature after the Sept. 11 attacks.

At issue are affidavits, the sworn information police submit to courts when they want to get permission to search someone’s home. The information often includes the name of the person who has told police where the criminal or evidence can be found.

If a person’s home is searched and he or she is charged with a crime, a defense lawyer can demand access to the information. If the government seeks to forfeit the person’s property in a civil case, the file also would be opened.

But if no charges are brought, the new law doesn’t spell out a way for the person who was searched to learn why the police searched the home.

Pontiac defense attorney Elbert Hatchett said the move is an expansion of a dubious process of sealing warrants.

“Unfortunately, that’s been the case for some time,” Hatchett said. “The officer asks for a search warrant and then asks the judge for a suppression order citing an on-going investigation. It’s almost automatic. These courts and these legislators have always exalted the rights of police over the rights of the accused.”

State Rep. Nancy Cassis (R-Novi), who cosponsored the bill in the House, said the provisions originated in a domestic violence package. Legislators were worried that attackers could learn where their victims were staying by getting the address from the affidavit.

“Believe me, if there were to occur abuse of this, I’m sure it would be relooked,” Cassis said.

Source: Oakland Press

Pro-Israel hawks take to the airwaves

By Jim Lobe

Washington, DC, Apr. 26 (IPS)— Pro-Israel hawks are running television advertisements identifying Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat with Osama bin Laden and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, in a bid to advance their seven-month-old campaign to make Arafat a target of the President George W. Bush’s war on terrorism.

Two groups, whose leadership is close to supporters of Likud, the right-wing Israeli party headed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, have focused their ads on the Washington, DC area, apparently in hopes of influencing debate in the capital.

The vice president of one of the groups, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), is a former public affairs officer for the Israeli Embassy here.

Both groups are also closely identified with adamant Likud supporters in the Bush administration, especially top aides to Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney.

Despite the similarity of message and overlapping boards of directors and founders, the two ads were produced entirely independently of one another, according to Nir Boms, the Israeli FDD president.

FDD was created Sept. 13, two days after the terrorist attacks in the United States. It is running a 30-second spot, the principal message of which is that there is no difference between Palestinian suicide bombings and the Sept. 11 skyjackings.

Called the “Suicide Strategy,” the ad warns that “if we appease terrorism, we’ll get more terrorism” and features grainy footage of the aftermath of suicide bombings, children dressed up as suicide bombers, Saddam Hussein haranguing a huge crowd, and burning US flags. A narrator says Israelis face such threats “day after day.”

The Center for Security Policy (CSP), whose board is dominated by executives of major military contractors and prominent right-wing activists, also has put out a series of ads, the latest of which features flag-burnings, an ever-growing picture of bin Laden, and Arafat supposedly exhorting a crowd, “Jihad, jihad, jihad, jihad.” The narrator says Saddam Hussein “pays Palestinian children to become suicide bombers.”

“They’re very effective in confusing people,” said Hussein Ibish, communications director of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), who said he believed pro-Likud groups are running the ads because of concern that public opinion has been turning against the Sharon government, especially since its devastating offensive against Jenin and other towns and cities on the West Bank.

The ads began airing this month, just as Secretary of State Colin Powell was in the first stages of his mission to the Middle East to try to calm the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by negotiating a cease-fire as a prelude to renewed peace negotiations.

At the time, Bush himself had called for Israel to withdraw immediately from the areas it had re-occupied since late last month. His requests, which Sharon largely ignored, were assailed by a number of neo-conservative and Christian Right groups and media, such as the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), the Wall Street Journal, and the Weekly Standard. They warned that US pressure on Israel would only encourage further terrorist attacks by Palestinians.

That message — as well as the conflation of bin Laden, Arafat, Palestinians in general, and Saddam Hussein in the minds of the viewers — appears to be the main intent of the ads’ producers.

“On September 11th,” the CSP narrator begins, as the video shows Arabs burning a US flag, “America lost thousands of innocent lives at the hands of extremists. As America mourned, Palestinians carried pictures of Osama bin Laden, chanting death to America and Israel.” The tape shows marchers and a still black-and-white photo of bin Laden, which gradually enlarges until it fills the screen.

“In the war against terrorism, can those who support terrorism be on our side in the war against it,” it concludes.

The FDD script opens with its title, “The Suicide Strategy” in bold letters and continues, “It was used by terrorists against America on September 11. It’s being used by terrorists against Israel day after day,” as the video flashes to a hellish scene immediately after a suicide bombing.

“The suicide strategy threatens all of us — all those who are hated as ‘infidels’,” the voice continues as the camera shows Saddam Hussein addressing a crowd.

“If we appease terrorism, we’ll get more terrorism. Our way of life is threatened,” it goes on, as the video depicts the burning of a US flag and then fades to a written imperative: “Never Appease Terrorism.”

Both groups have key leaders in common, mostly neo-conservatives who served in senior positions under President Ronald Reagan and who have long opposed both Arafat and substantial territorial concessions by Israel to the Palestinians under the Oslo peace process.

The FDD’s governing board includes former UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick and former Republican presidential candidate Jack Kemp, both of whom also co-direct another right-wing group called Empower America.

FDD’s Board of Advisors includes Richard Perle, a senior Pentagon official under Reagan and currently head of Rumsfeld’s Defence Policy Board (DPB); Frank Gaffney, who is the executive director of the CSP, and Bill Kristol, a PNAC founder and editor of the ‘Weekly Standard.’

Perle and Kirkpatrick, who both occupy the senior foreign-policy chairs at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the premier neo-conservative think tank, also serve on the CSP’s advisory council, as does William Bennett, a third co-director of Empower America and a key bridge between mainly Jewish neo-conservatives and the Christian Right.

Bennett and Gaffney also serve together on the six-person board of Americans for Victory Over Terrorism (AVOT), a group formed last month to “take to task those groups and individuals who fundamentally misunderstand the nature of the war we are facing.”

All were signers of a PNAC letter to Bush, reportedly written by Kristol on the eve of Powell’s trip to the Middle East which called on him to “lend (his) full support to Israel as it seeks to root out the terrorist network that daily threatens the lives of Israeli citizens.” The letter also urged Bush to accelerate plans for removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.”

NATION BRIEFS

Seattle police arrest marchers
Hundreds of activists took to the streets in Seattle Apr. 20 in a series of protest rallies, marches and teach-ins to oppose a variety of political institutions and policies, from the World Trade Organization to the “war on terror.”

Seattle police arrested 19 protesters when they blocked intersections on Seattle’s Capitol Hill. Police fired pepper spray and used bicycles to push demonstrators to the sidewalk. A police spokesman said all the arrests were for misdemeanors ranging from pedestrian interference to property damage and obstructing.

The protests were in solidarity with the marches in Washington, DC against the IMF and World Bank. There were also events in San Francisco and Salt Lake City, among others. (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)

NYC Palestinian activist arrested
On Apr. 26, three NYPD detectives and an agent from the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), accompanied by a group of uniformed police officers, came to the home of Bernard McFall and Faruk Abdel-Muhti in Queens. The officers said they wanted to ask Abdel-Muhti some questions about Sept. 11. McFall asked if they had a warrant, and the police responded that they did not need a warrant. The agents said they believed that there were weapons and explosives in the apartment. McFall called his lawyer for advice when the police threatened to break down the door. She advised him to open the door to prevent “violent intrusion.”

Once inside the officers arrested Abdel-Muhti for being in the US illegally, although INS agents also said one of the reasons for the arrest was Abdel-Muhti’s outspoken critique of Israeli policies. Abdel-Muhti is a Palestinian activist who is well known in NewYork.

The arrest comes amid a national tide of discriminatory police and INS raids against immigrants, especially those from the Middle East, since Sept. 11. (Coalition for the Human Rights of Immigrants)

Former CIA chiefs divided
on drugging detainees
Former CIA director William Webster said Apr. 25 he would support using drugs to get information on possible national security threats from al-Qaida and Taliban suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but would not endorse the use of torture.

Vincent Cannistrano, a former CIA chief of counter-terrorism, said that he shares the frustration of US officials seeking information, but cautioned “truth drugs” are not the answer.

“It’s a slippery slope,” said Cannistrano. “Once it’s used for national security cases, then it becomes standard. Sodium pentothol is not that effective, and so you would have to use something stronger, and so it’s a short skip and a hop to LSD, or something worse.” (Scripps Howard News Service)

Florida admits election fraud
A federal judge has approved a settlement between Leon County, FL and civil rights groups that sued over widespread voting problems in the 2000 presidential election in Florida. The state and six counties remain in the case brought by the NAACP and four other groups who sued in a dispute that grew out of the long-uncertain results of Florida’s vote for president.

Trial is set for Aug. 26. State lawmakers changed election laws in response to complaints after the 2000 election, but critics say the changes did not go far enough. In the biggest departure from current procedures, Leon county agreed to give a written explanation to voters whose ballots were rejected. The idea to make that procedure a state standard was discarded by the legislature. Under the settlement, both sides will work to restore voters who were wrongly removed from voter lists. (AP)