Activists who are trying to free convicted Philadelphia cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal from Death Row and get him a new trial say they will protest outside Rockefeller Center tomorrow morning as the widow of the police officer appears on the Today Show.
Abu-Jamal’s supporters are angry that NBC won’t give them equal time to peddle their oft-told story on the air when Maureen Faulkner touts her new book, Murdered by Mumia: A Life Sentence of Loss, Pain, and Injustice. That story includes new photographic evidence that they say shows that police manipulated the crime scene and framed Abu-Jamal.
Notice that I did not write alleged cop killer in the opening paragraph – and for good reason. As surely as the seasons come and go, Abu-Jamal and his sycophantic supporters cycle in and out of the headlines. I knew Abu-Jamal, am intimately familiar with his case and have no doubt that he is guilty as sin.
I don’t remember why I had stayed after my 1 a.m. quitting time as night city editor of the Philadelphia Daily News early on the morning of December 9, 1981, but I do remember that I was talking to Tom Schmidt, the overnight editor, when a message crackled over one of the police radio scanners:
“Officer down at 13th and Arch. Send back-up and assistance.”
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