The Left's Sick Fetish for Cop-Killing Radicals

By Michelle Malkin

Friday, May 03, 2013

 

There's a stomach-turning segment of the American population that sees surviving Boston bomber suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as a romantic maverick. The New York Times mused about the accused jihadist's "Holden Caulfield-like adolescent alienation." Pop singer Amanda Palmer wrote a fan girl "Poem for Dzhokhar." An adoring "Free Jahar" movement thrives on social media.

 

Fringe, you say? Think again. The fetish for cop-killing fugitives and cop-hating radicals is a mainstay of Hollywood, academia, the liberal media and Democratic Party circles. It has persisted for decades. It reared its head on May Day with rock-hurling anarchists in Seattle and D.C. shouting "F**k the pigs" and kicking cops. And consider the exaltation of the woman just named to the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorist list, Joanne Chesimard.

 

On Thursday, the feds announced that they are doubling their reward for the capture of Chesimard (a.k.a. "Assata Shakur"). The former Black Panther and Black Liberation Army agitator has been a fugitive from justice for nearly 40 years and openly thumbs her nose at her victim's family while living in Cuba as a political asylee. Congressional Black Caucus members have stubbornly protested extradition efforts, invoking the poisonous race card and deifying Chesimard as a "political prisoner." Columbia University professor Marc Lamont Hill glorifies her as a "freedom fighter."

 

Just last week, rapper Common added an Assata Shakur tribute verse to Jay Z's recent "Open Letter" rap defending his wedding anniversary trip to Chesimard's sanctuary of Cuba. "The same way they say she was a shooter, Assata Shakur, they tried to execute her. We should free her like we should (convicted cop-killer) Mumia (Abu Jamal)," Common proclaims.

 

Chesimard/Shakur is the godmother of the late Tupac Shakur, a gangsta rapper whose genre spawned NWA's "F**k tha Police," Ice-T's "Cop Killer" and The Game's "911 is a Joke" ("I ought to shoot 51 officers for the 51 times that boy was shot in New York").

 

Mic check this: In 1973, Chesimard shot and killed New Jersey state trooper Werner Foerster execution-style during a traffic stop. The gunfight also left her brother-in-law, Black Liberation Army leader Zayd Malik Shakur, dead. At the time, the BLA had been tied to the murders of more than 10 police officers across the country. Chesimard, Zayd Shakur and another member were wanted for questioning in the murder of two of those cops when they were stopped.

 

Chesimard was convicted and sentenced to life in 1977, but escaped from prison two years later with help from violent left-wing accomplices. One of those thugs, Black Liberation Army killer Tyrone Rison, admitted to participating in a series of armored-car robberies, including a $250,000 heist in the Bronx on June 2, 1981, that left a Brink's guard dead. Rison also confessed to taking part in the planning of the Rockland County, N.Y., $1.6 million Brink's robbery by left-wing domestic terrorists on October 20, 1981. Police officers Waverly Brown and Edward O'Grady and Brink's guard Peter Paige were murdered during the siege.

 

Chesimard's brother, Jeral Wayne Williams (a.k.a. Mutulu Shakur), was the convicted ringleader of the group responsible for murdering those law enforcement officers; he also masterminded Chesimard's escape. His release is set for February 2016.

 

Celebrated left-wing heroine Kathy Boudin and her then-husband David Gilbert were convicted for their role in the bloody Rockland County robbery. Boudin and Company, as I reported in March, are the inspirations for Robert Redford's new movie love letter to the Weather Underground. Boudin now holds an adjunct professorship at Columbia University's School of Social Work, along with a scholar-in-residence post at New York University, as the New York Post reported in April. The adoptive parents of her son, Rhodes scholar and Yale legal fellow Chesa Boudin, are Weather Underground militants-turned-academics Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.

 

Susan Rosenberg, a violent "progressive" domestic terrorist who participated in bombings of the United States Capitol Building, three military installations and other sites during the 1980s, was a principal getaway coordinator for Chesimard, Shakur, Boudin, et al. After receiving a pardon from Bill Clinton, Rosenberg taught literature at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and was offered a teaching position at Hamilton College.

 

Blogger Bill Ardolino, whose father was a N.J. state trooper and classmate of murdered N.J. trooper Werner Foerster, recounted Chesimard's chilling lack of remorse: "After their capture, my father was part of the team assigned to guard the severely wounded Chesimard in the hospital. As the troopers stood outside of her room, she incessantly chanted, 'If I had some poison gas, I'd throw it on your white ass.' ... Today she walks free as a professor, counter-cultural heroine and published author reviewed by The New York Times: "A deftly written book ... a spellbinding tale."

 

From Free Assata to Free Mumia to Free Jahar, the left's police-bashing bloodlust is not just a sick joke. Their romanticizing of cold-blooded terrorism is a pathology. Twisted Dzhokhar Tsarnaev summed it up in three letters for his friends while still on the lam for committing a deadly terrorist attack, murdering a police officer and wounding another:

 

"LOL."

California Teacher Fights Back Against His Union’s Support of Cop Killer

By Kyle Olson
Tuesday, May 24, 2011

A few weeks ago I brought you the story of the California Federation of Teachers passing a resolution "reaffirming" support for convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal. He was convicted of killing, execution-style, Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. Despite numerous appeals and efforts by far leftists to spring him from prison, he's serving a life sentence in an open-and-shut case.
The Fraternal Order of Police issued a strongly-worded letter to American Federation of Teachers' President Randi Weingarten, parent union to the CFT.

The union's absurdly radical action is now producing its consequences.

I received an email from a CFT and AFT member resigning his union membership over the kerfuffle. He wrote in part:

"Having given the matter considerable thought, I have decided to resign from our labor union, an affiliate of the CFT and the AFT. I have already instructed [an administrative staff member] in Davenport to stop deducting dues from my paycheck. I feel some responsibility for briefly explaining the reasons for this difficult decision.


"I did not especially think this faculty needed to unionize when the idea for that came forward, but I did vote in favor of it, in support of the majority of faculty that did think this worthwhile. I did so with the understanding our union would stick to our immediate educational and terms of employment issues at [our school]. Indeed, our local has pretty much done a good job of that, except for having used tactics during the last round of labor negotiations that I rejected as long ago as 1968 as a college student. No, the end did not justify the means. I will leave it at that.


"More to the point, I cannot allow my dues to support either the CFT or the AFT. The CFT recently passed a resolution supporting convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal. I have attached a strong objection written by the National Fraternal Order of Police. Frankly, I have no idea whether this person did or did not kill a cop; but I do know that I do not want one penny on my union dues spent on this cause. It has nothing to do with education. Moreover, the CFT also expends considerable resources on state-level political struggles that I do not support, and in fact could bankrupt the state I live in.


"As for the AFT, it is purely and simply an organ of the Democrat party. I have attached some charts below showing that at this time it contributes almost exclusively to the Democrat party. I do not approve of this use of my dues.


"Since I continue to support the mission of our Local insofar as it involves educational issues at [our school], I will contribute 10% of what I have been paying directly to our local, through the treasurer. As the former treasurer, I believe that amount will exceed the portion of my dues that remains in our union's bank account after regular monthly payments to the CFT and AFT."

Kudos to this teacher and former union treasurer for standing up for what he believes. He now realizes that he didn't leave the labor union, the labor union left him.

Many other teachers are beginning to recognize the in-your-face radicalization of the public sector unions, and they don’t like it either. I expect we’ll be hearing similar stories from brave union members who’ve had their fill and simply say, “Enough!”

Teachers, please continue telling them.

Cops Fire Back at Pro-Cop Killer Teachers Union

By Kyle Olson
Wednesday, April 20, 2011

The Fraternal Order of Police isn’t happy that their union brethren in California recently passed a resolution in support of cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal. Now sitting in prison for executing Philadelphia policeman Daniel J. Faulkner, Mumia has become a rallying point for the left.

On April 14, FOP National President Chuck Canterbury issued a scathing letter to American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten. In part, it read:

“I cannot understand why the CFT, which like us represents rank-and-file employees, would support a murderer. In fact, Abu-Jamal’s victim was a rank-and-file law enforcement officer and a member of F.O.P. Local Lodge #5 in Philadelphia. I can only assume that the membership did so out of ignorance of the facts or that they were misled by this killer’s propaganda machine. I want to set the record straight and would respectively, yet urgently, request that you and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) publicly reject this repugnant resolution.”

Not likely. According to PublicSchoolSpending.com, an AFL-CIO spokesperson said the union had no plans to respond to the FOP letter. The AFT had no comment after repeated attempts.

Maybe Canterbury is beginning to understand just how far-left and radical the AFT is. How sad for the police officers.

The FOP letter ended ominously:

“This resolution, if it remains unchallenged by the AFT, would cast grave doubts on your leadership as well as pose serious questions as to the ability of the FOP to work with your organization at any level. On behalf of the more than 330,000 members of the Fraternal Order of Police, the families of slain law enforcement officers and the honored memory of the officers killed in the line of duty, I urge you repudiate the resolution support this cop-killer.”

So will Randi Weingarten and the AFT stand with cops or their killers?

Who Wants To Free Mumia Now?

Debra J. Saunders
Monday, April 13, 2009

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal seeking a new trial for death-row inmate and former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was convicted in the 1981 shooting of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. Earlier, a lower court rescinded Abu-Jamal's death penalty, which prosecutors have asked to be reinstated. Meanwhile, as the Philadelphia Inquirer reported, last week's ruling "virtually guarantees that the internationally known death-row inmate will never be freed."

Perhaps there were tears shed in Paris, where he is an honorary citizen and where the suburb of St. Denis named a one-way street "Rue Mumia Abu-Jamal" in 2006. But I see it as a sign of healthy change that in America the ruling went largely unprotested.

Call it progress. Being convicted for killing a police officer has lost the cachet it once had for the far left -- especially since Oakland just buried slain police officers Sgts. Mark Dunakin, Ervin Romans and Daniel Sakai, and Officer John Hege.

Consider that Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, introduced a House resolution honoring the four Oakland officers. She once signed a letter against Abu-Jamal's execution. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a resolution naming a day in Abu-Jamal's honor. Ditto the European Parliament. The anti-Iraq war group Not in Our Name proudly advertised Abu-Jamal's endorsement as one of its celebrity signatories -- unbothered by the prospect of dubbing a cop-killer as a committed peacenik. Writer Alice Walker likened Abu-Jamal to South African leader Nelson Mandela.

Oakland schools scheduled a Mumia teach-in for January 1999 -- although it was mostly derailed after a sniper shot Oakland officer James Williams Jr., whose funeral was held on the same day. The teach-in lesson plan had referred to Abu-Jamal not as a cop killer, but as a "political prisoner."

Be it noted, the letter signed by Lee and others argued against Abu-Jamal's execution because "he well may be innocent." The usual Hollywood stars -- Ed Asner, Mike Farrell -- were happy to impugn the motives and behavior of Philly police and prosecutors. Devotees desperately clung to the notion that Abu-Jamal, formerly Wesley Cook, was a victim of racism. Indeed, they so wanted to believe that Abu-Jamal was unfairly convicted that they overlooked the gratuitous execution of Faulkner.

But the evidence was overwhelming. A jury -- and not all the members were white, as it included two African-Americans -- convicted Abu-Jamal and sentenced him to death.

After police pulled over Abu-Jamal's brother for driving the wrong way on a one-way street, a battle followed. Faulkner was shot five times, once between the eyes. Authorities found Abu-Jamal near the mortally wounded Faulkner because he could not run away, as his brother did; Faulkner had shot Abu-Jamal in the chest. Also, four eyewitnesses identified Abu-Jamal. Two witnesses heard Abu-Jamal admit to shooting Faulkner and that he hoped Faulkner dies.

What is more, Abu-Jamal has never explicitly stated that he did not shoot Faulkner. He did not testify at his own trial before his conviction. He served as his own lawyer -- with professional backup counsel -- yet failed to produce his brother as a witness. Guilty.

But he knows how to play to a certain crowd swayed more by race-laden rhetoric than fact. So from death row, he keeps cranking out books, radio commentaries and self-congratulatory hype about how the racist system put him in prison. As in his latest self-homage, "This is the story of law learned, not in the ivory towers of multibillion-dollar endowed universities (but) in the bowels of the slave-ship, in the hidden, dank dungeons of America."

I suppose it is possible that if the Supreme Court reinstates Abu-Jamal's justly deserved death sentence, apologists will again clamor for TV time to rail against the injustice of Abu-Jamal's conviction. But if his followers really believe he is innocent, they should remain committed to the cause, whether he faces execution or not.

Their rallying cry is, after all, "Free Mumia." I would like to think that the Hollywood and Bay Area left have become wiser and now understand that the murder of a cop is not justifiable and cannot be overlooked because good liberals are too busy being righteous and denouncing the racist criminal justice system. Sure, there were a few left-wing loons who lionized Oakland cop-killer Lovelle Mixon, but local politicians knew which funeral to attend and whom not to defend.

Maybe the difference is that Dunakin, Romans, Sakai and Hege fell close to home.