BY MICHAEL BAUMANN
IRVINGTON, New Jersey-"I will teach you the American
law."
That's what cops told Max Antoine, a 29-year-old law
student here, as they brutally beat him in his home, in
front of his family, and later at the police station. The
June 1996 attack, which cops unleashed in response to an
alleged "noise" complaint, left Antoine in a wheelchair,
partially paralyzed.
The case is scheduled to come to court later this year. Typical of the way cop brutality is defended and covered up, the only charges filed are against Antoine himself. Max Antoine, not the cops, has been indicted on a laundry list of 13 counts - ranging from resisting arrest to assault and falsifying medical records.
Joseph Antoine, Max's father, explained the facts in the case to a hushed gathering of more than 60 leaders of the Haitian community here August 24, as he has done recently on a number of local radio stations and on Haitian national TV. The meeting, held largely in Creole, launched the Haitian Social Action Center of New Jersey. It was attended by a range of community and religious leaders, a handful of workers, and a Haitian-born representative of the police commissioner's office. Several were friends of the Antoine family who had known Max Antoine since he was a child.
Many in the meeting clapped and shouted agreement as Joseph Antoine explained the need to protest police brutality and demand justice for its victims. "It's not just Max," he said. "The entire community is the target of these attacks." He called for participation in the August 29 march in New York to demand the Brooklyn cops who tortured Haitian immigrant Abner Louima be tried and jailed, and for a protest around Max Antoine's case the following week.
Supporters of Max Antoine's fight for justice are planning to march September 5 from Irvington to the criminal court in Newark, where charges against him are scheduled to be heard.
"It's a pattern," Joseph Antoine, who drives a cab in New York, said of the cop attacks. "The treatment is the same. The only difference, if there is any, is that sometimes it's New York people, sometimes New Jersey people, who are the victims."
Robert Miller, an auto worker and Socialist Workers
candidate for governor of New Jersey, was applauded when he
told the Irvington gathering what he was doing to help bring
trade unionists and other working people to join these
protests. Miller is a member of the United Auto Workers
Union and works at the Ford assembly plant in Edison, New
Jersey.
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