BY EDWIN FRUIT
PITTSBURGH - The second anniversary of the death of Jonny Gammage was commemorated by two meetings here of about 100 people each. One was a memorial service held October 12 at the St. Charles of Lwanga parish. On Oct. 12, 1995, Gammage, who was Black, was pulled over for a traffic stop and ended up dead after being confronted by five suburban Pittsburgh cops. Since that time there has been an ongoing campaign to demand the cops be prosecuted, including vigils at the court house, picket lines, demonstrations, and teach-ins.

Speakers at the service included Tim Stevens, president of the Pittsburgh NAACP; William Thompkins of the Urban League of Pittsburgh; and Mauri Saalakhan, president of the Peace and Justice Institute based in Washington, D.C.

A message was also read from Gammage's parents, who were holding a similar meeting at the same time in Syracuse, New York.

Stevens lauded the October 10 Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision ordering a retrial of Milton Mulholland and Michael Albert, two of the cops who were at the scene of Gammage's death. The prosecution of these two ended last October when the presiding judge declared a mistrial. John Vojtas, another cop, was acquitted by an all-white jury from Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania. Two other cops were never brought to trial.

The judge in the original trials requested juries from outside the Pittsburgh area. Juries from Chester and Lackawanna Counties heard the cases but neither reflected the ethnic composition of the Pittsburgh area. Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh, has approximately a 12 percent Black population. In its October 10 decision the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that the case be returned to Allegheny County.

A city-wide protest was held at the University of Pittsburgh on October 19. A panel of speakers was led off by Kelly Happe of the Campus Coalition for Peace and Justice. She summarized the two-year effort to get justice for Gammage.

Wayne Babish, the former police chief of Brentwood borough, where two of the cops came from, said that he had been fired just after Gammage's death for trying to reform the police department. He is currently running as the Republican candidate for sheriff of Allegheny County.

Dee Hart, of the United Concerned Christians At Work and one of the key activists in the two-year fight ended the program by saying, "We won't rest until all the cops are put on trial.

The Campus Coalition for Peace and Justice and other groups are planning a protest demonstration at 5 p.m. December 1 at the downtown courthouse, the first day of the trial of the Mulholland and Albert.

Edwin Fruit is a member of the International Association of Machinists.  
 
 
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