Vol.63/No.40 November 15, 1999
Protest demands city drop charges against Haitian man beaten by New Jersey cops
BY LEE OLESON
NEWARK, New Jersey — The trial of Max Antoine, a Haitian worker who was brutally beaten by Irvington, New Jersey police and then charged with various crimes by them, was postponed for the fifth time after a hearing October 18 in Essex County Court. The case is now scheduled for December 6.
Two days before the hearing 120 people rallied in support of Antoine in front of the Irvington police station. Representatives from several organizations spoke at the rally including the People's Organization for Progress, the New Brunswick Coalition Against Police Brutality, October 22nd Coalition, and the Socialist Workers Party. A spokesperson for New Jersey Congressman Donald Payne office's also spoke at the event.
After the rally 50 participants marched from Irvington to the Essex County Court House in Newark and picketed and rallied there. "I'm not going to give up," Antoine said. "I'm going to keep on fighting till I die."
"It's been one postponement after another," Antoine's lawyer J.D. Larosiliere told the Newark Star-Ledger. "We're getting tired of it."
Antoine is accused of taking a police weapon, falsifying records, resisting arrest, and tampering with evidence after a June 1996 beating by the cops, which caused paralysis in his lower body, blindness in one eye and deafness in one ear.