BY JAMES HARRIS
ATLANTA - More than 150 people attended a public hearing on police brutality called by the Atlanta branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) on May 19 at Mt. Ephraim Church. The meeting was organized to address police brutality in general, but most of those present saw it as a chance to publicly protest the vicious videotaped beating by Atlanta police officers of 27- year-old Timmie Sinclair during the Freaknik street festival on April 20. (Freaknik is an annual spring break festival in Atlanta attended by thousands of Black youth from around the country.) The beating of Sinclair was caught on video by a Freaknik participant.

The video, which was shown on a local TV station a week later, is startlingly similar to the 1991 beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles. It shows five Atlanta cops pummeling Sinclair with nightsticks and spraying him with pepper gas while he is laying helplessly on the ground. Sinclair was accused by the cops of evading two police barricades. The police are always fully mobilized for the festival. One of their tactics is to block off streets and highway entrances to control the flow of traffic. This is done arbitrarily and without notice and can make a 10 minute drive well over an hour long. Many drivers try to evade the barricades.

Sinclair said he was out on that particular night with his wife and two children trying to buy medicine for his one- year-old daughter. He was beaten so badly he required immediate medical treatment. Sinclair suffers from muscle spasms over his whole body and he has difficulty grasping things. At the May 19 meeting he was still limping very badly.

After Sinclair left the hospital, he was jailed on charges of aggravated assault and two counts of obstructing an officer, while the cops who beat him went free. When Sinclair was released, he was immediately re-jailed on traffic violations dating back to 1994. He was freed only after paying a fine of $1,100 and pleading no contest to the charges. He still faces charges of aggravated assault and two counts of obstructing a police officer for the April 20 incident.

Despite the severity of Sinclair's beating and the video evidence, police chief Beverly Harvard has concluded that there were only two specific actions by two officers that were inappropriate and that only one amounts to the use of unauthorized force."

The meeting at Mt. Ephriam was opened by Dr. R. L. White Jr., the president of the Atlanta chapter of the NAACP. He began his remarks explaining that the purpose of the meeting was not to bash the police or the police department and that there are good and bad cops. He was then followed by a parade of speakers that included Rev. Fred Taylor from the Southern Christian Leadership Council, Theresa Nelson from the American Civil Liberties Union, Billy McKinney, Georgia representative, C.T. Martin from the Atlanta city administration, and John Boone, a former corrections commissioner. All of these speakers echoed the sentiments of White. There was little mention of Sinclair's case and no member of the panel called for the prosecution of all the cops involved in the beating.

After the panel had spoken, the meeting was open to some members of the audience who had been victims of police brutality. At this point Sinclair and his lawyers spoke. Sinclair explained what had happened to him and read a prepared statement.

Sinclair said, "the officers who violated my civil rights didn't care who I was or that I lived in the area. The officers violated my civil and human rights. The city should take immediate action against these officers. An injustice to one is and injustice to all." He received a warm response from the gathering. As did others who told of their victimizations by the police.

The meeting was not organized to accommodate all those who wished to speak. This provoked a heated debate as people who wanted to speak tried to do so. A sizable section of audience shouted for the need for action and the prosecution of all the cops who participated in the beating. At this point, the organizers ended the meeting.

Doug Nelson, the socialist candidate for mayor of Atlanta was among those who was unable to speak at the meeting, but a lively discussion continued at his campaign literature table. In a statement he had prepared for the meeting Nelson said, "This act of police brutality is one example of the growing incidents of police brutality against working people, especially oppressed nationalities such as Blacks, Latinos, and immigrants. Inseparably linked to the increased violence and repression at home, is the increased use of military force and the drive towards war abroad.

"My campaign joins with all fighters against police brutality and murders by cops and demands justice for Timmie Sinclair. Jail all five guilty cops! Drop the charges against Timmie Sinclair!"  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home