BY MAURICE WILLIAMS AND BROCK SATTER
ORANGE, New Jersey - "Cop: Suspect beaten in cuffs
before he died," read the headline of the August 18 New
Jersey Star Ledger. The article reported that an unnamed
Orange cop recanted previous testimony and told a grand
jury that Earl Faison, a 27-year-old Black man, died at
the police station on April 11, less than an hour after he
was arrested.
"If what they reported is true, it just confirms what we have suspected all along," Earl Williams, the father of Earl Faison, told a rally of around 70 people August 19 in front of the police headquarters here. Williams has spoken at several protest actions asserting that his son was beaten to death by the cops.
The testifying cop said two police beat Faison while he was handcuffed in a patrol car. They then took him into a stairwell at the police station, robbed him, and sprayed pepper spray into his mouth and nose. Faison, an asthmatic according his relatives, immediately had a respiratory attack and stopped breathing, the Star Ledger reported.
Police officials have identified just three cops involved in Faison's arrest; the testifying cop said up to nine were involved.
Faison's family hired an independent medical examiner who has conducted an autopsy. They said they would not disclose the results until the State Attorney General's office and the FBI, who are also involved in the case, release the results of their autopsies.
The revelations around Faison's death come as the administration of New Jersey governor Christine Whitman has sought to stymie outrage and protests against police brutality and racism. Faison was among four Black men snatched up in a police rampage after cop Joyce Carnegie was killed April 8.
Essex County Prosecutor Patricia Hurt, who handled the investigation of Carnegie's death, was forced to resign after being stripped of her powers by Whitman. Hurt had been under fire ever since the media reported how masked cops armed with semiautomatic rifles stormed the home of Terrance Everett on April 10 and charged him with killing Carnegie. The 24-year-old Black warehouse worker was beaten and held for six days in the county jail, despite a proven alibi.
"They started kicking, spitting on me, punching me, and yelling at my family," Everett told a news conference one week after his arrest. He said one cop struck him in the eye with a rifle butt and another cop kicked him in the face, chipping a tooth.
In another case involving police brutality in New Jersey, a grand jury is still deciding whether to file criminal charges against two state troopers who fired 11 shots into a van of Black and Latino youths on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1998. The cops were indicted April 19 on charges of lying on public documents and conducting illegal searches.
Meanwhile, a demonstration is planned on October 16 in Irvington, New Jersey, to protest charges filed against Max Antoine, a 30-year old Haitian man who was paralyzed from the waist down after being beaten by police in 1996. The cops accused Antoine of assaulting the police who arrested and beat him. A picket line is also being organized October 18, when a hearing on the charges is scheduled.
Brock Satter is a member of the United Food and Commercial Workers and is the Socialist Workers candidate for New Jersey General Assembly, 29th district.