[News] PLEASE TAKE A STAND AGAINST STATE MURDER!

[News at freedomarchives.org]

FEBRUARY 9TH 2004: STOP THE EXECUTION! MARCH ON SAN QUENTIN!
march begins at 7:00pm at Remillard Park in Larkspur: Located on East Sir 
Francis Drake Blvd, just South of Larkspur Ferry terminal. We will join up 
with the anti-execution rally at 8:00pm at the South Gate of San Quentin.

CALL THE GOVERNOR AT (916) 445.2841 OR FAX LETTERS TO (916) 445.4633

Email: governor at governor.ca.gov

TELL THE GOVERNOR THAT YOU OPPOSE THE RACIST DEATH PENALTY & THIS EXECUTION!


For more information:www.savekevincooper.org

(510) 895.0332





CALIFORNIA KILLING: THE CASE OF KEVIN COOPER
===========================================
[Col. Writ. 1/9/04] Copyright 2004 Mumia Abu-Jamal

     A man named Kevin Cooper has been given a date to die:
On Feb. 10, 2004, the State of California plans to kill him,
by pumping him full of poison.

     Cooper, convicted back in 1984 of the slaying of 3 members
of the Ryen clan, and a visiting family friend, was also charged
with stabbing an 8-year old boy, but luckily the child survived.

     Why lucky?  Well, apart from the obvious reason (his sheer
survival), Joshua Ryen saw who attacked him, and upon
recovery told police that it was 3 white or Latino men who slew
his family, his friend, and tried to kill him.

     When young Josh saw TV news accounts of the attacks, he
turned to a cop who was present, and exclaimed, when the
picture of Kevin Cooper flashed across the screen, "That
wasn't the guy who did it.  It was 3 Mexicans."

     ... out of the mouths of babes, eh?

     But, San Bernardino officials didn't care; what does it
matter that the lone surviving victim cleared their suspect?
It meant nothing.  They had their man -- and on the 10th of
February, they wanna kill him.

     Kevin Cooper, now a man of 45 years, has spent the last
19 years of his life on California's Death Row, for a series
of brutal crimes -- that he did not commit.

     Cooper turned his cell into a school room; studying writing,
politics and African-American history.  He has grown into a
vibrant, talented and educated individual -- yet California
still wants to extinguish his light.

     It is important to note that he is an African-American
man.  That wasn't lost during his Dec. 1984 trial, around which
time demonstrators, calling for his death, hung a toy gorilla
in effigy.  Indeed, the media coverage was so hyped, the
demonstrations so hostile, that the trial was moved to
San Diego.

     Not only was the only living eyewitness ignored; but
shortly after the murders, a local woman came forward to
tell police that she thought her boyfriend was involved in the
grisly killings.  Why?  When he came home the night of the
slayings, she said, he was wearing a pair of overalls,
drenched in blood.  The woman turned them over to the
cops.  Before the day was over, the overalls were pitched
into the station's dumpster.  Did it matter that the man was
wearing a t-shirt the color and brand of the t-shirt found in the
scene -- it also, bloody? No. Did it matter that he owned a
hatchet, like a weapon used in the Ryen home, and it was
conveniently missing from the  couple's home.  No.

     None of it mattered.

     They wanted, and focused on, Kevin Cooper; nothing
else mattered.

     Police and prosecutors told jurors that a bloody shoe-
print found at the scene conclusively proved Cooper's guilt.
Were the jurors told that Deputy William Baird had a pair
of prison shoes in his (crime) lab, which were Cooper's
size?  What they also didn't know was that the Deputy,
post-trial, was fired for stealing five pounds of heroin from
the evidence locker -- *five pounds* -- both to use and
to sell -- to drug dealers!

     Kevin Cooper is on Death Row, awaiting a date with
death, based on 'investigators' such as these!

     Incredible!

     Welcome to the American Way of Death!

     Help save--no; help Free Kevin Cooper!

Copyright 2004 Mumia Abu-Jamal

(Visithttp://www.savekevincooper.org)


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