[Ppnews] Patrice Lumumba Ford

[Political Prisoner News]

A question of terror: The son in prison, the father in shock

http://www.oregonlive.com/O/relationships/index.ssf?/base/living/1189203923245300.xml&coll=7

Kent Ford was afraid the 9/11 aftereffects would 
hit Islamic converts like his son Patrice Lumumba Ford . . .
Sunday, September 09, 2007
ANGIE CHUANG
The Oregonian

Be cautious, Kent Ford says he warned his son 
shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, when word got out 
that the hijackers were Islamic terrorists. Ford 
had never seen the 110-story twin towers, now 
reduced to graveyards of jagged steel and toxic 
dust. He had never even been to New York City.

But the longtime Portlander immediately worried 
about his 30-year-old son, Patrice Lumumba Ford, 
who converted to Islam in the late 1990s, when he 
studied at the University of Beijing as an 
exchange student from Morehouse College.

"They're looking for scapegoats," Ford recalls 
telling his son after the grisly terrorist 
attacks that killed more than 3,000 people in New 
York, at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania. Law 
enforcement searched for answers -- and needed to 
calm the U.S. public, understandably fearful 
about another attack. The government also was 
looking for terrorists in the United States.

Ford's concern intensified a month later, in 
October 2001, when Lumumba suddenly left for 
China. He told his family he intended to enter 
Pakistan to help refugees fleeing the U.S.-led 
invasion to hunt down Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the Sept. 11 plot.

By November, to Ford's great relief, his son 
returned in one piece. Denied a visa into 
Pakistan, Lumumba rejoined his wife and baby son, 
taught at the Muslim Education Trust elementary 
school in Tigard and volunteered at the Masjid 
As-Sabr mosque in Southwest Portland.

Life settled into a routine -- until a year later.

On Oct. 4, 2002, Attorney General John Ashcroft 
announced the arrest of Patrice Lumumba Ford and 
three other men who had flown to China with him.

The charges: conspiracy to levy war against the 
United States. Other arrests on the same charges 
followed during the next few months. Along with 
two others and a Jordanian national later 
reported killed in a Pakistani raid, they became 
known as the Portland Seven, one of several alleged U.S. sleeper cells.

One by one the Portland Seven pleaded guilty to 
lesser charges, and they received lighter 
sentences, agreeing to cooperate with the 
investigation as well as other terrorist 
prosecutions. By October 2003, only Lumumba and 
co-defendant Jeffrey Leon Battle had refused to 
help the FBI. But facing up to 70 years in prison 
if convicted at trial, they pleaded guilty to 
conspiracy to levy war against the United States, 
one count of a 15-count indictment against them. 
They received the longest sentences, 18 years each in federal prisons.

This week, six years after Sept. 11, many will 
mark how their lives changed after that grim 
milestone, and how the United States changed. 
Perhaps it's as profound as the loss of a loved 
one in the twin towers or Pentagon, as 
significant as the government's ability to 
eavesdrop on e-mail and phone calls without 
warrants, or as mundane as slipping off your shoes before getting on a plane.

Today, almost five years after the arrest of his 
son, Ford, 64, marks the anniversary altogether 
differently. Before then, the founder of 
Portland's Black Panther Party had battled the 
justice system and won; the father of four 
children thought he could raise them to avoid the 
scrapes with authorities and discrimination that 
plagued his youth; the believer trusted that God, 
whether Christian or Muslim, looked after people.

It's not that simple anymore.

This is how Kent Ford tells the story of that 
time and how his life and family changed in the new America.

FORD: A few days after Sept. 11, someone broke 
into Lumumba's van. Lumumba was teaching kids at 
the Muslim school and helping out at the mosque. 
The school principal's car was broken into the 
same night. They just took papers. Kids' homework 
and everything. Lumumba was shaken up. I told him 
to call the junkyard, and he found another 
window. That was the beginning of his education to another world.

Sept. 29, 2001: Just weeks after the al-Qaida 
terrorist attack on the U.S., a Skamania County 
sheriff's deputy found Lumumba and other men 
target-shooting with a 12-gauge shotgun and 
semi-automatic weapons in a gravel pit near 
Washougal, Wash. Federal prosecutors later would 
use this as evidence that the men, who had met at 
Portland's Masjid As-Sabr and Beaverton's Bilal 
mosques, were training to fight U.S. soldiers in 
Afghanistan. The group named itself Katibat 
Al-Mawt, prosecutors said, which translated to Squad of Death.

Friends told a different story: Scared after the 
van break-in and by anti-Muslim hate crimes, 
Lumumba legally bought a 12-gauge Remington shotgun for $100.

He told me he had a shotgun, and I told him to be 
real careful with it, be real safe with it, make 
sure his son could get nowhere near it.

Oct. 7, 2001: The U.S. and Britain began bombing 
in Afghanistan in response to the Sept. 11 
attacks and to hunt bin Laden, launching the war 
on terror. Lumumba left for China on Oct. 21. 
Ford heard that news from his former wife, and 
worried about his son traveling at a time of such high international tension.

I didn't know Lumumba was going. According to the 
court documents, he said he was concerned about 
the refugee situation. His mother told me two 
days after he was gone. I was taken aback. I felt 
good that he was helping out with the relief 
efforts, but I did ask her, "Why did you let him go?"

Oct. 26, 2001: President Bush signed the USA 
Patriot Act. It expanded law enforcement's powers 
to search and collect evidence and intelligence. 
The law includes a new category: domestic terrorism.

When Lumumba got back, I was so glad to see him I 
didn't even ask. I know as much about this trip 
today as I knew about it post-9/11. They traveled 
on their own passports, they paid their own money.

Oct. 4, 2002: Ashcroft announced a "defining day" 
in the fight against terrorism with the arrests 
of Lumumba, the other Portland suspects and 
alleged members of sleeper cells in cities like 
Lackawanna, N.Y., Detroit and Seattle. Seven days 
later, the war on terror moved into Iraq as the 
Senate authorized use of military force.

The day they picked up Lumumba, I came home, and 
there was a call from everybody on my voice mail. 
CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, CBS. I got a call 
from my son Jimmy, the attorney. He said, "They 
picked up Lumumba." I said, "What in the world is 
going on?" He said, "I don't know."

*** Kent Ford knew about clashes with law 
enforcement, which defined his youth and spurred 
his leadership in the Black Panther Party. He had 
his first education in race and justice as a 
student in a diverse middle school in California in the mid-1950s.

"Somebody took a dollar from a kid. One morning, 
they had all the blacks -- just the blacks -- 
come out and get in a lineup. . . . It really 
showed me a lot about the two-tiered justice system."

In 1961, after he says he spent three days in 
jail for speeding, Ford left California at age 18 
and moved to Northeast Portland, where he's lived 
since. He ran a candy business and sent money home to his younger siblings.

Disillusioned, he gave up a college scholarship 
to study to be a Methodist minister. After the 
assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., he began 
to question passive resistance and started 
reading Malcolm X. "That was the day I really 
said, 'Naw, this ain't the way.' "

In 1969, Ford stopped at the scene of an arrest 
and was arrested himself for charges including 
inciting to riot and disorderly conduct. Portland 
police beat him while he was handcuffed.

"That night, I made one of those what you call 
foxhole conversions. I said, 'God, if they don't 
shoot me tonight, I'll never give you no more 
rest.' I tried to stick to that over the years."

A second arrest followed in 1969, stemming from 
clashes between African Americans and the police 
during the Rose Festival, but those charges were 
dropped. That same year, Ford established the 
Portland Black Panther Party, which started a 
free breakfast program, a medical clinic, a 
dental clinic and free sickle-cell anemia and 
blood pressure testing for the African American community.

He said he refused any plea deal on the first 
charges: "They offered me nine months. I knew in 
my soul I wasn't going to do nine months for 
stopping at a corner. If it had been nine days, I 
wouldn't have taken that. Nine hours I still 
wouldn't have taken." Ford was acquitted at 
trial. A year later, he won a $5,000 federal civil case for the beating.

***

Fall, winter 2002/2003: Ford visited his son 
regularly at the Multnomah County Justice Center. 
The father believed that, as in his case, if 
Lumumba stood his ground, justice would prevail.

So, I go down to the courtroom and there he was. 
It was full. They let me in because I was the 
dad. I didn't know about Ashcroft's press 
conference. I was sitting next to a reporter who 
had the indictment, and I said, "Can I look at 
it?" It was all circumstantial stuff.

He was at the Portland Justice Center. I visited 
on a regular basis. It was mostly, you know, "How 
are they treating you?" Nobody can see a member 
of their family locked up like that. He had never 
been in trouble before. Maybe had a traffic ticket -- I said maybe.

March 20, 2003: Maher "Mike" Hawash, a software 
engineer, was taken from his Intel office, held 
as a material witness for five weeks and 
eventually charged as the seventh member of the 
Portland terrorist cell. He pleaded guilty to a 
lesser charge of conspiring to help al-Qaida and 
the Taliban in Afghanistan. Sentenced to seven 
years, he became the government's crucial 
material witness and testified against the 
others. In a statement, he asked forgiveness for his actions.

I heard on the noon report on Oregon Public 
Broadcasting that Hawash was pleading guilty. 
Personally, I said, "That's him. Lumumba's still going to trial."

I knew in America you're supposed to get a trial 
when you're indicted. I told Lumumba that. "Never 
plead guilty. Make them prove everything." I 
thought he was determined to go to trial.

Oct. 16, 2003: Lumumba pleaded guilty to 
conspiracy to levy war against the United States 
and signed the plea agreement instead of going to 
trial on a 15-count indictment.

I went down for a hearing that was going to set a 
trial date. That's when I became aware there was 
a plea deal. "What's with this? You go to trial." 
I wasn't too happy with it. My idea was for him 
to walk away from all this. They spooked him. And 
he was in his early 30s. Lumumba was green and vulnerable.

Fall 2003: Lumumba was sent to the Federal 
Correctional Institute in Sheridan, awaiting 
transfer to Leavenworth in Kansas.

One time when I went to visit him at Sheridan, he 
was saying he should have held out for a better 
deal. And that's the extent he got into it. That 
was the only time. You know, I don't want to 
second-guess him or what he should have done.

Oct. 3, 2005: Lawyer Ernest Warren Jr. submitted 
a motion for ineffective assistance of counsel, 
petitioning for a reduced sentence. It is the 
only redress permitted by Lumumba's plea bargain. 
U.S. District Court denied it.

Fall 2005: After two years at Leavenworth, 
Lumumba was transferred to the United States 
Penitentiary, Victorville, Calif., where he remains.

September of last year was the first time I 
visited him. I'm still trying to swallow all 
this, absorb all this. I write letters to him 
once in a while. I send him books whenever I can.

It was a good visit. A real good visit. Everybody 
goes through security, from the kids to the 
mothers to the families. It's a real strange 
place. Nothing green around there.

It was one big room. They weren't shackled. They 
were all free and well-groomed. The guards were 
pretty vigilant. I gave him a hug. You go from 9 
o'clock to 3 o'clock. We visited for the duration 
of that time Saturday and Sunday.

We talked about the grandkid, Ibrahim, the state 
of the family, how he was coping. Then you're 
just stuck with, this is my kid. You never know 
what God planned for you. I never expected to see 
-- or have to, after all I've been through -- you 
don't want your kid to go through this.

Dec. 4, 2006: Lawyer Shaun McCrea appealed the 
District Court decision to the 9th Circuit Court. He lost the argument.

At the first hearing for Lumumba, Ibrahim was 
just a toddler. He slept through the whole thing. 
And now he's 6. He's just a sweet, sweet boy. He 
and my daughter-in-law are living with his 
grandmother. His grandmother took him down to see 
Lumumba. He asks, "How come Baba has to stay in that place?"

People approach me. A lot of them knew Lumumba 
since he was little. And I do a lot of speaking 
now, to high schools, on KBOO radio, to groups 
and whoever will have me. When I speak, I say, "I 
am not going to try to change your mind. I'll 
just tell you the facts. He went to China."

People wish me the best and ask me what they 
could do. The most peaceful thing people told me 
was that they were praying. Here's what I tell 
them. I say, "Drop him a line. Give a letter to 
him." I say, you know, "They can't hold him much 
longer with so many people praying for him. Something's gotta break."

Epilogue: Patrice Lumumba Ford, 36, has 13 years 
left to serve. Kent Ford bought an airline ticket 
to visit in late October but last week learned 
his son would be transferred within the month to 
another federal facility. The family has not yet been told where.

Angie Chuang, a former staff writer at The 
Oregonian, is an assistant professor at American 
University: chuang at american.edu

©2007 The Oregonian




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