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Unarmed black man killed in
struggle with Cincinnati police

Anti-war parents of American
soldiers brave hostility at home
to see the real story in Iraq

Dow faces Bhopal disaster protests

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Compiled by Seán Marquis

Dec. 9 (AGR)— Community leaders in Cincinnati have called for the local police chief to resign over the death of a black man beaten by police.

Nathaniel Jones, 41, died at a hospital shortly after being taken into custody Nov. 30 outside a fast food restaurant. The unarmed, 350-pound man was struck repeatedly with nightsticks in a confrontation captured by a video camera mounted on a police car.

Whilst defending the officers’ actions, the police have asked the Justice Department and FBI to review the case.

Police Chief Thomas Streicher Jr told Cincinnati City Council that he had invited both bodies to examine the death.

He said his officers had been defending themselves and trying to “overcome resistance to arrest.”

Hamilton County Coroner Carl Parrott ruled the death a homicide, adding that the ruling should not be interpreted as implying inappropriate behavior or the use of excessive force by police.

Damon Lynch, head of the Cincinnati Black United Front, said the case showed there must be “change at the top of the police force.”

“The community-police relations in Cincinnati have been strained for 30 years. The police officers, the chief, need to resign, retire or be fired,” Lynch said.

Coroner Parrott said Jones suffered from an enlarged heart, and that cocaine and other drugs were found in his bloodstream.

However, the coroner said the “underlying cause” of death was the struggle “engaged in by an overweight man with a bad heart.”

Fraternal Order of Police local president Roger Webster said “At some point, you’ve got to hold Mr. Jones accountable,’’ Webster said. “These police officers are not responsible for his death.’’

“We are concerned about what seemed like excessive force,’’ the Rev. Calvin Harper, president of the Baptist Ministers Conference of Greater Cincinnati and Vicinity said.

“We also are concerned that there seems to be a rush to exonerate the police and an attempt to assassinate the character of Nathaniel Jones before all of the facts are in.’’

Kweisi Mfume, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, also expressed concern about the use of force.

“The sight of police officers repeatedly beating Nathaniel Jones with metal night sticks is sickening and appears well outside of the norm for subduing an unarmed suspect,’’ said Mfume in a statement.

“No one is suggesting that Jones is innocent, but neither are the arresting officers in this instance,’’ Mfume said.

The Citizen Complaint Authority, a city-run panel born from the riots that followed the police shooting of an unarmed black man in 2001, is looking into the death.

The Dec. 1 regular meeting of the complaint panel was disrupted by four activists who demanded quick action.

“It’s apparent that you don’t know what you’re supposed to be doing and what your authority is,” said Nate Livingston Jr., a member of the Coalition for a Just Cincinnati, which promotes an economic boycott of the city until the city takes concrete steps to improve race relations and meet certain demands in regard to policing and city administration.

“When they start fighting in the streets, you’ll say, ‘Why didn’t you do it the right way? Why didn’t you come to City Hall? Why didn’t you trust us? Why didn’t you talk to us?’”

Police were called to escort Livingston and three others from the room when they continued to shout at the panel.

The 2001 riots stemmed from the shooting of Timothy Thomas, 19, who was wanted on several misdemeanor charges and fled when police tried to arrest him. Officer Stephen Roach shot and killed him in a dark alley and was later cleared of criminal charges.

The altercation

Emergency personnel were sent to a White Castle restaurant early Nov. 30 after a report of a man passed out on the grass.

When paramedics arrived, they found Jones and a woman, who was in some sort of medical distress. Jones then regained consciousness and began acting strangely. At that point, following standard procedure, the fire officials called police.

A police videotape shows a squad car arriving at the restaurant at 5:58am, at which point the recording device was switched off.

During the next few moments, which are not visible on tape, the two officers from the squad car approached Jones in the parking lot of the restaurant.

The tape resumes rolling at 6am. An officer is heard saying to Jones, “You got to tell me what’s going on.” Jones then says, “White boy, redneck,” and the tape shows him lunging at the officer and attempting to put him in a headlock.

At that point, the two officers — both of whom are white — wrestle Jones to the ground and use their metal nightsticks, appearing to strike him around the shoulders and torso numerous times and yelling repeatedly, “Put your hands behind your back!”

Soon after, four more officers arrive, and an apparent reference to pepper spray is heard on the tape. The view of Jones, who is being subdued on the pavement in front of the squad car, is obscured from the camera, which is mounted on the dashboard of the police car. At this point, what sounds like “Help!” is heard coming repeatedly from the pile of men. It becomes progressively fainter with each utterance.

A few minutes later, one officer asks for paramedics.

“He’s got a pulse; he’s just not breathing,” the man says of Jones.

Jones died within minutes after an ambulance took him to a hospital, Assistant Chief Richard Janke said.

All six officers who went to the scene — five whites and one black — were placed on administrative leave, which is standard procedure.

The attorney for Nathaniel Jones’ family, Kenneth Lawson, said he partly blamed the police officers and paramedics for Jones’ death because he believes Jones was trying to surrender when police made him lie down.

“I think,” Lawson said, “after you see Mr. Jones go down and then come up on his knees on the tape, you will see... his hands are open, his palms are open, they’re not clenched in a fist in a fighting mode, he is trying to get into a surrender position.”

Lawson also asked why 96 seconds of the police cruiser’s videotape was blank. The tape begins as the cruiser heads to the restaurant, then goes blank for 96 seconds upon arrival before capturing about six minutes of the struggle and arrest. Chief Streicher said that the tape went blank because the officer turned off the car, which shuts off the camera. The officer then turned the camera on by remote control because he thought the incident should be recorded, Streicher said.

Stun guns to save lives?

Cincinnati’s mayor on Dec. 7 urged the city to buy stun guns for its police force in response to Jones’ death feeling that putting electric shock capability into the hands of every police officer will stem the use of excessive force.

“I am looking for any avenue to avoid another struggle,’’ Mayor Charlie Luken wrote in an e-mail to City Council members Sunday that asked them to find $1 million in the 2004 budget to pay for the weapons. “While it is unclear whether the incident would have changed if our officers had the latest technology in tasers, I believe we must equip our police with the very best equipment,’’ Luken wrote.

The newer taser models fire small, needle-like projectiles that can shock a person who is up to 25 feet away, Luken said. The mayor said enough money to buy 1,000 of the new stun guns for the 1,050-officer department could come from not filling 34 middle management city vacancies that he expects within the coming year.

Sources: Associated Press, BBC, CNN

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By Phil Reeves

Baghdad, Iraq, Dec. 8 — It must be strange to be Anthony Lopercio of the US Army’s 82nd Airborne Division.

The 23-year-old private has been dispatched to Fallujah to stand in the front line on what is, for any American, one of the most hostile places in the world. Yet, as he gazes across the dreary Iraqi landscape, feeling the sullen resentment of its population towards foreign occupation, he will not only be wondering about the guerrillas out there. He will also be watching for the portly frame of his father.

Not long ago, Michael Lopercio, a 51-year-old restaurateur from Tempe, Arizona, decided that he was not happy with the quality of the news he was receiving about the war into which his son had been drawn. He also realized that if the conflict dragged on, so would the amount of time that his boy would have to remain in Iraq, where hundreds of young Americans have already died. So he packed his bags and set off to Baghdad to find out for himself what was happening, and to see if there was anything he could do about it.

“We haven’t been getting the full story in the US,” he said. “The media is covering events — shootings and bombings — but not the issues. They are not covering what is really happening to Iraqi people and to the Iraqi infrastructure and how this affects our chances of success here. It’s very important to understand the frustration of the average Iraqi and how unhappy they are with their progress over the last eight months.”

The news that his father was coming to join him in the conflict zone was a surprise for Private Lopercio. “He was utterly shocked when I called him,” said Mr Lopercio. He has yet to gain permission to see his son but hopes it will come before he returns to the United States this weekend.

“It took five minutes to convince him I wasn’t playing a practical joke. But he was pretty excited for me. I thought he might be disapproving, but he said he thought it would be an incredible experience for me.” His son was right. Mr Lopercio has found it incredible. Incredible that, eight months after the invasion and occupation began, children are still dying in Iraqi hospitals through a lack of antibiotics. Incredible that schools have no lights, no heating, no books.

And incredible that, while he has been in Iraq this week, the occupation authorities have staged an expensive public relations stunt by removing the monolithic stone busts of Saddam Hussein that stood on the top of the palace in which Paul Bremer, the chief US administrator, has his headquarters.

“Why the hell are they wasting money taking down those heads of Saddam from the coalition authority’s palace when they could be spending it on something more meaningful, like bringing heat and light and medicine to Iraqi hospitals?” asks Mr Lopercio. His mission required courage, not only because of the dangers of being an American in Iraq: his willingness to challenge his country’s reasons for going to war, and its disastrous handling of the aftermath of the invasion, has not gone down particularly well in Arizona.

He says conservative radio talk shows have begun attacking his wife, a social worker, after she gave interviews to the newspapers about his trip. “They have been reading out the interviews on the air, and giving her a hard time. She’s a little scared, and out of her element, to be sure.” He is one of a delegation of nine family members of US soldiers and army veterans who have come to Iraq, led by the San Francisco-based human rights group Global Exchange. Most of the group oppose the occupation, while others say they simply want to see the situation for themselves.

Among the group is Billy Kelly, a 60-year-old retired New York barman who fought in Vietnam in 1967. He said: “There is not a day that goes by when I don’t think about what happened there 35 years ago.” He had, he said, come to check out a suspicion that what is playing out in Iraq has similarities to his own grim experience in uniform. He, too, has had a hard time for his stance, not least because he is from the city that was the principal target of the 9/11 atrocities. “Some of my friends say that I’m a traitor. But I feel that people can accept me, or not. My hope is just that there will be a dialogue about what’s going on. It hasn’t happened yet. At the moment, we have a diatribe from one side or the other.”

Anabelle Valencia, from Tucson, Arizona, had tried to visit her daughter, Giselle Valencia, who is an army truck driver stationed in Tikrit. But she was on a mission, and not at the base.

The delegation represents an increasingly organized minority that is willing to challenge the unremitting spin from the Bush administration and from Downing Street as both governments seek to justify their operations in Iraq.

Another member of the group is Fernando Suarez del Solar. His son Jesus Alberto, a US Marine, was one of the first Americans to be killed in Iraq — the victim of an American cluster bomb. He has become a vocal opponent of George Bush’s policy in Iraq, denouncing the invasion as illegal and demanding the immediate withdrawal of troops. “Our mission is talking to ordinary Iraqis and US troops, figuring out why things have gone so terribly wrong and what we can do to stop the violence and bring the troops home,” he said.

The delegation has been met with a resounding lack of enthusiasm from the US military and “coalition” officials. They have been warning the media of the dangers of the visit, at the same time as trying to persuade it that most of the country is free of violence.

None of that has deterred Mr Suarez del Solar. He has a mission: to visit the spot where his son died and bring home a jar of the soil into which he bled. It will be placed in a park that the boy used to visit and marked with a white rose.

Source: Independent (UK)

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Ann Arbor, Michigan, Dec. 4— Students from 25 colleges, universities and high schools organized nationwide protests against Dow Chemical yesterday, Dec. 3, as a part of the first-annual Global Day of Action Against Corporate Crime. Dow Chemical, which was key manufacturer of chemical warfare agents Napalm and Agent Orange, faced such widespread protests for the first time since the Vietnam War due to its February 2001 acquisition of Union Carbide — the perpetrator of the Bhopal disaster. The protests, organized by Students for Bhopal, Association for India’s Development (AID) chapters, and the Environmental Justice Program of the Sierra Student Coalition (SSC), called on Dow to accept its moral and legal responsibility for the world’s worst industrial disaster.

On Dec. 3, 1984, a toxic cloud of gas from the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, enveloped the surrounding city, leaving thousands dead. More than 20,000 have died till date and more than 120,000 people still suffer from severe health problems as a result of their exposure. Chemicals and heavy metals that Union Carbide abandoned at the site -— including mercury, trichloroethene, chloroform, and lead-— have contaminated the water supply for 20,000 Bhopal residents. Despite acquiring Union Carbide, Dow Chemical has refused to address Carbide’s pending liabilities in Bhopal, that include medical and economic rehabilitation of victims, clean up of toxic wastes and contaminated groundwater, and provision of safe drinking water. Union Carbide is a proclaimed fugitive from justice for its failure to appear in Indian courts to face trial for manslaughter.

Students across the country delivered samples of contaminated water from Bhopal to the homes of eleven of Dow’s fourteen Board members, including the CEO, William Stavropoulos. Although many of the deliveries were either refused or ignored, Dr. Harold T. Shapiro, the President Emeritus of Princeton University and an 18-year member of Dow Chemical’s Board of Directors, accepted a sample of the contaminated water following an open talk to the Princeton community on bioethics. Dr. Shapiro also accepted the testimonial of a Bhopal victim.

“The contamination that Dow-Carbide left behind in Bhopal is their responsibility, and it belongs in their hands,” said Sujata Ray, a member of the Princeton AID chapter that presented the water. “We’re pleased that Dr. Shapiro, when faced with the consequences of his company’s inaction in Bhopal, accepted a sample of the contamination on behalf of Dow-Carbide. Unfortunately the behavior of the other Board members typifies that of Dow-Carbide, which continues to deny and evade their legal and moral responsibilities in Bhopal.”

“Clearly, the water contamination in Bhopal is an issue that needs to be brought ‘home’ to Dow-Carbide,” declared Jaimini Parekh, an SSC member who organized a “return-to-sender” action against Board member Jackie Barton. “Dow-Carbide has seemed content to condemn the survivors of Bhopal to wallow in the contamination that it left behind. The fact that Dow-Carbide has not acted to stop the ongoing contamination of tens of thousands — for which it is responsible — is inhumane, unjust, and immoral.”

Several rallies were held outside of Dow-Carbide offices and facilities, including those in Dallas, Texas and Smithfield, Rhode Island. As during the Vietnam War, students also protested against college affiliations with Dow-Carbide, including recruitment, investment, and financial contributions.

“Students are outraged,” said Ryan Bodanyi, an organizer with Students for Bhopal. “They don’t want their colleges and universities accepting money from a corporation that maintains its profit margins by poisoning people and blithely standing aside as they die. Dow-Carbide’s callous disregard for the value of human life hasn’t changed much since the Vietnam War, and students aren’t going to be any more forgiving now than they were then. Dow-Carbide should expect these protests to continue and intensify.”

“We’re not going to allow Dow-Carbide to get away with murder,” declared Nishant Jain, one of the leaders of AID’s Austin chapter. “Enron’s crimes may have cost people their retirement portfolios, but Dow-Carbide’s crimes in Bhopal have cost tens of thousands of people their health and their lives. People are fed up with corporate violations of our labor, environmental, and human rights, which is why so many people have united to take action on the anniversary of Bhopal, a particularly heinous corporate crime.”

Thousands of people from sixteen countries participated in the Global Day of Action in solidarity against Dow-Carbide and other corporate criminals. Events and actions took place in 16 cities across India, including Bhopal, as well as in the Netherlands, UK, USA, Lebanon, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Philippines, China, Denmark, Switzerland, Spain, Bangladesh, Canada, and Italy.

Source: Students for Bhopal

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