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Editorial
Reviews: Jill Nelson in USA Today, 10/22/99 "The new edition of Stolen Lives: Killed by Law Enforcement gives life, face and context to more than
2,000 people killed by police officers since 1990. The powerful and chilling
book... is a stark... documentation of circumstances surrounding the deaths
of individuals killed by police officers. Reading this book resurrects these
lives briefly and makes painfully clear the price paid first by those killed,
but ultimately by all Americans, when we allow those hired to serve and protect
to abuse their power and our trust. The victims of Stolen Lives cross race,
gender, religion, geography and circumstance. Unknown to one another and to
most of us in life, in death they speak with one voice. Their message is a
simply one: No more lives should be lost as a result of police misconduct
and brutality. The argument about how many rotten apples there are in law
enforcement is absurd in the face of these stolen lives."
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Jimmy
Breslin in New York Newsday, 10/13/99- "[Stolen Lives is]
a large striking book...contain[ing] the pictures and short accounts of
the deaths of 2,000 people killed by law enforcement in America, hundreds
of them here [in New York City]. All but a couple of the victims were dark
and the police were white and virtually none got into trouble until now....
Looking at the book yesterday, page after page of young dead, I was unprepared
for the nightmare."
More
Editorial Reviews
J.
Andree Smith, mother of police brutality victim Justin Smith, associate
editor of Daily Challenge, in Daily Challenge [Brooklyn, NY], 10/7/99 -"[Stolen Lives]
provides important and compelling exposure of the nationwide epidemic of
police brutality and murder. Speaking through the pages, [my son] Justin
and more than 2,00 others who have been killed, our families, loved ones
and communities under the gun tell their heart-wrenching and shocking stories.
For people who don't deal with police brutality in their daily lives, this
book of human tragedies shows that the phenomenon of beatings and killings
by those sworn to protect us is more than just a 'few bad apples' or some
'isolated incidents,' as police would have us believe. As a mother whose
youngest son has joined the spirits of these victims, I painfully relived
Justin's unjustified killing...[in] each person's story."
Carl
Dix in Revolutionary Worker, 10/17/99 - "Opening
the new Stolen Lives edition is like uncovering a mass grave. This book
is our declaration: BASTA YA, NO
MORE!"
Dr.
William F. Schulz, Executive Director, Amnesty International - "As recently
as 199l, 5% of the American people (approximately l2.5 million people) and
9% of all people of color in this country reported in a Gallup poll that
they had been mistreated by the police. Under the Police Accountability
Act provisions of the 1994 Crime Control Act, the Justice Department is
required to compile and publish regularly detailed national data on police
use of force. Such data is not, however, available in any satisfactory form.
That private organizations have undertaken to begin such a compilation is
highly commendable. But that they should have had to do so is both a tragedy
and an indictment of the government. The only way the American public will
ever demand an end to harassment and unjustified killings by the police
is if they know the full extent and nature of the problem. The Stolen Lives
Project makes a valuable contribution to that education. What is required
now is to put our knowledge to work to stop the police violence t! hat has
made this project necessary in the first place."
Chuck
D., Public Enemy, in a public service announcement video announcing the
Stolen Lives book, October 1999 - "The Stolen Lives Project is a good project. It
helps people keep in line in the fight to stop police brutality. Police
brutality -- a NO NO NO NO NO!"
Nicholas
Heyward, Sr., father of Nicholas, Jr., African American, shot dead at age
13 by a housing authority cop for playing with a bright orange toy gun in
the stairwell of his building - "It is somewhat difficult at times for me to talk
about my son and the situation that happened to him. He was l3 years old
when he was gunned down by a police officer in a complex where we live out
in Brooklyn [New York]. This happened in 1994. There was never any justice
done in the case. It's always been hard for me to understand why justice
can't be done when the people who are being killed are innocent kids. Stolen
Lives means a lot to me because it is keeping alive the names of those who
died. These are innocent people who are being gunned down and something
must be done."
Book
Description - Stolen
Lives documents over 2000 cases of people killed by law enforcement agents
throughout the U.S. since 1990. Information includes the victims' names,
ages, race/nationality, date killed, location, and a description of the
circumstances surrounding their deaths. Some photos of victims are also
included. The book includes cases from 47 states and Washington, D.C.
From
the Inside Flap - Stolen
Lives - Killed by Law Enforcement is dedicated to all those who have lost
their lives at the hands of brutal law enforcement officers and to the families
of victims who have inspired a movement to fight for justice and demand
that police brutality stop.
From
the Back Cover - There is a nationwide
epidemic of police brutality in the United States. The victims are overwhelmingly
African American, Latino, and other people of color.
Stolen
Lives provides important and compelling exposures of the nationwide epidemic
of police brutality and murder. People who've been killed, their families
and loved ones, and communities under the gun speak through the pages and
tell their stories. And they get a platform to speak out even more broadly.
Among
people who don't deal with police brutality in their daily lives, this book
shows that it's more than just a "few bad apples" or some "isolated
incidents." Many such people will be moved to join the struggle against
police brutality and stand with those under the gun when they see the shocking
scope of this epidemic.
About the Author - The October 22 Coalition to Stop Police Brutality,
Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation organizes a National
Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality on October 22 of each year. In 1998,
the 3rd National Day of Protest featured demonstrations, cultural events,
and other actions in over 60 cities across the U.S. Families of police brutality
victims played a leading role in these activities.
The
National Lawyers Guild is a bar association that believes human rights are
more sacred than property interests, and that has been defending progressive
movements for social change for the past 62 years.
The
Anthony Baez Foundation was established by the family of Anthony Baez, a
young man killed by a New York City cop in an illegal chokehold on Dec.
22, 1994. The Foundation provides political, emotional and moral support
and legal referrals to families who lose loved ones to brutal police.
Excerpted
from Stolen Lives - Killed by Law Enforcement (2nd edition) by October 22 Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, Anthony Baez Foundation,
National Lawyers Guild. Copyright © 1999. Reprinted by permission. All rights
reserved
Amadou Diallo - age 22 - Guinean (West African) - killed
Feb. 4, 1999 - Bronx (Soundview). Amadou Diallo came to New York from his
homeland in Guinea, West Africa, to work and study. He worked long hours
as a street vendor, selling socks and videotapes on Manhattan's 14th Street.
On the night he was killed, he got home from a long day of work around midnight
and then stepped out again, possibly to get something to eat. Four white
cops, New York Police Officers Sean Carroll, Kenneth Boss, Edward McMellon,
and Richard Murphy fired 41 bullets at him as he stood in the narrow vestibule
of his building, hitting him 19 times and killing him. Officers McMellon
and Carroll emptied their clips, firing 16 shots each. Officer Boss fired
five shots and Officer Murphy fired four. Bullets penetrated deep into the
building, going through the walls of an occupied apartment. Amadou was unarmed.
All that was found on him were his wallet and his beeper. The cops were
members of the Street Crimes Unit (SCU), which is notorious for stopping
and searching large numbers of Black and Latino men without probable cause.
The SCU's slogan is "We own the night," and members of the unit
were known to wear t-shirts bearing an Ernest Hemingway quote about the
thrill of hunting human beings. Massive community outrage followed the murder
of Amadou Diallo. His funeral was attended by thousands, and his coffin
was carried through the street outside the mosque after the service. There
were weeks of near-daily demonstrations around the city, and over 1,200
people demanding murder indictments of the four cops were arrested in acts
of civil disobedience in front of police headquarters. Large numbers of
people of diverse ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds were outraged at
this cold-blooded murder and the city's failure to arrest the cops. Under
intense community pressure and almost two months after killing Amadou Diallo,
the four cops were indicted by a grand jury for second-degree murder. Outside
the hearing where the indictments were unsealed, several hundred off-duty
cops held a demonstration supporting the four cops who murdered Amadou Diallo,
saying, "It could have been any one of us." After their indictments,
the four cops were arrested, but released on bail almost immediately. They
were suspended without pay for 30 days, but then returned to work on desk
duty. Through their lawyers, the cops suggested that perhaps they thought
Amadou had a gun, perhaps he made a suspicious movement, perhaps he did
not obey their order to stop. But as of Aug., 1999, they have not offered
a concrete explanation for why they shot Amadou so many times. Outrage mounted
when it came out that cops searched Mr. Diallo's apartment after they killed
him, looking for drugs or something they could use to defame his reputation
and thereby justify his death (they didn't find anything). An autopsy showed
that at least one bullet hit Amadou in the bottom of the foot, showing that
the cops kept shooting after he was down. In the wake of the shooting, the
city speeded up its plan to arm cops with deadlier hollow-point bullets
on the grounds that the number of shots fired showed that police lacked
adequate "stopping power." Officer Boss had previously shot and
killed another Black man, Patrick Bailey, on Oct. 31, 1997. Two of the other
cops who killed Amadou Diallo had previously been involved in non-fatal
shootings.
"Profiles
in Injustice: Why Racial Profiling Cannot Work" David Harris, New
York: The New Press, 2002
