[NYTr] "A Christmas Cage" by Mumia Abu-Jamal

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Joan Malerich 

[Amazing report from Mumia after he was arrested and imprisoned in 
February, 1982.  What kept Mumia alive and continues to keep Mumia 
alive?  It is the political will for justice that runs through his 
veins.  It is that political will that the rest of must develop.  Don't 
expect it to come in the form of a Christmas present.  While reading 
this essay by Mumia, ask yourself how different and how similar the 
treatment of Mumia is from those tortured at the US Base in Guantanmo.
- JM]

Infoshop News - Dec
27http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20071224000101758

A Christmas Cage by Mumia Abu-Jamal

After recovering from his gunshot wound and surgery , Mumia Abu-Jamal 
wrote "A Christmas Cage." 
<http://againstthecrimeofsilence.de/News/Christmas-Cage.doc> in 
Philadelphia's Community newspaper (February 1982). He describes his 
beatings by police on the day of his Dec. 9, 1981 arrest, continued 
mistreatment following surgery, and the broader political context of
his case. Recently featured by Reuters 
<http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN0454988720071204> and 
on NBC's Today Show <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz-NL0Ju6aE>, 
Abu-Jamal is now awaiting a ruling from The US Third Circuit Court of 
Appeals <http://www.abu-jamal-news.com/temp/May17Audio.html>.

Abu-Jamal is now awaiting a ruling from The US Third Circuit Court of 
Appeals following oral arguments on May 17.

A Christmas Cage

by Mumia Abu-Jamal
February, 1982

Shortly before 6 A.M., the speaker in this tiny, barren cell blares a 
message, said to be from prison superintendent David Owens: "A Merry 
Christmas to all inmates of the Philadelphia prison system. It is our 
hope that this will be the last holiday season you spend with us."

A guard reads Owen's name and the speaker falls silent for a half-hour. 
I wonder at the words, and ponder my first Christmas in the Hospital 
wing of the Detention Center. Christmas in a cage.

I have finally been able to read press accounts of the incident that 
left me near death, a policeman dead, and me charg­ed with his murder. 
It is nightmarish that my brother and I should be in this foul 
predicament, particularly since my main accusers, the police, were my 
attackers as well. My true crime seems to have been my survival of
their assaults, for we were the victims that night.

To add insult to injury, I have learned that the forces of "law &
order" have threat­ened my mother and burned, or permitted the burning,
of my brother's street bus­iness. Talk about curbside justice!
Ac­cord­ing to some press accounts, cops stood around the fire joking,
and then celebrated at the stationhouse.

Nowhere have I read an account of how I got shot, how a bullet happened 
to find its way near my spine, shattering a rib, splitting a kidney,
and nearly destroying my diaphragm. And people wonder why I have no
trust in a "fair trial!" Nowhere have I read that a bullet left a hole
in my lung, filling it with blood!

Nowhere have I read how police found me, lying in a pool of my blood, 
unable to breathe, and then proceeded to punch, kick, and stomp me-not 
question me. I remember being rammed into a pole or a fireplug with 
police at both arms. I remember kicks to my head, my face, my chest, my 
belly, my back, and other places. But I have read no press accounts,
and have heard tell of no witnesses.

Nowhere have I read of how I was handcuffed, thrown into a paddy
wa­gon, and beaten, kicked, punched and pum­meled. Where are the
witnesses to a police captain or inspector entering the wagon and
beating me with a po­lice radio, all the while addressing me as a
"Black motherfucker?" Where are the witnesses to the beating that left
me with a four inch scar on my fore­head? A swollen jaw? Chipped teeth?

Not to end prematurely, who witnessed me pulled from the paddy wagon, 
drop­ped three feet to the cold hard earth, beaten some more, dragged 
into Jeffer­son Hospital, and then beaten inside the Hos­pital as I 
fought for breath on one lung?

I awoke after surgery to find my belly ripped from top to bottom, with 
metallic staples protruding. My penis, strapped to a tube, and tubes 
leading from each nostril to God knows where, was my first
recollection. My second was intense pain and pressure in my already
ripped kidneys, as a policeman stood at the doorway, a smile on his
moustached lips, his nametag removed and his badge covered. Why was he
smiling and why the pain? He was standing on a plastic, square bag, the
receptacle for my urine!

Am I to trust these men, as they at­tempt to murder me, again, in a 
public hospital? Not long afterwards, I was shaken to consciousness by
a kick at the foot of my bed. I opened my eyes to see a cop standing in 
the doorway, an Uzi submachine gun in his hands. "Innocent until proven 
guilty?"

HIGH WATER PANTS & COLD

Days later, after being transferred to ci­ty custody at Guiffre Medical 
Center, un­der armed police guard, I was put in a room (#202) in the 
basement's de­tent­ion unit, which is the coldest in the place.

After I was transferred to what's laugh­ingly referred to as the "new 
hospital" wing of the Detention Center, I found out what "cold" really 
means. For the first two days the temperature plum­meted so low that 
inmates wore blank­ets over their prison jackets.

I had been officially issued a short-sleeved shirt and some tight 
high-water pants, and I was so cold that for the first night I could
not sleep. Other inmates saved me from the cold. One found a prison
jacket for me. (I had asked a guard, but he told me I would have to
wait until an old inmate rolls, or gets out. So much for "using the
system.") Other inmates, and a kind nurse, supplemented my night warmth.

The prison issued one bedsheet and one light wool blanket. When I 
protested to a social worker she told me defensively, "I know it's
cold, but there's nothing I can do. The warden's been told about the
problem." Why am I concerned about cold? Because the doctor who treated
me at Jefferson Hospital explained that the only real threat to my
health was pneumonia, because of my punctured lung. Is it purely
coincidental that for the next week I spent some of the coldest nights
and days of my life? Is the city, through the prison system, trying to
kill me before I go to trial? What do they fear? I told this all to my
prison social worker (a Mrs. Barbara Waldbaum), and she poo-pooed the
suggestion. "No, Mr. Jamal, we want to see you get better." "Not
hardly," I replied.

Miraculously, after my complaints, some semblance of heat found its way 
into the cells on my side of the wall. Enough to sleep, at least. Is it 
coincidental, too, that the heat began to go on the night I was visited 
by Superintendent David Owens? "It is our hope that this will be the 
last holiday season you spend with us..." Owens' words ring through my 
mind again - is there another, grim meaning to this seemingly innocuous 
holiday greeting?

ECHOES OF PEDRO SERRANO

There is another side to this controversial case that people are not 
aware of. My cell is reasonably close to the place where Pedro Serrano 
was severely beaten and strangled to death. I have talked to 
eyewitnesses - some who I know in the street. These brothers, at 
considerable personal peril, have told their stories to police and to 
prison officials, to city Managing Director W.W. Goode, to the Puerto 
Rican Alliance, and to me. Some have been threatened by guards for
doing so, but they have done so despite the threats.

According to several versions Serrano, who had already been beaten by 
guards, was shaking his cell door, making noise to attract attention. 
Guards, angered at the noise, ordered all inmates into lock-up. Most 
complied. One, a paralyzed, wheel chair-bound inmate, did not. He drove 
his chair near a wall, and watched in silence.

The guards opened Serrano's cell, dragged him out, and proceeded to 
punch, kick and stomp him. He cried out in pain and terror, but the 
other inmates, lock­ed up, were helpless. One guard, well-known for his 
violence, report­edly whipped him with his long keychain, pro­duc­ing 
thin red welts in Serrano's white flesh.

Before this latest as­sault on my brother and myself, I covered a press 
conference called by the Puerto Rican Al­liance and members of the 
Serrano family. I saw photographs of Pedro Serrano, his face swollen 
even in death. I saw a body riddled with swellings, bruises, and welts. 
I remember the thick dark bruises be­neath his neck and I remember 
calling David Owens for a comment.

"Mumia," he answered, "Mr. Ser­rano was not beaten to death, ac­cording 
to all the reports I've received. The Medical the Examiner concurs, 
Owens said au­thor­it­at­ively. "Mr. Ser­rano was not beaten by any 
member of my staff," Owens would later proclaim to my radio listeners.

Remember the dark bruise around Serrano's neck? Owens told me he 
apparently strangled on a leather restraining belt, by exerting 
pres­sure until death. Inmate eye­witnesses say a guard wrapped the 
leather strap around Serrano's neck and pulled him back into the room, 
where he was again beaten and placed in restraints. Serrano, arrested 
for burglary, was describ­ed by his wife as being in love with life,
and surely not suicidal, as prison officials have suggested.

Why have I recounted these intric­acies of a case that is now public 
knowledge? I'll tell you why: be­cause my jailers, the men who de­cide 
whether I am to leave my cell for food, for phone calls, for pain 
medication, for a visit for a loved one, are the very same men who are 
accused of murdering Pedro Serrano!

Remember the D.A.'s claim that police had enough evidence to charge me 
with murder? How much more evidence do they have on Serrano's accused 
murderers? Yet every day they come to work, do their do, and return
home to their loved ones ... while others sit in isolation and squalor.

Consider the scenario - accused murderers guarding accused murderers! 
How insane - yet, how telling it is of the system's brutality.

JUSTICE FOR WHOM?

What is the dividing line? That Serrano was a "spic," a "dirty P.R.," 
and thus his life is worthy of the diversions of a system that talks 
justice, yet practices genocide. I am accused of killing a policeman, 
who was, moreover, white. For that, not even the pretense of justice is 
necessary. "Beat him, shoot him, frame him, put fear into his family"
is the unwritten, but very real script.

I have been shackled like a slave, hands and feet, for daring to live. 
Those who have dared to question the official version have been 
threatened with dismissal from their jobs, and some with death.

Why do they fear one man so much? Not because they loved his alleged 
"victim" - but because they fear any questioning of their role of 
accuser, and, occasionally, executioner. Who polices the police? The 
D.A. is well-known as a character whose only interest is higher 
political office - obviously he would oppose a special prosecutor, for 
he wants his office to have the glory of hanging murder on "the radical 
reporter."

Where was Ed Rendell when Winston C.X. Hood and Cornell Warren were 
summarily executed, their hands shackled behind them? What credence did 
he give the witnesses to these murders? Or the outright, cold-blooded 
killing of seventeen-year old William Johnson Green? Or the 
intentionally broadcast beating of Delbert Africa? Where was his 
unquenchable thirst for justice then? Need we mention Pedro Serrano?

Make no mistaka-jaka! As a nigger or a spic, there is no semblance of 
justice and we better stop lying to ourselves.

Who are we to blame? No one but our­sel­ves. For we condone and allow
it to hap­pen. We are still locked in the slav­ish men­tality of our
past centuries, for we care more for the oppressor than for our­selves.

How many more martyrs will bleed their last, before we wake up, stand 
up, demand and fight for justice?

And justice, true justice, comes not from the good graces of the 
Philadel­phia Police Department, the District At­torney's offi­ce, the 
court system, or your friendly neigh­borhood lawyer. It comes from God, 
the giver of your very life, your health, your air, and your food.

=====================================================
*FROM MumiaNYC at yahoogroups.com:*  Video footage is now available of the 
Dec.4 "Murdered By Mumia?" press conference organized by Journalists
for Mumia (Parts One and Two), as well as the Dec. 8 slide show
presentation of the newly discovered crime scene photos that were
recently spotlighted by Reuters, NBC's Today Show, and National Public
Radio, Indymedia.org, Counterpunch, The Philadelphia Tribune, The Black 
Commentator, Dissident Voice, Media Channel, Workers World, The 
Philadelphia Weekly, and Final Call.

--For more information, the Journalists for Mumia Abu-Jamal website is: 
Abu-Jamal-News.com or also visit: FreeMumia.com (NYC), FreeMumia.org 
(SF), EmajOnline.com (Educators for Mumia), PrisonRadio.org (Mumia's 
Radio Essays), or contact:

International Concerned Family & Friends of MAJ
P.O. Box 19709
Philadelphia, PA 19143
Phone - 215-476-8812/ Fax - 215-476-6180
E-mail - icffmaj at aol.com

--For more information, the Journalists for Mumia Abu-Jamal website is: 
Abu-Jamal-News.com or also visit: FreeMumia.com (NYC), FreeMumia.org 
(SF), EmajOnline.com (Educators for Mumia), PrisonRadio.org (Mumia's 
Radio Essays), or contact:

International Concerned Family & Friends of MAJ
P.O. Box 19709
Philadelphia, PA 19143
Phone - 215-476-8812/ Fax - 215-476-6180
E-mail - icffmaj at aol.com