The Jamal Journal: The International Movement Supporting US Political Prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal: March 9 email from Prison Radio: The State Wants Mumia to Die (Health Update, New Ways to Take Action)

Tuesday, March 9, 2021

March 9 email from Prison Radio: The State Wants Mumia to Die (Health Update, New Ways to Take Action)

Email update just released by Prison Radio:

Let me be clear.

This is a life and death situation and we need to mobilize immediately.

Congestive heart failure. Unrelenting skin eruptions are causing damaged, ruptured, leathery, dry, exposed wounds. Not one spot on his body is free of dry cracked and bloody open wounds. No longer in an outside hospital, Mumia is back in the prison infirmary in excruciating discomfort and pain.

The message from his personal physician, Dr. Ricardo Alvarez, could not be clearer, “Freedom is the only treatment.”

Mumia requires: Treatment - Diagnosis – Liberation

We must not wait one moment, one day, one heartbeat. We must ACT NOW to treat these conditions:

Congestive Heart Failure

Covid-19 breathing difficulties

Organ failure of the skin

Mumia is being denied diagnosis and adequate treatment for his skin condition. He is held in isolation in the prison infirmary without healing salves and ointments that he had in his cell. He is also denied regular access to a phone or access to his tablet which provides the connection to his email. This communication is a vital lifeline.

Make no mistake, phone calls do work - last week your phone calls meant that he was whisked to the hospital for four days. He was diagnosed and treated for congestive heart failure and they removed excess fluid in his body. Those treatments must continue to be carefully monitored.

(Recent photo of Mumia's leg: full of sores and bloody wounds.)

He is now in the infirmary at SCI Mahanoy: the same infirmary where he suffered medical neglect in 2014 that sent him into renal failure. That year his medical care required careful blood sugar monitoring and when he did not receive that, he went into a diabetic coma. Abu-Jamal vs. Wetzel, a lawsuit over those conditions, is still pending.

The Fraternal Order of Police has stated that it intends for Mumia to die alone, inside this prison. We say no.

CALL TO ACTION: Call, write, tweet, post and fax to demand “freedom, treatment, diagnosis, and access to his lawyers, doctors, and family for Mumia Abu-Jamal at SCI Mahanoy.”

PADOC

Phone number: 717-728-2573

Contact form: https://expressforms.pa.gov/apps/pa/cor/contact-us

Email address: ra-contactdoc@pa.gov,

Twitter page: @CorrectionsPA

Facebook page: @CorrectionsPA

John Wetzel, Secretary of Corrections - name Mumia Abu-Jamal and SCI Mahanoy in subject line

Phone number: 717-728-4109

Email address: ra-crofficeofrds@pa.gov or ra-crpadocsecretary@pa.gov,

Twitter page: @johnewetzel, @DOCSecretary

Tom Wolf, Governor

Phone number: 717-787-2500, pick option #3 for operator

Fax: 717-772-8284

Online form: https://www.governor.pa.gov/contact/

Write:

Office of the Governor

508 Main Capitol Building

Harrisburg, PA 17120

Twitter page: @GovernorTomWolf, @GovernorsOffice

Facebook page: @governorwolf, @TomWolfPA

Instagram page: @governortomwolf

Larry Krasner, District Attorney

Phone number: 215-686-8000, leave a message

Email: justice@phila.gov, DA_East@phila.gov, DA_Central@phila.gov, DA_Northwest@phila.gov, DA_South@phila.gov, DA_Southwest@phila.gov, DA_Northeast@phila.gov

Write:

Main Office

Three South Penn Square

Corner of Juniper and South Penn Square

Philadelphia, PA 19107-3499

Twitter page: @philadao

Facebook page: @philadao

Reach Philadelphia DA Krasner as he speaks at events - demand that he drop the case and free Mumia at once:

Today’s recruiting event for Columbia Law School

March 9th at 6:00 p.m. EST

email erin.wexler@phila.gov to register: https://www.law.columbia.edu/events/virtual-recruiting-event-philadelphia-da-larry-krasner-2021-03-09

April 20 Author event at 6:30 p.m. CDT, free to register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/larry-krasner-for-the-people-a-story-of-justice-and-power-tickets-142138954439

Vincent Hughes, State Senator

Phone: 215-879-7777 (District Office), 717-787-7112 (Harrisburg Office)

Fax: 215-879-7778 (District Office), 717-772-0579 (Harrisburg Office)

Write:

2401 North 54th Street

Philadelphia, PA 19131

(District Office)

545 Capitol Building

Senate Box 203007

Harrisburg, PA 17120-3007

(Harrisburg Office)

Online form: https://www.senatorhughes.com/contact/

Email: hughes@pasenate.com

Twitter page: @SenHughesOffice, @SenatorHughes

Facebook page: @vincent.hughes.7

Instagram page: @senhughesoffice

Cindy Bass, City Council of Philadelphia

Phone number: 215-686-3424

Fax: 215-686-1937

Online form: https://phlcouncil.com/cindybass/, contact field at the bottom

Twitter page: @cindybassphilly

Facebook page: @cindybassphilly

Instagram page: @cindybassphilly

Bernadette Mason, SCI Mahanoy Superintendent

Phone number: 570-773-2158

https://www.cor.pa.gov/Facilities/StatePrisons/Pages/Mahanoy.aspx

Office of Criminal Justice

Rachael Eisenberg

Director of Policy and Planning- Office of Criminal Justice at City of Philadelphia

Email: rachael.eisenberg@phila.gov (Director) or call (215) 686-9027

https://www.phila.gov/departments/office-of-criminal-justice/

Hashtags

#FreeMumia

#COVID19

#FreeAgingPeopleFromPrison

#FreeTheVulnerable

#FreeAllPoliticalPrisoners

#TreatmentisFreedom

#BlackLivesMatter

#FreeThemAll

(Recent photo of Mumia being held in the SCI Mahanoy infirmary)

Write our brother:

(Though Mumia is incarcerated at SCI Mahanoy in Pennsylvania, all mail must be sent to the aforementioned physical address for electronic scanning. Keep in mind he only receives copies, no original mail.)

Smart Communications/PADOC

Mumia Abu-Jamal AM 8335

SCI Mahanoy

PO Box 33028

St Petersburg, FL 33733

Follow these and your local Mumia Abu-Jamal organization for updates and calls to action

Prison Radio

International Concerned Friends and Family of Mumia Abu-Jamal

Campaign to Bring Mumia Home

No comments:

ICFFMAJ’s Network of Supporters

Philadelphia:

Mobilization 4 Mumia

(215) 724-1618

mobilization4mumia@gmail.com www.mobilization4mumia.com

New York:

Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC)

(212) 330-8029

info@freemumia.com

www.freemumia.com

Campaign to Bring Mumia Home

info@bringmumiahome.com

www.bringmumiahome.com

California:

Prison Radio

(415) 648-4505

info@prisonradio.org

www.prisonradio.org

SF Bay Area Mobilization to Free Mumia

(510) 268-9429

www.free-mumia.org

Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia

www.laboractionmumia.org

France:

Collectif Unitaire National De Soutien A Mumia Abu-Jamal

Telephone: 01 53 38 99 99

Fax: 01 40 40 90 98 contact@mumiabujamal.com

www.mumiabujamal.com

International Solidarity Committee for Mumia Abu-Jamal and Political Prisoners (COSIMAPP), co-founder Julia Wright

julianahrv1966@gmail.com

Mumia’s Legal Team:

Contact the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (click here)

Mumia FAQ by Mobilization 4 Mumia

On December 9, 1981 Mumia Abu-Jamal, a journalist and former Black Panther, was arrested for the murder of white Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. He was convicted and sentenced to death in a trial that was rife with perjured testimony and manufactured evidence that Amnesty International found, "did not meet the minimum international standards for a fair trial."

Mumia was working as a cab driver to make extra money when he happened upon Officer Faulkner, who had stopped his brother Billy Cook, and was beating him in the head with a metal flashlight.

The prosecutor, Joseph McGill, presented a story that has Mumia running behind the officer and shooting him in the back. He then claimed that the officer turned around and pulled his weapon shooting Mumia in the chest. McGill ends the story by saying the officer fell to the ground where Mumia stood over him and unloaded on him, missing with several shots but hitting him once between the eyes. McGill also claimed that Mumia confessed to the shooting later on in police custody.

None of the physical evidence supports the prosecution's case! Mumia did legally own a gun, not uncommon for anyone driving a cab in Philadelphia during that time. However, the police never tested his gun to see if it had been fired nor tested his hands to see if they had recently fired a gun. They bullet taken from Faulkner could not be matched to Mumia's gun.

There were no divots in the sidewalk around the officer's head as there would have been if the shooter had stood above him. The only bullets that were found were approximately eight feet west to where Faulkner was laying and were from an angle that would not have been possible from the trajectory where Mumia entered the scene.

The bullet wound that hit Mumia also debunks the prosecution's scenario. The bullet was traveling at a hard downward trajectory suggesting that his body was learning forward while still running to the scene when he was shot, and that the officer was elevated, likely standing on the sidewalk.

The prosecution witnesses told different stories in their original statements than they did at trial. One, a prostitute named Cynthia White, changed her story five times by the time she reached trial. Another, a cab driver named Robert Chobert, who was driving with a suspended license while on probation for arson, first told arriving officers, "the shooter ran away." He then said the shooter ran thirty feet and fell despite the fact that Mumia was laying less than three feet from Faulkner.

Crime scene photographs that were never disclosed to the defense until 2007 show that Chobert was not parked where he said he was. They also show confirm that there were no bullet divots around Faulkner's head, that police collected evidence incorrectly - damaging its integrity, and that the officer's hat had been moved from its original place on the roof of a car suggesting that Faulkner was talking to a passenger.

Four different witnesses claimed that they saw someone running from the scene. In 1995 at a post-conviction relief act hearing it was discovered that Faulkner had a temporary drivers license for another person in his pocket when he was killed. The owner of that license, Arnold Howard, revealed at the 1995 PCRA hearing that though he was able to prove he was not there that night that he had loaned his license to a friend named Kenneth Freeman who was close with Billy Cook.

There were three different police officers who claimed that Mumia confessed. The only officer who testified at trial, Gary Bell, claimed that after Mumia was brought into Jefferson hospital for his gunshot wound, he yelled, "I shot the motherfucker and I hope the motherfucker dies."

However, the officer never made a report of the incident and claimed to have forgotten this crucial information for over sixty days. He had no recollection until after Mumia's defense attorney file police brutality charges due to the fact that the officers beat him when they arrived on the scene. After that filing all three officers came forward in the subsequent weeks with stories of a confession. The two other officers, Gary Wakshul and Thomas Bray came forward and neither of them had made a report on the night of the shooting. Wakshul even went as far in his original report to say, "The male negro made no statements." He made a second report a week later where he offered recollections of tiny details even so far as to remember the make and model of a camera found in Faulkner's car but made no mention of a confession. He later claimed that he just forgot.

Wakshul claimed that Mumia said, "I shot the motherfucker and I hope the motherfucker dies" while lying on the ground in the ER, unlike Bell, who claimed he said it while entering the hospital. Bray claimed that later while on a gurney Mumia confessed to him but in his story Mumia said, "I shot him and if you let me go I will kill all of you cops." The doctor who operated on both Mumia and Faulkner heard no confession and neither did any of the hospital staff. None of the officers corroborated each others stories.

After the police officers came forward with a confession story a hospital guard named Priscilla Durham came forward and claimed she heard a confession as well, but never alerted the police. She was interviewed by the prosecution and brought to trial. During the trial she claimed, for the first time, that she made a handwritten report about the confession the day after the shooting but only gave it to her superior officer. She somehow never mentioned this to the prosecution or the police despite being interviewed by both. During the trial the judge sent a police officer to the hospital who returned with a piece of paper that was not on hospital letterhead, was typed, and was not signed. This document was allowed to be submitted as evidence over the objections of the defense.

At the trial the defense tried to call Gary Wakshul after Mumia discovered his report claiming that "the male negro made no statements." The prosecution claimed that Wakshul was unavailable due to being on vacation. The judge refused to delay the trial and told Mumia and his attorney that they, "goofed." The defense would later learn that though Wakshul was technically on vacation he was instructed by the DA's office to stay at home incase he was called for trial, a fact that was hidden by the prosecutor.

Mumia had a court appointed lawyer who did not have the funds to investigate witnesses or do any ballistics investigations whatsoever. The judge who presided over the case was Albert Sabo, a former Sherrif and member of the Fratneral Order of Police who presided over more trials ending in death sentences than any other judge in the US. A third of all lawyers surveyed by the American Bar Association in Philadelphia said that he was unfit to be on the bench.

While the original trial was underway a court stenographer, Terri Maurer-Carter, for Judge Richard Klein entered Sabo's chambers and overhead Sabo complaining about the performance of the prosecution and said, "I'm gonna help them fry that nigger".

During Mumia's Post Conviction Relief Act Hearings Judge Sabo was brought out of retirement to preside. He sustained every single prosecution objection and quashed most of the subpoenas brought forth by the defense. He did not find that Mumia deserved a new trial and said so in a finding of fact that was a carbon copy of the prosecution's closing brief.

Tuesday, March 9, 2021

March 9 email from Prison Radio: The State Wants Mumia to Die (Health Update, New Ways to Take Action)

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