Two Standards of "Justice": The Prosecution of MOVE 9 and the Exoneration of Killer Cop Brelo
May 25, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
In light of the utterly contemptible verdict on May 23 by Judge O'Donnell exonerating the Cleveland cop Michael Brelo in the murder of Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams, think about this contrast:
After the police barrage of gunfire and flooding, MOVE members, including young children, emerge facing police guns.
In August 1978, the Philadelphia police launched an extremely violent all-out assault on a house in Powelton Village of a radical Black organization, MOVE. The police opened up with a barrage of gunfire on the house, and then flooded out the MOVE members barricaded in the basement with fire hoses. The cops kicked and stomped on one MOVE member, Delbert Africa, as TV cameras rolled.
During the wild firing on the MOVE house, one cop was killed—most probably by the gunfire from other cops. But the survivors of the police attack were the ones that the Philadelphia DA charged for the death of the cop. The MOVE 9, as they came to be called, were found guilty and sentenced to 30 to 100 years in prison each—despite the fact that the trial judge publicly admitted that he had no idea who fired the shot that killed the cop!
The car that Timothy Russell with Malissa Williams were in, after the police fired137 shots at them. The cop Brelo fired 49 of those shots—15 of them while standing on the hood of the car and shooting straight down through the windshield. Photo: AP
In November 2012, about 100 Cleveland area cops chased the car driven by Timothy Russell with Malissa Williams in the passenger seat. Brelo was one of 13 cops who fired 137 shots at Russell and Williams, both unarmed. Brelo himself fired 49 of those shots—15 of them while standing on the hood of the car and shooting straight down through the windshield. Brelo is the only cop out of all those involved in this brutal double murder to be hit with any serious criminal charges.
In his ruling, Judge O'Donnell concluded that, of the 23 bullets that hit Russell, any of four could be considered the fatal shot that was the direct cause of his death. And, O'Donnell ruled, "Because three unequivocally fatal wounds were caused by one, two or three other people besides Brelo, and because I am unable to find beyond a reasonable doubt which shot caused the cessation of Russell's life, I find on count one, the voluntary manslaughter of Timothy Russell, that the essential element of causation has not been proved beyond a reasonable doubt." O'Donnell used the same line of "reasoning" to exonerate Brelo for the killing of Malissa Williams.
This judge's sick logic was that because there were multiple bullets that hit Russell and Williams, and because there were other shots other than those fired by Brelo that could've been the immediate cause of death of the two victims, Brelo should be found innocent.
The question that any thinking person with a sense of justice would have about this obscene verdict is: Why the fuck weren't all the cops who fired at Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams put on trial, and found guilty of murder?
There are two standards of "justice" under this system: one for the oppressed and those without power, and another for those who serve and protect those in power and the system that brings down horror after horror on people here and around the world.
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