Revolutionary crickets chirping.

... revolutionaries are notoriously unreliable. I asked the proprietors where the "Prisons, Police & Repression" teach-in was, and I was told that the group is rather haphazard about how they maintain their schedule. Two things immediately disturbed me:

1. How will the people throw off the fascist chains of the man's oppression when they can't even keep regularly scheduled meetings?

2. The coffee that they served me tasted remarkably like piss.

I decided to pack it in and head for the memorial.

Tracing the name of a fallen officer.

The Memorial is a beautiful oval shaped space with long, curved walls that bear the engraved names of officers killed in the line of duty.

The typically spartan stone was festooned with wreaths, pictures, poems, letters ...

... and newspaper clippings.

An impromptu tribute.

This is my father's New Jersey State Police Academy classmate, Werner Foerster. On May 2, 1973, he and his partner, Trooper James Harper, pulled over a car containing three individuals: Sundiata Acoli, aka Clark Edward Squire, Zayd Malik Shakur and ...

... Assata Shakur, aka JoAnne Chesimard, all members of an ultra-violent Black Panther splinter group called the Black Liberation Army, "whose stated goal was to take up arms for the liberation and self-determination of black people in the United States."
The BLA was responsible for the murders of more than 10 police officers around the country, and these three were wanted for questioning regarding the deaths of two police officers in New York; one white, one black.

As Harper questioned the car's passengers and Forrester provided back-up, the three BLA members opened fire on the troopers with hand-guns. Harper was shot in the shoulder and managed to escape down an embankment. Forrester was struck twice in the chest. As he lay on the ground bleeding and helpless, Shakur/Chesimard took his service revolver and shot him twice in the head. The cop-killers briefly escaped, but were quickly hunted down by police. In an exchange of gunfire Zayd Malik Shakur was killed and Chesimard and Squire were wounded and captured.

After their capture, my father was part of the team assigned to guard the severely wounded Chesimard in the hospital. As the troopers stood outside of her room, she incessantly chanted, "If I had some poison gas, I'd throw it on your white ass."

Both were tried and sentenced to life in prison. During the trial, both defendants were highly disruptive and violent. Eventually the judge had them placed in a separate sound-proof booth that suppressed their chants and allowed them to hear and see the courtroom through a plastic window. During the proceedings, the two defendants laid on the ground of the booth and had sex in the midst of the courtroom. Chesimard became pregnant and had a daughter before being transferred to the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women, where on November 2, 1979, she was sprung from the prison by four visitors that took a guard and a driver hostage. Despite an intense manhunt, she remained on the lamb in the US until 1986, when she made her way to Cuba and was granted political asylum. Today she walks free as a professor, counter-cultural heroine and published author, reviewed by the NY Times: "A deftly written book... a spellbinding tale." Incidentally, her stature has also been augmented by virtue of being the aunt of the late rapper, Tupac Shakur.

In 1998, Congress voted for a resolution to ask for Shakur's extradition. The site Afro Cuba Web stated:

"The Congressional Black Caucus was asleep at the switch on this one, with 23 members voting against Assata and 13 not voting, which is hardly different. Maxine Waters voted against, but then said she did not know who Joanne Chesimard (Assata's pre-Panther name) was."

When Congresswoman Waters figured out that Chesimard was Shakur, she filed a protest against her original vote and wrote an apologetic letter of clarification to Fidel Castro.

I find it beyond disturbing that clear, cold-blooded murder is regarded as a political or racial issue.

Sundiata Acoli, aka Clark Edward Squire, remains in prison, though he is a cause celebre of the "Free Mumia" folks, which have made recent attempts to assist him in securing parole. A counter-effort, spearheaded by the victim's family, police associations, popular magazines and bloggers are pushing to keep him in jail. From what I can gather, in this case, justice is likely to prevail - Acoli was denied Federal parole and will probably be denied state parole (due to their refusal to grant him an in-person hearing), though a final decision is still pending ...

Justice or no justice, the cops that these people murdered are still dead; their names are engraved on the walls of the memorial.

The most remarkable features of the memorial are the fantastic statues of protective lions that mark its four corners.

Playin' in the sun.

Something that struck me about the police officers that were gathered for the ceremony was their incredible diversity: women, blacks, whites, hispanics ...

... and even men wearing dresses.

The ceremony began as the wreath was brought forward.

The colors were presented ...

... the wreath was laid at the center of the memorial ...

... and a police chaplain led the crowd in a prayer for the dead.

The wreath was then flanked by a rotating honor guard.

It was a touching tribute, capped by ...

"Amazing Grace."

Some facts about the hazards of police work (via NLEOMF):

* More than 14,250 law enforcement officers have been killed in the line of duty in the 20th Century.

* The deadliest decade ever for law enforcement was the 1970's, when an average of 222 officers made the ultimate sacrifice each year, including a record 271 officers killed in 1974.

* The average age of the officers killed last century was 38 and the average length of service was about eight years.

* Shootings accounted for about half of all police fatalities during the past century.

* Approximately 500 officers were killed in multiple police death incidents.

* With 50 police deaths, September 11, 2001 was the deadliest day in law enforcement history.

UPDATE: Urban Farmhouse has a post featuring some other permanent memorials.

UPDATE: Want to read more on domestic terrorism lionized as brave rebellion? Need a blood pressure spike? Go here.