Socialist Action /August 1999
COMMENTARY BY MUMIA ABU-JAMAL: Anatomy of the Lie
NEWS ITEM-A 47-year-old substitute teacher announces he heard former
Black Panther Mumia Abu Jamal admit murdering a Philadelphia police officer.
Vanity Fair magazine features an interview with Phillip Bloch, who tells
the reporter that Jamal made the admission to him during a visit in winter
of 1992 at Huntingdon prison. The FOP applauds Bloch's courage and the Philadelphia
DA's office announces this is proof of Jamal's guilt.
For the better part of a week in summer 1999, newspapers ran banner headlines
and talk shows did a brisk business in the above. The gossip-oriented Disney-owned
"20/20" show called it a significant development in the Jamal
case and shamelessly hyped the show's new witness from a man who claimed
he was a close personal friend
In a startling departure from journalistic standards, not a single newspaper
or so-called news show bothered to check his tale with me, nor to check
him out with the Pennsylvania Prison Society, the agency that he was briefly
affiliated with doing his visits to state prisons in Pennsylvania.
Instead, using the old "they did it, so we can do it too" justification,
papers and other media leaped at the chance to sell papers with this hot
news story. You could almost hear them drooling at this scoop. Stop the
presses!
Rarely has one lie drawn so much ink, so much videotape, or wasted so
many trees. Let us suppose, just for the sake of argument mind you, that
Bloch is speaking the truth. Have you ever seen cops embrace snitches so
warmly? In truth, cops hate snitches, as should be clear from cop cases
where cops tell on other cops.
Do you think the cops who testified as to the brutal assault on Abner
Louima in New York City were hailed for their courage, or were they damned
and ostracized. What do you think?
Bloch claims I was a close personal friend of his, yet he admits his
letters went unanswered for years. If his tale is true, isn't he a snitch
and a traitor?
Yet there is no truth to Bloch's revelations, as will be seen by his
own words.
Again, just for the sake of argument, let us suppose all of what he said
is true. Why would he write the following words to me over six months after
my "confession" to him?
"I watched the movie -`Incident at Ogalala' last month-After [Leonard]
Peltier's codefendants were acquitted by the jury-(in a separate trial)-the
FBI (interviewed on camera) were saying that the jurors and their families
had been intimidated by Indians. Then they interviewed the foreman of the
jury-and he said that nobody on the jury had ever seen any Indians-there
was no truth to the FBI allegations.
"Then the juror said to the camera-I thought that the FBI agents
were going to kill all of us (the jury)-after the verdict was read. So-it
is possible to get justice from a jury-not always-but sometimes. So, when
you get a new trial-I think that there is a good chance of acquittal."
The letter is dated July 17, 1993, and it is signed by Phil Bloch.
Question: Why write to a guy and write about a new trial or acquittal
if that guy confessed his guilt to you? The answer is simple. There was
no confession. Period.
Mr. Bloch knew that six months after the time of his alleged confession,
which means he is lying now.
Did Bloch, like the cops of the sixth district, conveniently "forget"
this confession also? I don't know, and frankly, don't care why he has come
forward now.
Perhaps he is frustrated that he is still the substitute teacher and
wants a push from his friends in high places. Perhaps he seeks the warm
glow of limelight. Who knows? Who cares?
By his own words he proves he may not be a snitch nor much of a traitor,
but he is a liar. By this episode he has proven how truly low trash journalism
can go.
From Death Row,
This is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Socialist Action /August 1999 |