On December 9 at 4 am, I happened to be listening to KWY 24 hour all-news-radio and never left the radio that morning. Part of the time Mumia was dead and his brother Billy charged with murder, and part of the time Mumia was alive and charged with murder. I, and everyone I know, assumed that Mumia acted under esteem distress and payed no attention to the claims he had no involvement, that it was instead a dark conspiracy. Only after I saw Mumia’s and his brother’s reaction the Arnold Beverly’s confession did I become thoroughly convinced that he had nothing to do with any killings.

Some people hear or read one or more of Mumia’s essays and instantly believe that these aren’t the words of a murderer, others don’t like blacks and especially not Black Panthers, or any troublemakers so they believe Mumia is guilty.

As for new evidence goes. On the side of guilt supposedly Forbes and Shoemaker and were on the scene seconds after Faulkner was dead. This despite the fact that the police made a determined effort to grill Arnold Howard to find out what his driver’s license was doing in Officer Faulkner’s pocket, and neither Officer testified in court.

As for innocence, J. Patrick O’Connor comes up with brand-new evidence that Kenneth Freeman did it, only I heard it before O’Connor declared it bland-new. And as for a local black out on him goes. I looked for the NY Times expose but instead I found Jon Hurdle, on May 2, 2008 announce that J. Patrick O'Connor wrote the “Framing of Mumia abu-Jamal” adding a few disrupt words pro and con, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/02/us/02philadelphia.html?_r=1

No one could possibly be convinced that Mumia is either guilty or innocent by happening to read those words. Sly members of Move come out for a big Mumia demonstration, and one shy Move member demands that the photographer stop taking his picture, while Pam starts screaming to make the photographer notice her instead. Pam is a busy grandmother with her grandchildren, feeling obligated to pretend to be in charge of a big organization, with poorly laid out computer graphics to try to prove it. Meanwhile someone could start investigating to see what Officer Faulkner’s relationship with the FBI was and scourging around for bits of real new information. But I guess in the meantime new people will be inspired by Mumia’s essays or they won’t, while both sides think they are talking to others while they are only talking at themselves. Since I think Mumia is innocent, by presenting a new perspective I was hoping to get new people involved. But so far even the Ted Steven’s supporters haven’t been returning my emails.

RichardKanePA