Mumia Abu Jamal Essays - Mumia Abu-Jamal, Commonwealth V. Abu-Jamal

Mumia Abu Jamal Wesley Cook was born in 1954. While he was protesting at a George Wallace for president rally in 1968, several white men attacked him. He claims that two men grabbed him. One kicked his face and skull, while the other kicked him in the groin. As the beating progressed, "he looked up and saw the two-toned gold-trimmed pant leg of a Philadelphia police officer." He yelled for the police, who saw him on the ground being beaten to a pulp. "A police officer marched over briskly, and kicked him in the face."1 "I have been thankful to that faceless cop ever since, for he kicked me straight into the Black Panther Party."2 Wesley Cook became a founding member of the Black Panther Party's Philadelphia chapter in 1969 at the age of 15. After joining mainstream news organizations in the 1970's, Wesley Cook changed his name to Mumia Abu-Jamal. As a teenage journalist, Jamal took an interest in stories about police brutality. Jamal was known to be a rare talent of radio journalism. He had a powerful intellect and a burning empathy for poor people. He was known as a skillful interviewer and became a well-known figure in local broadcasting journalism. Jamal appeared on National Public Radio, the National Black Network, and local Philadelphia stations including WUHY-FM (now WHYY). He had a lot of admiring friends in journalism and politics, and had no prior record of crime or violence. Despite his personal experience of police brutality and years as a teenage Black Panther, he kept his noise clean even under the microscope of the FBI and Philadelphia police surveillance. By the late 1970's, Jamal was also an ardent sympathizer and supporter of MOVE ? a black militant antiestablishment, antipolice group. He started wearing his hair in long dreadlocks like a MOVE member. By mid 1981, Jamal's growing obsession with MOVE had compromised his standing as a journalist and cost him his job at WUHY. He started freelancing his writing skills, while moonlighting as a cabdriver. He was robbed while on duty with his cab, so he started to carry a gun. 3 During this time, the Philadelphia Police Department was so notorious for violence and police brutality, that the United States Justice Department, in an unprecedented 1979 civil suit, charged then mayor (and former police commissioner) Frank Rizzo and the top police brass with "encouraging rampant police brutality, racism, and lying." This suit was later dismissed on jurisdictional grounds.4 On December 9, 1981, Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner was shot to death. On July 3, 1982 Mumia Abu-Jamal was convicted of Officer Faulkner's murder and sentenced to death. Beyond these two facts, there are a number of versions of the incidents that lead to Mumia Abu-Jamal's conviction. This paper will review the incidents of December 9, 1981 and show that Mumia Abu-Jamal was not provided a fair and impartial trial by his peers, and was wrongly convicted and sentenced for the death of Officer Faulkner. What the Jury Heard: On December 9, 1981, at 3:51 a.m. Officer Faulkner stopped Mr. William Cook (Jamal's brother), who was driving a Volkswagen Beetle for a traffic violation, on the south side of Locust Street about 80 feet east of 13th Street. The area at the time was known for its seediness. The area had many late-night bars, nightclubs, cafes, and streetwalkers. Officer Faulkner radioed his location and then added: "On second thought, send me a wagon."5 He was apparently planning to arrest Mr. Cook or someone in Mr. Cook's car for an unknown reason. According to two prosecution witnesses, both Faulkner and Cook got out of their cars. Faulkner spread-eagled Mr. Cook across one of the cars and then suddenly turned and slugged Officer Faulkner. Faulkner responded by clubbing Cook several times with his 17-inch flashlight. Mr. Cook's face and neck were bloody when police arrived. By coincidence, Mumia Abu-Jamal was parked in his cab and came out of a parking lot on the northeast corner of Locust and 13th. He accelerated from a walk to a run as he charged toward Officer Faulkner across Locust Street. It was never fully disclosed at the trial, why Jamal's cab was parked nearby. He just happened to be around. In any event, this is when the point blank shooting started to occur. According to the prosecution's theory, Jamal ran up behind Officer Faulkner to within one foot, and shot him in the back. The wounded Faulkner turned around and returned fire, hitting Jamal in the chest, and falling onto his back. Jamal then

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buy custom Negative Business essay Introduction The American airlines came into operation from a group of small independent firms which were dealing with mails. In 1933 the airline ordered its fist Curtis condors and on by June the year 1936 it flew the worlds first commercial DC-3 trip which started from Chicago and ended in New York. In the year 1941 the airline stated to offer his services in Mexico. In 1981 the airline stopped 707 series fleet and introduced the AA Advantage program, Americans frequent flyer project. From the year 1981 till the year 2011 the airline has developed very much. For instance, currently the airline has fleet size of 622 (+104 orders) and more than 260 destinations. Although American airline is the worlds third-largest airline in passenger miles transport, operating revenues and passenger fleet size its last profitable year was 2007(Kakuk A, Theriault B Bourgoin J). Negative financial deals for American airline for the recent three years For the last three years starting from the year 2008 to 2010 the American airline has never made any profit. For instance, over those years the airlines performance and financial timelines was as follows; the company made a net loss of $2.1 billion in the year 2008.These results was due to increase in fuel prices from an average of $2.13 per gallo in 2007 to an average of $3.03 per gallon in 2008.Even though the fuel prices have increased constantly from the record prices recorded in the year 2008, fuel prices always remains volatile. Due the fuel price volatility, the prices of fuel is keeping on increasing every time and this has highly affected the Companys financial conditions and its performance in general (AMR CORPORATION ANNUAL REPORT, 2008). In 2009 the Company recorded a net loss of $ 1.5 billion. This was due to a significant decrease in passenger revenue because of lower traffic and passenger yield. Mainline passenger revenue reduced by $3.2 billion to $15.0 billion in the year 2009. Mainline passenger unit revenue reduced by 11.1% in 2009 due to an 11.2% reduction in passenger yield. Besides, in 2009 the Companys performance results were negatively impacted by a net of $107 million in special items, non-cash tax item and restructuring charges (AMR CORPORATION ANNUAL REPORT, 2009). In 2010 the Company recorded a net loss of $471 million. The smaller loss in 2010 was due to an improvement in the weak global economy. The mainline passenger revenue was raised by $1.7 billion to 16.8 billion in 2010. Mainline passenger unit revenues increased by 10.4% in 2010 because of 8.7% increase in passenger yield. Fuel prices increased by $847 million to $6.4 billion for the year ended December 31, 2010 compared to 2009. Hedging effects costs the company $142 million of the overall increase in fuel cost (AMR CORPORATION ANNUAL REPORT, 2010). Relevant Costs plus Risk and Return are the two financial concepts which the Company has employed leading to his downfalls. In Relevant Costs the Company made business decisions in the 2008 that its McDonnell Douglas MD-80 and Embraer RJ-3-135 aircraft fleets were no longer required. In addition with these capacity reductions, the company realized $71 million in expense for employee costs and $33 million expense concerning the grounding of leased Airbus A300 aircraft before the lease expiration. In the case of Risk and Return the company is negotiating with aircraft makers like Boeing Company to replace all its fleet by buying more than 250 planes in a deal worth 15 billion while it has never made any profit(GRAZIANO, C, 2009). Yes, I strongly believe that the Company will recover very soon. This is because; its net loss was narrowed to $436 million this year, from $505 million of last year. In addition, the airline is planning to own two more Boeing 777-300ER aircraft to be delivered in 2012and 2013.Hence, raising itsb performance in order to recover soon (Schlangenstein, M, 2011). The main two key ways the Company should employ to become financially strong again involves, it should invest heavily in aircrafts which consumes less fuel and creates good customer relationship in order to gain many customers as possible. Buy custom Negative Business essay