Murder Street

Shaun Mullen, writing at the Moderate Voice, has links up to some online petitions. You can choose to vote for or against naming a street in Harlem after convicted cop killer Wesley Cook. Don't remember that name? That's the name Mumia Abu-Jamal was born with. Mullen is very frank about the murderer of Danny Faulkner:

A perversely interesting aspect of the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the convicted killer of Philadelphia police officer William Faulkner in 1981, is that the further you get from the scene of the crime the more people think he is innocent.

I happened to have known Abu-Jamal. And while the criminal justice system did not exactly cover itself in glory in prosecuting him, he is as guilty as sin, period.

But in the 25-plus years since the murder, Abu-Jamal has become a jailhouse pundit and international cause célèbre, a darling of Amensty International and lightning rod for opponents and proponents of the death penalty. He enjoys little support in Philadelphia, but the further one gets from there the more people consider him to be the victim of political prosecution.

Harlem is a mere 120 miles or so from Philadelphia, but it might as well be on another planet. This is because some well intentioned but clueless folks want to have a street there renamed for Abu-Jamal. You can bet they don’t want it called Cop Killer Boulevard.

He has more, including a statement by a former member of MOVE who is very angry at the idea of naming a street after a murderer. And he has those handy links to go register your opinion. Cook has managed to con a lot of people into believing his lies. Go over and read this if you haven't already. Forget Wesley Cook. Remember Danny Faulkner.