Minister Tony Muhammad

Tony Muhammad was peppered, cuffed, beaten—then arrested, and as of midnight Aug. 26, 2005, had not been charged for a crime. Yet, LAPD Assistant Chief Jim McDonnell went on television claiming that Min. Tony had attacked a police officer—the LAPD “spin machine” was in full affect before they even had all the facts. They ultimately settled on misdemeanor “assault on a police officer” charges. The events were so sketchy that not even some of the LAPD believed the account.

The constant insistence that the community “cool it” is the normal response when its dignity is assaulted. People want to charge the community for its level of violence, claiming it requires aggressive police action. Economic deprivation and social neglect have created desperate circumstances, but it doesn’t justify the community becoming a police state, especially when community clergy are trying to keep the peace. The police are in the wrong (again). When is somebody going to tell the LAPD to “cool it.” It’s the fourth time this year we’re on “tactical alert” for questionable police action. It’s time to put LAPD on trial.

Chief McDonnell said in the papers that the community needs to “rationally evaluate the situation and consider the facts and consider the source of those facts.” But we know the source all too well. LAPD has been the source, if not the direct cause, of every major civil disturbance in Los Angeles since the 1930s, including the 1942 Zoot Suit Riots in East Los Angeles, the 1962 attack on the NOI Mosque on Central, the 1965 Watts Riots, the 1992 Rebellion, and now to the attack on a Muslim minister. We know the source of oppression and hostile reaction in the Black community is the LAPD. It’s a history that cannot be denied.

The LAPD has proven itself to be the open enemy of the Black community. We’ve said for years that tactics used in the Black community are not used on anyone else, that the Black people are policed differently from anyone else, and that suppression (or force) is used quicker on the Black community than on anyone else. It’s time to charge LAPD with a continual abuse under the collar of authority.

And other Black people need to be careful in their attempts to illegitimize the Nation of Islam. One had the nerve to say in the mainstream propaganda press that Min. Tony was trying to “muscle in as a major political figure in L.A.” and that “the Nation in L.A. has never ranked with the Urban League and NAACP.” The Nation of Islam is the greatest reformer of disenfranchised Black people in the history of America—bar none. Most importantly, Min. Tony represents a man who represents two others connected to God Himself. One that led two marches of a million people to Washington, and will take more this year. Don’t get twisted on who he is, and what he represents. That would be a big mistake.

Forty-five years ago, the Nation of Islam put on a play (produced by a minister out of Boston, Minister Louis X), called “ORGENA”—which is “A Negro” spelled backwards. In the play, America is put on trial for its historical crimes against the Negro. Well, it’s time to charge the LAPD with its historical crimes against the Black community.

I charge the LAPD with being the biggest liar in the Black community. I charge the LAPD with being the biggest murderer (under the guise of justice). I charge the LAPD with being the biggest robber of Black dignity in the City of Los Angeles, the biggest defrauder of taxpayers’ money, the biggest assaulter of the Black person, the biggest raper of community cohesion… and I can go on and on. My point, when is the LAPD going to be charged for its crimes?