Over many years Philadelphia's power structure earned itself a reputation for brutal treatment of radical and revolutionary Black movements. In 1966 the Philadelphia police, under their notorious chief Frank Rizzo, raided four meeting places of the civil rights organization SNCC, planting dynamite in one of the locations to justify further repression. In 1970 Rizzo's men raided three offices of the Black Panther Party. Many people still remember with anger how Philly police beat the arrested Panthers, then forced them to strip off their clothes and line up naked in public.
On July 13th 2012, the Supreme Court of Cassation, the major court of last resort, upheld the conviction of ten Italian protesters, all sentenced to imprisonment for ‘devastation and looting’ during the 2001 G8 protests in Genoa. In particular, they were convicted of breaking shop windows, making barricades, and the alleged looting of a supermarket. The relevant Italian law, contained in the Rocco code, dates back to 1930: part of the penal code of Mussolini’s fascist regime, it has never been reformed since.
As a direct result of their BPP membership and progressive political views, Bashir Hameed and Abdul Majid were hunted, captured, framed and convicted of the 1981 murder and attempted murder of two police officers in St. Albans, Queens.
On the night of April 1981, two NYPD officers were fired on by two suspects during a traffic stop. Police claim that the stop in connection with several burglaries, while they also claim the van was pulled over because of its connection to the liberation of Assata Shakur from a New Jersey prison.
The Virgin Island Five (aka Fountain Valley Five) are group of men convicted of murdering eight people at the Rockefeller-owned golf course in St. Croix. They were all in their early twenties when they were rounded up with hundreds of other Black youth after the 1972 incident, and forced confessions were obtained through torture. Because now only three of the original five--Abdul Aziz, Hanif Bey, and Malik El-Amin-- are held in prison over 50 years later, they are referred to as the Virgin Island 3.
