New Film About Mumia Abu-Jamal Makes A Case That He Set Out To Deliberately Kill a Cop

Flopping Aces ^ | 11-02-09 | Curt

[Starman417]

Tigre Hill is a one man machine who has something to say about the cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal. He is currently editing a documentary that will be released soon that many should see. Here is the trailer:

[VIDEO AT SITE]

And a good article by Amy S. Rosenberg from Philly.com about Hill and his movie:

Tigre Hill has only released the trailer to his film, The Barrel of a Gun, but already Mumia Inc. has begun mobilizing against him.

At 57th and Christian Streets, over an offering of rice and beans and salad prepared by her grandchildren, Pam Africa labels Hill an attack dog, the second coming of Wilson Goode, and says his film will be a racist "hit piece" against Mumia Abu-Jamal.

In Germany, writer and academic Michael Schiffman spent 5,600 words aimed at debunking the 3 1/2-minute trailer in a piece that circulated widely online. Schiffman wrote that the case made in Hill's film, at least as indicated by the trailer, "will be built on sand."

On death row, meanwhile, former radio newsman Mumia Abu-Jamal, 55, is as close as he's ever been to a final judgment on his original death sentence for the 1981 killing of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. The U.S. Supreme Court in April rejected a last appeal for a new trial. A petition by the Philadelphia district attorney demanding reinstatement of Abu-Jamal's death penalty, which was thrown out by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, is pending.

But over convenience-store coffee, sitting in the backyard of his childhood home in Wynnefield where he still lives and where his film is being edited in a room upstairs, Hill is taking it all in stride in his trademark Ben Roethlisberger jersey.

He's laid-back, naturally friendly, and comfortable in taking on the sacred cows of black political, cultural and social-justice power structures, and he's knocking down a few assumptions himself as an African American with a love of George W. Bush and a Philly kid who roots for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

~~~

His Mumia thesis is provocative: that placed in the context of prior acts by the Black Panthers, the history of political revolutionaries, various influences on Abu-Jamal's thinking, police killings in other cities that eerily presage Faulkner's, statements and actions Jamal had made before that night, the idea that Abu-Jamal may have set out to deliberately kill a police officer becomes chillingly plausible.

~~~

Always intrigued by the case, Hill was hooked. He says he understands the impulse to defend Abu-Jamal, to see him as a victim of larger forces, especially viewed through the lens of police brutality. "You see the way his story has been manipulated," he said. "People take him on as a hero like Che Guevara and other freedom fighters."

[Boiling Pots]

I don’t think this pig has ever denied he even killed the police officer.

[Laissez-faire capitalist]

He cut a cd with Van Jones, too. Van Jones has such nice and upstanding pals.

[wireman]

Tigre Hill is a brave guy!

Wearing a Steelers jersey in Phildelphia?

[Tallguy]

Nobody cares about the Steelers in Philly. Different conference & the other end of the State. Now wear a Cowboys, Redskins or — heaven forbid — a Joisy Giants jersey, and you have a real problem on your hands.

[WhistlingPastTheGraveyard]

You won’t get into too much trouble wearing a Giants jersey today. You might get laughed at, but that’s about it.

Wearing a Yankees shirt today might not be too wise, though.

[wireman]

If it ain't the Iggles, where I come from you're going to hear it.

[Tallguy]

I live out in central Pee-Ay now. Most of the people I know are Stiller fans, and I get a lot of grief from a few of them. It doesn’t bother me. The Steelers were never on my radar-screen growing up — even when they were winning those Superbowls.

Pittsburgh, OTOH, takes great pleasure in deriding the Eagles. Not sure what the lesson is there, but I know that people from western PA are very, shall we say, ‘skeptical’ of anything Philly-related.

I just say, “Hey, you’ve won your Superbowls — why begrudge us getting our first?”

[Kid Shelleen]

**** Philly Metro/Delaware Valley Ping ****

[Kid Shelleen]

nice little nugget here; I believe David Axelrod was on Mayor Street's re-election team .

His last film, The Shame of a City, started as a chronicle of the 2003 Katz-Street mayoral election, but ended up a stinging indictment of a Democratic Party and black political establishment that were depicted as cynically exploiting racial politics to turn the discovery of an FBI bug in Mayor John Street's office into a windfall of support - among voters and out-of-town bigshots - for Street.

[wireman]

Championships existed before the Super Bowl. Football seems to be the only sport that fans think didn't have champions before 1966.

The Philadelphia Eagles are the only team to win back-to-back championships by shutouts, defeating the Chicago Cardinals, 7–0, in 1948 — in a blizzard — and the Los Angeles Rams, 14–0, in 1949.

In 1960, the Philadelphia Eagles defeated the Green Bay Packers, by a score of 17–13, thereby becoming the only team to defeat Vince Lombardi and his Packers in the playoffs.

[Deb]

Wow, Mr. Hill sure has a huge pair!

[Tallguy]

In 1960 I was 1 year old, and the Steve Van Buren days were when my father was a teen. Seems like ancient history when your college buddies are rooting for “One for the Thumb”.

[Tribune7]

ping

[wireman]

My first live game was 1961 at Franklin Field against the Bears (I was 7).

It was the game that ended Tom Brookshire's career when he broke his leg. The defending world champion Eagles won 16-14.

It has been too long.

[Tallguy]

Yeah. I’ve seen films of the Brookshier injury. It was just about as ugly as the hit that snapped Joe Theisman’s leg.

[wireman]

Compound fracture just like Theisman. Nasty!

[Tallguy]

Well, we’ve successfully hijacked this thread. Maybe we should cut this discussion off before we start analyzing yesterday’s Eagles-Giants game! ;)

[Mac from Cleveland]

When Jamal was brought into the hospital right after the murder (The officer had wounded Jamal before he died)
Hospital security guard Priscilla Durham and Police Officer Garry Bell testified that Abu-Jamal confessed in the hospital by saying, “I shot the m****f*****, and I hope the m****f***** dies.”

^ “Trial transcript p.169”. Commonwealth vs. Mumia Abu-Jamal aka Wesley Cook. Court of Common Pleas, Philadelphia County, Criminal Trial Division. June 23, 1982. http://www.justice4danielfaulkner.com/Days/6-23-82.html#paul. Retrieved 2008-01-22.