By Tom Beyerlein, Cox News Service
CINCINNATI -- Flanked by men in paramilitary garb shouting “black power” and “freedom or death,” the national chairman of the New Black Panther Party on Sunday demanded criminal charges against police and paramedics in connection with the death of Nathaniel Jones, who died in a Nov. 30 struggle with police.
“We charge the police chief with running a criminal organization that has the blood of 19 black men on its hands,” Malik Shabazz of Washington said at a rally outside Cincinnati police headquarters. “We as a jury have already determined our finding.”
“Guilty!” yelled many of the several dozen demonstrators.
The rally had an aggressive edge, as Shabazz called Cincinnati police “pigs” and racists and described the city’s 2001 rioting as “a righteous rebellion against police murder, police brutality, police terrorism.” He called upon black Cincinnatians to “resist by any means necessary.”
Jones, 41, died after police used nightsticks to subdue him in a restaurant parking lot as a police video camera recorded the struggle. The tape has been seen nationwide.
The Hamilton County coroner on Wednesday ruled Jones’ death a homicide, but stressed that the ruling didn’t imply that police used excessive force. Jones died from the stress the struggle placed on his diseased heart. In addition, he was obese and had intoxicating levels of cocaine and PCP, as well as traces of methanol, in his blood, an autopsy showed.
In another development, Mayor Charlie Luken on Sunday said the city should find $1 million in its 2004 budget to buy stun guns for its police force, an equipment purchase that had been delayed by an effort to get federal funding.
“While it is unclear whether the incident would have changed if our officers had the latest technology in Tasers, I believe we must equip our police with the very best equipment,” Luken said.
The money would pay for 1,000 stun guns for the city’s 1,050-officer police department. Police Chief Thomas Streicher had stopped use of the city’s older stun guns because he considered them unreliable.
Shabazz said Luken’s request is “too little, too late, and it’s also evidence that the proper procedures weren’t in place to begin with.”
Activists have demanded the ouster of Luken and Streicher, but both have said they have no plans to leave office.
Jones was the 19th black man to have died in encounters with Cincinnati police since 1995. One white man was also killed during that period.
The death of an unarmed Timothy Thomas while fleeing police touched off the 2001 riots.
Jones’ family has urged the black population not to resort to violence. A local Baptist ministers’ group called off plans to march on City Hall on Sunday.
Shabazz and other visiting activists from Chicago and Atlanta organized Sunday’s rally at police headquarters, but Shabazz said, “We are not outsiders -- we have been invited to Cincinnati by suffering people.”
Among the demonstrators was Monica R. Williams, who carried a sign reading, “Welcome to Cincissippi.”
“Black life in Cincinnati has no value, particularly the lives of African-American males,” she said.