Date: Fri, 25 Oct 1996 09:25:54 -0400
From: "Matt D." <afn02065-AT-afn.org>
Subject: M-G: Welcome to the Sunshine State!


*Violence explodes after police shoot man*

 By TIM ROCHE, MONICA DAVEY and AMY
 WIMMER

 (c)St. Petersburg Times, published October 25, 1996 


 ST. PETERSBURG - Widespread violence erupted in the
 streets of St. Petersburg on Thursday night after a white
 police officer shot and killed an 18-year-old black man
 driving a stolen car. 

 Angry bystanders hurled stones and bottles at police
 officers in full riot gear. They fired guns at police cars.
 They attacked fire trucks with rocks. Several vehicles and
 at least four businesses were torched, including Badcock's
 Furniture on M.L. King (Ninth) Street S. 

 News reporters were assaulted, and at least two television
 station vehicles were set ablaze. 

 Chants rang out over and over: "Stop police brutality in
 the black community!" 

 Police struggled for hours to control the violence, often to
 no avail. They fired tear gas. They brought in police dogs.
 They dispatched cruiser after cruiser from a staging area
 near Tropicana Field. A police helicopter swooped
 overhead, shining a spotlight over city streets filled with
 violence and flames. 

 It was an explosion of anger that gradually spread across
 more than 200 city blocks. Violence was reported from
 15th Avenue S to 22nd Avenue S, from Fourth Street to
 34th Street. 

 A crowd cheered - "One down! One down!" - as a police
 officer was felled by a flying bottle. 

 A crowd cheered when a car was set on fire. 

 A crowd cheered when police officers retreated. 

 Police would not comment on the man shot. Nor would
 they identify him. 

 Rob Sumner, spokesman for Bayfront Medical Center,
 said the man arrived by ambulance at Bayfront, but was
 not treated there. 

 "He came here by ambulance, but he didn't go in." 

 The number of injured was not immediately clear. At least
 nine people were taken to two St. Petersburg emergency
 rooms with injuries from the rioting. 

 Two law enforcement officers were treated and released
 with minor injuries from Bayfront Medical Center. Seven
 others, including at least one officer, were treated and
 released from Columbia Edward White Hospital. All
 seven suffered cuts to the head. 

 Police said four news reporters were injured, none
 seriously. 

 The White House was monitoring the rioting. 

 "We're making inquiries of local officials for an assessment
 of the situation," White House press secretary Mike
 McCurry said from New Orleans, where he was on a
 campaign trip with President Clinton. 

 The disturbances began with a stolen Pontiac LeMans. 

 Police began to chase the LeMans about 5 p.m. as it sped
 east on 18th Avenue S. At the wheel was an 18-year-old.
 Beside him was another teenager. Near the intersection of
 16th street, a cruiser cut off the LeMans. 

 Two officers, a man and a woman, got out. The male
 officer, identified by police as Jim Knight, stood in front of
 the LeMans. The female officer stood to the side. 

 Yolanda Lavine and Lisa Craft, driving west on 18th
 Avenue, said they saw what happened next. They said the
 woman officer ran to her cruiser and grabbed a baton,
 then ran back to the car and hit the driver's side window. 

 Knight stood in front of the car, his hands on the hood,
 they said. 

 Lavine and Craft said the car inched forward, and the
 woman yelled for Knight to shoot. He did, striking the
 driver. 

 "There was five shots - five," said Craft, 19. 

 "The boy wasn't going fast enough to run them over. He
 wasn't even going 2 mph." 

 It was the sixth police shooting of the year in St.
 Petersburg. 

 Immediately after, the passenger opened the car door and
 laid face-down on the street, said Iris Brinkley, 24, who
 was walking down the street when she heard the shots.
 The male officer climbed on top of the passenger and
 handcuffed him. 

 Within minutes, a dozen police officers responded to the
 intersection as word spread in the neighborhood that a
 white officer had shot a black person. 

 Within a half hour of the shooting, about 100 people were
 gathered at the scene. At first, a few kids darted under
 crime scene tape, taunting the officers. Officers told the
 kids to get back behind the tape. 

 As the crowd began to swell on all sides of the
 intersection, residents spoke of other police shootings,
 particularly the death of a man who broke into his
 estranged wife's apartment on nearby Queensboro
 Avenue S last week and attacked her with a knife. He
 was shot by police after a standoff. 

 Several members of the National People's Democratic
 Uhuru Movement, a vocal critic of St. Petersburg police,
 handed out fliers about stopping the U.S. war on the
 African-American community. 

 "The black community is tired of this," said Abdul
 Mohammad, who has lived all of his 48 years in St.
 Petersburg. "Listen to them. There's going to be a
 problem." 

 About then, a woman began shouting at a black officer
 who was standing behind yellow police tape. She accused
 the officer of turning against his own people. 

 About two dozen others joined the woman, shouting at a
 line of police officers summoned by their chants: 

 "Stop the police brutality . . . in the black community. 

 "The pigs and the Klan . . . go hand in hand." 

 Rocks were hurled at the officers, and a man dashed
 under the yellow tape and charged toward them. Police
 struggled with the man, and one officer pointed his gun at
 him, riling the crowd. 

 Police Chief Darrel Stephens stood in front of several
 officers, stretching out his arm to hold them back. 

 About two dozen officers stood in the line, facing the
 crowd. More rocks, bottles and wooden planks were
 tossed at police. A sergeant was hit, and blood streamed
 down his face and neck. 

 Police ordered reporters and photographers to move
 away. "They're feeding off the publicity," said Assistant
 Police Chief Buddy San Marco. 

 At 7:30 p.m., several dozen officers formed a wall two
 deep, and walked shoulder-to-shoulder down 18th
 Avenue S to clear the crowd. One officer stepped
 forward and called through a megaphone again and again,
 "Please everyone, go home. Please everyone, go home." 

 The rioting intensified. It was at that point a red car came
 speeding through the intersection and through crime scene
 tape. The car, tires squealing, slid across broken glass
 before turning north on 16th Street. 

 Some officers ran to their cars and began chasing the car. 

 The passing car infuriated some in the crowd. The reason:
 The driver was white. 

 "If he had been black, they would have killed him," Borian
 Watson, a 22-year-old black man, screamed bitterly. "It's
 sad, man, they killed this man for nothing. The man died
 with his hands up." 

 Rocks and bottles began to fly at the remaining officers. 

 About 8 p.m., one bystander, Stephen Banks, 19, stood
 in the center of the street, between a group of police
 officers and the crowd. He held a police megaphone and
 pleaded with the crowd to go home. 

 "Look at all these kids out here," he called to the crowd.
 "I know about what you're saying (about the shooting). I
 feel the same way. But my (1-year-old) son might be out
 here. 

 "It ain't about throwing bricks." 

 The crowd shouted him down. "Stop trying to work for
 the police, n-----," they said. 

 Police took away the megaphone. 

 "They (the police) are ruining the black neighborhood,"
 Banks said later. "We need to calm down. There's
 thousands of children out here. An innocent black man just
 got killed, but we need to think before we do anything." 

 Several cars were set on fire. Firefighters were told by
 dispatchers that their safety could not be guaranteed. The
 firefighters decided to respond with their lights and sirens
 off. Then they were told to stay back until their safety
 could be ensured. 

 "Engine 5, get out of here! I'm under attack," a driver in
 one firetruck called out over his radio. "My windshield is
 broken!" 

 Fire trucks were ordered out of the riot zone. 


 Chief Stephens tried to persuade the crowds to disperse,
 shouting into a megaphone. 

 "You all move back behind the line," he said before an
 officer tossed a canister of tear gas toward the crowd
 gathered behind an automotive repair shop. 

 It was the first bout of tear gas for the night. 

 The crowd dispersed, coughing and gagging and crying as
 they ran. People covered their mouths with paper towels
 and shirts. 

 Resident Edward Webb, dressed in a coat and tie,
 watched the crowd flee. 

 "See how they come in our neighborhood?" he said. "They
 come over here and they behave like this. They tear it
 apart. They wouldn't do that in your neighborhood." 

 At 8:35 p.m. officers called over a megaphone, "You have
 three minutes to disperse or you're subject to arrest." 

 The crowd moved from the intersection. 

 About 9:15 p.m., a crowd was gathering in a parking lot
 at the Lakeview shopping center at 34th Street and 22nd
 Avenue S. A police cruiser had been flipped on its hood.
 Police in riot gear tried to disperse a crowd of a few
 dozen that had gathered to watch officers handcuff and
 place on the ground two men trying to loot the Looking
 Good Men and Boy's Fashions. 

 Meanwhile, near the original crime scene, police formed
 small groups of 10 to 12 to sweep the streets of people. 

 Among those trying to calm individuals in the crowd were
 Don McRae, Mayor David Fischer's chief of staff, and
 Bishop John Copeland of the local Interdenominational
 Ministerial Alliance and pastor of Macedonia Baptist
 Church. 

 Prominently placed in the knot of police were Maj.
 Goliath Davis and Maj. Cedric Gordon, two of the
 highest-ranking black officers in the department. 

 St. Petersburg council member David T. Welch, who was
 at the scene immediately after the shooting, appealed to
 the community to stay calm until it can be determined what
 happened. 

 "I think we should tell people to stay calm and not get
 involved in the burning of buildings. The rumor mill is really
 going and creating a lot of problems. 

 "We are in a state of rage." - Times staff writers David
 Barstow, Monica Davey, Tim Roche, Amy Wimmer, Eric
 Deggans, Bill Adair, Kimberly C. Kleman, Leanora Minai,
 Sue Landry and Jenny Deam contributed to this report. 


 (c)Copyright 1996 St. Petersburg Times. All rights
 reserved. 

-- Finger afn02065-AT-afn.org for PGP Public Key --


     --- from list marxism-general-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---