----- Original Message ----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, February 07, 2007 8:54 PM Subject: Bob Herbert: ‘They Beat Gary So Bad’ - NY Times 2/8 (Part 3 in Series)
For more information and to read Parts 1 & 2 of Bob Herbert NY Times columnist series on Gary Tyler go to: http://www.freegarytyler.com If you have not done so already... please sign the Petition to Free Gary Tyler" http://www.freegarytyler.com/petition.php ***************** PART 3 http://select.nytimes.com/2007/02/08/opinion/08herbert.html?hp ‘They Beat Gary So Bad’ By BOB HERBERT NY Times Op-Ed: February 8, 2007 ST. ROSE, La. Juanita Tyler lives in a neat one-story house that sits behind a glistening magnolia tree that dominates the small front lawn. She is 74 now and unfailingly gracious, but she admits to being tired from a lifetime of hard work and trouble. I went to see her to talk about her son, Gary. The Tylers are black. In 1974, when Gary was 16, he was accused of murdering a 13-year-old white boy outside the high school that they attended in nearby Destrehan. The boy was shot to death in the midst of turmoil over school integration, which the local whites were resisting violently. The case against young Tyler — who was on a bus with other black students that was attacked by about 200 whites — was built on bogus evidence and coerced testimony. But that was enough to get him convicted by an all-white jury and sentenced to die in the electric chair. His life was spared when the Louisiana death penalty was ruled unconstitutional, but he is serving out a life sentence with no chance of parole in the state penitentiary at Angola. Ms. Tyler’s sharpest memory of the day Gary was arrested was of sitting in a room at a sheriff’s station, listening to deputies in the next room savagely beating her son. “They beat Gary so bad,” she said. “My poor child. I couldn’t do nothing. They wouldn’t let me in there. I saw who went in there. They were like older men. They didn’t care that I was there. They didn’t care who was there. They beat Gary something awful, and I could hear him hollering and moaning. All I could say was, ‘Oh Jesus, have mercy.’ “One of the deputies had a strap and they whipped him with that. It was terrible. Finally, when they let me go in there, Gary was just trembling. He was frightened to death. He was trembling and rocking back and forth. They had kicked him all in his privates. He said, ‘Mama, they kicked me. One kicked me in the front and one kicked in the back.’ He said that over and over. “I couldn’t believe what they had done to my baby.” The deputies had tried to get Gary to confess, but he wouldn’t. Ms. Tyler (like so many people who have looked closely at this case) was scornful of the evidence the authorities came up with. “It was ridiculous,” she said. “Where was he gonna get that big ol’ police gun they said he used? It was a great big ol’ gun. And he had on those tight-fitting clothes and nobody saw it?” The gun that investigators produced as the murder weapon was indeed a large, heavy weapon — a government-issued Colt .45 that had been stolen from a firing range used by the sheriff’s department. Deputies who saw Gary before the shooting and those who searched him (and the rest of the black students on the bus) immediately afterward did not see any gun. “I don’t know where the police got that gun from,” said Ms. Tyler. “But they didn’t get it from my son, that’s for sure.” Ms. Tyler worked for many years as a domestic while raising 11 children. Her husband, Uylos, a maintenance worker who often held three jobs at a time, died in 1989. “He had a bad heart,” Ms. Tyler said. She shifted in her chair in the living room of the small house, and was quiet for several minutes. Then she asked, “Do you know what it’s like to lose a child?” I shook my head. “I always felt sorry for that woman whose son was killed,” she said. “That was a terrible time. I remember it clear, like it was yesterday. But what happened was wrong. The white people, they didn’t want no black children in that school. So there was a lot of tension. And my son has paid a terrible price for that. “They didn’t have no kind of proof against him, but they beat him bad anyway, and then they sentenced him to the electric chair.” Ms. Tyler visits Gary at Angola regularly, the last time a few weeks ago. “He’s doing well,” she said. “And I’m glad that he’s able to cope. He tries to help the young ones out when they come in there. He always tells me, ‘My dear, you have to stay strong so I can stay strong.’ So then I just try to hold my head up and keep on going.” She looked for a moment as if she was going to cry, but she didn’t. “It’s just sad,” she said. “I wonder if he’ll ever be able to come out. I wonder will I live long enough to see him out.” *** http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0207-03.htm Published on Wednesday, February 7, 2007 by the Associated Press US Doesn't Sign Ban on Disappearances by Jamey Keaton Nearly 60 countries signed a treaty on Tuesday that bans governments from holding people in secret detention, but the United States and some of its key European allies were not among them. The signing capped a quarter-century of efforts by families of people who have vanished at the hands of governments. "Our American friends were naturally invited to this ceremony; unfortunately, they weren't able to join us," French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy told reporters after 57 nations signed the treaty at his ministry in Paris. "That won't prevent them from one day signing on in New York at U.N. headquarters - and I hope they will." State Department spokesman Sean McCormack declined comment except to say that the United States helped draft the treaty, but that the final text "did not meet our expectations." McCormack declined comment on whether the U.S. stance was influenced by the administration's policy of sending terrorism suspects to CIA-run prisons overseas, which Bush acknowledged in September. Many other Western nations, including Germany, Spain, Britain and Italy, also did not sign the treaty. France introduced the convention at the U.N. General Assembly in November and it was adopted in December. Many delegates expressed hope that other nations will sign by year-end. Some European nations have expressed support for the treaty, but face constitutional hurdles or require a full Cabinet debate before signing, French and U.N. officials said. The treaty was officially opened for signature at Tuesday's ceremony in Paris. It will enter into force after 20 countries ratify it, usually by a parliamentary vote. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour called the treaty an important step both in preventing injustices common years ago and barring newer abuses that often fall through regulatory loopholes. Arbour said the United States had expressed "reservations" about parts of the text, but declined to elaborate, and she urged U.S. officials to sign and ratify it. She noted that America often backs activities of the UNHCR without formally signing on to them. She called the treaty "a message to all modern-day authorities committed to the fight against terrorism" that some past tactics are now "not acceptable, in a very explicit way." The convention defines forced disappearances as the arrest, detention, kidnapping or "any other form of deprivation of freedom" by state agents or affiliates, followed by denials or cover-ups about the detention and location of the person gone missing. Nations that eventually ratify the text would enshrine victims' rights, and would require states to penalize any forced disappearances in their countries and enact preventative and monitoring measures. French officials, who led the effort, counted more than 51,000 people who were disappeared by their governments in over 90 countries since 1980, Douste-Blazy said. Some 41,000 of those cases remain unsolved. "Men and women disappear every day on every continent, for defending human rights, for just opposing their governments' policies or simply because they want justice," Douste-Blazy said. "The situation could not continue to go unpunished. It required a strong response from the international community." Latin American states like Argentina, once plagued by disappearances, are now owning up to much of the violence that left hundreds of thousands dead or disappeared in the 1970s and 1980s. Disappearances were also a common Nazi tactic in World War II. Argentina's first lady, lawmaker Cristina Kirchner, took part in the signing. She was in Paris in an effort to raise her profile before a potential presidential bid. *** Hi. This is a 'save the date' notice - the event is the 17th, not this Saturday. It fits within this mailing's theme of miscarriages of Justice perpetrated by government, noticeably against people of color. In this case, against people associated with the Black Panther Party and this spinoff, the Black Liberation Movement. The Panthers themselves, here in Los Angeles, were harassed, spied upon, incited and destroyed by Federal, State and Local law enforcement, their headquarters here obliterated, assaulted by thosands of rounds fired by huge numbers of police and aeriel bombing. Without provocation. A film is being made about that, some of the men in 'Legacy of Torture' also inteviewed for that upcoming film. In any event, these past sins lie unpunished and now being perpetuated by the same forces. The anti- war movement must include these injustices in its purview. Ed For Immediate Release: What: "LEGACY OF TORTURE: The War Against the Black Liberation Movement" Los Angeles Premiere Showing! When: Saturday, February 17, 2007 4:00 - 7:00 PM Where: Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research 6120 South Vermont, Los Angeles, CA The FBI and CA police recently arrested eight aging former Black Panthers, some of whom were victims of torture, charging them with an alleged conspiracy to kill cops and the murder of a San Francisco officer 35 years ago. Denouncing the arrests as an attack on activists, the legacy of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, and a violation of human rights, many have rallied to their defense. Their defenders say that there was a real conspiracy at the time by the police and the FBI to kill Black Panthers! Known as COINTELPRO, this clandestine 'dirty war' was carried out inside the US through assassinations, frame-ups, mass arrests and military-style assault against the Panthers, and through torture, such as was carried out against defendants and alleged witnesses in this case. According to a member of the Jericho Amnesty Coalition in Los Angeles, "as the Black liberation movement is pushing the new Democratic majority in Congress to reopen hearings into COINTELPRO, prosecutors have trotted out a totally discredited case to try to derail those efforts and intimidate Congress." Stuart Hanlon, one of the attorneys in the case has pointed out that this case was already thrown out of court once because it's based on the documented torture of the Panthers carried out by the New Orleans police under the supervision of the San Francisco police and federal authorities." This new video documentary, which was released just before the indictments, was made after some of the defendants in this case, including Altadena residents Hank Jones and Ray Boudreaux, were released after serving jail time for refusing to testify to a grand jury. It.is being shown as a benefit to support their defense. The program, sponsored by the Jericho Amnesty Coalition - L.A. will also feature family members of the accused and supporters from the Black, Puerto Rican, Mexicano, indigenous and other liberation movements speaking about the importance of the Black Panthers and of this current case. The first court hearing for the four defendants who live in California -- Richard Brown, Hank Jones, Richard O'Neal, and Ray Boudreaux-was held in San Francisco Superior Court on January 29, 2007. The defendants are presently being held on bail of $3 million to $5 million each! Their arraignment and a bail reduction hearing was carried over until February 14 at 9:00 am in San Francisco. A support rally may be held here in Los Angeles. Another defendant, Harold Taylor, is fighting extradition from Florida. Three others are in NY -- Francisco Torres, and political prisoners Herman Bell and Jalil Muntaquin of the New York Three (whose conviction many years ago was based on testimony from the same torture victim who is the state's witness in this case). For more information call 310-495-0299 or check www.geocities.com/jerichoamnestycoalitionla The national website for up-to-the-minute information and to sign up for the supporters' list serve is www.cdhrsupport.org. Donations should be made out to CDHR/AGAPE and sent to the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights, P.O. Box 90221, Pasadena, CA 91109. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! 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