“Whites outnumber African Americans five to one in this country, yet how many times do you hear about whites being shot with dozens of bullets by police officers? Mr. Morgan, an African American, is far from the first Black man to suffer this fate. No matter how you slice it, race has everything to do with why this man was shot.”
-- Rev. Paul Jakes, Jr., President of the Christian Council on Urban Affairs.

*************************************************

MALCOLM X ON POLICE BRUTALITY:

"In the shooting that took place, seven men were shot. Seven Muslims were shot. None of them were armed. None of them were struggling. None of them were fighting. None of them were trying to defend themselves at all. And after being taken to the police station, they were held for 48 hours and weren’t even given hospitalization. We have one now who is completely paralyzed. We just got all of them free last night. . . . And this happened in Los Angeles last Friday night, in the United States of America, not South Africa or France or Portugal or any place else or in Russia behind the iron curtain, but right her in the United States of America."
-- 1962

"What do they look like, running all over this country investigating things that are of no consequence, and they haven’t got sense enough to go into Los Angeles and investigate the Gestapo tactics of the police department out there? What do they look like condemning Eichman for what he did in Germany or the Nazis for what they did in Germany, and you’ve got some Gestapo tactics being practiced by the police department in this country against 20 million black people, second class citizens, day in and day out -- not only down South but up North. Los Angeles isn't down South. Los Angeles isn't in Mississippi. Los Angeles is in the state of California, which produced Earl Warren, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court — and Richard Nixon, the man who was Vice President of this country for some eight or nine years and who wants to run for President again."
-- 1962

"This black man was shot through the heart by Police men in Los Angeles, California, and they are dumb enough to think we have forgotten it. Well, a Muslim never forgets. You don't kill our brother! We don't never forget! You don't shoot one of us and then grin in our face. You don't shoot one of us and then shake our hands and think we'd forget it. No, we never forget, we'll never forget! Someone has to pay. Somewhere, somehow, someone has to pay. When a snake bites your children, you don't go and look for the snake that has blood on it's jaws, any old snake will do. Any old snake will do! .... I'm telling you, the only way you get justice is in the street. The only way you get justice is in the sidewalk. The only way you get justice is when you make justice for yourself.
--April 1961

"Last summer, when the Blacks were rioting—the riots, actually they weren't riots in the first place; they were reactions against police brutality. And when the Afro-Americans reacted against the brutal measures that were executed against them by the police, the press all over the world projected them as rioters. When the store windows were broken in the Black community, immediately it was made to appear that this was being done not by people who were reacting over civil rights violations, but they gave the impression that these were hoodlums, vagrants, criminals...."
--1964

Malcolm X not only commented against police brutality, in contrast to many others, he was an ACTIVIST. Here he describes how he and others won a partial victory by rolling up their sleeves and organizing:

"Two white policemen, breaking up a street scuffle between some Negroes, ordered other Negro passers-by to 'Move on!' Of these bystanders, two happened to be Muslim brother Johnson Hinton and another brother of Temple Seven. They didn't scatter and run the way the white cops wanted. Brother Hinton was attacked with nightsticks. His scalp was split open, and a police car came he was taken to a nearby precinct.

"The second brother telephoned our restaurant. And with some telephone calls, in less than half an hour about fifty of Temple Seven's men of the Fruit of Islam were standing in ranks-formation outside the police precinct house.

"Other Negroes, curious, came running, and gathered in excitement behind the Muslims. The police, coming to the station house front door, and looking out of the windows, couldn't believe what they saw. I went in, as the minister of Temple Seven, and demanded to see our brother. The police first said he wasn't there. Then they admitted he was, but said I couldn't see him. I said that until he was seen, and we were sure he received proper medical attention, the Muslims would remain where they were.

"They were nervous and scared of the gathering crowd outside. When I saw our Brother Hinton, it was all I could do to contain myself. He was only semi-conscious. Blood had bathed his head and face and shoulders. I hope I never again have to withstand seeing another case of sheer police brutality like that.

"I told the lieutenant in charge, 'That man belongs in the hospital.' They called an ambulance. When it came and Brother Hinton was taken to Harlem Hospital, we Muslims followed, in loose formation, for about fifteen blocks along Lenox Avenue, probably the busiest thoroughfare in Harlem. Negroes who had never had seen anything like this were coming out of stores and restaurants and bars and enlarging the crowd following us.

"The crowd was big, and angry, behind the Muslims in front of Harlem Hospital. Harlem's black people were long since sick and tired of police brutality. And they never had seen any organization of black men take a firm stand as we were….

"We wouldn't learn until later that a steel plate would have to be put in Brother Hinton's skull. After that operation, the Nation of Islam helped him to sue; a jury awarded him over $70,000, the largest police brutality judgment that New York City has ever paid."
--from the Autobiography of Malcolm X, 1964