It was only a matter of time before NFL reject Colin Kaepernick found Mumia Abu-Jamal. The worst people always do, taking up the cause of the Philadelphia radical convicted of first-degree murder for killing Philadelphia police officer and U.S. Army veteran David Faulkner in 1981.
Abu-Jamal's case is currently in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and his supporters held a press conference Monday, as part of the "Bring Mumia Home" campaign. He was convicted of first-degree murder in 1982, but activists have long been pressing for the overturn of the verdict. Kaepernick, who seems unable to pass up a disgusting movement, is a new booster.
Employed by a radio station, Abu-Jamal was a member of the Black Panthers. During a routine traffic stop in Philadelphia in 1981, Faulkner stopped a vehicle belonging to Abu-Jamal's younger brother William Cook. A physical confrontation ensued, and Abu-Jamal, who was nearby at the time, shot Faulkner in the back and in the face, the latter shot while the officer lay bleeding on the ground. Four witnesses testified to this.
Abu-Jamal was also shot in the confrontation and, while recovering in a hospital, admitted he shot the policeman and said he hoped Faulkner would die.
Kaepernick wasn't even born when Abu-Jamal murdered the officer, but he's demanding the killer be set free. Despite the eye-witness accounts of the crime, Kaepernick says police tampered with evidence and he blathered on about Mumia's "legacy." In the video, he says:
“Mumia has maintained his innocence. His story has not changed. Mumia was shot, brutalized, arrested and chained to a hospital bed.
"We're in the midst of a movement that says Black Lives Matter, and if that's truly the case, then it means that Mumia’s life and legacy must matter. And the causes that he sacrificed his life and freedom for must matter as well.”
So murdering a cop is now considered part of a cause.
Another of the many appalling statements Kaepernick makes in the nearly seven-minute video is how many years of Mumia's life have been stolen away from him, his loved ones and his community. It was Faulkner's life that was senselessly and permanently taken from his loved ones. Kaepernick says Abu-Jamal has been subjected to "psychosocial torture" and "a second-by-second assault on his soul."
Additional participants in the virtual press conference were members of Black Lives Matter Philadelphia, Mobilization 4 Mumia and the Black Philly Radical Collective. A lefty professor from Baruch College, Johanna Fernandez, hosted the sham event.
In a 30-essay series last month, Kaepernick advocated for the abolition of policing and prisons. One of the contributing writers to that radical affront to law and order was Abu-Jamal, who wrote an essay titled “Casting Off the Shadows of Slavery,” tracing the history of abolitionist movements in the U.S.
Abu-Jamal is serving his life sentence for the brutal murder at the Mahanoy State Correctional Institution in Frackville, Pa. He is a "political prisoner" whose principles have never waivered in his fight for human rights and he deserves to be free, Kaepernick says. In all seriousness.
What's next in Kaepernick's ever-downward spiraling trajectory? Demanding the release of Leonard Peltier, an Ojibwa Indian serving two life terms for the 1975 execution of two FBI agents in South Dakota? Not even Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama would grant him clemency, but such an effort may not be too radical for Kaepernick.
