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Socialls Action, 3435 Army 3l, Rm. 308, San Franzlasa, CA 94110 2 SOCIALIST ACTION MARCH 1985 chief medical examiner, Dr. Elliot M. Gross, announced that there was no evidence that physical injury had caused the death. "

-The New York Times, Jan. 28, 1985.

At the hospital Dr. Robert L. Wolf had examined the comatose victim. "1 removed the sheets, he said, "and it was obvious that he had incurred Editor: ALAN BENJAMIN Assistant Editors: NANCY GRUBER Business Manager:DON MAHONEY Circulation Manager: RALPH FORSYTH Editorial Board: Alan Benjamin, Les Evans, Dianne Feeley, Jeff Mackler, Nat Weinstein Staff: Paul Colvin, Larry Cooperman, May May Gong, Millie Gonzalez, Mark Harris, David Kirschner, Hayden Perry, Linda Ray, Joe Ryan, Kwame M.A. Somburu, Marion Syrek, Sylvia Weinstein Socialist Action (ISSN 0747-4237) is published monthly for $6 per year by Socialist Action Publishing Association, 3435 Army St., No.

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Eleanor Bumpurs was killed by two shotgun blasts on Oct. 29, 1984. She was four months behind in her New York City housing-project rent—$96.25 a month-and six cops had come to evict her from her apartment.

The 66-year-old Black woman, who had a history of mental illness, became upset, started yelling, and picked up a kitchen knife. One of the cops leveled his 12-gauge shotgun and simply blew her away.

The police, as usual, claimed that the shots were in response to a life-threatening situation. Relatives pointed out that the 270-pound, arthritic grandmother was physically incapable of attacking the cops.

A key issue in the case is whether she was hit by one or two shotgun blasts. Dr. Jon S. Pearl, the medical examiner who performed the autopsy, reported the cause of death as "shotgun wounds (two) of chest, hand, and lung."

Dr. Elliott M. Gross, however, intervened and ordered him to delete the parenthetical "two."

His apparent motive was to bring the report into accord with the police claim that she had been hit only once.

Given that six cops invaded an infirm, elderly Black woman's apartment and one of them gunned her down, the number of shots might seem somewhat irrelevant. The question, however, was apparently of critical importance to a grand jury that decided to indict the cop who pulled the trigger, Stephen Sullivan, for manslaughter.

According to the district attorney, if Sullivan had fired but one shot, the grand jurors would have been willing to believe that he had acted in self-defense. But the second shot, in their view, was an indication of an unwarranted intention to kill the old woman. Gross was obviously trying to weight the autopsy For the past year, Socialist Action has been on the spot covering and taking sides in the major labor battles and demonstrations against U.S.

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ACTiON Telephone ordered the number of shots deleted. upped the ante in what was already a Officer Sullivan's indictment has major political controversy. The cops and the gutter press (spearheaded by the New York Post) are mobilizing rightwing sentiment to drop the charges against the killer cop—a demand, in effect, for open season against Blacks.—C.C.

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