What's Happenin' this Month

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Panel discussion: Pat Norman, nat'l co-chair, 1987 Jat'l March for Lesbian and Gay Rights; John Belsl us, Activist, AIDS-ARC Vigil; Kristen Dempsey, student AIDS educator, SFSU; Zakiya Somburu, "Defend Latin American Political Prisoners' Panel discussion: John Rubenstein, Northeast Re gional Director of Amnesty International; representative from New England Central American Network for 2 SOCIALIST ACTION MARCH 1989 San Francisco "An Injury to One is an Injury to All"

Benefit for Mark Curtis Defense Committee Poetry reading by Piri Thomas, author of "Down These Mean Streets."

Saturday, March 4, 7:00 p.m.

Dolores St. Baptist Church (15th St. & Dolores) (415) 282-6255 "The Case of the Legless VeteranThe fight against McCarthyism in the 1950s"

Film, speakers: Howard Petrick, film make and Asher Harer, organizer of Jimmy Kutct er defense in San Francisco Bay Area.

Friday, March 10, 8:00 p.m. 3435 Army St., suite 308 "The AIDS Crisis and the Case for Nationalized Health Care"

Bay Area Black Women's Health Project.

Friday, March 24, 8:00 p.m. 3435 Army St., suite 308 Boston Emergency Response; and others.

Friday, March 10, 7:30 p.m.

Cambridge YMCA, 7 Temple St., Cambridge 617-497-0230

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Minneapolis City Hall on Feb. 7 protest against increase of cop violence.

Black students in front of "Tragic casualties in the war on crack" was how Minneapolis Police Chief John Laux summed up the brutal police murder of two Black senior citizens in their home on Jan. 25. Lloyd Smalley, 71, and Lillian Wiesse, 68, were killed in a fire started by a downtown hotel were set upon by Minneapolis cops, who sprayed them with mace and beat them-leaving one with a broken wrist and another with a broken nose. Racist epithets such as "nigger" and "welfare scum" were shouted at the students. One woman charged that she was sexually fondled by a cop while being "frisked." Five students Lynn immigrant who was beaten by police and whose efforts to file a complaint were rebuffed by the internal affairs department, wept as he told the meeting, "In Cuba, a Communist country, we all worked together, Black and white. I learned I was Black when I came to this country."

Protest leader Chris Nisan summed up the mood of the past week when he said, "We're making a stand. We're prepared to do whatever we have to to have our demands met." increase dramatically. These assaults by police have used front-end loaders, battering rams, and explosive devices.

Last year, police battered down the door of an elderly Black woman's house only to find they had the wrong address. She suffered psychological trauma severe enough to require hospitalization. The cops tried to neutralize the adverse publicity by sending the victim a bouquet of flowers.

Just a week before the murder of Smalley and Wiesse, police again threw tear gas and an explosive device into the wrong house. Added to these deadly assaults are countless examples of police forcing their way into homes on the pretext of searching for drugs— using their fists and clubs instead of grenades and bulldozers. A police brutality hotline set up last year by the city's Urban League and NAACP chapters has already forwarded 55 cases to city and federal agencies for investigation.

City authorities want cover-up Mayor Don Fraser, a leading Minnesota liberal, has refused to charge the cops who murdered Smalley and Wiesse and has refused to order the charges dropped against the students in the hotel raid. His only action so far has been to endorse the city Civil Rights Commission's request for authority to investigate complaints against cops. The commission once had that right but it was rescinded in the 1970s by the City Council.

Police Chief Laux, however, could not stomach even this meager proposal. He refuses to allow the commission to investigate the charges, saying it would weaken his control of the department. The truth is that Laux and other city officials are terrified that the truth will come out about the police department's actions and the willing knowledge and approval of those actions at the highest levels of city government.

The anti-police brutality coalition's demand for a police review board with full subpoena powers deserves the support of every union and every organization which stands for social justice in this city. It is seen by leaders in the minority communities as a step toward bringing the cops under some measure of control.

It should be recognized, however, that you cannot reform the racism and brutality out of an institution whose purpose is the protection of property rights and repression of the dispossessed. Malcolm X once criticized the

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Does color or ela: Bretaliy! Action Henderson/Socialist