Free Mugged by Ann Coulter Page B

Barry were found guilty. 27 Everywhere he went, there were standing ovations and cries of “Run, Barry, Run!” 28 George Stallings Jr., minister of a black separatist church Barry attended, affirmed that Barry was “more popular now than ever before.” 29
    During his trial, Barry was the headline speaker at rallies for Nelson Mandela and Louis Farrakhan, presenting himself as a victim of white oppression in the mold of Mandela: “Let the people speak about what is happening in Washington, DC—not just here, but for the other black elected officials all over the land who have misfortunately [
sic
] been harassed and arraigned by U.S. prosecutors.” 30 Jesse Jackson said the FBI sting of Barry reminded him of Soviet justice. 31
    The jury deadlocked on all courts, save the misdemeanor charge, despite the government’s “overwhelming” case—as put by the presiding judge, U.S. District Court judge Thomas Penfield Jackson. Jackson said he had “never seen a stronger government case” but that some jurors simply “would not convict under any circumstances.”
    According to the
Washington Post
’s reporting on the case, Judge Jacksonwas right. There was a block of five black jurors who held out for acquittal on all but the misdemeanor count. Meanwhile, four young educated black women were adamantly in favor of conviction, believing the case against Barry was overwhelming on at least ten of the counts. 32
    But nothing would satisfy Barry’s supporters on the jury. They denied that the bag of crack the FBI seized from Barry was crack, saying it looked more like sugar or baking soda. (The fact that the bag contained crack cocaine was contested by no one at trial.) They refused to convict on one of the possession counts because it referred to Barry smoking crack “on or about” January 1 to January 18—meaning the precise day was irrelevant—because they believed, irrelevantly, that Barry had actually smoked crack a few days earlier. They claimed the FBI “planted” evidence on Barry because he was black.
    One of the pro-acquittal jurors, Valerie Jackson-Warren, was a DC Department of Corrections secretary. She explained her weighing of the evidence to the
Post
: “I believe [the government was] out to get Marion Barry. I believe that with all my heart.” 33
    When other jurors were making arguments based on the evidence, one of Barry’s supporters snapped at her, “I’m sick of you bourgeois blacks.” Another told two black jurors who favored a guilty verdict that they should read a book about the oppression of blacks by whites.
    After being sentenced to six months in prison, Barry went on the
Phil Donahue Show
and was greeted with “wild cheering” from the audience at the University of the District of Columbia. He complained about receiving any prison time at all, rather than community service. 34 Benjamin Hooks, executive director of the once-respected NAACP, embarrassed himself by appearing on the show with Barry to denounce the “vicious” prosecution of Barry and calling it part of the “incessant harassment of black elected officials.” 35 He, too, said the “fair thing” would have been to sentence Barry to community service. 36
    By defending black elected officials like Barry, race hustlers left the impression that all black leaders were inevitably corrupt, incompetent or criminal. Why else would it be “racist” to punish a crack-smoking mayor?
    EDWARD SUMMERS—JANUARY 1994
    In January 1994, Edward Summers needed a new car. So he went to a shopping mall in Nanuet, New York, and waited in the parking lot until he saw Michael Falcone and Scott Nappi getting into Falcone’s Jeep. He forced them at gunpoint to drive to a remote location three miles away, assuring them he wasn’t going to hurt them. Summers then had the boys lie face down on the grass, straddled them, and shot each one in the head at point-blank range. Nappi flinched just as the gun went off, so the bullet lodged in his