ALBERT JOHNSON TRIAL Mistrial makes victim the accused By KERRY McCUAIG TORONTO — You pass through six uniformed cops be- fore you even get in the door. Once inside a metal detector is passed over your clothing. If you’re Black the search is thorough. If you’re a plain clothed officer a nod breezes you through. Inside the room the man- slaughter trial of William Inglis and Walter Cargnelliis in process. It ends Nov. 13 clearing them of any guilt in the death of Albert Johnson. The reaction from Johnson’s wife Lemona, her four children, her sister and the friends and rela- tives who have supported her throughout the three weeks of defence attorney referring to testimony i is immediate. They run crying from the court room. The other half of the audience remains to hear Judge Frank Dunlap con- gratulate the jury. They are mostly caps. A year ago on Aug. 26 Albert Johnson bled to death in a To- tonto hospital, a police bullet in his abdomen. He became the eighth person to die by police hands in a year. The community was outraged. A- police inquest had just cleared another officer in the shooting death of another Black man, 24-year-old Buddy Evans. It Was a predictable ver- dict many charged. That’s what you get when you have cops in- vestigating cops. Viciforous protests were in- strumental in Attorney General Roy McMurty calling in the pro- Vincial police to conduct an in- quiry into the death of the Jamaican immigrant. Normal procedure would have had the Toronto force investigate its own members. That investigation brought manslaughter charges against Cargnelli and Inglis. A third officer involved in the shoot- ing, Gary Dicks, was cleared. To prosecute its case the pro- vince called William Morrison from Kitchener, 60 miles away, to avoid bias. He was joined by Peter Speyer. Mrs. Johnson and the Albert Johnson Committee Against Police Brutality, formed immediately following the shoot- ing, complained that they failed to prosecute their case vigorously ~ enough. The family’s attempt in the Supreme Court to have the charge changed to murder was : denied. The prosecution went into the case with plenty of ammunition. |. Much of it was left unfired when it | ended. For although the jury was being asked to decide the fate of the two men in the prisoner’s box, it soon became obvious that it was Albert Johnson who was on trial. Observers. reported a ‘‘state of | seige’’ surrounding the pro- ceedings. In addition to seeing Blacks entering the room frisked by police, the all white jury ‘“‘was disturbed’’ according to press re- ports, by ‘‘outbursts’’ in the courtroom. The outbursts were instigated in some cases by the Blacks as ‘‘Negroes’’ and ‘‘col- ored people”’ against Johnson as the only per- son in the trial guilty of racism. In the early days the court was cleared because of an alleged bomb threat (no bomb was |} found). The all-white jury was a sensi- : tive area, since the prosecution made no attempt during jury } selection to find a body repre- ; sentative of the city’s multi-ethnic composition. Three potential Black jurists were challenged by | the defence and removed. The prosecution based its case entering | on the accused Johnson’s home illegally. The de- fence charged that the police | acted to protect the family and, in | self-defence when Johnson at- } tacked, shot him. Johnson’s nine-year-old daugh- ; and accusations |* ter Colsie witnessed his death. On [ the same day Johnson died she | told the press he was coming down the stairs of their home, or- | dered to kneel by police and then | shot. The police version had Johnson | coming down the stairs, a two-foot lawn tool in his hand set to attack. Evidence by the pathologist who conducted the autopsy on the 35-year-old man substantiated . the child’s story. The bullet en- tered his abdomen travelling ata + 45-degree angle downward. Johnson had to have been shot from above. In Jater police testimony, their story was changed. Johnson was then in a crouch position in the doorway of the living room ready. to spring. The prosecution never challenged the contradictory evi- dence. The judge didn’t point it out in his summation to the jury. He did caution them however, that ae child’s testimony was *““questionable”’ based on a state- ment by an Ontario Provincial Police investigator that he had seen an unidentified woman ““coaching”’ the child. The jury Committee for Racial Equality calls on crown to appeal Johnson ruling The ‘Johnson trial’’ has not ended. The many groups which - were formed following the killing are still seeking justice. “The quality and nature of Johnson’s personality were ir- relevant to this case’’, charged Louis Feldhammer, head of the Committee for Racial Equality in an interview with the Tribune. ‘*The fact remains that the man’s home was broken into and he was killed.”’ The CRE is now'in the process ofco-ordinating all the groups and individuals concerned with police reform to push for a retrial. ‘‘The whole list of disquieting features to the trial including jury selection and allowing contradictory evi- dence to go unchallenged point to the need for the crown to appeal the case,”’ said Feldhammer. { Louis LOUIS FELDHAMMER ... for retrial of Johnson case. PACIFIC TRIBUNE—NOV. 28, 1980—Page 8 The lack of concern ‘by the State’ S prosecutor reveals the “role of the Tory government’’, he charged. He accused Ontario attorney-general McMurtry of : displaying little interest in push- ing for a strong prosecution. Government complicity was also charged in the trial’s timing. The press had painted a scenario of two cops being hounded for doing their job. This weakened the position of many civic candidates, including Mayor Sewell who had made police re- form a major part of their plat- form, Feldhammer stated. The CRE will also be pushing to have police reform a. major issue in the imminent provincial elections, since it is the provincial government who is responsible for the conduct of the police and” the judicial system. Civil rights lawyer Charles Roach, speaking at a demonstra- _ tion the day following the verdict, said the trial outcome points out the immediate necessity for an in- dependent civilian complaints bureau. He charged that the Human Rights Commission of- fered little protection to victims of police brutality. It wasn’t until nine days before Johnson’s death, three months after he had filed the charge, that it was taken to the police. Mrs. Johnson is also in the-pro- cess of instituting a civil trial nam- ing the chief of police, and the police commission responsible for negligence resulting in the death of her husband. was not told that Colsie’s story, which she never changed, was - taken down days before the al-_ leged ‘‘coaching’’ incident took place. On the ‘‘dangerous weapon’ ’ family members during intensive grilling denied seeing Johnson with the lawn tool. His fingerprints were never found on it. The metro constable who was in the house on the day admitted handling it on at least three occa- sions and carried it around tucked under his arm. The defence based much of its case on the yelling and screaming that was supposedly taking place inside the Johnson home which led police to kick down the door to “protect’’ the family. But three independent: witnesses testified ' that the house was quiet when police forced their way in. In his charge to the jury Judge 2 Dunlap confused the timing. He _ teferred to testimony from wit- nesses which stated that Johnson had been noisy earlier in the day but failed to remind them the house was quiet when police en-— tered. But probably most damaging to the father of four was the week and a half of unchecked testimony which painted him as “unstable, violence-prone, and given to bizarre behavior’’ during the last months of his life. Johnson was known to police. . He had been arrested, charged *, and jailed on three occasions. The 4 jury heard detailed accounts of his behavior during these incidents. They were never told that the two cases ‘against Johnson which did get to court were dismissed. His nine-day stay in hospital, the result of police beating was never reported. Cargnelli was one of the men involved in the beat- ing. Nor was the officer who dealt with Johnson at the Ontario Human Rights Commission cal- led as a witness. She could have told the jury that, Johnson had complained to the Commission on four occasions that summer. That he feared the police were going to kill him and was becoming in- creasingly desperate due to the harassment. But any question of premeditation on the part of police was ruled out. Witnesses repurted hearing the third officer, Gary Dicks, say “‘I’m going to kill that fucker’’. But that was ruled inadmissable since Dicks was not on trial. Instead Johnson’s response to the situation, his natural distrust of the police was treated as the conduct of a ‘‘berserk’’ person. It was probably the two-and-a-half hour summation to the jury by Judge Dunlap that clinched the trial’s outcome. In his address, 15 minutes were de- voted to the prosecution, the rest to the defence. . _ Besides discounting the testi- mony of the only eyewitness, he told the jury that if Johnson had a lethal weapon in his hand it was “‘understandable’’ that police shot him. He quoted relevant sections from the criminal code dealing with permissible police conduct in the line of carrying out their duty. But he failed to quote the section _ which would have explained Johnson’s behavior. It states a citizen has the right to use any means necessary to defend his home and his life.