War
Stories
Johnny and the Cops
Indictment of 7 in Miami Accused of Plotting to Blow Up U.S. Buildings in Support of al Qaeda
WASHINGTON POST
http://news.findlaw.com/wp/docs/terrorism/usbatiste62206ind.html
June 22, 2006
“A grand jury indicts seven (7) people in
Miami accused of conspiring to attack buildings in the U.S., including
the Sears Tower in Chicago, to show support for the al Qaeda terrorist
group.”
Through the years I have thought of Johnny . I knew him briefly during my tenure of doing forensic psychiatry at Atlanta’s Grady Hospital.
Johnny was about 30. Long before I knew him he had been endowed with the diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. He usually began his frequent visits to Grady in handcuffs and the arms of 3-4 sweating policemen.
His home was the streets; as far as I know, always had been. His mother had been abandoned and had no mother of her own. So while she worked Johnny learned the hood. Never was much connected. No body tried to teach him.
With unit staff he was calm and friendly, even warm. He loved to talk and joke. His understanding of life was not mine but just like mine did it reflected his experience.
He was terrified of police. In fact at his last staffing someone commented
that Johnny would meet his end running from a policeman. -- He did.
Ran in front of a car and then for good measure was shot in the head
for refusing to obey the officer’s order.
Since last evening the cable news coverage of the “domestic
terrorists” has been continuous; U. S. Citizens. No indication
that any resisted arrest. No firearms or dangerous material has been
found. No indication of any contact with any foreign power or wider
national or international group of any kind. First they were called
Muslims but now it appears they are Christian..
I am thinking of this small group of men, residents of the most neglected area of a state noted for its neglect of the needy, gathering together in some kind of connection. I wonder if they still call them “lodges.”
At the press conference the government attorneys say these were “pre-emptive” arrests for “aspirations” to bomb the Sears Tower and honor Osama bin Laden; no plans; no materials. Talk, words said to an undercover FBI agent offering money and claiming to represent Al Quaeda.
It’s beginning to feel a lot like the deep south of the fifties.
w l watkins
© 22 June 2006
Blue
Chemically cleansed of man heat and man
smell,
deep dark charcoal, pinstripe; grey and vague,
soft rich woolen,
It filled the cocoon of plastic and moth crystals.
The earrings retrieved by the cleaners
went into the dresser drawer.
with the spare underwear and socks,
in the corner
under the links tray.
The other day I rediscovered
the jewelry
nested in linen,
still as he had wrapped the pieces.
Like a room in the museum,
objects frozen in place, expectant years
since the early morning quiet latch click
and then the official car, dark blue at the curb
I shed tears, blue in joy for their beauty,
perfectly preserved
Cold blue tears, barren.
Noble Cause.
© November 2005 ~ w.
lorraine watkins ~
| Machine gun on a sling
Magazine of canon caliber Hard bulges where no flesh goes Emotionless remorseless eyes Deep dark plague blotches obscure the rest Trained to kill, My son ~ wlw ~ © 30 Jan. 2006
Bring My Children Home I surrender If the killing is not to stop Hated by the establishment people Every morning on C-SPAN I see them Jill Carroll, warm, loving fragile
now in terror, Jenny Spinner -- escaped by grace, Now Bob Woodruff, handsome, lithe,
moving like a dancer. Send them home
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