Trial of Brother Shareef a Trial Against Us All

Around 1015 a.m. civil rights, freedom of speech and cop watch activist Shareem Aleem was found not guilty by a jury in the Adams County Justice Center.
Brother Shareef was made to endure a second trial after the first trial ended in a dead-locked jury. He was charged with assaulting a CU campus policeman during the CU Regent's meeting to discuss the controversy surrounding the free speech rights of Professor Ward Churchill.
The Regent's meeting was annouced as being an open public forum and a large crowd of activists supporting Churchill attended. Apparently the Regents sensed there might truly be free speech occurring at this forum and suddenly reneged on their announced open forum. They closed the meeting and attempted to cut off any comments from the public.
Brother Shareef objected as many in the auditorium did. He dared to stand up to voice his objection. He and another member of the crowd were targeted by campus police to take out of the audience.
When a campus policeman attempted to grab Shareef, he clearly told him to keep his hands off of him, pushing the attempted grab away. Two campus policemen approached the brother from the back of the elevated part of the auditorium he was standing in. The other policeman who had attempted to grab Brother Shareef was standing below the railing of that area.
The two campus policemen came upon the brother and one shoved him forward, resulting in him losing his balance. Brother Shareef lurched forward and was grabbed by the officer below. This contact caused Shareef to fall onto the policeman and a struggle initiated by the police occurred.
Shareef was taken down, cuffed and led from the auditiorium with the crowd angered and shouting "let him go". He was treated harshly once outside the auditorium as well.
So, logically, the DA of Adams County charged Shareef Aleem with a felony assault of the campus policeman he was pushed into by another campus policeman. The charge could have resulted in a prison sentence of up to 16 years.
These are the approximate facts. The true story, however, is the courage of our Brother Shareef Aleem. He has consistently confronted the plague of police brutality in the Denver metropolitan area. He's been a victim of that brutality and continued the stuggle.
These are the things Brother Shareef Aleem fights to make right. He lives with the harassment and the racism every day. He and his family also live with the new reality of racism and prejudice against the Muslim community. Thanks to the terror tactics of the Bush administration, being Muslim and black makes brothers and sisters magnets for the brutality of the militarized police forces, the homeland security and federal agents bent on creating fear and intimidation.
When Ward Churchill was being excoriated for daring to have written "the chickens have come home to roost" concerning the events of September 11, 2001, Shareef Aleem stood up to protect his right to have an opinion unpopular but terribly true.
The paraphrased words of Malcolm X about chickens coming home to roost infuriated the establishment so bent on making 9-11 the rallying cry for the phony war on terror. They lashed out at the bearer of truth and bad news who dared to challenge the symbol of the atrocities of “Shock and Awe” and “Mission Accomplished”....the twin towers of NYC.
Brother Shareef refused to allow intimidation and brutality to win out in the case of Churchill just as he's continued to do so in his own community. The elite and powerful of this nation depend on the paramilitary forces of the police to carry out the fear campaign as well as police against crime. Shareef challenges that force of fear.
The opportunity to quiet this voice of freedom came about when Shareef Aleem decided to be the lion rather than the lamb at the CU Regent's meeting. Here was a chance to put him into the gulag system that has taken so many of his brothers. And we in America had better start thinking of them as our brothers as well.
The DA of Adams County tried Shareef and failed to get a jury to convict him of the felony that would imprison him. Undeterred in the attempt to quiet this dissident, the DA used the split jury to put Brother Shareef and his family through another trial rather than accept the obvious evidence of the truth.
Judge Delgado imprisoned Brother Shareef for daring to wear a shirt decrying the injustice of the gulag system of America during the first trial. Shareef wore a shirt to honor Tookie Williams, a brother who was literally assassinated by the American government. Shareef dared to honor a man who wrote children's books urging children of color and white children to be peaceful and non-violent.
He refused to take the shirt off. Judge Delgado of the Adams County court found him in contempt. Once again a question of free speech was defended at the cost of his own freedom by Shareef.
Those who don't know Shareef Aleem may be taken aback by his ferocity and passion. They may hear the loud voice of a black man speaking out against the racist injustices of this nation and flinch because of the racism so many of us are indoctrinated with by the Eurocentric white culture we live in.
I recently did a presentation about the peace movement during the Vietnam era. I immediately thought of the Black Panthers and wondered where such a group is in today's troubled times. I go see Shareef Aleem on trial and talk with Brother Larry Hales and I know where they are. The Panthers live on in the courage and passion of Shareef and Larry.
Some may shudder at the mention of the Panthers but fail to understand what they represented and what their true goals were. They fail to understand the COINTELPRO terrorists of J.Edgar Hoover and the CIA targeted the Panthers fearing they might actually stir the black community to rise up angry against the continued inequities of a nation calling itself free, Christian, democratic and just.
COINTELPRO has morphed into the Joint Terrorist Task Force and Homeland Security. Guantanamo and the secret prisons spread throughout the world show nothing has changed except the sophistication of the means to spread terror.
The values and freedoms Shareef stands for are those opposed to secret police forces, abusive police forces and the restriction of justice and freedom for all citizens. He stands for the values of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. He stands for the values of his God.
This may very well sound like a biased tribute to my friend and brother, Shareef Aleem. It is. It's also a tribute to Mark Burton who actually makes the practice of law an honorable thing. Mark is another freedom fighter who is fearless and unwilling to give away the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
I got to see Mark at work briefly but immediately recognized his skill and his passion for justice. He uses the law as a sword of justice that cuts deeply into the sleazy proceedings that so often occur.
I heard Shareef's judge sentence a young woman to four years in prison for multiple violations of using drugs. The judge told the woman her problem was her addiction. Logically he sent her to prison. I feared I would see Shareef face the same fate but because of Mark and because of the truth a miracle occurred. Justice prevailed!

Wm. Terry Leichner, RN
VVAW member - Denver
Vietnam combat vet - USMC