JOE MADISON, radio talk show host and program manager for WOL/WOLB, has got that Energizer Bunny critter beat by a couple of dozen light years when it comes to pep.
Consider this: On Friday, March 19, he did his regular radio show from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. That Sunday, he delivered a speech in Queens, N.Y. The next day, he was one of 146 people arrested when they blocked the doorway to New York City police headquarters at One Police Plaza to protest the shooting of Guinean immigrant Amadou Diallo by plainclothes officers in early February. Arrested along with Madison were former U.S. Rep. Walter Fauntroy, comedian and activist Dick Gregory and Earl Graves and Ed Lewis, publishers, respectively, of Black Enterprise and Essence magazines. The quintet spent more than seven hours in jail before being released.
The next day, Madison was back on the job. He did his afternoon show from Radio One headquarters in Lanham and then headed, with Fauntroy, to Baltimore, where a crowd of more than 200 waited to hear the pair at the Arena Playhouse on McCulloh Street.
And Madison kept up this hectic pace while in the 36th day of his fast. He hasn't taken solid food since mid-February, for reasons not unrelated to why he was arrested in New York. Madison has had enough of police brutality -- in New York, in Washington, in Riverside, Calif., in Prince George's County here in Maryland, and wherever else it may happen.
He's fasting until Prince George's County State's Attorney Jack B. Johnson reopens the Archie Elliott case. For weeks, Madison had charged that Elliott was handcuffed, strapped into a Prince George's County police car and shot multiple times after the arresting officers claimed he reached for a gun. The incident occurred in 1993. A grand jury refused to indict the officers involved.
"Dorothy Elliott has been fighting this all by herself," Madison said of Archie Elliott's mother. "The [Prince George's] state's attorney is black. So what? The grand jury was black. So what? This is nothing but legalized lynching that's going on."
Madison hammered home the similarities between the Diallo and El liott shootings. Diallo, the West African immigrant, was unarmed. Cops from New York's street crimes unit fired 41 shots at Diallo when he made a gesture, they claimed, that looked hostile and threatening. Nineteen of the bullets hit Diallo.
"You couldn't shoot a dog 41 times without people being outraged," Madison said, his voice dripping with sarcasm at those who would try to justify the shooting. Of Elliott, Madison said, "All we've asked is that the truth come out. How do you shoot a kid 23 times who was handcuffed behind his back?"
Madison will be on his fast until he gets an answer. Because media types are in the business of finding answers, I called the Prince George's County state's attorney office. Johnson won't be back in the office until tomorrow. The public information officers, who are supposed to answer questions like the one Madison asks, were, apparently, similarly indisposed. Several calls left on their answering machines went unreturned.
The lack of response is yet another similarity to the Diallo case. The four officers involved in the shooting refused to make statements or appear before a grand jury. Their recalcitrance mattered not. Reports from New York indicated that they will be indicted tomorrow. New York police Commissioner Howard Safir and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani have been equally silent about how an unarmed suspect gets shot 19 times.
Giuliani, to his credit, did express sympathy for the Diallo family. Madison was unimpressed.
"One arrogant mayor who wants to be senator got on television and said he would only meet with 'responsible black leaders,' " Madison charged, adding that Giuliani called the demonstrations in front of police headquarters publicity stunts.
"If this was a publicity stunt, so was the March on Washington," Madison retorted. "So were Selma and Birmingham." Madison then drew a historical link between the civil rights movement and the struggle to end police brutality.
"Martin Luther King's 'I Have A Dream' speech mentioned police brutality three times," Madison noted. "He mentioned police brutality three times in the 'Letter from a Birmingham Jail.' "
Madison exhorted members of the crowd at the Arena Playhouse to attend the next March on Washington, slated for April 3. It will be a march to end police brutality. Expect Joe Madison, who probably isn't even aware the word "quit" is in the dictionary, to be there pleading that Dorothy Elliott get justice.
Pub Date: 3/28/99