The Savage City (60 page)

“So I says, OK you son of a bitch”:
Shecter with Phillips,
On the Pad,
pp. 241–242.

“We make a meet for the next day”:
Ibid.

P.J. Clarke's Saloon:
For a time, P.J. Clarke's was a nexus of Manhattan nightlife. It has been used as a location for many movie shoots, most prominently
The Lost Weekend,
starring Ray Milland.

Phillips's Triumph 250 sports car:
Shecter with Phillips,
On the Pad,
p. 18.

Phillips scores off Jimmy Smith:
Ibid.

Phillips's relationship with his father:
Ibid.

“He got to be a pain in the ass”:
Ibid.

“He says, I don't want the surgery”:
Ibid.

Phillips visits father three or four times a day:
Ibid.

Whitmore separates from Aida:
Interview with George Whitmore (April 3, 2009).

Whitmore Sr. dies, house burns down:
Ibid.; Shapiro,
Whitmore,
p. 245; Lefkowitz and Gross,
The Victims,
p. 416.

George and Nate's Excellent Adventure:
Interview with George Whitmore (April 3, 2009).

Hearing before Judge Helfand:
Interview with Myron Beldock (January 27, 2009); interview with George Whitmore (April 3, 2009); Zion, Sidney E., “Whitmore Is on Trial Once Again on 5-Year-Old Rape Case,”
New York Times,
March 28, 1969; “Whitmore Conviction Affirmed, But He Is Planning New Appeal,”
New York Times,
July 29, 1970.

Rockefeller report buried:
“Whitmore Report Cites Confession,”
New York Times,
May 6, 1969; Lefkowitz and Gross,
The Victims,
pp. 507–509; interview with Myron Beldock (January 27, 2009); interview with Selwyn Raab (April 22, 2009).

Nixon's law and order candidacy:
Perlstein, Ron,
Nixonland,
pp. 349–365.

Cleaver jumps bail, settles in Algeria:
Caldwell, Earl, “A Federal Warrant Is Issued for Arrest of Eldridge Cleaver,”
New York Times,
December 11, 1968; Austin,
Up Against the Wall,
pp. 187–188; Cleaver,
Target Zero,
pp. 49–54; Pearson,
Shadow of the Panther,
pp. 171, 229–230.

Bombing incident at police station house:
Zimroth,
Perversions of Justice,
pp. 21–22, 146–148, 226.

Shooting on Harlem River Drive (September 17, 1968):
This shooting constituted one of the criminal counts in the Panther Twenty-one case. Asbury, Edith Evans, “Panther Bullet Hit Belt, Witness Says,”
New York Times,
January 13, 1971; Asbury, Edith Evans, “Policeman Denies Beating Panther,”
New York Times,
May 13, 1970; Kennebeck, Edwin,
Juror Number Four,
pp. 21–22, 86, 111; Kempton,
The Briar Patch,
pp. 11–12, 18, 56, 201–203; Zimroth,
Perversion of Justice,
pp. 6–7, 104–105, 146, 234–235; Balagoon et al.,
Look for Me in the Whirlwind,
pp. 81–82, 93.

It's Time: Cadre News:
Interview with Dhoruba Bin Wahad (September 16, 2009). Vol. 1, no. 1 of
It's Time: Cadre News
was in the FBI COINTELPRO files I.

Bin Wahad identified by COINTELPRO:
The first time Dhoruba Bin Wahad appears in a COINTELPRO report is when he was identified as being part of Eldridge Cleaver's security team at a public appearance in NYC in October 1968.

Bin Wahad on Ralph White (“He was full of shit”):
Interview with Dhoruba Bin Wahad (September 16, 2009). Ralph White was a complex character. According to Gerald Lefcourt, who would cross-examine White on the witness stand, “He was conflicted. Whereas Gene Roberts blocked out his mixed feelings about being a cop and betrayer of his own people, Ralph White was torn up about it. I asked him on the stand, ‘You spent all this time working with community groups, marching on behalf of social causes, advocating for poor and disenfranchised people in your community. And then you were an undercover police officer. So which is it? Who are you really? Where do you place your loyalties?' He took a deep breath and seemed like he was going to have a nervous breakdown when I asked these questions.” Interview with Gerald Lefcourt (January 25, 2010). Ralph White's conflicted nature is also on display in
Red Squad
(1971), a documentary about BOSS in which he is interviewed.

“We traveled like shadows”:
Bin Wahad, “The Future Past” (unpublished manuscript).

“The vast parking lot around the Pentagon”:
Ibid.

Account of Bin Wahad's arrest:
Interview with Dhoruba Bin
Wahad (September 16, 2009); Bin Wahad, “The Future Past” (unpublished manuscript); Kempton,
The Briar Patch,
pp. 16–17, 19; Zimroth,
Perversion of Justice,
pp. 156–159.

15. THE ROT WITHIN

Robbery at Krown's Record Store:
Interview with George Whitmore (April 3, 2009); Whitmore State of New Jersey arrest report.

Robbery at Allen's Delicatessen:
Ibid.

Whitmore sentenced to jail in New Jersey:
Ibid.

Panther Twenty-one indictment announced:
Zimroth,
Perversion of Justice,
pp. 21–35.

Lindsay administration approached by Serpico and Durk:
Maas,
Serpico,
pp. 11–15, 280; Lardner,
Crusader,
pp. 213–216; Gelb,
City Room,
pp. 547–559; Cannato,
The Ungovernable City,
pp. 466–467, 469, 470; Shecter with Phillips,
On the Pad,
p. 189.

Reporter David Burnham blows open police scandal:
Burnham, David, “Graft Paid to Police Here Said to Run into Millions,”
New York Times,
April 25, 1970; Gelb, Arthur,
City Room,
pp. 554–555; Levitt,
NYPD Confidential,
pp. 1–3; Lardner and Reppetto,
NYPD,
p. 267.

Lindsay appoints investigative commission:
Before the Knapp Commission came into being, Lindsay appointed an interim committee known as the Rankin Committee, which was comprised of Corporation Counsel J. Lee Rankin, D.A.s Hogan and Roberts, and Police Commissioner Howard Leary. After being in existence less than one month, the Rankin Committee reported in a letter to Lindsay that they had received 375 complaints in response to public pleas by the mayor for information and were unable to adequately investigate the claims. The committee also expressed concern about the wisdom of having allegations of police corruption investigated by officials who some segments of the public believed might conceivably be responsible for the conditions they were supposed to examine. It was in response to the Rankin Committee's recommendation that Lindsay issued an executive order appointing the Knapp Commission, with a total budget of $325,000 supplied mostly by federal grant.

Phillips's response to formation of Knapp Commission:
Shecter with Phillips,
On the Pad,
p. 230.

Pretrial conditions for Panther defendants:
One of the factors that turned the public against the prosecution in the early stages of the trial was the manner in which the defendants had their basic rights inhibited. One of the defendants, Lee Berry, was a Korean War veteran; his arrest had taken place at the Manhattan Veterans Hospital, where he was being treated for epilepsy. A special unit of arresting officers descended on the hospital and ordered
the supervising physician to discharge the patient as “a murderer, an arsonist, and a Black Panther.” Berry was held in solitary confinement at the Tombs. He became ill but was denied treatment. He suffered numerous epileptic seizures while in custody and was eventually deemed too sick to stand trial with the other defendants. “Statement by the Central Committee of the Black Panther Party,”
Black Panther,
April 27, 1969;
The Black Panther Party and the Case of the New York 21,
report by the Committee to Defend the Panther 21, 1969.

Judge John M. Murtagh:
The recently concluded Chicago Eight conspiracy trial, which had been turned into a rowdy courtroom burlesque by Abbie Hoffman, Bobby Seale, and others, was rumored to be the reason D. A. Hogan assigned the Panther Twenty-one trial to Murtagh, who ran a tight ship and, logic suggested, could keep the defendants from turning the trial into a three-ring circus. Murtagh was only partly successful. His demeanor, according to a juror who would later write a book about the trial, was “humorless and rigid.” Another author writing about the case noted that “[Murtagh] had an uncanny ability to appear biased even when he was ruling correctly.” The defendants used the judge as a foil, referring to him in court variously as “pig,” “faggot,” “liar,” “hanging racist,” “fascist lackey,” “grandee vulture,” “dried up cracker in female robes,” and “Hitler.” According to Thomas Hughes, who served as a court clerk for Murtagh throughout the trial, the judge never wavered under the verbal onslaught. “Stoic would be a good word to describe John Murtagh,” said Hughes. Interview with Thomas Hughes (May 13, 2010).

Murtagh was not a cardboard character; he was a complex man who had written two books, one about prostitution and the other about narcotics treatment, that were considered progressive in their day. Interview with John M. Murtagh Jr. (February 5, 2010); Van Gelder, Lawrence, “Panthers Cite Murtagh's Arrest in '51 on Neglect of Duty Charge,”
New York Times,
March 3, 1970; Asbury, Edith Evans, “Fistfight Breaks Out at Panther Hearing,”
New York Times,
February 4, 1970; Asbury, Edith Evans, “Panthers' Judge Acts on Turmoil,”
New York Times,
February 5, 1970; Kempton,
The Briar Patch,
pp. 11–15, 88–89, 150; Kennebeck,
Juror Number Four,
pp. 8, 9–13, 47–48, 101, 150–175; Zimroth,
Perversion of Justice,
pp. 17, 100–103, 224–225, 229, 297–300.

“I was referring to George Whitmore”:
Interview with Dhoruba Bin Wahad (September 16, 2008).

“Panther Twenty-one Manifesto”:
Interview with Dhoruba Bin Wahad; interview with Gerald Lefcourt (January 25, 2009).

Joseph A. Phillips
: Interview with Mike Armstrong (August 12, 2009); interview with Thomas Hughes (May 13, 2010). Hughes, Judge Murtagh's court clerk, also served as an assistant D.A. in Manhattan and knew
Joe Phillips, whom he described as having a knack for “rubbing people the wrong way” Kempton,
The Briar Patch,
pp. 21–31, 75–80; Zimroth,
Perversion of Justice,
pp. 31–32, 36, 288–290, 292; Kennebeck,
Juror Number Four,
pp. 21–22, 89–112, 175.

“a white Irish Catholic judge”:
FBI COINTELPRO files (copy of report on the trial written by the Committee to Defend the Panther Twenty-one).

Street protests outside the courtroom:
Interview with William “B.J.” Johnson (January 23, 2010); interview with Cleo Silvers (March 26, 2009); Zimroth,
Perversion of Justice,
p. 97; Kempton,
The Briar Patch,
pp. 68–69, 112.

Abbie Hoffman puts up money for Bin Wahad's bail:
Interview with Gerald Lefcourt (January 25, 2010); interview with Dhoruba Bin Wahad (September 16, 2008); FBI COINTELPRO files, confidential memo.

Bin Wahad jailhouse meeting with David Hilliard:
Interview with Dhoruba Bin Wahad (September 16, 2008); Hilliard,
This Side of Glory,
pp. 228–230.

“I was and still am a black nationalist”:
Interview with Dhoruba Bin Wahad (September 16, 2008).

Alex Rackley murder:
The murder of Alex Rackley was the beginning of a descent into violence that would eventually contribute to the destruction of the BPP. The trial also revealed just how riddled with informants the Panthers had become. Sheehy, Gail, “Black Against Black: The Agony of Panthermania,”
New York,
November 16, 1970. Sheehy's two-part article on the New Haven trial was later published in book form as
Panthermania
(1971). “A Panther Admits He Killed Another,”
New York Times,
January 17, 1970; Austin,
Up Against the Wall,
pp. 276, 289–293; Pearson,
Shadow of the Panther,
pp. 235–236.

Additional support for BPP:
The Committee to Defend the Panther Twenty-one issued regular bulletins to generate publicity and solicit funds. Among their most notorious fund-raisers was a gathering of wealthy, mostly white Manhattanites at the Upper East Side duplex apartment of composer Leonard Bernstein, director of the New York Philharmonic. The party was famously lampooned by writer Tom Wolfe in an article in
New York
magazine that was later published in book form as
Radical Chic and Mau-mauing the Flak Catchers
(1970). Wrote Wolfe: “In the season of Radical chic…the very idea of [Black Panthers], these real revolutionaries, who actually put their lives on the line, runs through Lenny's duplex like a rogue hormone.” Curtis, Charlotte, “The Bernsteins' Party for Black Panther Legal Defense Stirs Talk and More Parties,”
New York Times,
January 24, 1970; “Upper East Side Story,”
Time,
January 26, 1970.

Bin Wahad released on bail:
Interview with Dhoruba Bin Wahad (September 16, 2008); interview with Gerald Lefcourt (January 25, 2010);
Asbury, Edith Evans, “Moore, Panther Leader, Freed on $100,000 Bail,”
New York Times,
March 27, 1970.