Tag: Keith Cook

Given that Mumia’s next court hearing is on Oct. 29, two weeks away, many of us have felt that not enough attention has been paid to challenging Philadelphia’s widely hailed, new “liberal” District Attorney Larry Krasner. His deadly role in Mumia’s current legal proceedings in the Court of Common Pleas has not been understood by many Mumia supporters. We must pressure him to drop his opposition to Mumia’s current legal action aimed at giving Mumia new rights of appeal of his conviction.

Mumia’s health is seriously deteriorating, as has been witnessed in recent weeks by his visiting doctor, clergy, counselors, teachers, family and friends. Evidence of intensifying hepatitis C symptoms and possible development of the diabetes that nearly killed him a year ago call for immediate and appropriate treatment. Mumia needs us again! Please call, fax and email now! Medical malfeasance and deliberate indifference at SCI-Mahanoy are killing Mumia Abu-Jamal.

I visited Mumia this past Saturday, June 13. Mumia was in good spirits. We talked about the happenings of the world, and he shared a lot about his stay at Geisinger Medical Center. It is clear that the hospital contained the spread of skin lesions that were out of control, and in so doing contained the worst symptoms of a serious skin disease. But the skin disease itself remains active all over his body and undiagnosed.

The majority of U.S. prisoners are African American and Latino males in their childbearing years, imprisoned in a system that regularly violates their fundamental human rights and ravages their health. Mumia would want us to use his suffering to demonstrate that those relegated to the lowest strata of our society – imprisoned Black, Brown and poor – suffer not only their sentences but illness and death by neglect.

Guards stood outside the hospital room and one was inside the room with Mumia. I was shocked at his condition: He had lost over 40 pounds, was weak, barely able to sit up and keep his head up, handcuffed to his chair, with labored breathing and dry mouth. I told him about all the love outpouring for him and that the world is watching!

“My father is in pain,” Mumia Abu-Jamal’s son Jamal Hart related to his uncle and Mumia’s oldest brother, Keith Cook, after a brief 10-minute visit with Mumia Wednesday at the Schuylkill Medical Center. “He was having trouble breathing and wasn’t doing as well as he was yesterday.” Nevertheless, Mumia was transferred back to the infirmary at SCI Mahanoy – the same prison infirmary that failed to identify his diabetes, gravely misdiagnosed him and gave him severely detrimental treatment. Readers are urged to call and contribute.

Imprisoned journalist and former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal has been taken to the Intensive Care Unit of Schuylkill Medical Center in Pottsville, Penn., without any notification to his family, friends or lawyers. Abu-Jamal’s longtime friend, Professor Johanna Fernández, said, “We were told he was in diabetic shock and taken to the hospital.” Listen to an interview with Professor Fernández recorded by Block Report Radio at about 8 a.m., March 31, and an interview with Mumia's brother, Keith Cook, recorded this morning, April 1. This story is being updated frequently.

Keith Cook delivered this speech on Dec. 5 at “Cops vs. Free Speech,” a public forum organized by the Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia: Thank you for inviting me again to be a part of this essential, timely discussion that we should be having across our nation. Free speech – for most of us who are activists, what does the Fraternal Order of Police, commonly known as the FOP, have to do with it?