UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA
MUMIA ABU-JAMAL, ) NO. 99 Civ. 5089 (YOHN)
Petitioner,

-vs-

MARTIN HORN, et al., )

Respondent.

DECLARATION OF LINN WASHINGTON
I, LINN WASHINGTON, declare:

1.. This is an account of events that transpired on the morning of
December 9, 1981. This account is my true and accurate recollection of these
events.

2.. I submit the following account understanding the federal and state
laws pertaining to perjury and submission of false information.

3.. This account principally examines two areas: (1) the unusual of police
presence at the 13th and Locust Sts. crime scene site of the shooting of
Officer Daniel Faulkner and (2) events at Thomas Jefferson Hospital, where
Officer Faulkner and Mr. Abu-Jamal were taken for treatment.

4.. My name is Linn Washington. I am currently a columnist for The
Philadelphia Tribune newspaper. Further, I am a freelance journalist for
publications nationwide. I write extensively on matters involving the
criminal justice system and racism. Additionally, I am an Assistant
Professor in the Journalism Department at Temple University in Philadelphia.
I hold a Master Degree from the Yale Law School and a B.S. in Communications
from Temple University.

5.. At the time of the events detailed below, I was working as a reporter
for the Philadelphia Daily News. My assignment for the Daily News then was a
municipal beat reporter assigned to cover the 17-member City Council in
Philadelphia. I was assigned to the City Hall Bureau of the Daily News. I
had worked as a full time newspaper reporter in the city of Philadelphia
since October 1975. As a reporter, I covered a variety of assignments
including police beat/crime reporting and investigative reporting. By
December of 1981, I had received awards for some of my journalistic coverage.

6.. On December 9, 1981, I knew Mr. Abu-Jamal professionally and
personally. I knew Mr. Abu-Jamal as a fellow journalist whom I had worked
closely covering a variety of assignments including news events involving
allegations of abusive misconduct by members of the Philadelphia Police
Department. Additionally, I knew Mr. Abu-Jamal as a friend, having first met
him nearly seven years earlier at WRTI-FM, the radio station for Temple
University, the college where I completed my undergraduate studies.

7.. On the morning of December 9, 1981, when I awoke, I turned on
Philadelphia's all-news KYW radio station. Tuning into KYW when I awoke was
my reportorial practice at the time. I did this to become acquainted with
the major news of the respective day.

8.. The lead story on December 9 when I turned on KYW sometime after 6AM
was the shooting of Officer Faulkner.

9.. This news item immediately caught my attention for two reasons beyond
the tragic shooting of a police officer.

10.. First, the KYW report declared that police had apprehended journalist
Mumia Abu-Jamal at the scene. I knew Abu-Jamal, as stated above.

11.. Second, the KYW report declared that when the first officers
responded to reports of a shooting at 13th and Locust, they found one man
"spread eagle" on a building wall and another man slumped on the curb.

12.. The man on the wall, KYW reported, was William "Billy" Cook, the
brother of Abu-Jamal. I thought it was unusual that Cook was spread eagle on
the wall before being ordered to do so by arriving police.

13.. I knew William Cook as Abu-Jamal's brother. I also knew that Cook was
a street vendor in downtown Philadelphia. During the late 1970s and early
1980s, Philadelphia Police frequently harassed Black Street vendors,
incidents that I had reported on as a journalist. I first met close friend
of Cook's, Kenneth Freeman. Cook and Freeman were constantly together,
leading me to initially think that they were relatives.

14.. I met Kenneth Freeman in the mid-I 970s when he came to the offices
of The Philadelphia Tribune after receiving an alleged beating at the hands
of Philadelphia police. I then worked as a reporter for the Tribune.

15.. Throughout the 1 970s, Philadelphia police frequently beat Black men
in general and Black street vendors in particular, as amply documented in
numerous official reports during that era conducted by federal authorities
and local monitoring agencies.

16.. After hearing that KYW report when I awoke on December 9, 1981, I
called the City Desk at the Daily News to see if the editors had a specific
assignment for me regarding this story. I was given a typical generic
assignment of getting 'whatever information you can' and report that
information to editors on a periodic basis.

17.. When I left home sometime around 7:30 AM, in route to downtown
Philadelphia, I decided to visit the Jefferson Hospital. Jefferson, as
stated above, was the medical facility where Officer Faulkner and Mr.
Abu-Jamal were taken.

18.. When I arrived at the 13th and Locust crime scene, the first thing
that struck me was the absolute absence of any police. When I arrived at the
scene around 8:30 AM, there were no police officers in sight. There were no
uniformed officers, no detectives, no special detail officers (like crime
scene investigators) at the location of the shooting.

19.. I found this total lack of police presence at a crime scene to be
highly unusual.

20.. As a veteran of much police beat reporting then, I knew it was
generally standard practice to at least assign a uniformed officer to guard
the crime scene. I found it highly unusual that no police were maintaining
the integrity of this crime scene, particularly since this incident involved
the shooting of a police officer. I had covered previous shootings,
including some non-fatal shootings of police officers, where police kept the
crime scene cordoned off from the public for days.

21.. However, while the lack of police presence was unusual, it was not
unprecedented. I had observed Philadelphia police do unusual things with
crime scenes in a few prior instances. Most notable was the police
destruction of a crime scene on August 8, 1978 a few short hours after the
shoot-out between members of the MOVE organization and Philadelphia police
that resulted in the death of Officer James Ramp.

22.. Police razed the compound that MOVE members occupied during the
shoot-out within three hours after the last MOVE member surrendered. During
the surrender, MOVE members climbed out of the compound's basement that had
been flooded with water and tear gas by police to force their surrender.

23.. It is my belief that police destroyed this MOVE crime scene before
the passage of sufficient time to conduct a reasonably thorough
investigation. Police personnel were in the darkened (no electricity)
ramshackle MOVE compound for less than two hours before a demolition crane
leveled the property.

24.. Questions about the sufficiency of the police investigation of the
August 1978 crime scene arose repeatedly during the contentious trial
involving the MOVE members charged with Officer Ramp's death. During this
era, questions frequently arose about the adequacy of police investigations
into incidents of alleged abuse by police. I feared that the lack of police
presence at the December 1981 13th and Locust Sts. crime scene would have an
adverse effect on the sufficiency of the police investigation involving the
charges against Mr. Abu-Jamal.

25.. At 13th and Locust Sts. on the morning of December 9, 1981, I
visually inspected the crime scene. I wanted to familiarize myself with the
scene, gathering as much visual data as I could. Yet I wasn't looking for
anything in particular because details of events regarding the shooting were
sketchy at best then.

26.. Billy Cook's VW was still at the crime scene. The car was unlocked. I
opened the passenger side door and looked inside the parked VW. It is my
recollection that I saw a few drops of blood on the floor in the back behind
the driver's seat.

27.. My inspection of the VW was brief. However, during the time that I
remained at the crime scene, no police arrived.

28.. From the unguarded 13th and Locust Sts. crime scene, I traveled to
Jefferson Hospital. I think this was shortly before 9:00 AM.

29.. I proceeded to the Emergency Room at Jefferson. Philadelphia police
and hospital security blocked access to the Emergency Room from inside the
hospital. Other reporters were milling around the hallways outside the
Emergency Room. My recollection is that police/security were denying access
to the Emergency Room even to some hospital personnel, presumably those not
specifically assigned ER tasks at that particular time.

30.. I then tried to gain access to the Emergency Room from the outside
entrance but that too was blocked, by a bevy of Philadelphia police. This
police cordon prevented even walking up to the ER's outside door to look
inside.

31.. Sometime after arriving at Jefferson, I have a recollection of seeing
a hospital worker who knew me as a reporter and this person said that police
were beating Mr. Abu-Jamal in the ER. I had no way of confirming this
allegation, being denied access to the ER and the unavailability of police
or hospital spokespersons. However, that allegation of assault did not
surprise me given the pattern and practice of abusive acts by Philadelphia
police repeatedly documented by federal government and local media
investigators at that time.

32.. While at Jefferson, I eventually made my way to an atrium type area,
where food was served. While getting food, I saw two other reporters that I
knew.

33.. It is my recollection that during a conversation with them one stated
that he had talked with a person he knew in the hospital who told him of
having seen police assault Mr. Abu-Jamal in the ER. This account was
consistent with the account I had received from the hospital worker who
approached me with information about a beating.

34.. I remember staying in Jefferson for another hour, awaiting reports
from hospital press information spokespersons. I don't remember receiving
any reports from hospital spokespersons