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Published Sunday, April 17, 2011

I am Maureen Faulkner, the widow of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel J. Faulkner. On December 9, 1981, my 25 year-old-husband was murdered in cold blood by Mumia Abu-Jamal while he lay wounded and unarmed on a cold sidewalk.

I recently became aware that The California Federation of Teachers, a branch of the AFL-CIO, adopted a resolution last month at its annual conference supporting convicted cop-killer Abu-Jamal, who it call a “journalist” and has called for a new trial for him based on some ridiculous “new evidence” that its uninformed members conjured up to serve their purpose.

The committee report reads: “Therefore, be it resolved, that the California Federation of Teachers reaffirm its support and demand that the courts consider the evidence of innocence of Mumia Abu-Jamal.”

The truth about “civil rights activist” Abu-Jamal is readily available online (http://danielfaulkner.org) to anyone with an ounce of personal integrity who cares to read them.

At the site, you can read the actual words by the five eye-witnesses to my husband’s murder, all who witnessed it as they stood less than 60 feet away. The posted information is not my spin on the ballistics evidence that unquestionably ties Abu-Mumia to the gun that fired the high-velocity ammunition that ended my husband’s life. Or you can read about how Abu-Mumia, when taken to a hospital after he slaughtered my husband, to remove a bullet shot in self-defense from my husband’s gun, said in front of two witnesses, “I shot the … and I hope the … dies.”

If this “teachers” organization had shown even a modest amount of professionalism and decency by taking just a few moments to research the actual facts of my husband’s brutal murder, it would have seen that the courts have in fact reviewed the “new evidence” presented over the past three decades by Abu-Jamal and his lying gaggle of attorneys.

You would also see that every one of over a dozen appellate court judges who have exhaustively reviewed these fabricated fairy tales has found them to be patently false. But to know the truth would not serve the California Federation of Teachers’ political and social purpose, so it tells the necessary lies and inflicts further pain on my family and me.

Thursday, I called and spoke with Marty Hittelman, president of the California Federation of Teachers, to inquire if I had the facts straight regarding its endorsement of the murderer of my husband.

During my brief conversation with Mr. Hittelman, I calmly asked him if he knew what happened the night my husband was murdered. He replied that he did not know and “he has not read any of the transcripts” yet, he believes “Abu-Mumia deserves a third trial.”

He told me that the resolution (by the teachers) only took one minute and he had not personally voted on it. I responded that it may have only taken one minute but the continuing trials, appeals and propaganda have resulted in many years of emotional distress for me and my family. He replied, “I’m sure it has.”

He also said this wasn’t supposed to get out into the press, asking, How did you find out about this?” I replied that I found out through the newspapers and told him, “You have no idea what victims go through when they lose a loved one to murder.” At this point, Hittelman hung up on me!

There was a time when I and many others admired teachers for their honesty and integrity. We believed that they, of all people, would seek to uncover the truth rather than to politicize a tragedy for their own gain. Unfortunately, many organizations across the country — like the one Hittleman leads — have turned the vast majority of the American public against their members.

We can no longer trust many of our teachers because we know they have been indoctrinated with lies and because they allow political ideology to trump their responsibility to tell the truth. Organizations like Hittleman’s, which champion racist, politically motivated killers like Mumia Abu-Jamal, have defiled a time-honored profession that is the foundation of everything great about our society.

How dare the California Federation of Teachers support a remorseless hate-filled cop killer, let alone do so in the name of California’s teachers.