I noticed the gentleman [Jamal] coming from the parking lot. He was moving across the street towards where the officer had stopped the Volkswagen. I heard two shots and I didn’t see the Officer no more. I proceeded back across the street to see what happened to the Officer. And then as I proceeded back across the street I looked. When I got to the pavement, I had looked down and I had seen the Officer lying there and I didn’t see the other gentleman [Jamal] until I — until I moved closer and he was sitting on the curb.

N.T. 6/25/82, 8.75-7

McGill: Did you later see that man that you saw running across the street and that you saw at the curb anywhere else?

Magilton: Yes, they [the police] were putting him in the paddy wagon. An officer had seen me up there and asked me if this was the man. I said, that’s the man I seen coming from the parking lot.

N.T. 6/2/82, 2.95

Robert Harkins – 1995

Although he gave a written statement to police just one hour after the shooting, Robert Harkins was not called to testify by either side at the 1982 trial. However, he was called to testify as a defense witness at Jamal’s 1995 PCRA hearing.

Like Robert Chobert, Harkins was also a cab driver, and saw the shooting. He gave a written statement to police at 6:00 AM on December 9, 1981, just 2 hours after the killing. In this statement Robert Harkins said:

On 12-9-81 between 3:30 AM and 4:00 AM while traveling East on Locust Street from Broad Street, I was approaching 13th Street when I observed a police car with its dome lights on. And then I looked over and observed a Police Officer grab a guy, the guy then spun around and the officer went to the ground. He had his hands on the ground and then he rolled over. At this time the male who was standing over the officer pointed a gun at the officer and fired one shot and then he fired a second shot. At this time the officer moved a little and then went flat to the ground. I heard a total of three shots and saw what appeared to me to be three flashes from the gun of the man standing over the Officer. When I saw the Officer go flat to the ground, I drove down the street and at 12th Street and Locust Street I saw a police wagon which was traveling south on 12th Street and I told them that a cop got shot back there and one of the Officers, the passenger, said “a cop?” and I said yea, a cop. At this the wagon turned onto Locust Street and then after that there were a lot of cops that came. It was only a minute from the time the officer got shot until the first cop came.

Robert Harkins Statement, 12/9/81

At Jamal’s 1995 PCRA hearing, the prosecution objected to Harkins being allowed to testify about what he had seen in 1981, because Jamal’s lawyers had claimed he was being called to testify only about a photo array he had supposedly been shown some time after the murder. The objection was overruled. Obviously pleased with himself, Jamal’s lawyer, Daniel R. Williams, Esquire, invited Mr. Harkins to describe what he had seen on the morning of December 9, 1981:

Harkins: I seen the guy [the shooter], he shot the thing, having the gun, the guy [the officer] was lying there. They were spinning around the pavement.

Williams: Who was spinning around?

Harkins: The cop and the – they was like wrestling a little bit and the cop fell down. He [the shooter] leaned over and two, two to three flashes from the gun. But then he walked, and sat down on the curb.

Williams: The guy who did the shooting walked and sat down on the curb?”

Harkins: On the pavement.

N.T. 8/2/95, 208-9

This testimony, presented by Jamal himself supposedly for his own benefit, was devastating. It was, in fact, additional evidence of his own guilt. Like the other four prosecution eyewitnesses in 1982, Robert Harkins stated that the killer shot Officer Faulkner in the face and then collapsed on the pavement next to Officer Faulkner’s body. That, of course, was the exact spot where police had found Jamal, his gun on the ground beside him, just moments after the murder.

WILLIAM COOK — UNWITTING WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION

While Mumia Abu-Jamal chose not to call his brother to testify in 1982, there can be no doubt that Jamal’s brother, William Cook, knows who the killer is. Each of the eyewitnesses said that the murder happened right in front of him. When police arrived, however, Cook did nothing to profess his brother’s innocence. Rather than claim that things were not exactly as they appeared, or that the “real killer” was getting away, Cook exclaimed, “I ain’t got nothin to do with this” (N.T. 6/19/82, 131).

Jamal’s failure to call his brother as a witness, either at trial in 1981 or at his PCRA hearings in 1995, 1996, or 1997, can be explained in only one way.

MUMIA ABU-JAMAL — THE OTHER EYEWITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION

Stating that he felt he had been denied his rights, Mumia Abu-Jamal chose not to testify in his own behalf in 1982.

If someone other than Jamal had committed the murder, Jamal certainly would have mentioned it to someone before allowing himself to be convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1982. In fact, common sense says he would have shouted it from the rooftops. Instead, this articulate radio newsman absolutely refused to talk about what had happened until the year 2001 — twenty years after the murder. At that time, he had his latest lawyer release a piece of paper with his signature on it. The paper claimed that Jamal — found at the scene of a murder with an emptied gun at his side — had seen nothing.