PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

Rally and March to Protest Violence TODAY (sat 7.26)
by david Saturday July 26, 2003 at 11:57 AM

Rally and March to Protest Violence TODAY (sat 7.26) while Urban League is here

People Against< Police Violence

Community House, Suite 420
801 Union Place
Pittsburgh, PA 15212-5523
412-322-1330 phone
412-322-1327 fax
Justice@PAPV.org
http://PAPV.org

For Immediate Release: July 25, 2003
Date/Time of March/Rally: 1 PM, SATURDAY, July 26, 2003
Rally: Freedom Corner, Centre Ave @ Crawford St.
March to: City-County Building, Grant St., @ Forbes Ave.
Contact: Renee Wilson, 412-657-4268 (cell), RWilson@PAPV.org

Rally and March to Protest Police Violence

Civil rights leaders to hear the pain of the families of the victims

With the Urban League national conference in town, and several major civil rights leaders attending, People Against Police Violence has called for a rally and march to demand justice for the young men and children killed by the police in Southwestern Pennsylvania. The rally will take place at Freedom Corner at Centre Ave. and Crawford St. at 1 PM and a march to the City-County Building will proceed from there.

Joyce Rogers, mother of homicide victim Bernard Rogers, 26, will speak at the rally at Freedom Corner at 1 PM Saturday. She hopes the Rev. Jesse Jackson, rumored to be in town, will hear her pain. Bernard was killed by Pittsburgh Housing Authority police on November 15 of last year, and in March Allegheny County Coroners office ruled the death a homicide and recommended that charges be brought against Tonyea Curry for shooting unarmed Bernard in the back and killing him. But more than four months later the District Attorney has filed no charges in this case.

The Dixon family, still morning the loss of Charles Dixon, 43, will also be in attendance and expected to speak. Charles died when as many as ten officers from Pittsburgh and Mt. Oliver Borough wrestled him to the ground and applied pressure to his back. The Coroners office ruled earlier this week that this too was a homicide, but declined to sort out which of the many police officers on top of him were responsible, leaving this task to the already reticent District Attorney.

Damian Jordan, 24, who died while in custody of the Mt. Oliver police in 1999, will also be represented by family who refuse to accept the idea that he died by his own hand. Renee Wilson, Director of People Against Police Violence, said that the coroners inquest, held four years after the death, was rife with inconsistencies in both the physical evidence and the testimony of witnesses. The conclusion of suicide does not explain the blunt-force trauma to the body, or other facts noted by the medical examiner in his 1999 autopsy report. Nothing else in this young mans life points to the conclusion of suicide either. We believe there is another story which would be brought to light with a full and fair investigation, Wilson said.

In the case of Charles Dixon, Wilson points out, All of the police officers involved in the death of Charles are still on the job, both in Pittsburgh and in Mt. Oliver, despite the fact that the coroner has indicated that some or all of them are under suspicion of homicide. The coroner did not specify who amongst the officers involved he thought to be responsibly, leaving that task up to the District Attorney.

Wilson also points out that the coroner recommended homicide charges against the Pittsburgh Housing Authority officers involved in the death of Bernard Rogers, but that several months later no action has been taken by the District Attorney. Because of these cases, as well as the failure of the system in others, including the death of 12-year-old Michael Ellerbe in Uniontown on December 24 of last year, PAPV will call for a march and rally from Freedom Corner to the City-County Building to take place this Saturday, July 26, at 1 pm.

About People Against Police Violence

People Against Police Violence works with the families of victims to advocate for justice for the victims of police violence, increase community awareness, and demand that guilty cops serve maximum prison sentences.

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www.papv.org

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Zappalla Called to Probe Cases
by Donna Spadaro Thursday July 31, 2003 at 11:44 AM
dspadaro@usachoice.net (email address NOT validated)

The Pittsburgh Post Gazette is to be commended for calling upon District Attorney Stephen Zappalla to �pick up where Dr. Wecht left off� and investigate the asphyxiation death of Charles A. Dixon in an encounter with police ( �Probe the Police� 7/25/03). The PG rightly calls for �scales of justice to be balanced for all citizens.�

In this same spirit, I urge the PG to call upon DA Zappalla to report to the community the results of the investigation into the death of Paul Corsi at the convention center truss collapse in February 2002. Almost a year has gone by since Allegheny County Coroner Cyril Wecht investigated this death and found � failures so blatant and overwhelming that a person could only conclude that the actions, errors and omissions more than rise to a level of recklessness and grossly negligent conduct� and recommended that the Dick Corporation be held criminally liable. In appalling contrast, OSHA found no evidence of criminal violations. T he Dick Corporation was able to �negotiate� with OSHA to have two of the citations issued reclassified as �other than serious� and one dropped completely, that resulted in a reduction of fines to a paltry $12,000.

Families of victims killed on the job, whose tax dollars fund OSHA, have no such access to �negotiate� with OSHA and no method of readdressing negligence that indeed may be criminal. As my brother, Gary Puleio, was killed in an industrial accident, I have experienced this firsthand. OSHA patronizingly dismisses the concerns of families as due to inexperience or emotional distress. Certainly Dr. Wecht�s concerns cannot be written off by OSHA in the condescending manner that family members� concerns are.

This community deserves to know the results of District Attorney Zappalla�s investigation. If worker safety laws are to have any validity and the truthful circumstances surrounding the death of Paul Corsi are ever to be made known, an adequate investigation by an unbiased authority must be done.

Reporting the facts of this investigation, will be a step in balancing the scales of justice for Paul Corsi, my brother Gary, and the approximately 6000 workers who are killed yearly on the job.


Donna Puleio Spadaro, MD





CC: Stephen A. Zappalla, District Attorney, 436 Grant St. Room 303 Courthouse, Pgh, PA 15219

CC: Cyril Wecht, MD, JD, Coroner, 572 Fourth Ave, Pittsburgh PA 15219



CC: Richard Soltan, OSHA, The Curtis Center, 170 S. Independence Mall West, Suite 740 West, Phila, PA 19106

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