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Police Attack Bob Hood

By VVAW

Bob Hood, N. Calif. Coordinator of VVAW/WSO, is facing a possible life sentence on charges stemming from a brutal police attack on him Feb. 6th. The attack on Bob came as part of a general wave of police terror in the Oakland area following the Marcus Foster slaying and the Patricia Hearst incident. Bob is tentatively set to go to trial in Oakland Superior Court on May 21 on a charge of "assault on a police officer with a deadly weapon."

The night the incident occurred; Bob had been called and told that a friend of his was being harassed by several police units not far from his home. Going to the scene to witness the incident and assure that his friend was given his constitutional rights and not beaten up, Bob instead found himself staring into the barrel of an Oakland PD service revolver.

In Bob's words, "as it turned out, it was my body and my rights that were trampled on. The officers on the scene viciously assaulted me while my hands were above my head. After putting the cuffs on me, one of then removed my pocket knife from my pants. This knife, they allege, I used to attack Officer Ted Burrows. While it is ridiculous and absurd to imagine that anyone but a madman armed only with a Swiss Army Knife would stab at an armed policeman with many other officers looking on, it's certainly not ridiculous or absurd to be on trial for a felony rap with a possible life sentence."

The Oakland PD officer filing the charges, Ted Burrows, indicated the motivation for the assault when he admitted that he knew that Bob was in VVAW/WSO and said that, "I'm aware that members of this organization are radical and pose an extreme threat to officers' safety." In describing VVAW/WSO, Burrows said that "violence in the streets is the means by which their political goals have been reached." In addition to being an outright lie, this is an odd statement coming from Officer Burrows, who has been the source of a lot of the violence in the streets of Oakland himself. In a recent pre-trial hearing in another case, Burrows admitted hitting a 17 year old black woman in the face because "she was in my way".

Police attacks on VVAW/WSO are nothing new. We have continually been subjected to Governmental attempts to discredit or destroy the organization by trying to portray us as "violent". The highlight of this came with the conspiracy trial of the Gainesville 8. There, literally dozens of paid FBI agents' provocateur surfaced as part of the Government's ?case' against us. The vote of acquittal in this trial proved the lies of the Government's charges against us.

Since the emergence of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) and the arrest of Joe Remiro, a former VVAW/WSO member, there has begun yet another attempt to destroy the organization --- this time by linking us to the SLA. In the Bay Area, VVAW/WSO has experienced not only the attack on Bob Hood, but round-the-clock surveillance, searches of member's homes, unnecessary police detention, and general harassment. Nationally, the FBI has joined the Oakland PD in all this, launching on extensive campaign of intimidation and harassment ? attempts by the FBI to interrogate VVAW/WSO members occur daily. As witnessed by the case of Bob Hood, the Government is using the SLA as a smokescreen to hide its continued attacks on VVAW/WSO and other politically active organizations and individuals on the left, as well as to increase police repression in the communities of the Bay Area.

Money for legal fees and the defense effort is badly needed. For contributions or more information write: VVAW/WSO Legal Defense, 4919 Telegraph Ave., Oakland, CA. 94609.