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Cincy Vet Beats Police Attack

By VVAW

(The following article was written by the Cincinnati chapter of VVAW which led the struggle to free Sonny Williams.)

Sonny Williams, a member of VVAW, went to trial on October 4 on charges of "receiving stolen property." Sonny is innocent and was framed up on these charges. The ridiculous charge was that Sonny had received several stuffed animals. Stuffed animals??? For this charge the prosecuting attorney was threatening to put Sonny in jail from 1 to 5 years.

When Sonny went to trial on October 4 the case was dismissed. It was a big victory for us. But why was Sonny framed in the first place? And how did it come about that the charges were dismissed?

Sonny is from a neighborhood of working people with a high unemployment rate. Fairmount, the area of Cincinnati where he lives, is a neighborhood where the police have a strong presence. They are there to keep the lid on the growing resistance to the oppression of the system: bad housing, no recreation for youth, and other typical injustices of this system. Sonny was framed because he lives in this neighborhood and because as a member of VVAW he stood up to fight the system and was leading fights against the oppression of youth in the neighborhood. The ruling class and their flunkies, the police, try to beat down all forms of resistance and that's what they tried to do to Sonny. They attacked him because he was organizing to fight oppression of veterans and working people.

The police and the prosecuting attorney fabricated a case against Sonny and were determined to push it through. But the Cincinnati chapter of VVAW stood by our brother and decided to fight back. We went out to Fairmount and leafleted the gas station where the stuffed animals were stolen from, and also because the manager of the station was the main prosecution witness. The police had intimidated him into lying about the case.

We leafleted the community and put up posters there over a period of a couple of months. We also leafleted at the unemployment offices, and VVAW members and supporters had a picket line outside the courthouse on the morning of the trial.

When Sonny was first arrested it looked like there was now way he was going to get off. But the more we persevered in taking out his case, the more support he won. Be exposing the frame-up, our position got even stronger.

Finally, at the trial, the main prosecution witness didn't show up. People in the neighborhood said it was because of the picket line at the gas station. As a result, the prosecution's case fell apart and the judge was forced to dismiss the case.

But before he dismissed it, the judge told the people in the courtroom that VVAW shouldn't think that they had any influence on the case and that instead of picketing the courthouse, we should go out and do something "constructive." What he meant was that we shouldn't fight back. And we know we did something "constructive" by fighting the system and winning a big victory in freeing Sonny from this frameup.