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Jun 13, 2017 | ISBN 9781609807313 Buy
Jun 13, 2017 | ISBN 9781609807320 Buy
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Jun 13, 2017 | ISBN 9781609807313
Jun 13, 2017 | ISBN 9781609807320
APRIL 28, 1973. IT IS 4:50 A.M., STILL DARK AS NIGHT.Ten-year-old Clifford Glover is walking with his stepfather, Add Armstead, down a New York City street toward the auto salvage yard where Armstead works. Patrolman Thomas Shea is driving down the same street in an unmarked car with his partner, Walter Scott. They are on the lookout for a pair of armed robbers who, through a coincidence of fate, were dressed similarly to Clifford and his stepfather.The destinies of Clifford Glover and Thomas Shea are about to collide. When they do, Glover will be mortally wounded by a shot in the back and the gun that killed him will be smoking in Shea’s hand. A child is dead, and the echoes of the shot that killed him will reach far beyond the Shea and Glover families. They will shake New York City, its police and politicians, its black and white citizenry, and send tremors across the nation as Shea becomes the first New York City cop in fifty years to be indicted and tried for murder for a shooting in the line of duty.The Trial of Patrolman Thomas Shea is the gripping account of the events that inspired Audre Lorde’s 1975 poem “Power” and challenged accepted notions of police conduct and criminal justice in America.
The true story behind Audre Lorde’s 1975 poem “Power”–a masterly, gripping and true account of the tragedy of the early-morning shooting of a child and the trial of a policeman for murder that followed. Was it a case of mistaken identity or race hatred–or both?It happened on the morning of Saturday, April 28, 1973, in Queens, New York, at around 5:00 a.m. In the pre-dawn dark, ten-year-old Clifford Glover was walking with his stepfather, Add Armstead, toward the auto salvage yard where Armstead worked, as they did most Saturdays. Patrolman Thomas Shea and his partner, Walter Scott, drove by in an unmarked car. The cops were on the lookout for a pair of armed robbers dressed similarly to Clifford Glover and Add Armstead, and stopped to give chase. The child and his stepfather, who was carrying his wages from the day before, ran, afraid they were going to be robbed. Shots were fired. Armstead flagged down a passing patrol car, not realizing that Clifford was lying on the ground, mortally wounded, the gun that killed him still in the hand of Patrolman Shea, who would become the first New York City cop in fifty years to be charged with committing murder while on duty.A policeman who shot down a ten year old in Queensstood over the boy with his cop shoes in childish bloodand a voice said “Die you little motherfucker” and there are tapes to prove it. (from “Power” by Audre Lorde)
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