 [16] TALK.POLITICS.DRUGS (1:375/48)  TALK.POLITICS.DRUGS 
 Msg  : #5705 [240]                                                             
 From : The S.F. Go Club                    1:2613/335      Thu 05 May 94 19:57 
 To   : (crosspost 1) All                                                       
 Subj : Armed Self-Defense in San Francisco                                     

From: sfgoclub@netcom.com (The S.F. Go Club)
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)

Last October 27th two strangers attacked me as I was driving
a munipal bus in San Francisco. One, a young man of 21 who
was built like a boxer, struck me repeatedly in the face with
his fists. Fortunately my glasses fell out of the way and I
escaped serious injury. He and his partner left the bus and
walked away briskly into Golden Gate Park. I stepped out the
front door to get some fresh air and  to clear my head. My
attacker, who was about 45 yards away, turned and shouted,
"Oh, so you want some more, huh ?" He ran back with the
evident intention of jumping me again. When he got close I
pulled out of my hip pocket a .25 caliber Beretta 'Jet-
fire' and showed it to him, pointing the barrel to the side. He
replied, "Shoot me!" and kept on coming while tugging with
his left hand on a four foot long dog chain hanging around his
neck. I put one round into the ground by his left foot, which
he ignored. I then shot him twice near his right knee. This
stopped his attack almost instantly; he felt his leg; yelped,
"I'm shot!" and ran away vigorously. Since he was still mobile
and his partner still in the area I decided to move my bus with
its fifteen or so passengers out of the danger zone. I proceeded
east on Fulton Street and used the radio telephone to notify
Central Control of the fracas. The police arrived soon,
arresting me at gun-point and then held me for a couple of
hours with my hands cuffed behind me in a squad car until
they transferred me to the County Jail. Eighteen hours later a
local union officer made the $ 15,000 bail for me.
     Since then the Municipal Railway, where I have worked
as a transit operator since 1981 on diesels, electric trolleys,
and metro trains, is trying to fire me and District Attorney
Arlo Smith is trying to put me in jail for six months and fine
me $ 1000. The regional news media publicized the case
heavily. Despite their generally slanderous slant, e.g. KCBS
radio's version that 'the operator followed the fleeing
passenger off the bus and shot him,' many people called in to
offer their support, which I certainly appreciate. I gave a three
hour interview to a reporter from the major newspaper, the
CHRONICLE, which published on the following Saturday a
front page story with only two major errors. I sent them a
letter of correction. In the meantime they had apparently
suffered some editorial intervention on the issue since they
suppressed the letter and instead ran a smear based on
unnamed sources. The CHRONICLE has long been notorious
as a major embarrassment to the City of San Francisco. I had
on several previous occasions denounced its support for the
war crimes of the United States Government in Central
America and the Middle East. The previous July one of its
columnists, a Herbert Caen, had called on its readers to "go
beat the MUNI. With a club, if necessary !" Having previous
experience with this deceitful, irresponsible hack I protested in
writing at that time directly to his employer,  one Richard
Thieriot, who suppressed the letter. His family shortly
thereafter removed Mr. Thieriot from his position as publisher.
     I had started carrying the pistol in 1982 after a similar
attack on the bus which caused me a permanent partial loss of
vision in my left eye. The assailant in that case was 6'4" tall,
weighed 230 lbs., and was built like an ocean swimmer. I held
him for the police and rode the D.A.'s office on the case until
the judge gave him six months.
     The Saturday before last Fall's attack I had gone to the
Green Apple Bookstore on Clement Street to hear the famous
author & botannist Terence McKenna read from his latest
work, TRUE HALLUCINATIONS. I was familiar with his
earlier book FOOD OF THE GODS. He had an audience of
about fifty, which the staff said was the largest there ever.
During the Q&A I pointed out that we in this country are
holding about 300,000 people behind bars on dope charges
and proposed that we form a Freedom League to establish
freedom of diet, abolish neo-Prohibition, free the prisoners and
compensate them for their unlawful persecution at the rate of
$ 100,000 per year of time served [ 100k p.y. ]. I asked the
speaker would he meet with us if enough of the audience were
interested in pursuing this project. He agreed and a dozen
people signed up and gave their contact data. The next
Tuesday I phoned all of them to announce the founding
meeting of the Freedom League at New College on Thursday.
On Wednesday at noon I faxed Mr. McKenna two pages of
plans for the creation of the League, saying that we had an
opportune moment for attacking and routing the D.E.A. and its
allied repressive forces. Six hours later Mr. Dallas Johnson
started swinging.
     By way of further background I will mention that the
previous Winter  I had discussed the notion of the League
with a neighbor and old friend name Mark Pickens, a militant
member of the Libertarian Party and sometime candidate for
office on their ticket. In June Mark had started working with
the well-known activist Denis Peron to start up a group called
Residents Against Prohibition ( "RAP" )  in order to counter a
group sponsored by the secret police [ hereafter, "sepo" ] in
the neighborhood of Haight & Ashbury Streets called
Residents Against Druggies    ( "RAD" ) .  In 1991 Denis had
put on the ballot in San Francisco a measure favoring the
medical use of marijuana       ( Proposition P ) which had
passed with 79% of the vote. Mark thought he was being
discreet, staying in the background, keeping his name off the
literature and helping with clerical chores like the mailing list.
Then one morning in July the CHRONICLE columnist Herbert
Caen denounced him by name, saying that he was a nasty
fellow and that no one should help him. That same afternoon
the vice-squad  put a battering ram to his front door, trashed
his house, seized both his computers with the mailing list and
charged him with possession of marijuana for sale. Another
related incident in this pattern took place in early December
when Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders responded in public to
a question from NORML by saying that perhaps the nation
should study the advisability of legalizing drugs [sic] as a way
of reducing crime. Within a few days the sepo arrested her
son on charges of trafficking in cocaine.
     Incidentally, as part of the media flap surrounding this
remark the second San Francisco paper, the EXAMINER,
announced on the front page a  call-in survey on the question
"Do you favor legalizing drugs [sic] as a way of reducing
crime ?" The next day ( 12/10 ) on page 21 they reported the
results: In favor 3,149 or 86% and opposed 503 or 14%.
Meanwhile the New York TIMES pushes the neo-
Prohibitionist line, calling 'legalization' an obvious political
impossibility. Somewhere chutzpah crosses over into madness.
     To come to the present moment, I am still facing jail and
the loss of my job . My court-appointed attorney seems to
sympathize with the D.A. Can anyone recommend a
competent criminal defense lawyer in this area who believes
in the right of self-defense ?

  The first posting of this statement disappeared within two hours,
as have several previous efforts of mine. Can anyone advise me on this
problem ?
--
Hal Womack: Speaking for myself only unless otherwise noted. Contact data=
Snail mail to Box 640113/ San FRancisco, CA 94164/ U.S.A. eml to
sfgoclub@netcom.com /// tel. 415/ 923 1507. Student of Diego Rivera,
Ho Chi Minh, Paul Robeson, Naguib Mahfouz, Shusaku, Madonna & Sgt. York.

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