These are the events of the morning of December 9, 1981 as they have been testified to in the initial 1982 Trial and the subsequent 1995 and 1996 PCRA (Post Conviction Collateral Relief Hearings.) These facts have withstood direct appeal and they represent the testimony of numerous witnesses to this crime that have been deemed "credible" by the court.

At 3:55 AM on December 9, 1981 Daniel Faulkner, a twenty five year old police Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner observed a light blue Volkswagen driving down 13th Street (a one way street) the wrong way and then turning east onto Locust Street. Officer Faulkner then pulled the Volkswagen over in view of several eyewitnesses.

Prior to leaving his car, Faulkner radioed for a police wagon to back him up. Unknown to him, this would later help preserve the scene of his own murder. Officer Faulkner exited his vehicle and approached the driver's side of the Volkswagen, which was being driven by Mr. William Cook. Officer Faulkner asked Mr. Cook to exit his car. As the officer was looking away, several witnesses stated that they saw Mr. Cook punch Officer Faulkner in the face, violently attacking him. The officer responded by striking Cook, apparently with his flashlight, and then turned Cook towards the car attempting to subdue him.

For reasons that remain unknown today, sitting in a taxicab across the narrow street and watching the events as they unfolded, was William Cook's older brother, Wesley Cook (AKA Mumia Abu Jamal). According to witnesses, Mr. Jamal exited his taxi and ran across the street toward the Officer and his brother, William Cook. While Officer Faulkner was distracted by Mr. Cook, with his back turned to Mr. Jamal, Mr. Jamal was seen raising his arm and then firing one shot that found it's mark in Officer Faulkner's back. A tract Metal Test for Primer Lead done before the trial positively showed that the shot was fired from approximately 10- 12 inches.

Officer Faulkner was able to draw his gun and fire one return shot at his assailant, Mumia Abu-Jamal. This bullet was later extracted from Mr. Jamal's upper abdomen. Having fired this shot, Officer Faulkner fell to the sidewalk. While the wounded officer lay helpless and unarmed on his back, Mr. Jamal was seen by four individuals standing over the Officer with his five shot, .38 caliber Charter Arms revolver in his hand. From approximately 3 feet, Jamal began to fire at the officer's upper body.

Officer Faulkner is believed to have been conscious at this point and to be looking up at his assailant, who was later identified by several people at the crime scene as Mumia Abu Jamal. It's believed that in an attempt to save his life, Faulkner began to roll from side to side as Jamal fired at him. Jamal missed his first several shots. He then moved closer to Faulkner and bent down over him. Mr. Jamal put the muzzle of his gun within inches of Officer Faulkner's face, and squeezed off the final, and fatal, shot. The bullet entered the officer's face slightly above the eye and came to rest in his brain, killing him instantly.

I doubt there is anybody who doesn't think that Mumia is a murderer, the evidence is compelling but I do object to the barbaric policy of state sanctioned killing the US follows, that is just not right.

Mumia should of course be in prison for the rest of his life but it is not up to us to decide how long that life should be.

Of all the one-sided, useless articles written over the years about my husband's murder, Peter Noel's "The Fleeing Man" will be filed near the top. Mr. Noel obviously did no research whatsoever. Not being a regular reader of The Village Voice, I can only hope that his article is not representative of your paper. Regurgitating the unfounded, disproved, and fictional allegations of phantom shooters, along with the charges of rampant police and prosecutorial misconduct presented to the court by Mumia Abu-Jamal's attorneys, without doing a critical review of the facts is not journalism. It's propaganda. Had Mr. Noel looked at my Web site www.justice4danielfaulkner.com
he would have realized that his "Fleeing Man" theory is easily exposed for the fraud that it is with the witnesses' own testimony.

Let's start with William Singletary. Mr. Noel suggests that Singletary is a credible eyewitness who saw a man other than Abu-Jamal shoot my husband and flee the scene. Yet Abu-Jamal's current attorney, Leonard Weinglass, had this to say about Mr. Singletary and his story at the 1995 Post-Conviction Relief Act appeals hearing: "This is a witness . . . whose recollection of what happened on the night in question we believe to be not entirely accurate. We believe his recollection today is not entirely accurate. We believe his recollection which was given in a sworn statement in 1990 was not entirely accurate."

It's not difficult to see why Mr. Weinglass feels Mr. Singletary's version of events is not accurate. Singletary claims that he spoke to my husband and then saw him shoot Abu-Jamal in the chest—after my husband had been shot point-blank between the eyes. According to medical experts, my husband's death was instantaneous. Singletary also saw a police helicopter hovering overhead. Big problem. The Philadelphia Police Department had no helicopter in 1981 and nobody else among the dozens of other people at the crime scene saw a helicopter. Additionally, Mr. Singletary admitted to a highway patrol officer at the scene— who Singletary characterized as a "personal friend"—that he was not a witness to the shooting. Singletary stated: "I heard the shots, but I didn't see what happened." Finally, Singletary never told anyone about the alleged intimidation and abuse he now claims he suffered at the hands of the police until nearly 10 years after the 1982 trial. Like several other defense "witnesses," Singletary suddenly remembered this police intimidation after he first met with Abu-Jamal's current attorneys in the early 1990s. But to substantiate the "Fleeing Man" fairy tale, Mr. Noel accepts Mr. Singletary as credible—despite the fact that no less than a dozen appellate court judges and Abu-Jamal's own attorney have found him not to be.

Next, Mr. Noel suggests that Deborah Kordansky, a woman living in a hotel nearby, saw the real killer run from the scene. However, at the 1995 appeals hearing, when Ms. Kordansky was asked by Mr. Weinglass if the man she had seen running was the killer, she stated that he was not. She explained that after hearing the shots while she was watching TV, she didn't go to the window to see what was happening until she was drawn there by the flashing lights of police cars because she had thought that the shots were simply "firecrackers." Then, "after police and news crews had arrived," she looked down on the crime scene and saw "several people running." She specifically stated that they were not running away but were running as part of the chaotic scene. She stated: "I saw someone running. . . . I didn't say away." She stated further: "There was a man killed, there's panic. Someone was running, maybe two people are running. Maybe three people are running, you know. There's police, there's news crews, etc." But Mr. Noel is content to print the defense's twisted, self-serving version of Ms. Kordansky's testimony without reviewing it for himself.

Regarding Dessie Hightower, also invoked by Noel, much has been made about his failed polygraph. However, the real issue with Hightower is his original statement to police and his 1982 testimony. Hightower admittedly was over 150 feet from the shooting in a parking lot behind a building, getting into a car with his friend Robert Pigford when he heard what he at first thought were firecrackers. He waited "for several minutes, until the last shot was fired," and then he and Pigford ran around the corner to see what had happened. When asked by police at the crime scene to physically identify Abu-Jamal as the shooter, Hightower said: "I couldn't say, because I didn't see the officer actually shot." Hightower did say that "for a second or two" he saw a person run in the opposite direction from him. He said that the person he saw—obviously a different person than Kordansky saw—was "wearing a red-and-black striped sweater, with dreadlocks . . . maybe 5'9" or 5'10"." Several eyewitnesses to my husband's murder said that Mumia Abu-Jamal ran a few feet after he shot my husband in the head (in what would have been the opposite direction of the position in which Mr. Hightower was standing) and that Abu-Jamal then fell to the ground, where he was apprehended by police. Guess what the dreadlocked, 5'10" Abu-Jamal was wearing that morning? A red-and-black striped jacket. Dessie Hightower did see the shooter run. The shooter's name was Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Conspicuously absent from Noel's list of witnesses presented by the defense in 1995 was Robert Harkins—who undoubtedly was an eyewitness to the murder. In fact, Mr. Weinglass places him "closest to the shooting." Though Harkins filed a witness statement the morning of the shooting, he was not called by either side to testify in 1982. For 15 years, Harkins refused to speak to either side. Then, in 1995, the defense put Harkins on the stand under the guise of asking him about photos of suspects the police had allegedly shown him. Dan Williams, one of Abu-Jamal's attorneys, asked Harkins what had happened. Harkins said the shooter stood over my husband as he lay wounded, unarmed, and helpless on the sidewalk, shot him point-blank in the face, and then "walked and sat down on the curb." The stunned Mr. Williams asked Harkins: "The guy that done the shooting walked and sat down on the curb?" Harkins replied: "Yes, on the pavement." Harkins's testimony corroborates the testimony of the four prosecution eyewitnesses (including Cynthia White, mentioned by Noel, who allegedly was coerced by police), and completely destroys Mr. Noel's "Fleeing Man" theory. But not a word of Harkins in Noel's article.

Finally, in 1998, after reviewing the actual facts of my husband's murder for more than three years, the nine-member Supreme Court of Pennsylvania unanimously agreed that there was no credible evidence or testimony pointing to Abu-Jamal's innocence. It also unanimously confirmed the fairness of the trial proceedings and the appropriateness of Judge Albert Sabo's conduct when he tried to maintain order in his courtroom during the relentless and contemptuous temper tantrums and disruptions by Abu-Jamal. In its decision, the Supreme Court also chastised Abu-Jamal's attorneys no less than half a dozen times, stating that "Appellant's recitation of the trial evidence was distorted or incomplete." The Supreme Court called the defense's corruption and coercion evidence "absurd."

Apparently, none of this is important to Mr. Noel.

Maureen Faulkner
Los Angeles, California

Police Officer Daniel J. Faulkner
Philadelphia Police Department
Pennsylvania
End of Watch: Wednesday, December 9, 1981

Biographical Info
Age: 25
Tour of Duty: 5 years
Badge Number: 4699

Incident Details
Cause of Death: Gunfire
Date of Incident: Wednesday, December 9, 1981
Weapon Used: Handgun; .38 caliber
Suspect Info: Convicted of murder

Officer Faulkner was shot and killed while making a traffic stop.

Officer Faulkner stopped the driver of a light blue Volkswagen at the corner of Thirteenth Street and Locust Street for driving the wrong way down a one-way street. Officer Faulkner had the driver exit the vehicle.

As Officer Faulkner was speaking with the driver, the driver struck Officer Faulkner in the face. Officer Faulkner struck the driver back and attempted to take him into custody. As Officer Faulkner was attempting to subdue the driver, the driver's brother came running from a parking lot across the street from the spot where Officer Faulkner had the driver of the Volkswagen. While Officer Faulkner's back was turned, the brother of the driver opened fire, striking Officer Faulkner in the back four times. Officer Faulkner fell to the ground, but was able to return fire, striking the suspect. The wounded suspect was able to fire again as he stood over the fallen officer, striking him in the face.

The suspect attempted to flee but fell to the ground several feet from where he had just shot Officer Faulkner. When back-up officers arrived they found Officer Faulkner mortally wounded and the suspect, murder weapon in hand, laying several feet away.

The suspect, who was a member of the racist group Black Panthers, was charged with murder. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in two separate trials. In December 2001 a federal judge overturned the death sentence and ordered a new sentencing hearing.

Officer Faulkner had served with the agency for 5 years. He is survived by his wife.

The Black Panthers was a racist, radical group that professed the murders of law enforcement officers. Members and former members of the group were responsible for the murders of at least 15 law enforcement officers and the wounding of dozens more across the nation.

(Thursday, March 27th, 2008)

For Immediate release -- Maureen Faulkner, widow of slain
Philadelphia Police Officer Danny Faulkner, released the following
statement in response to today's U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals'
decision granting Mumia Abu-Jamal -- the man convicted in 1982 of
cold-bloodedly gunning down her husband -- a new sentencing hearing:

"Today, after 26 years of waiting, my family and I can finally say that
Mumia Abu-Jamal is officially a 'murderer.' No longer can Abu-Jamal's
minions pronounce that he was wrongly convicted or that his trial was
unfair in any way. While Abu-Jamal's life may be spared due to a legal
technicality -- the wording on a standardized jury form -- all of his
arguments about judicial bias, prosecutorial misconduct and police
malfeasance have been rejected as lies and nonsense by the second-highest
and most impartial court in the land. In the end they have ruled that
Abu-Jamal is a common killer who is guilty of murdering my husband. While
we still hope to one day see Mumia Abu-Jamal executed for the heinous and
cowardly crime he committed, we are heartened by the decision made today by
the Third Circuit Court, bringing my family and me one giant step closer to
the end of this painful journey. There will undoubtedly be more appeals and
more ridiculous claims made by Abu-Jamal and his band of attorneys, but we
are committed to staying the course until we are finally afforded the
closure promised to us by a jury 26 years ago."

Maureen Faulkner -- along with co-author Michael Smerconish -- recently
penned the New York Times best-selling book, Murdered By Mumia: A Life
Sentence Of Loss, Pain and Injustice (The Lyons Press), as a vehicle to
definitively present the facts of the case along with her personal side of
the story.

Adds Smerconish, "The federal courts have firmly rejected every single
argument advanced over a quarter century by Abu-Jamal as to his proclaimed
innocence. Now, he will never get out jail. I am disappointed only in that
this decision rejects the jury's wish as to sentencing based on a
technicality. The idea that life or death for a cop killer should rest on
how many words removed 'mitigating' was from 'unanimous' on the jury form
is asinine."

Both authors' proceeds from the book were donated to the nonprofit
organization, Justice For Police Officer Daniel Faulkner, which provides
educational grants to Philadelphia children whose parents were the victims
of murder.

To interview Maureen Faulkner and Michael Smerconish please contact Khuong Phan at Mouth Public Relations, 212-260-7576 or  Khuong.Phan@MouthPublicRelations.com

The cops and their stooges have plenty of space to peddle their crap elsewhere, we don't need to give them a platform here. Kthxbai.

What's the matter S don't you think Indy readers should know the truth about this cold blooded murder by a coward who has refused to admit his guilt.

Your lies about the "political trial" of Mumia are not quite so easy to keep up when real evidence is presented are they now ?