Atlanta Constitution Sept. 23, 1969 1A

City to Probe Charges of Brutality in Park

By SAM HOPKINS

Mayor Ivan Allen said Monday the city will make a full investigation of police brutality charges in connection with the Sunday clash between police and hippies in Piedmont Park and then "take appropriate action."

One apparent decision growing out of the disturbance was to transfer vice squad Detective C. R. Price, who drew his pistol while trying to arrest one person, and Patrolman D. L. Dingee, who has been criticized by hippies in the past for using harassment tactics against them, to duty in the unincorporated areas of South Fulton County.

Mayor Allen, however, declined to comment on four recommendations made to him Monday afternoon by representatives of 32 organizations who said in a statement that Atlanta Sunday "showed the same brutal face as Chicago" during the 1968 National Democratic Convention. The group-called the Atlanta Ad Hoc Committee on Law Enforcement and the Community which was formed last April to look into charges of police bruta1ity - ca11ed for an end to police brutality and harassment, improvement of jail-conditions, suspension of officers accused of brutality and the establishment of grievance procedures.

The statement - read by the Rev. Austin Ford-said the group was protesting their. 'outrage at the increasing violence and abuse of Atlanta citizens by the Atlanta police force."

It added that the Sunday melee was not an isolated incidence. It follows the disclosures of disgraceful beatings in the Atlanta jail-and testimony and affidavits of the same thing happening at Grady (Hospital).

Both Mayor Alien and Police. Chief Herbert Jenkins agreed that they have a small number of "bad apples" on the police force.

"There's nobody in this room,' Jenkins said, "who's more concerned about brutality than I am… Unfortunately, we have 5 per cent (of the police force) that cause a lot of problems and we're going to deal with them," Alien would not say what course of action he and Jenkins may take-whether to suspend or fire certain policemen or take the whole matter before the Fulton County Grand Jury.

The Rev. Riley McDonald said that grievance procedures are needed because people don't hear about the results of investigations into such incidents and there is a "crisis of confidence."

Allen said the city government will not "welch on its responsibilities.” He noted there are at least two sides to the situation, and one being policemen who had acted with restraint.

Twelve persons were arrested Sunday on such charges as inciting to riot, profane language and assault and battery. The cases were postponed Monday I until Oct. 1.

Several people at the park- where a rock music concert was being held -suffered injuries when struck by police. One of them was the wife of a Georgia Tech philosophy professor who had gone to the park to pick up her two teen-age children.

The injured woman, Mrs. Jon Johnston, who said her injury required six stitches -gave her account of the incident at a press conference Monday at the offices of the Great Speckled Bird, a hippie newspaper located at 187 14th St. NE.

Mrs. Johnston said she calmed down an excited policeman at the park at one time, and then later when she tried again he truck her and dragged her to the paddy wagon.

Asked if she touched or struck he policeman before he hit her, Mrs. Johnston said she did not. The said that after she was struck, however, she "hit him across the seat of the pants with my umbrella." The 41-year-old housewife said she remained in the paddy wagon for about two hours and when she was taken to the hospital the police placed her in a wheelchair and handcuffed her ankle to it.

She said it was after that that the charge of assault and battery was placed against her apparently, she said, because she used her umbrella on the policeman after he had bloodied her head. Professor Johnston, the injured woman's husband, told Mayor Allen at the conference with the ad hoc committee that when someone told the policeman that his wife was bleeding in the paddy wagon "the officer laughed and said, 'Oh, isn't that a shame."

When Chief Jenkins commented at the conference that he had no proof yet of police brutality, Mrs. Nan Pendergrast pointed to Mrs. Johnston as evidence and asked if she looked like someone who would beat up an officer.

Jenkins 'then said, "I don't question what you say, but .... "

"Is Officer Dingee still loose with his nightstick?" asked Mrs. Pendergrast.

Someone asked Jenkins if complaints about Dingee had been the Great Speckled Bird, three "demands" agreed to by many who attended the Sunday park outing were made- to have all charges dropped against those arrested, to ban all plainclothes-men and other policemen from Piedmont Park "and let us have our music".

The hippies also called for the immediate suspension of all policemen involved in the "police riot" at the park, and supported "the demand of the black community that Herbert Jenkins be fired as chief of police"

A girl identified as a member of the Students for a Democratic s Society also asked that all police on the Atlanta force be prohibited from carrying firearms.

Al Horn, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who often represents hippies, said he thought that might be going a little too far.

A Bird statement read by staffer Jim Gwin said more than 100 witnesses of the park melee had been interviewed by its staff and that their sworn statements would be added to the federal suit filed against the City of Atlanta seeking to have all charges dropped in connection with both the Sunday incident and one on Aug. 4.

The statement called the incident "not a riot of young people. It was a police riot differing little from other police riots against young people."

It further stated, "We think this irresponsible beating and gassing of young people, and the recent and related beating of black people in the city jail is the clear result of racist and inhuman policies at the highest levels of government in this city, and not a mistake, or the result of the irresponsibility of a few especially brutal policemen."

The ad hoc committee appearing before Mayor Allen said further in its statement, "The city has evaded responsibility and accountability for abuse of its citizens by the city's own we know that the police rioted n Piedmont Park yesterday."

The committee is represented by such groups as the National Urban League, the Atlanta Bar Association, the Metropolitan Atlanta Summit Leadership Congress, the NAACP and the Christian Council of Atlanta. Gov. Lester Maddox, earlier in the day in a special news conference in his office, commented in general about “police brutality."

He charged that "the current uproar” about such charges “Probably resulted from a planned offensive by the agitators, the politicians and enemies of law enforcement to provoke immediate defensive action from the police officers."

Asked to elaborate his charge that politicians helped plan such incidents, Maddox said "at least one" had done so. He refused to mention anyone's name. The governor contended that the communists are back of those who charge police used brutal tactics. "I take my stand with the police officers of Atlanta," he said, "and the United States, and I urge the other real Americans who would save this country from the barbarians, the criminals and the communists to do the same."