AJ editorial 12A Sept 23, 1969

The Investigation First

'WE DO NOT believe that police are brutal de facto and neither do we believe that all young people who frequent Piedmont Park are looking for four-leaf clovers.

We do believe, however, that there are better ways of handling situations similar to Sunday's than with clubs and tear gas and that this one got out of hand and that bad judgment was used by the police.

We believe in keeping the parks open for all citizens and that the young who were quoted as saying: that Piedmont is their park were as wrong as the rigid conformists who want to close the parks because of such activity.

What has happened in Piedmont Park was bad business for Atlanta and we ought to work at seeing that such doesn't happen again.

The Police Department 'has announced the transfer of two men who were involved and an investigation is under way. This fracas is being investigated by a Fulton County grand jury which already is investigating other allegations of police brutality.

There have also been calls for a permanent committee to look into recurrent charges of abuse of police power and this possibility should be explored. It is not an original idea with us and it ought to be checked to see if it works or fails of its purpose, or perhaps demoralizes the police department by destroying the lines of authority.

''The best thing to do right now is continue with the investigation by the grand jury. This is a tried and true and trustworthy instrument.

In the meanwhile we also might remember that our system says a man is innocent until proved otherwise, and that accusations alone are not enough for punishment.

The accusations are in but the investigation is incomplete. Let the champions of tolerance now howling for police blood show their own tolerance by waiting until the investigation proves something one way or another.

AJC Sunday Sept 28, 1969 2A

Hippies’ March

Aims at ‘Brutality’

By LEONARD RAY TEEL

Members of Atlanta's hippie community in the 14th Street area were joined Saturday by members of the Negro community, four candidates for alderman and school board. and others for a march from Piedmont Park to police headquarters—protesting what they called ''police brutality" in the park last Sunday.

The march began at 2 p.m. and the nearly 500 marchers arrived at the Police station at 3:25 p.m. chanting '"We want Jenkins!" They disbanded shortly after 4 p.m.

Speaking from the steps of the police department as 12 blue-shirted patrolmen watched, a member of the hippie community, "Sullivan," 27, read a list of demands, including one that Police Chief Herbert T. Jenkins be fired.

One girl passed daisies to people in the march on the sidelines. Some marchers carried banners and placards which generally opposed the police department. Police directed traffic along the route. Until the marchers reached Peachtree and Forsyth streets. They kept in one or two lanes of the streets. After that they claimed the entire street and police kept traffic away entirely.

One banner stating "No armed police or narks in park" was carried with the help of Rev. Douglas Slappey, an Atlanta minister with the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

At the front of the march was another minister in his black coat and white collar, the Rev. Elroy Embroy, of the United Methodist Church and a candidate for the school board inward 3 of Atlanta.

Driving a yellow truck carrying other protesters in the back was Emmett Doe, candidate for alderman in Ward 2. When it was said that some citizens would hold that against him for participating. Doe replied, “Damn ‘em!”

In the back of the truck rode another candidate for alderman, Ed Walters, formerly active in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

A 17-year-old girl in the procession, Sandy Becker, said she was marching because, "I don't feel the police should come into the park and take it over because it is the people's park."

Sullivan, speaking with a microphone, said his community wanted the dismissal of eight patrolmen and some officers, and the freedom to hold gatherings in Piedmont Park.

A leader of the black community, Hosea Williams of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, who has been "beaten" by police in Alabama, Chicago and St. Augustine, Fla. Williams opened by leading in singing "We Shall Overcome," and went on to ask the young white protesters to join the black "human rights movement."