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Black Power part 10
Carson denied the charges and stated they went to the man's apartment to make a citizen's arrest when the police could and would not resolve the matter, despite Carson's previous complaints. He never went with the intention to kill anyone, was unarmed, and did not know anyone was shot until he read the story in the news just before he turned himself in.
There were two trials; one for murder and one for kidnapping. At the end of 1974 during their Long Island trial, Carson and four others including Lamont were found guilty of kidnapping in what the NY times refereed to as a 'vigilante action'. Carson stated, "The only reason we were arrested in the first place is that we were trying to do the job of the New York City police".
At their murder trial in Brooklyn, an eighth man, Raymond Chunn, was identified as the person who did the shooting but had disappeared just after the first arrests. When he was finally found two years later after firing a shotgun at a deputy in Nevada, Chunn admitted to the shooting but testified it was Carson who had ordered the shootings. The jury chance not to believe him and Chunn was later found guilty for the shooting and sentenced.
During trial, it was also revealed the two thieves were junkies who committed the crimes to pay for their heroin habit. Two of the witnesses, including the surviving shooting victim, admitted to lying on the stand in their testimony.
Carson, the Lamont and the others were acquitted during the second trial in 1976 of all charges including murder. They still served time for the kidnapping charges. Carson did not get released until the early Spring of 1978.
Independent Brooklyn CORE, part 2
The new Brooklyn CORE broke away from national CORE again in 1975 because of Innis' involvement with the CIA linked group rebel group UNITA in Angola.
As Independent Brooklyn CORE, it continued with its community based programs. The tutorial services for local students it ran was an effort to change the community by creating a consciousness of education to enrich the children's lives. It was based off of practices used by the 'Orthodox Jewish Community'.
As with the first Ind. BK CORE group, there was a certain appreciation for Jewish culture and traditions and at the same time a feeling of the need to use violence to protect itself from specific segments of the Jewish community. Pinn and the chapter, for example, were part of an alliance to protect the local Black community specifically from members of the Hassidic community, such as the Crown Heights Patrol, after several attacks on local Black women and children.
Future research concentrating on the relationship and violent encounters between Brooklyn CORE and the Jewish Defense League (JDL) will be quite telling. The JDL, designated as a terrorist organization by the FBI, came about, according to its leader Meir Kahane, partially as a response to Sonny Carson as the head of the first Independent Brooklyn CORE.
Politiking
Pinn and other BK CORE members, past and present, also continued to run for political office over the years. Pinn did win a seat on a community school board in 1977 and was even made chairman of the board. He lost both times when he ran for state senate. Marland Jeffries was also unsuccessful in his 1978 bid for state assemblyman (Larry Edwards from the Ocean-Hill Brownsville protests was part of his campaign staff). Major Owens, however, who had become a NY State Senator in 1974, would be go on to become the legacy of the chapter's political efforts.
Even though he had not been an active member of the chapter in years, he continued to be involved in CORE type actions. In November, 1975, he helped arrange a demonstration which he referred to as a successful use of BK CORE's stall-in tactic. An alliance of mostly 'city financed anti-poverty programs', Operation Survival involved several thousand people in blocking several intersections throughout the city. Several hundred for example blocked the entrance to the Triboro Bridge, as had East River CORE in 1964. Actions also included carrying a coffin through the streets marked 'Community Action Programs - New York City'. This corresponds to BK CORE's 'Bury Jim Crow' coffins in its campaigns against the BOE and the White House during the early 1960's.
Stan Brezenoff was another rising star in government. After having a hard time finding any work post-CORE because of his activism, he was on his way to the top of the city's political administration. He was by 1978 the commissioner for the Department of Employment during which time a young Reverend Al Sharpton ironically held a CORE type sit in at the front door of his office.