Jones case overly publicized

By Letter to the Editor

To the Editor:

Malik Jones died nearly a year ago. Nonetheless, his mother, Emma Jones, and her merry band of supporters have managed to allow this subject to continue to receive media attention to this day. Recently, the MALIK Organization's "MALIK Conference: A Call to Action" was good for a few columns in local papers. Said the notice: "Conference will examine circumstances & critical issues raised by the brutal shooting of unarmed Malik E. Jones." The most recent addition to Emma Jones's scrapbook might have been the Herald article last week, ("Jones supporters claim bias in FBI investigation" [2/27/98, YH]).

After the police department and state's attorney independently vindicated East Haven Police Officer Robert Flodquist of wrongdoing in shooting Jones, his mother continued to assert that the death of her son was a product of a racially motivated criminal act, and incessantly called for "justice." Now the FBI has reviewed the case, reaching the same conclusions, which have been submitted to the Department of Justice. While it is entertaining to consider a conspiracy reaching across multiple levels of government to cover up for Flodquist, anybody vaguely familiar with the bureaucracies involved would have to discard the possibility as too silly for even The X-Files.

This nonsense has gone on long enough. The officer, risking his life to serve and protect, was exonerated of any wrongdoing by witnesses, and now by three independent investigations. This praiseworthy man has been the subject of nothing but slander in the papers. We can't expect Emma Jones to be happy about what happened to her son, but the attention she has been given is counterproductive. It is ironic that the MALIK Organization's motto is "Justice and Peace," and equally ironic that Emma Jones herself pronounces the real problem (as quoted at the end of last week's article), "We are always the criminals." If this incident is to be remembered, it should be as yet another lesson of how race and rhetoric were used to misplace responsibility and cloud a (forgive the term) black-and-white issue.

--David Bookstaber, SY '99

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