Cynthia White’s Bizarre Narrative
Whereas the evolution of White’s testimony between December 9 and December 17, 1981, was certainly suspicious, crucial aspects of her trial description of the sequence of events from Faulkner hauling Cook over to the side of the road to Faulkner allegedly getting shot by Abu-Jamal were definitely bizarre.
Under cross examination by Alva, White described a situation where Faulkner and Cook in the gap between the VW and the police car “walked to the sidewalk” and then walked in a “direction that brought them closer” to White. The police officer was then “turned toward 12th Street, and the other guy [Billy Cook] was turned like toward him.”36 Asked by Judge Rose “to go into the matter geometrically,”37 Alva got White to state the respective positions of Cook and Faulkner more precisely, and according to White, they were facing each other in such a way White could see “the left profile of the officer,”38 who would then have had to have been turned, not exactly towards 12th Street but also at some angle towards the Northern side of Locust.
All the same, White claimed she “could see the blows [sic] strike the right side” of Faulkner’s face from where she was standing, insisting that she saw “the driver’s fist hitting the officer’s face,”39 something which was plainly impossible since she had just stated that she had seen the left, and not the right side of the officer’s profile.
At least as interesting as what White claimed she had been able to see was what she said she didn’t see. It is a well-documented fact that Billy Cook was beaten bloody that night and was photographed by the police with “an injury above the left ear … and behind the ear,” which left him bleeding profusely enough for the blood to still be seen on the police photograph,40 but one of the few points in her continuously changing testimony with regard to the Faulkner killing White was adamant about was that she never saw Officer Faulkner strike Cook, paralleling her equally adamant statement that she never saw Faulkner shoot Abu Jamal,41 a fact that is materially documented by the bullet found near Abu-Jamal’s spine and fired from the officer’s gun.
But by far the most bizarre piece of White’s testimony was her description of the shooting of Officer Faulkner. For at least once, White managed to stick with one version of the events, but unfortunately, this version was consistent only in that it was absurd. Starting out with the configuration described above – Faulkner facing, half 12th Street, half the Northern side of Locust – White continued with an account about noticing “the other guy run out of the parking lot.” After she had explained that she had shifted her attention from Faulkner and Cook to this newcomer to the scene, the following dialogue between her and Alva ensued:
Alva: What happened then?
White: He came up to almost the curb, and he fired a shot into the officer’s back.
Alva: How far was he from the officer when he did that?
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
