Page:1965 FBI monograph on Nation of Islam.djvu/104

 incident in recent years occurred in Los Angeles on April 27, 1962, when police officers, in a routine investigation, stopped two men apparently selling clothes from an automobile. The officers were thereupon attacked by the suspects, who were NOI members, and by numerous fellow members who poured from an adjacent mosque. In the melee, shots were fired. One NOI member was killed, and other members and some of the police officers were wounded. The NOI immediately charged police brutality. NOI leaders and ministers, to exploit sympathy, have widely shown a photograph of the dead member lying on the pavement at the scene of the altercation. Court proceedings against NOI participants in the fight have been extensive and undoubtedly did not end with an October, 1964, decision of the Second District Court of Appeals in Los Angeles that affirmed the prior of 11 Black Muslims on charges of assault and resisting arrest. Another incident took place in Rochester, New York, on January 6, 1963. Two police officers, dispatched to investigate a call that a man with a gun was on the second floor of a building, were halted at the street entrance to the hall in which the NOI was holding a meeting. The NOI guard was told the purpose of the officers' visit and, as the police went up the stairs, the guard shouted a warning upstairs. The officers were met and assaulted by several N0I members who responded to the guard's warning. Upon the arrival of another police officer with a K-9 dog, the members retreated into the hall,