Law enforcement in America is known in the Black community not only for incidents of brutality and profiling, but also for holding a grudge. For that reason, American law enforcement wants Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin. He has been a thorn in their side since the '60s.

Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin is a former organizer with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) that fought White racism and a former minister of justice for the Black Panther Party, a more militant group that fought 1960s White racism.

The Black Panther Party toted guns down the middle of the street. They struck terror in the hearts of White America, and many Blacks.

But the Black Panther Party also did a lot of good for Black communities through its activist role in providing food for the hungry and other acts of kindness. Back then Imam Al-Amin was known as H. Rap Brown. Congress even passed what became known as the Rap Brown Law, which banned crossing state lines to spark so-called disturbances. In those days, Imam Al-Amin would go from city to city encouraging Blacks to stand up against unjust treatment.

Jamil Al-Amin today sits in an Atlanta jail, on trial for the murder of Richard Kinchen, a Fulton County Sheriff's Deputy, and the wounding of Deputy Aldranon English. The shooting occurred outside Al-Amin's grocery store, where the officers had come to serve a warrant after he missed a court date.

There are a lot of inconsistencies and contradictions in what happened that night on March 16, 2000, according to testimony already presented in court. Such testimony includes the description of the shooter by Deputy English that does not match Al-Amin's description. But it also includes testimony that ballistics evidence matches a weapon owned by Al-Amin to the shooting.

Corretta Scott King, widow of Martin Luther King Jr., issued a statement that raised the question of whether or not Imam Al-Amin can receive a fair trial under the current circumstances of the case and the atmosphere of the country where the religion of Islam is concerned. Others are questioning is there a conspiracy against the imam.

Both concerns are legitimate.

The country has been given a picture of Islam as a violent religion that spawns terrorists who want to destroy America. Imam Al-Amin now is a prominent leader in certain Islamic circles.

Conspiracy?

Atlanta law enforcement has been monitoring the imam's activities for years. Imam Al-Amin was charged in 1995 with shooting a young drug dealer in the Atlanta area. The drug dealer told the Muslims that police pressured him into misidentifying Imam Al-Amin as the gunman. The man later joined the imam's mosque, it has been reported.

Two years ago, another man confessed to the current crime and claimed that Imam Al-Amin tried to stop him. The man later recanted after speaking to FBI agents.

What the court must concern itself with is that justice is served to the victims' families and the defendant, without bias or animosity. Someone shot officers English and Kinchen, and the guilty party must pay the price. This case cannot be a railroad to finally get a man that law enforcement has been after for years.

Commenting on the fact that in 1995 when Imam Al-Amin was arrested for the alleged shooting of the Atlanta drug dealer, Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said, "There is a lot grudges and a lot of history" involved in the case.

If justice is to be served, "grudges" and "history" have no place in this courtroom.