More Condemnation of "Mumia Street"

(rom the Philadelphia Daily News)

by Stu Bykofsky
Some ideas for the French, who just love our criminalsSAINT Denis has upped the ante.

In 2003, the Paris City Council went bizarro and named convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal a "citizen of Paris." Last week, the Mumidiots in the Paris suburb of Saint Denis named a street after him.

That "honor" brought a riposte in the form of a congressional resolution introduced by U.S. Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, R-Bucks, co-sponsored by Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz, D-Phila./Montco, asking the city of 95,000, or the French government, to rescind it.

Don't hold your breath. The French have made an Olympic sport of twisting Uncle Sam's tail and they just love screwing with us.

Supplementing the usual French disdain for America, Saint Denis is 80 percent black and Arab. Abu-Jamal is black with an Arab name. What more do they need?

Leftist Saint Denis is not engaging in some high-minded stance about opposition to the death penalty, which France abandoned in 1981 (after wearing out numerous guillotines). You can do that without using Abu-Jamal, whose guilt shakes you by the shoulders.

A steamed Fitzpatrick told me that while Abu-Jamal "may be viewed as a 'political prisoner' by an extremely small segment of people, especially by radicals in the elite European Left, to me he's nothing but a cop-killer and cop-killers do not get honored; they get prosecuted and thrown in jail."

Fraternal Order of Police President Bob Eddis told me he received word of Saint Denis' "honor" even as local police hunted the killer of Officer Gary Sker-ski. Naming a French street after Abu-Jamal "is like naming a California street after Charlie Manson," he said.

In addition to the resolution, Schwartz faxed a letter of reproach to Saint Denis Mayor Didier Paillard. No word back as yet.

I tried reaching the mayor or his spokeswoman yesterday by telephone and e-mail without success. Among other things I wanted to know was why it took them 20 years to get around to honoring Abu-Jamal, and if they planned to applaud any other American murderers.

Here are a few things France might consider:

• Renaming Place de la Concorde, the largest public square in Paris, to honor girlfriend-killer/unicorn/all-around-health-hazard Ira Einhorn. As a further tribute to the former hippie planetary enzyme, they should order it never to be cleaned by the streets department.

• A small plaza adjoining Rue Abu-Jamal should commemorate the groundbreaking work of Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski. A statue in the center in the shape of a mailbox would be a nice touch.

• The market district known as the "belly of Paris," Les Halles, must be reflagged as the Gary Heidnik District, to honor the financial wizard/dungeon-master/cannibal.

• The Eiffel Tower should be rededicated to the memory of Timothy McVeigh, to "honor" the "freedom fighter" who blew up the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City.

• Rename the Bastille as Holmesburg.

By the way, if the name Saint Denis seems familiar, it was in the news late last year as an area hit by riots.

As the Associated Press reported at the time: "The violence has exposed deep discontent in neighborhoods where African and Muslim immigrants and their French-born children are trapped by poverty, unemployment, racial discrimination, crime, poor education and housing."

Perhaps minority-oppressing France should spend less time honoring American murderers and more time emulating American healers, such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

He's worthy of a boulevard.