Jonny Gammage Incident
In 1995 during his campaign for county commissioner, two Brentwood Police officers were involved in an incident during which a young black man named Jonny Gammage of Syracuse, New York was killed during a routine traffic stop. Mr. Gammage was the cousin of Ray Seals, a player for the Pittsburgh Steelers football team. The controversy surrounding the death made the national news and racial tension rose to a fever pitch in Pittsburgh.
Cranmer, who had been at odds with the Brentwood police as a councilman, denounced the police conduct and when pressured leveled accusations that Brentwood had a history racist incidents. He and his family were castigated by members of the community and contemplated moving but eventually did not. After several trials and mistrials, all of the police officers were eventually acquitted in the case. Many in the community never forgave Cranmer for his statements.
Read more about this topic: Bob Cranmer
Famous quotes containing the word incident:
“Every incident connected with the breaking up of the rivers and ponds and the settling of the weather is particularly interesting to us who live in a climate of so great extremes. When the warmer days come, they who dwell near the river hear the ice crack at night with a startling whoop as loud as artillery, as if its icy fetters were rent from end to end, and within a few days see it rapidly going out. So the alligator comes out of the mud with quakings of the earth.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)