Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 12, 1994 TAG: 9406140130
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
Farrakhan surprised a crowd Friday night when he announced at the end of his speech that authorities had found a suspicious device at the Richmond Coliseum only hours before he took the stage.
Bomb-disposal teams found the device around 5:15 p.m. The speech went on as scheduled after authorities determined the device posed no threat.
Farrakhan pointed out that less than two weeks before, a former aide was shot in California. Khallid Abdul Muhammad was shot in the legs May 29 after speaking at the University of California, Riverside.
"The [shooting] attempt was a part of a grand conspiracy, but the aim of it is to kill Farrakhan," Farrakhan said, not specifying who would want him murdered.
Muhammad was suspended from his duties as a senior aide to Farrakhan following an anti-Semitic speech in November in New Jersey.
Farrakhan did not say anything more about the attack on Muhammad but warned his detractors, "It is dangerous, dangerous . . . to plot against my life. But if you want yourself and your children to live, you better leave Farrakhan alone."
The more than 6,000 people who saw him speak roared in approval.
A State Police unit conducted a bomb search slightly more than two hours before Farrakhan was to speak in the 11,300-seat facility, said Mary Evans, a State Police spokeswoman. The device was discovered in a basement closet at the opposite end of the coliseum from where Farrakhan spoke.
It was described as being about 12 inches long and 3 or 4 inches in diameter. One of the troopers on the scene said the device resembled something frequently used in staging pyrotechnic displays at rock concerts, Evans said.
:wq! "We decided it posed no danger, no threat to anyone," said Capt. Frederic Hicks of the Richmond Police Department.
The police detonated the device early Saturday morning in a small concrete-walled room at the coliseum. There was no damage.
They planned to study the fragments in an attempt to determine the contents of the device.
Farrakhan asked his audience why he is considered a threat to many Americans. He said white people are afraid of him because they don't want to hear what they have done to blacks.
"If you can't take the truth, and truth hurts . . . you want to kill a man," he said.
He said the media and others want to put him in a "cheap pigeonhole" so they can oversimplify his views. Farrakhan said he defies description.
While Farrakhan had plenty of ammunition for his critics, he also challenged blacks to educate themselves and stop the bloodshed on the nation's streets.
He said young black men need to stay away from drugs, learn to read and rise above poverty and despair. Many black men and women "are locked in a ghetto existence," he said.
Farrakhan said it is not enough to blame whites for oppression. Blacks must take responsibility for their own lives.
by CNB