r A judge's rule, freedom won

ASSOCIATE! ELMER "GERONIMO" PRATT and his wife, Ashaki, celebrate his release Tuesday after spending more than 25 years in prison. Ex-Black Panther Pratt free on bai By PAMELA KRAMER ing with joy — for a man they con- Standing in a throng of support- born while he was in prison t SAN JOSE MF.Ri:IJKY NEWS sider a political prisoner framed by ers and media outside the jailhouse, social worker he met and ma SANTA ANA — In a courtroom federal authorities seeking to "neu- he offered thanks for support that while behind bars. filled with former Black Panther tralize" the carried him through his time in His family traveled from R Party members and community ac- leader. prison. City for his release. His dauj tivists, an Orange County judge Tues- Before Pratt was whisked from "It was the power of the people, skipped her graduation Tue day ordered the release of Elmer the courtroom to be processed to the love and support of the people, night in San Rafael to be with h "Geronimo" Pratt on $25,000 bail, an freedom, he grinned broadly, thrust- and knowing that truth was on my then amount one of his attorneys asked ing his fist in the air and blowing a side." "This, this is history," said for as a symbol of the quarter cen- kiss to his supporters with both "It's amazing," Pratt's smiling rice Griffith, a mar tury Pratt has spent in prison for a hands. wife, Ashaki, said as she embraced came to witness the event. murder he insists he didn't commit. Pratt's immediate plans in that friends and family. "We have been The bail set by Superior ( It was an electric moment, with world are to see his 94-year-old through so much." Judge Everett W Dickey follow members of the audience erupting mother in Louisiana — and digest- Outside, Pratt clutched his daugh- in applause — many of them weep- ing the reality of freedom. ter, Shona, 17, and son Hiroji, 14, See PRATT, Back Page WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11, 1997 Geronimo Pratt Set Free $25,000 bail for former Black Panther By Michael Taylor Chronicle Stitff Writer Santa Ana Former Black Panther Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt walked out of jail yesterday to a tumultuous, sign-waving, slogan-shouting wel- come that was straight out of the Sixties — 25 years after he went to prison for a murder he said he did not commit. "I'm just overwhelmed with all this love and support,'' he shouted to a forest of microphones hooked up to TV satellite trucks that hadn't even been invented when he went to jail. "I'm innocent of any crimes of murder." All around him, supporters like former . and Da- vid Milliard beamed and gave countless interviews. In uhat was perhaps the dcfin- inc moment of a political cause ce- lebre involving a man who said he was framed by government agents, Pratt, 49, was released on $25,000 bail by Orange County Su- perior Court Judge Everett Dick- ey. On May 29, Dickey had re- BY SUSIE MING HWA CHU FOR THE CHKONKLE Imer 'Geronimo' Pratt greeted the media after his release from prison, flanked by his son Hiroji (left) and daughter Shona (right) GERONIMO: PageAl5Col.2 EXAMINER/ELIZABETH MANGELSDORF Geronimo Pratt holds his 6-month-old granddaughter, Ashaki Scott, at his Marin City welcoming party. Freed ex-Panther leader says he wants 'a new revolution' Beckoning some of the fire of the more radical Considers other inmates 1960s, Pratt called himself "a soldier ... dedicated to the liberation of my people and all oppressed to be wrongly imprisoned people." Many of those people, he said, are inmates By Eve Mitchell and Larry D. Hatfield wrongly imprisoned in the system that Pratt just OF THE EXAMINER STAFF escaped, at least temporarily, after being behind bars for 27 years for a 1968 murder he says he did ARIN CITY - Though for the mo- not commit. ment humbled by the simple beauty of a tree, the revolutionary fire still "We have a lot of beautiful brothers and sisters bums in Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt, in those prisons," said Pratt, a UCLA student when free at last. he was imprisoned and now 49. M"I want to be the first one to call for a new He was released on $25,000 bail earlier in the revolution," the former Black Panther Party leader week pending a possible new trial on the murder "said at an exultant, homecoming in Marin Citv