The Nation - News from Nov. 3, 1987

Several hundred black observers packed a courtroom in Queens to hear a Brooklyn man testify that his car struck the victim of an alleged racist attack in Howard Beach last December. Dominic Blum testified that he initially thought someone had thrown a rock at his car when his windshield shattered and learned someone had been killed only after he returned to the scene of the accident with his father, a New York City policeman. Blum, a 25-year-old court officer in Manhattan’s federal court, has not been charged in the death of Michael Griffith, 23. Prosecutors maintain that Griffith was chased onto the busy Belt Parkway by white youths on Dec. 20, 1986, and struck accidentally by Blum. Four white teen-agers are on trial in state Supreme Court on murder or manslaughter charges stemming from Griffith’s death.