Shining a New Light on Some Old News

A gorgeous blonde model turns up dead in the forest. Police suspect a photographer of murdering her. And once again, responding to the call of the wild, camera crews are off and running.

With so many TV newscasts elbowing their way onto the Linda Sobek caravan like shoppers at a bargain-basement sale--would a plain or homely nobody from Pacoima get this much media action?--it would be nice if at least one Los Angeles station took an extended look at a lingering criminal odyssey of infinitely wider significance.

One station has.

On Saturday, KTTV-TV Channel 11 makes the ultimate sacrifice to public service by bumping a “Married . . . With Children” rerun, no less, for “Elmer ‘Geronimo’ Pratt: A Case of Injustice?,” its latest exploration of the disturbing case of a former Black Panther Party leader who is serving a life sentence for a 1968 murder that he insists the FBI knows he didn’t commit.

If Pratt is being truthful, news producer/reporter Myra Ming wonders at the start of this highly worthy half hour, “how could a man spend more than half his life in a prison for a murder he didn’t do?”

Despite fiercely fair and objective reporting by Ming--who collaborated with the late Chris Harris on an earlier series of Pratt reports for Channel 11 that earned an Emmy--the station shows either its bias or inattention to detail by allowing an announcer, in transitions to commercial breaks, to state the show’s title, “A Case of Injustice?,” minus the question mark. That makes it a declaration instead of a journalistic query.

Otherwise, “A Case of Injustice?” is a primer on effective, biting, compelling TV journalism without whistles and bells and without a reporter’s mug constantly on camera. No vamping thespian, Ming is rarely seen on this program, although her presence is felt through her astute reporting and unembroidered narration.

In a sense, this is a memorial to Harris, who died nearly a year ago of a heart attack after earning praise for the previous Pratt reports he did with Ming. In posthumous acknowledgment, he is listed in the credits here as producer and writer along with Ming, who, as a seasoned field producer, is one of those anonymous TV reporters without portfolio who labors behind the scenes on the grunt work of stories with little public recognition.

Saturday’s program, she says at the start, “pulls together all the new information that we’ve learned.” Not a lot, actually, for--much like a typical “60 Minutes” piece, though less elegantly--”A Case of Injustice?” builds its narrative mostly on previously reported material. Yet it does so in a step-by-step investigatory manner that intensifies your interest in Pratt and his story while admirably refraining from hyperbole and false theatrics.

A decorated Vietnam War veteran, Pratt was convicted in 1972 of fatally shooting schoolteacher Caroline Olsen and wounding her husband on a Santa Monica tennis court during a night robbery that netted only a few dollars. Pratt has always claimed that, when the crime was committed, he was in Oakland, attending meetings of the Black Panther Party’s central committee. Moreover, he accuses the FBI of knowing this but framing him anyway as part of its infamous COINTELPRO program designed to disrupt and neutralize African American groups and their leaders in the 1960s and 1970s.

Taking Pratt’s side in interviews here are his present attorney, Stuart Hanlon, and his initial attorney, Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., the now globally famous lead O.J. Simpson defender who is also shown in news clips from 1972 wearing an Afro and appearing less polished in front of TV cameras than he does today.

We also hear from retired FBI agent M. Wesley Swearingen, who for two decades has supported Pratt’s charge that the bureau knew he was in Oakland from its logs of Black Panther telephone taps--logs that inexplicably have disappeared. Agreeing with Swearingen is a private investigator who tells Ming that she saw those logs while investigating another case.

But retired Magistrate Judge John Kronenberg, who headed a 1985 hearing on Pratt’s claims that he was railroaded, tells Ming the wiretap logs he saw were inconclusive.

“A Case of Injustice?” also renews intense skepticism about Julius C. (Julio) Butler, now a top official of the Los Angeles First AME Church, who gave critical testimony against Pratt and retreads turf regarding the defense not knowing that the victim’s husband initially identified someone other than Pratt as the gunman. In addition, in an extremely effective graphic, the program identifies two dead thugs who some believe were the actual culprits in the crime that Pratt was found guilty of committing.

Implicit in all of this is the unspoken charge that Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti--who opposed Pratt’s most recent parole bid and is shown on the Channel 11 program telling reporters some time ago that the case is under “review”--is in no hurry to get to the bottom of this matter. Especially in light of the deep bruising he’s taken on the acquittal of Simpson in an atmosphere of polarized race relations.

The two cases are unrelated, except that Pratt, like Simpson, is an African American claiming to have been framed by law enforcement. And Pratt, like Simpson, is championed by Cochran.

Geronimo’s continued imprisonment linked to O.J.’s freedom? It’s merely a viewer’s speculation, of course, resulting from the rigorous mind massaging you get from a news program that’s done its job.

* “Elmer ‘Geronimo’ Pratt: A Case of Injustice?” airs Saturday at 7:30 p.m. on KTTV-TV Channel 11.