Pair in pro-black group get probation for scuffle with cops

Two members of a pro-black grassroots organization were sentenced to probation yesterday for scuffling with police while protesting during Mayor Nutter's budget address to City Council last year.

Franklin "Shabbaka" Moses, 56, and Wali "Diop" Rahman, 33, members of the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement, said that they went to City Hall on March 19, 2009, to protest what they said was the city's excessive spending on courts, prisons and police while shortchanging the black community.

They did not intend to hurt the civil-affairs police officer who was injured during the confrontation in the Council balcony area, the defendants said.

At an August trial, Common Pleas Judge Roxanne Covington found Moses guilty of resisting arrest and Rahman guilty of aggravated assault on a police officer.

But yesterday she said that the prosecutor's request that she sentence the men to short prison terms of a year or less was "outrageous" and "excessive."

Instead, Covington sentenced Moses to one year of nonreporting probation and Rahman to two years of reporting probation and anger-management classes.

Both were also ordered to pay court costs.