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The Bomb Blast

Newspaper accounts at the time put the number of people wounded at nine. Riddled with shrapnel, Sgt. Brian V. McDonnell died two days later at San Francisco General Hospital. A memorial (web site) was held for him in February 2007. He was a young man with his whole life ahead of him. But to Ayers and Dohrn, he was a "pig."

"Sergeant McDonnell caught the full force of the flying shrapnel, which consisted of heavy metal staples and lead bullets. As other officers tried rendering aid to the fallen sergeant, they could see that he sustained a severed neck artery wound and severe wounds to his eyes and neck," the San Francisco Police Officers Association Journal reports.

"Officers [Ron] Martin and [Al] Arnaud, who were standing several feet from the window ledge, were knocked to the ground and sustained injuries from the flying glass," it says. The blast caused them hearing impairment and shock. One officer was knocked to the floor unconscious, while another "suffered multiple severe wounds on his face, cheek and legs from the flying fragments of the glass."

Tribune reporter Ford seemed willing at first to correct the record. But he said he would need more direct information. So I decided to go the extra mile. I obtained Grathwohl's actual congressional testimony and provided this material to him.

The testimony was given by Grathwohl to the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee on October 18, 1974. He testified:

"When he [Bill Ayers] returned, we had another meeting at which time―and this is the only time that any Weathermen told me about something that someone else had done―and Bill started off telling us about the need to raise the level of the struggle and for stronger leadership inside the Weathermen 'focals' [i.e., cells] and inside the Weatherman organization as a whole. And he cited as one of the real problems was that someone like Bernardine Dohrn had to plan, develop and carry out the bombing of the police station in San Francisco, and he specifically named her as the person that committed that act."

Grathwohl added that Ayers "said that the bomb was placed on the window ledge and he described the kind of bomb that was used to the extent of saying what kind of shrapnel was used in it."

He was asked, "Did he say who placed the bomb on the window ledge?" He replied, "Bernardine Dohrn."

Asked if Ayers said that he had personally witnessed Dohrn placing the bomb, Grathwohl responded, "Well, if he wasn't there to see it, somebody who was there told him about it, because he stated it very emphatically."

This testimony completely obliterates the notion, perpetuated by the Chicago Tribune and other media, that the Weather Underground communist terrorist bombings only killed the bombers themselves. Such propaganda is designed to play down the serious nature of the terrorist crimes. It is also designed to make Obama's relationship with Ayers and Dohrn more palatable.

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