Tacoma Man Held In Islam Shooting

The Tacoma man accused of trying to assassinate former Nation of Islam spokesman Khallid Abdul Muhammad was a defrocked minister in the Black Muslim sect.

James Edward Bess allegedly used a 9mm pistol to shoot Muhammad in the legs and to wound four bodyguards and a bystander outside an auditorium at the University of California in Riverside Sunday.

Police also found two loaded 9mm handguns in a backpack and a loaded rifle with a scope in a car nearby, Riverside Police Chief Ken Fortier said. Both the backpack and the car, which had Washington state license plates, were believed to belong to Bess.

Fortier said Bess would be charged with six counts of attempted murder.

Both Bess and Muhammad remained hospitalized early today under police guard. Bess, 49, was in satisfactory condition with a broken shoulder and other injuries sustained when he was allegedly beaten by the crowd after the shooting. Muhammad, 46, was in stable condition with gunshot wounds to both legs.

Two of the four wounded security guards and the bystander also remained hospitalized, one in serious condition.

People familiar with the suspect described Bess as a devotee of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and a sometimes contentious figure who was expelled as a minister three years ago at the Seattle-area mosque because his preaching differed from church doctrine.

"He was promoting a distorted concept of . . . even what Farrakhan says," said Syid Suni Askia, a self-described mainstream Muslim in Seattle. "He had his own, self-styled ministry."

Charlie James, a friend of Bess, told KIRO-TV that Muhammad was the one who defrocked Bess. Muhammad "pulled his X from him," James said. "He took his right to be a minister away from him. . . . Whether or not this is related to that, I don't know."

But an unidentified source told The Los Angeles Times that Wazir Muhammad, a close ally of Khallid Muhammad in the Nation of Islam, was the one who suspended Bess.

APPEARED ON SEATTLE TV

Bess, who also identifies himself as Brother James X, has preached on Channel 29, a Seattle-area public-access television station. He once told viewers that violence was the way to deal with black leaders who let down the black community.

"If this false leadership continues I won't be surprised to see the same thing as happened in South Africa, where the black woman was hacked to death with a ax and . . . thrown on a fire and burned up," Bess said on a 1985 tape aired by ABC and CBS. "Matter of fact, I think that's what needs to take place with this leadership. They ought to be doused with gasoline and burned in public."

He advertised his television programs in The Facts, an African-American newspaper in Seattle. Program titles included "Farrakhan Speaks," a self-improvement program on spiritual development, and "Farrakhan: God's man on the straight path."

Bess also wrote in a 1991 Facts column that Nation of Islam founder Elijah Muhammad was the subject of a death plot "which was hatched by the American Government" and "involved Vatican City (The Catholic Hierarchy), her branches, world-wide Communism, World-wide Jewry, (excluding an honorable few who awaits the `MESSIAH.') Also, the tentacles of the `Death PLOT' reached into The Nation Of Islam."

In other 1991 Facts columns, Bess wrote that Farrakhan was "The Second Coming of Jesus," that Elijah Muhammad was "a man comparable to THE HOLY GHOST" and that his son was like Barabbas, a prisoner mentioned in the New Testament.

Bess, the father of eight, was a shooting victim himself in November 1988, when he was hit by several bullets fired during a shootout between rival gang members in the High Point neighborhood. Bess, who was making a call from a telephone booth, was an innocent bystander, police said at the time.

KHALLID MUHAMMAD'S VIEWS

The Sunday shooting was just the latest incident to thrust the fiery Muhammad into the spotlight. Last year, he incited outrage with statements attacking Jews, Catholics, gays and others. His comments drew criticism from President Clinton and Jewish leaders and spurred Farrakhan to drop him as national spokesman - although Muhammad has remained publicly loyal to Farrakhan.

Muhammad had gone to Riverside, 60 miles east of Los Angeles, to make the second speech in the Los Angeles area over the weekend.

The shooting occurred despite tight security inside the auditorium. The 500 people in the audience were frisked as they entered the room. In addition to two city police officers, about 50 members of the Fruit of Islam - the security arm of the Nation of Islam - were present.

Muhammad drew cheers during his speech when he described whites as satanic and Jews as oppressors.

Police and university spokesmen said that security personnel were caught by surprise when Muhammad received a note while on the podium and then said he was going outdoors because he had been told - apparently in error - that the sponsoring organization had to give up the gymnasium or pay additional costs.

Police Chief Fortier said police were trying to learn the source of a note. "I don't see it as a diversion," Fortier said, discounting the possibility that others were involved in a conspiracy and had sought to lure Muhammad outside. "The note does not appear to be significant."

The Nation of Islam was founded in Detroit around 1930 and rose to prominence through the leadership of Elijah Muhammad (born Elijah Poole), an early convert. He moved its headquarters to Chicago in 1934.

The group, often known as the Black Muslims, espoused a mixture of Islamic theology, economic independence, self-help and black separatism.

After Elijah Muhammad's death in 1975, the Nation split. Muhammad's son Wallace rejected separatism and moved toward orthodox Islam. Farrakhan broke away in 1977 and organized a new Nation of Islam, which returned to preaching the philosophy of Elijah Muhammad.