Biography
Dawud Abdur Rahman is one of the four young Sunni Muslim men known as the Williamsburg Four. On January 18, 1973 — the same day that members of the Nation of Islam murdered seven Sunni Muslims, including children, at the Washington, D.C. home of Hamaas Abdul Khaalis (the Hanafi Massacre) — Dawud, Shuaib Abdur Raheem, Yusuf A. Mussadiq, and Salih Ali Abdullah entered John and Als Sporting Goods in Bushwick, Brooklyn with the intention of acquiring weapons to defend their community. A store patron alerted the NYPD, who surrounded the store in massive force. The four attempted to surrender almost immediately but were fired on and forced back inside. The siege lasted nearly forty-eight hours. NYPD Officer Stephen Gilroy was killed in the police barrage; the defense argued the fatal shot came from police, not the defendants. The four ultimately negotiated a peaceful surrender.
They were convicted in June 1974 of Officer Gilroys murder and sentenced to twenty-five years to life. Dawud Abdur Rahman was held at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York under inmate number 74-A-2616. He was released on parole in October 2017, after more than forty-four years in prison. The Jericho Movement lists him among its freed political prisoners.
