Black Panthers/SDS

SDS reboot

drummond coal 2007, ala; upper midwest ~ alt rt?

see uber1

https://webbrain.com/brainpage/brain/6950F840-FB80-FCB0-D505-8AB1FA685F08#-789

open carry banned CA after Panthers RR NRA wrote law?

As gun violence soars in the United States, we look at the Second Amendment and its racist roots with Carol Anderson, author of the new book, “The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America.” In the book, Anderson details how the Second Amendment was written to empower local militia groups to put down slave revolts and protect plantation owners. She writes the Second Amendment is “rooted in fear of Black people, to deny them their rights, to keep them from tasting liberty.” Carol Anderson joined us from Atlanta, where she is a professor at Emory University. She is also the author of “One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy” and “White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide.”

sorta // arg that militia unreliable for anything except putting down slave revolt

https://www.democracynow.org/2021/7/5/the_second_carol_anderson_on_the

by Woody Holton, University of South Carolina

Editor's note: Americans may think they know a lot about the Declaration of Independence, but many of those ideas are elitist and wrong, as historian Woody Holton explains.

His forthcoming book “Liberty is Sweet: The Hidden History of the American Revolution" shows how independence and the Revolutionary War were influenced by women, Indigenous and enslaved people, religious dissenters and other once-overlooked Americans.

In celebration of the United States' 245th birthday, Holton offers six surprising facts about the nation's founding document – including that it failed to achieve its most immediate goal and that its meaning has changed from the founding to today.

Ordinary Americans played a big role

The Declaration of Independence was written by wealthy white men, but the impetus for independence came from ordinary Americans. Historian Pauline Maier discovered that by July 2, 1776, when the Continental Congress voted to separate from Britain, 90 provincial and local bodies – conventions, town meetings and even grand juries – had already issued their own declarations or instructed Congress to.

In Maryland, county conventions demanded that the provincial convention tell Maryland's congressmen to support independence. Pennsylvania assemblymen required their congressional delegates to oppose independence – until Philadelphians gathered outside the State House, later named Independence Hall, and threatened to overthrow the legislature, which then dropped this instruction.

American independence is due in part to African Americans

Like the U.S. Constitution, the final version of the Declaration never uses the word “slave." But African Americans loomed large in the first draft, written by Thomas Jefferson.

In that early draft, Jefferson's single biggest grievance was that the mother country had first foisted enslaved Africans on white Americans and then attempted to incite them against their patriot owners. In an objection to which he gave 168 words – three times as many as any other complaint – Jefferson said George III had encouraged enslaved Americans “to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them."

Numerous other white Southerners joined Jefferson in venting their rage at the mother country for, as one put it, “pointing a dagger to their Throats, thru the hands of their Slaves."

Britain really had forged an informal alliance with African Americans – but it was the slaves who initiated it. In November 1774, James Madison became the first white American to report that slaves were plotting to take advantage of divisions between the colonies and the mother country to rebel and obtain their own freedom. Initially the British turned down African Americans' offer to fight for their king, but the slaves kept coming, and on November 15, 1775, Lord Dunmore, the last British governor of Virginia, finally published an emancipation proclamation. It freed all rebel- (patriot-) owned slaves who could reach his lines and would fight to suppress the patriot rebellion....

How ‘Freeway Revolts’ Helped Create the People’s Environmental Law 6/19 see Environmental Justice and Environmental History.

black panthers and sierra club

wiki

Jean Dorothy Seberg (/:{ˈsiːbɜːrɡ:(style="border-bottom:1px dotted"):}:/;^[2] French: [ʒɑ̃ seˈbɛʁg];^[3] November 13, 1938 – August 30, 1979) was an American actress who lived half her life in France. Her performance in Jean-Luc Godard's 1960 film *Breathless* immortalized her as an icon of French New Wave cinema.^[4][5]

She appeared in 34 films in Hollywood and in Europe, including Saint Joan, Bonjour Tristesse, Lilith, The Mouse That Roared, Moment to Moment, A Fine Madness, Paint Your Wagon, Airport, Macho Callahan, and Gang War in Naples.

She was also one of the best-known targets of the FBI COINTELPRO project.^[6][7] Her targeting was a well-documented retaliation for her support of the Black Panther Partyin the 1960s.

Seberg died at the age of 40 in Paris, with police ruling her death a probable suicide.^[1] Romain Gary, Seberg's second husband, called a press conference shortly after her death where he publicly blamed the FBI's campaign against Seberg for her deteriorating mental health. Gary claimed that Seberg "became psychotic" after the media reported a false story that the FBI planted about her becoming pregnant with a Black Panther's child in 1970. Romain Gary stated that Seberg had repeatedly attempted suicide on the anniversary of the child's death, August 25.^[8]

The Mulford Act was a 1967 California bill that repealed a law allowing public carrying of loaded firearms. Named after Republican assemblyman Don Mulford, the bill was crafted in response to members of the Black Panther Party who were conducting armed patrols of Oakland neighborhoods while they were conducting what would later be termed copwatching.^[1] They garnered national attention after the Black Panthers marched bearing arms upon the California State Capitol to protest the bill.^[2][3][4]

AB-1591 was authored by Don Mulford (R) from Oakland, John T. Knox (D) from Richmond, Walter J. Karabian (D) from Monterey Park, Alan Sieroty (D) from Los Angeles, and William M. Ketchum (R) from Bakersfield,^[5] it passed both Assembly (controlled by Democrats 42:38) and Senate (split 20:20) and was signed by Governor Ronald Reagan on July 28. The law banned the carrying of loaded weapons in public. ^[6]

Both Republicans and Democrats in California supported increased gun control. Governor Ronald Reagan, who was coincidentally present on the capitol lawn when the protesters arrived, later commented that he saw "no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons" and that guns were a "ridiculous way to solve problems that have to be solved among people of good will." In a later press conference, Reagan added that the Mulford Act "would work no hardship on the honest citizen."^[7]

The bill was signed by Reagan and became California penal code 25850 and 171c.

References:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[edit:{]}:

:{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ Simonson, Jocelyn. "Copwatching". California Law Review. 104 (2): 408. Organized copwatching groups emerged as early as the 1960s in urban areas in the United States when the Black Panthers famously patrolled city streets with firearms and cameras, and other civil rights organizations conducted unarmed patrols in groups.
:{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ "From "A Huey P. Newton Story:{":(style="padding-right:0.2em"):}:". Retrieved 2010-07-07.
:{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ "How to Stage a Revolution Introduction". Retrieved 2010-07-07.^{[self-published} ^source?]
:{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ Seale, Bobby. Seize the Time: The Story of the Black Panther Party and Huey P. Newton (1991 ed.). Black Classic Press. pp. 153–166. ISBN 978-0933121300.
:{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ http://clerk.assembly.ca.gov/sites/clerk.assembly.ca.gov/files/archive/FinalHistory/1967/Volumes/67ahr.PDF
:{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ Arica L. Coleman (July 31, 2016). "When the NRA Supported Gun Control". TIME.com. Retrieved 12 October 2017.
:{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ Winkler, Adam (September 2011). "The Secret History of Guns". The Atlantic.

overview of gov't spy/repression:

https://archive.org/stream/WarAgainstThePanthersAStudyOfRepressionInAmerica/WATP_djvu.txt

huey diss appendix:

APPENDIX B 

THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY PROGRAM 

(March 29, 1972 Platform) 

1. We Want Freedom. We Want Power To Determine 
The Destiny Of Our Black And Oppressed Communities. 

We believe that Black and oppressed people will not be free until we are able to 
determine our destinies in our own communities ourselves, by fully controlling all the 
institutions which exist in our communities. 

2. We Want Full Employment For Our People. 

We believe that the federal government is responsible and obligated to give every person 
employment or a guaranteed income. We believe that if the American businessmen will 
not give full employment, then the technology and means of production should be taken 
from the businessmen and placed in the community so that the people of the community 
can organize and employ all of its people and give a high standard of living. 

3. We Want An End To The Robbery By 
The CapitaUsts Of Our Black And Oppressed Communities. 



We believe that this racist government has robbed us and now we are demanding the 
overdue debt of forty acres and two mules. Forty acres and two mules were promised 100 
years ago as restitution for slave labor and mass murder of Black people. We will accept 
the payment in currency which will be distributed to our many communities. The 
American racist has taken part in the slaughter of our fifty million Black people. 
Therefore, we feel this is a modest demand that we make. 

4. We Want Decent Housing, Fit For The Shelter Of Human Beings. 

We believe that if the landlords will not give decent housing to our Black and oppressed 
communities, then housing and the land should be made into cooperatives that the people 
in our communities, with government aid, can build and make decent housing for the 
people. 

5. We Want Decent Education For Our People That Exposes 

True Nature Of This Decadent American Society. 

We Want Education That Teaches Us Our True History 

And Our Role In The Present-day Society. 

We believe in an educational system that will give to our people a knowledge of the self 
If you do not have knowledge of yourself and your position in the society and in the 
world, then you will have little chance to know anything else. 

6. We Want Completely Free Health Care 
For All Black And Oppressed People. 

We believe that the government must provide, free of charge, for the people, health 
facilities which will not only treat our illnesses, most of which have come about as a 
result of our oppression, but which will also develop preventive medical programs to 
guarantee our future survival. We believe that mass health education and research 
programs must be developed to give all Black and oppressed people access to advanced 
scientific and medical information, we may provide ourselves with proper medical 
attention and care. 

7. We Want An Immediate End To Police Brutality 

And Murder Of Black People, Other People Of Color, 

All Oppressed People Inside The United States. 

We believe that the racist and fascist government of the United States uses its domestic 
enforcement agencies to carry out its program of oppression against Black people, other 
people of color and poor people inside the United States. We believe it is our right, 
therefore, to defend ourselves against such armed forces and that all Black and oppressed 
people should be armed for selfdefense of our homes and communities against these 
fascist police forces. 

8. We Want An Immediate End To All Wars Of Aggression. 



We believe that the various conflicts which exist around the world stem directly from the 
aggressive desire of the United States ruling circle and government to force its 
domination upon the oppressed people of the world. We believe that if the United States 
government or its lackeys do not cease these aggressive wars, it is the right of the people 
to defend themselves by any means necessary against their aggressors. 

9. We Want Freedom For All Black And Oppressed People Now Held 
In U.S Federal, State, County, City And Military Prisons And Jails. 
We Want Trials By A Jury Of Peers For All Persons Charged With 

So-called Crimes Under The Laws Of This Country. 

We believe that the many Black and poor oppressed people now held in United States 
prisons and jails have not received fair and impartial trials under a racist and fascist 
judicial system and should be free from incarceration. We believe in the ultimate 
elimination of all wretched, inhuman penal institutions because the masses of men and 
women imprisoned inside the United States or by the United States military are the 
victims of oppressive conditions, which are the real cause of their imprisonment. We 
believe that when persons are brought to trial they must be guaranteed, by the United 
States, juries of their peers, attorneys of their choice, and freedom from imprisonment 
while awaiting trial. 

10. We Want Land, Bread, Housing, Education, Clothing, Justice, Peace, 
and People's Community Control Of Modern Technology. 

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people 
to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, 
and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal 
station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle them, a decent 
respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the 
causes which impel them to the separation. 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are 
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are 
instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, 
whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the 
people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on 
such principles, and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely 
to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long 
established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all 
experience hath shown that mankind are most disposed to suffer, while evils are 
sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are 
accustomed. But, when a long train of abuses and usurpation, pursuing invariably the 
same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, their right, it is 
their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future 
security.

fred hampton

https://kpfa.org/episode/upfront-september-19-2017/

cointelpro

anniversay, panthers

http://www.alternet.org/education/why-fbis-spying-and-attempt-subvert-civil-rights-movement-vital-history-lesson-all

TERRORISM, COINTELPRO, AND THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY - AN INTERVIEW WITH LAW PROFESSOR ANGELA A. ALLEN-BELL: A professor at Southern University Law Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Allen-Bell has a new article out that turns the tables on anti-Black Panther Party rhetoric by asking if the treatment the group has suffered at the hands of government officials constitutes a form of domestic terrorism. (9/8/2014)

This past July, students from Northwestern University's Medill Justice Project visited the infamous Louisiana State Prison known as Angola. While there, students landed an impromptu interview with Warden Burl Cain, where they asked him about an inmate at Angola named Kenny 'Zulu' Whitmore, who has now been in solitary confinement for 28 consecutive years. This important interview was cited afterwards by Time Magazine in an article examining the impact of solitary confinement on prisoners' health.

Zulu Whitmore is a member of the Angola Prison chapter of the Black Panther Party (BPP) that was first started in the early 1970s by Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox of the Angola 3. In reply to the students' question about Whitmore, Cain cited his affiliation with the Angola BPP and expressed concern that Whitmore could spread his beliefs in the prison, sparking violence among inmates. "The Black Panther Party advocates violence and racism -- I'm not going to let anybody walk around advocating violence and racism," Cain said. At the time of publication, Whitmore remains in solitary confinement.

Burl Cain's characterization of the BPP as "advocating violence and racism" is reminiscent of a deposition he gave on October 22, 2008, following Albert Woodfox's second overturned conviction, where Cain cited Woodfox's affiliation with the BPP as a primary reason for not removing him from solitary confinement. Asked what gave him "such concern" about Woodfox, Cain stated: "He wants to demonstrate. He wants to organize. He wants to be defiant." Cain then stated that even if Woodfox were innocent of the murder, he would want to keep him in solitary, because "I still know he has a propensity for violence…he is still trying to practice Black Pantherism, and I still would not want him walking around my prison because he would organize the young new inmates."

The remarks by Burl Cain in 2008 and 2014 are just the "tip of the iceberg" when it comes to misrepresenting the Black Panther Party. "Until history is accurately told, this type of misinformation will live on and we will all suffer as a result of it," argues Southern University Law professor Angela A. Allen-Bell in the interview featured below. Her new article, published by the Journal of Law and Social Deviance, entitled "Activism Unshackled & Justice Unchained: A Call to Make a Human Right Out of One of the Most Calamitous Human Wrongs to Have Taken Place on American Soil," turns the tables on the anti-BPP rhetoric by asking if what the BPP sustained at the hands of government officials is itself akin to domestic terrorism.

In "Activism Unshackled & Justice Unchained," Professor Bell concludes that the U.S. government's multi-faceted response to the BPP, primarily within the framework of the FBI's infamous COINTELPRO, was indeed the very definition of terrorism. Bell writes that "the magnitude of the unwarranted harm done to the BPP has not yet been explored in an appropriate fashion. Much like a fugitive, it has eluded justice." As a result, "the FBI's full-scale assault on the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s remains an open wound for the nation itself. This is more than a national tragedy; this is a human wrong."

Several pages of Bell’s new article examine the case of the Angola 3 in the context of the broader government repression faced by the Black Panthers. Bell is no stranger to the Angola 3 case. Her 2012 article written for the Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly, entitled "Perception Profiling & Prolonged Solitary Confinement Viewed Through the Lens of the Angola 3 Case: When Prison Officials Become Judges, Judges Become Visually Challenged and Justice Becomes Legally Blind," used the Angola 3 case as a springboard for examining the broader use of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons.

We interviewed Bell previously, following the release of her 2012 law journal article. Since the Angola 3 News project began in 2009, we have conducted interviews focusing on many different aspects of the Black Panther Party and the organization's legacy today, including: Remembering Safiya Bukhari, COINTELPRO and the Omaha Two, The Black Panther Party and Revolutionary Art, Dylcia and Cisco on Panthers and Independistas, "We Called Ourselves the Children of Malcolm," Medical Self Defense and the Black Panther Party, and The Black Panther Party's Living Legacy. ...

what was New B P ?

splc:

Founded:

1989

Location:

Washington, D.C.

Ideology:

Black Separatist

The New Black Panther Party is a virulently racist and anti-Semitic organization whose leaders have encouraged violence against whites, Jews and law enforcement officers.Founded in Dallas, the group today is especially active on the East Coast, from Boston to Jacksonville, Fla.The group portrays itself as a militant, modern-day expression of the black power movement (it frequently engages in armed protests of alleged police brutality and the like), but principals of the original Black Panther Party of the 1960s and 1970s— a militant, but non-racist, left-wing organization — have rejected the new Panthers as a "black racist hate group" and contested their hijacking of the Panther name and symbol.

In Its Own Words

"Our lessons talk about the bloodsuckers of the poor… . It's that old no-good Jew, that old imposter Jew, that old hooked-nose, bagel-eating, lox-eating, Johnny-come-lately, perpetrating-a-fraud, just-crawled-out-of-the-caves-and-hills-of-Europe, so-called damn Jew … and I feel everything I'm saying up here is kosher."

— Khalid Abdul Muhammad, one of the party's future leaders, Baltimore, Md., Feb. 19, 1994

"Kill every goddamn Zionist in Israel! Goddamn little babies, goddamn old ladies! Blow up Zionist supermarkets!"

—Malik Zulu Shabazz, the party's national chairman, protesting at B'nai B'rith International headquarters in Washington, D.C., April 20, 2002

"I hate white people. All of them. Every last iota of a cracker, I hate it. We didn't come out here to play today. There's too much serious business going on in the black community to be out here sliding through South Street with white, dirty, cracker whore bitches on our arms, and we call ourselves black men. … What the hell is wrong with you black man? You at a doomsday with a white girl on your damn arm. We keep begging white people for freedom! No wonder we not free! Your enemy cannot make you free, fool! You want freedom? You going to have to kill some crackers! You going to have to kill some of their babies!"

— King Samir Shabazz, head of the party's Philadelphia chapter, in a National Geographic documentary, January 2009

Background

The New Black Panther Party (NBPP) is a black separatist group that believes black Americans should have their own nation. In the NBPP's "10 Point Platform," which is a takeoff on the 10-point platform of the original Black Panther Party, the NBPP demands that blacks be given a country or state of their own, within which they can make their own laws. They demand that all black prisoners in the United States be released to "the lawful authorities of the Black Nation." They claim to be entitled to reparations for slavery from the United States, all European countries and "the Jews."

The NBPP is notable for its anti-white and anti-Semitic hatred. Its leaders have blamed Jews for the 9/11 terrorist attacks and for the slave trade. The late former party chairman Khalid Abdul Muhammad has said, "There are no good crackers, and if you find one, kill him before he changes." A document on the NBPP website entitled "The Nationalist Manifesto" claims that white men have a secret plan to commit genocide against the non-white races. It also refers to black people who condone mixed-race relationships as the "modern day Custodians [sic] of Uncle Tom's Cabin."

NBPP members also hold black-supremacist religious beliefs. Some think that blacks are God's true "chosen people" and that the people normally called "Jews" actually are impostors (this ideology is remarkably similar to the white racist theology of Christian Identity, which says whites are God's real chosen people). They believe that blacks are naturally superior to people of other races. In September 1997, Khalid Muhammad said that he could not be anti-Semitic because Jews had no claim to the term "Semite."

Members of the original Black Panther Party, which has no connection to the NBPP, have heavily criticized the New Black Panther Party. An open letter from the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation, which is run by members of the original Black Panther Party, decries the NBPP for being a hateful and unconstructive group. Bobby Seale, a famous founding member of the original Panthers, calls the organization "a black racist hate group."

By injecting themselves into racially charged and other high-profile events, the NBPP has won considerable press attention. When members march, they often wear coordinated, military-style uniforms — black boots, black pants, a black shirt with NBPP patches on it, and black berets.

The NBPP claims to have been founded in 1989, although the group was not active until 1990. That year, Aaron Michaels, a Dallas radio personality, assembled a group of black citizens to engage in community activism. He called the group the New Black Panther Party. One of its main goals was to increase black representation on the Dallas school board. The group also attempted to reduce drug dealing in certain black neighborhoods. In 1993, the group organized an event called the National Black Power Summit and Youth Rally, which had around 200 attendees. White supremacist Tom Metzger spoke at the event as a special guest. Although Metzger is no friend of blacks, both he and NBPP members believe that whites and blacks should live in their own separate countries. At that 1993 meeting, Michaels made the likely exaggerated claim that the NBPP had formed 20 chapters.

In 1994, Khalid Abdul Muhammad became actively involved with the NBPP. Muhammad was formerly the personal assistant to :{Louis Farrakhan:(style="background-color:#fff200"):}:, leader of the :{Nation of Islam:(style="background-color:#fff200"):}:, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has listed as a black hate group since 1998. In November 1993, while still associated with the Nation of Islam, he gave a notorious speech at Kean College in New Jersey. He accused Jews of being responsible for the slave trade, called Jews "bloodsuckers," and asserted that white South Africans should be killed if they refuse to leave South Africa. The speech caused a controversy, leading Farrakhan to demote Muhammad from his position as national spokesman in February 1994. In May 1994, Muhammad was shot and injured by James Bess, a former Nation of Islam member.

A Dallas school board meeting was canceled in May 1996 after the Panthers threatened to come with loaded weapons. NBPP founder Aaron Michaels and Khalid Muhammad worked together closely during this time, appearing together at a press conference regarding the school board incident.

In 1997, Fahim Minkah and Marvin Crenshaw, two original Panthers from Dallas, won an injunction against Aaron Michaels disallowing him from using either the old Panther name or its logo. The injunction was never enforced and the NBPP continued to use the Panther name and the Panther logo to this day.

On June 7, 1998, James Byrd, Jr., was murdered in Jasper, Texas, by three white men who chained the black man to the back of a truck and dragged him to death. In the wake of the horrific murder, Khalid Muhammad led a group of armed NBPP members to Jasper where members confronted a group of Klansmen who rallied in the town. About 50 Panthers, a dozen of whom carried rifles and shotguns, faced off against about 20 Klan members. Police officers erected a barricade to separate the two groups. NBPP members twice tried to break through and confront the KKK protesters, but failed to do so. Frustrated, Muhammad called for his followers to attack the police, shouting: "Black people, we can take these bastards. We can run over the damn police and take their ass. Who's with me?" Police officers attempted to evacuate the Klan members, but a small group of Panthers surrounded one of their vehicles and started rocking it back and forth. As a result, one NBPP member was arrested. No further violence occurred.

In September 1998, Khalid Muhammad organized the Million Youth March in New York City. Then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani attempted to prevent the group from holding the event, denying them a permit and referring to the rally as a "hate march." But the NBPP won a court battle, forcing the city to allow the event. Malik Zulu Shabazz, the future leader of party, played a prominent role in organizing the event. On Sept. 5, about 6,000 people attended the march while 3,000 police officers oversaw the event. A few minutes after the rally was scheduled to end, police began to disperse the crowd, resulting in a scuffle that left 16 police officers and 12 attendees injured. Muhammad reportedly encouraged the crowd to attack police officers with chairs and bottles and even to take the officers' guns if attacked. Shortly after this event, Muhammad became the national chairman of the NBPP, making him the leader of the organization.

Muhammad served as chairman until Feb. 17, 2001, when he died of a brain aneurysm. That year, Malik Zulu Shabazz, a Washington, D.C., attorney who had run unsuccessfully for the City Council in 1995, took over leadership of the group. He co-sponsored an Oct. 31, 2001 conference in which he and a handful of Muslim clerics blamed the Jews for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Said Shabazz: "Zionism is racism, Zionism is terrorism, Zionism is colonialism, Zionism is imperialism, and support for Zionism is the root of why so many were killed on September 11." He also referred to Israel and the United States as "terrorists." Shabazz would later claim that Jews had received advance warning of the attacks, a false conspiracy theory that is also highly popular in white supremacist and neo-Nazi circles.

Shabazz worked to improve relations between the NBPP and the Nation of Islam, where many NBPP members had their roots, including former leader Khalid Muhammad. In 2005, Louis Farrakhan invited Shabazz to be the co-convener of the 10th anniversary of the Million Man March. The groups also appeared together at events calling for reparations for black slavery. (That friendly relationship has continued. As late as January 2010, Shabazz was expressing his approval of the Nation of Islam and reiterating his commitment to support its efforts.)

In May 2006, Shabazz led a group of New Black Panthers in a protest on Duke University's campus in North Carolina. A few months earlier, members of Duke's lacrosse team had been accused of raping a black exotic dancer who they had hired to work a private party — charges that were ultimately shown to be false. The NBPP demanded that the accused players be found guilty and that all the students who were at the party be expelled. Several of the NBPP members came to the protest armed. Two brought knives, some wore bulletproof vests, and one brought a gun, which a police officer insisted that he leave in his car.

In August 2006, several members of the NBPP served as security personnel for former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney's primary campaign, which she lost. After McKinney lost the primary, a journalist asked her what she attributed her loss to. Hashim Nzinga, the NBPP National Chief of Staff, interrupted: "Why do you think she lost? You wanna know what led to the loss? Israel. The Zionists. You. Put on your yarmulke and celebrate." (The former Georgia Democrat and the NBPP's connection continues today. In May 2010, McKinney spoke at the NBPP Black Power Convention.)

In September 2007, three white men and three white women in West Virginia were arrested for kidnapping, torturing, and sexually assaulting Megan Williams, a 20-year-old mentally disabled black woman. In October 2007, Shabazz seized on Williams' case, demanding that all six of the defendants be charged with hate crimes — this despite Williams' previous romantic involvement with one of her assailants, which prosecutors said underlined how the crimes were not legally hate crimes. But Shabazz ignored the prosecutors, reaching out to Megan's mother, Carmen Williams, and giving her legal advice and supposedly working to raise money for her daughter.

On Nov. 3, 2007, Shabazz held a rally in front of the federal courthouse in Charleston, W.Va., where he demanded that all the defendants be charged with hate crimes. The rally drew about 1,000 people. The NAACP refused to endorse the event, presumably because of Shabazz and the NBPP's racist views. But Shabazz was supported by the Rev. Al Sharpton, who reportedly attended and later had Shabazz on his radio program, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which also reportedly endorsed the rally. After the event, Shabazz announced that he had collected at least $5,000 on Williams' behalf, and pledged to continue to raise money. Two weeks later, Logan County prosecutor Brian Abraham petitioned the court to appoint a legal guardian for Williams. He was worried that Williams' mother and Shabazz were not acting in Megan's best interests, and that the publicity was not good for Megan or her case. Shabazz challenged the guardian petition and it was denied. But many of those close to the case remained concerned about Shabazz's advocacy. In October 2009, Megan's attorney, Byron Potts, said, "I know for a fact she [Megan] has been manipulated. … People raised money for her, she never received that money."

On Nov. 4, 2008, two NBPP members showed up, wearing military-style fatigues and berets, at a Philadelphia polling station, supposedly to protect black voters from having their rights violated. King Samir Shabazz, the local NBPP chapter leader, brandished a nightstick and made threatening remarks to voters (much of this was captured on a videotape reportedly made by GOP poll watchers). An eyewitness claimed that Samir Shabazz said, "Cracker, you are about to be ruled by a black man." Jerry Jackson, a certified Democratic poll watcher who also wore NBPP garb, accompanied him. Police officers arrived at the scene and forced Samir Shabazz to leave, though they allowed Jackson to stay. After the incident, the NBPP distanced itself from Samir Shabazz's actions and suspended the Philadelphia chapter.

The Justice Department filed civil charges of voter intimidation in January 2009 under the Voting Rights Act (the Bush Administration, which filed the charges in its last hours, chose not to pursue a criminal case) against King Samir Shabazz, Jerry Jackson, the New Black Panther Party and Malik Zulu Shabazz. They won the case by default in April 2009 when the defendants did not appear in court. But DOJ officials under the Obama Administration decided to drop most of the charges, saying the evidence did not substantiate the allegations that votes were suppressed or that the party or its leader were culpable. They did, however, get an injunction against Samir Shabazz that forbade him to bring a weapon to any Philadelphia polling place until 2012.

In January 2010, Samir Shabazz was reinstalled as head of the newly reactivated Philadelphia chapter. On April 23, 2010, he wrote in a reference to the prosecutors who investigated the case against him, "You are nothing more than a modern day lynch mob." In May 2010, Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez defended the Department of Justice's decision to drop the charges. He cited local officers' decision to allow Jackson to remain when they removed Samir Shabazz (suggesting that Jackson was not intimidating voters) and the fact that there were no similar incidents at other polling stations. These facts, Perez argued, exonerated Jackson, Malik Shabazz, and the NBPP from charges of voter intimidation. Nevertheless, a wide array of right-wing and conservative individuals and groups attacked the DOJ's decision as supposedly revealing the Obama Administration's refusal to pursue cases against black racists.

The group made headlines across the country in March 2012 when Mikhail Muhammad, a New Black Panther leader in Florida, said the NBPP was placing a $10,000 “bounty” on a neighborhood watch volunteer who killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, an African American, in Sanford, Fla. When asked whether he was inciting violence, Muhammad said, “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” The group also called for the mobilization of 10,000 black men to capture the Hispanic man who shot the unarmed teen as he was walking through a gated community wearing a hooded sweatshirt and carrying only some candy and iced tea. The lack of charges against the gunman, who claimed he was attacked by Martin, sparked nationwide outrage.

=assanta wapo

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/assata-shakur-was-convicted-of-murder-is-she-a-terrorist/2013/05/08/69acb602-b7e5-11e2-aa9e-a02b765ff0ea_story.html

https://chicagodefender.com/2016/04/18/angela-davis-calls-to-exonerarte-ex-black-panther-assata-shakur/

On May 2 1973, Assata (aka, Joanne Deborah Chesimard), was pulled over by the New Jersey State Police.

In a shootout with police, she was shot twice.

A fellow activist with her was killed.

Assata was then charged with the murder of a police officer, but has always maintained her innocence.

In her own words: I knew that [in] the racist legal system in the United States I would receive no justice. I was also afraid that I would be murdered in prison.

Assata was convicted and spent 6.5 years in prison under brutal conditions before escaping from a maximum security wing of the Clinton Correctional Facility for Women in NJ in ’79. She fled to Cuba shortly thereafter, where she has political asylum.

Assata has been living as a fugitive ever since, and was added to the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorist list.

The good news is, since President Barack Obama has concluded his historic trip to Cuba recently as the first sitting U.S. president to visit the island in 88 years, long-dormant political issues are being raised once again.

Angela Davis is back in the forefront shining a spotlight on the case of her sister-in-arms, Assata Shakur. Angela is currently a Distinguished Professor Emerita at USC College in Los Angeles, CA.

Earlier this month Angela gave a fascinating interview on the Democracy Now! show, The War and Peace Report, and we want to share it with you. Read below, or jump to the video.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! (radio broadcast), democracynow.org, “The War and Peace Report.” I’m Amy Goodman. In this Women’s History Month special, we continue our conversation with Angela Davis. Last week, President Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to visit Cuba in 88 years. During his trip, Obama met with Cuban President Raúl Castro and delivered an address to the Cuban people, the first-ever live address by a sitting U.S. president to the people of Cuba.

One issue that was not raised publicly during his visit was the fate of Assata Shakur, the legendary figure within the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army who now lives in Cuba, where she has political asylum.

Assata Shakur was convicted May 2nd, [1973], of killing a New Jersey state trooper during a shootout that left one of her fellow activists dead. She was shot twice by the police during the incident. In 1979, she managed to escape from jail and later fled to Cuba. She has long proclaimed her innocence. In 1998, Democracy Now! aired her reading an open letter to John Paul II, who was pope at the time, during his trip to Cuba. This is an excerpt.

ASSATA SHAKUR: In 1977, I was convicted in a trial that can only be described as a legal lynching. In 1979 I was able to escape with the aid of some of my fellow comrades. I saw this as a necessary step, not only because I was innocent of the charges against me, but because I knew that [in] the racist legal system in the United States I would receive no justice. I was also afraid that I would be murdered in prison. I later arrived in Cuba where I am currently living in exile as a political refugee.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Assata Shakur speaking in 1998 in an open letter to Pope John Paul. Our guest, Professor Angela Davis, has been a longtime supporter of Assata Shakur. I asked her about Assata’s case and the thawing of U.S.-Cuban relations.

ANGELA DAVIS: I’ve been involved in the campaign to save Assata’s life for all of those decades. And now, of course, as there are new openings with respect to Cuba, we welcome the end of the embargo, the blockade, but at the same time we have to be attentive to what this might mean for Assata, given that there is $2 million reward on her head, that she has been designated as one of 10 most dangerous terrorists in the country.

ANGELA DAVIS: Absolutely, absolutely. So I think that now is the time to focus attention on Assata and to—I mean, it’s interesting. We were talking about popular culture today, and I understand there was an episode of the television program—

AMY GOODMAN: Madam Secretary.

ANGELA DAVIS: —Madam Secretary, in which an Assata-like character was approached by the secretary of state, and the secretary of state acknowledged that she had been wrongly convicted. And the issue is resolved by promising to provide the support of the State Department to Assata in a new trial in the U.S.

AMY GOODMAN: Right. And it was part of the process of normalization in Madam Secretary.

ANGELA DAVIS: Exactly.

AMY GOODMAN: Téa Leoni plays Madam Secretary, the secretary of state—

ANGELA DAVIS: Exactly.

AMY GOODMAN: —when she goes down to Cuba. And in that situation, they said that Assata Shakur’s case was instrumental to normalizing relations. And I want to go to a clip of that.

ELIZABETH McCORD: [played by Téa Leoni] There are people who want you to come back to the U.S. to serve your sentence. What if I could ensure that you would be at a minimum-security prison close to your daughter in Connecticut? You have a grandson you haven’t met. You would be eligible for parole in three years.

AFENI RAHIM: [played by L. Scott Caldwell] Wouldn’t that be convenient for you? I simply turn myself over to the feds, and you get whatever it is you want.

ELIZABETH McCORD: Under COINTELPRO, the FBI wiretapped your defense team, and they suppressed forensic evidence that made it clear you didn’t fire the murder weapon. Afeni, based on these findings, Attorney General Cronenberg is offering you a new trial. And we will make sure that these files are splashed across every newspaper in the country.

AMY GOODMAN: That is the CBS drama Madam Secretary doing their own kind of take on a kind of Assata Shakur, who ends up agreeing to come back to the United States, and the secretary of state saying she would get a fair trial and something to do with time served.

ANGELA DAVIS: Well, yeah, Assata has not seen her grandchildren. It’s horrendous, the extent to which the repression associated with the era of the late 1960s and 1970s continues to this day. And we might also mention the fact that vast numbers of people are still behind bars from that era, members of the Black Panther Party—Mondo we Langa, Ed Rice. My co-defendant, Ruchell Magee, has been in prison for over 50 years. So I think that when we put all of these things together, they create a kind of invitation for increased radical activism for trying to resolve these issues that have been decades in the making.

Angela Davis Demands Justice With A Call to Action to Exonerate Ex Black Panther & Cuban Exile Assata Shakur. Hoping that Assata Shakur can finally have her day in court and be cleared of all charges.

Time will tell what happens next.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jul/17/womens-march-celebrates-birthday-assata-shakur/

ucsc blk student takeover quote:

wiki

Assata Olugbala Shakur (born JoAnne Deborah Byron; July 16, 1947, sometimes referred to by her married surname Chesimard) is a former member of the Black Liberation Army, who was convicted (under New Jersey's "aiding and abetting" statute) of the first-degree murder of State Trooper Werner Foerster during a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1973. On November 2, 1979, she escaped from prison, and in 1984, she surfaced in Cuba, where she was granted political asylum.

Born in Flushing, Queens, she grew up in New York City and Wilmington, North Carolina. After she ran away from home several times, her aunt, who would later act as one of her lawyers, took her in. She became involved in political activism at Borough of Manhattan Community College and City College of New York. After graduation, she began using the name Assata Shakur, and briefly joined the Black Panther Party. She then joined the Black Liberation Army, a loosely-knit offshoot of the Black Panthers which led an armed struggle against the US government through tactics such as robbing banks and killing police officers and drug dealers.

Between 1971 and 1973, she was charged with several crimes and was the subject of a multi-state manhunt. In May 1973, Shakur was arrested after being wounded in a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike. Also involved in the shootout were New Jersey State Troopers Werner Foerster and James Harper and BLA members Sundiata Acoliand Zayd Malik Shakur. Harper was wounded; Zayd was killed; Foerster was killed by Acoli. Between 1973 and 1977, she was charged with murder, attempted murder, armed robbery, bank robbery, and kidnapping in relation to the shootout and six other incidents. She was acquitted on three of the charges and three were dismissed. In 1977, she was convicted of the murder of Foerster (under New Jersey law the prosecution did not need to prove that Shakur fired the shots that killed either Foerster or Zayd Shakur) and of seven other felonies related to the shootout, in a trial her supporters argue was unfair.

Shakur has lived in Cuba since 1984, despite US government efforts to have her returned. The FBI has added her to its list of "Most Wanted Terrorists".^[2]

[hide]

Early life and education:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em;color:#54595d;"):}:[edit:{]}:

Assata Shakur was born Joanne Deborah Byron, in Flushing, Queens, New York City, on July 16, 1947.^[3] She lived for three years with her mother, school teacher Doris E. Johnson, and retired grandparents, Lula and Frank Hill.^[4] In 1950, Shakur's parents divorced and she moved with her grandparents to Wilmington, North Carolina. Shakur moved back to Queens with her mother and stepfather after elementary school, attending Parsons Junior High School. However, she still frequently visited her grandparents in the south. The family struggled financially and argued frequently; Shakur spent little time at home.^[5] She often ran away, staying with strangers and working for short periods of time, until she was taken in by her mother's sister Evelyn A. Williams, a civil rights worker, who lived in Manhattan.^[6] She has said that her aunt was the heroine of her childhood, as she was constantly introducing her to new things. She said that her aunt was "very sophisticated and knew all kinds of things. She was right up my alley because i [sic] was forever asking all kinds of questions. I wanted to know everything." Williams often took her to museums, theaters, and art galleries, and the conflicts that did rise between the two were typically due to Shakur's habit of lying.^[7]

Shakur converted to Roman Catholicism as a child and attended the all-girls Cathedral High School,^[8] for six months before transferring to public high school, which she attended until she dropped out. Shakur is no longer Catholic. She later earned a General Educational Development (GED) with her aunt's help.^[7] Often there were few, or no other black students in her high school class. Shakur later wrote teachers seemed surprised when she answered a question in class, as if not expecting black people to be intelligent and engaged, and what she was taught a sugar-coated version of history that ignored the oppression suffered by people of color, especially in the United States. In her autobiography she later wrote: "I didn’t know what a fool they had made out of me until I grew up and started to read real history".^[9]

Shakur attended Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) and then the City College of New York (CCNY) in the mid-1960s, where she was involved in many political activities, protests, and sit-ins.^[10] She was arrested for the first time—with 100 other BMCC students—in 1967, on charges of trespassing. The students had chained and locked the entrance to a college building to protest low numbers of black faculty and the absence of a black studies program.^[11] In April 1967, she married Louis Chesimard, a fellow student-activist at CCNY. The married life ended within a year; they divorced in December 1970. Shakur's marriage receives one paragraph in her memoir, she wrote that it ended over their differing views of gender roles.^[12]

Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em;color:#54595d;"):}:[edit:{]}:

After graduation from CCNY, Shakur briefly joined the Black Panther Party (BPP).^[13] She soon left the party, disliking the macho behavior of the men and believing that the BPP lacked knowledge and understanding of United States black history.^[14] Shakur then joined the Black Liberation Army (BLA), an offshoot of the BPP whose members, inspired by the Vietcong and the Battle of Algiers, led a campaign of armed struggle against the U.S. government using tactics such as planting bombs, holding up banks and murdering drug dealers and police.^[15][16][17]

She began using the name Assata Olugbala Shakur in 1971, rejecting Joanne Chesimard as a "slave name".^[7] Assata is a West African name, derived from the Arabic name Aisha, said to mean "she who struggles", while Shakur means "thankful one" in Arabic. Olugbala means "savior" in Yoruba.^[18] She now identified as an African and felt her old name no longer fit: "It sounded so strange when people called me Joanne. It really had nothing to do with me. I didn’t feel like no Joanne, or no negro, or no amerikan. I felt like an African woman".^[19]

Allegations and manhunt:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em;color:#54595d;"):}:[edit:{]}:

On April 6, 1971, Shakur was shot in the stomach during a struggle with a guest at the Statler Hilton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. According to police, Shakur knocked on the door of a guest's room, asked "Is there a party going on here?" then displayed a revolver and demanded money.^[20] In 1987, Shakur confirmed to a journalist that there was a drug connection to this incident but refused to elaborate.^[8]

She was booked on charges of attempted robbery, felonious assault, reckless endangerment, and possession of a deadly weapon, then released on bail.^[21] Shakur is alleged to have said that she was glad that she had been shot since, afterward, she was no longer afraid to be shot again.^[22]

Following an August 23, 1971, bank robbery in Queens, Shakur was sought for questioning. A photograph of a woman (who was later alleged to be Shakur) wearing thick-rimmed black glasses, with a high hairdo pulled tightly over her head, and pointing a gun, was widely displayed in banks. The New York Clearing House Association paid for full-page ads displaying material about Shakur.^[23] In 1987, when asked in Cuba about police allegations that the BLA funded themselves through bank robberies and theft, Shakur responded, "There were expropriations, there were bank robberies."^[8]

On December 21, 1971, Shakur was named by the New York City Police Department as one of four suspects in a hand grenade attack that destroyed a police car and slightly injured two patrolmen in Maspeth, Queens; a 13-state alarm was issued three days after the attack when a witness identified Shakur and Andrew Jackson from Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) photographs.^{[24][25][26][27]} Law enforcement officials in Atlanta, Georgia said that Shakur and Jackson had lived together in Atlanta for several months in the summer of 1971.^[28][29][30]

Shakur was one of those wanted for questioning for wounding a police officer attempting to serve a traffic summons in Brooklyn on January 26, 1972.^[31] After an $89,000 Brooklyn bank robbery on March 1, 1972, a Daily News headline asked: "Was that JoAnne?"; Shakur was also wanted for questioning after a September 1, 1972, Bronx bank robbery.^[31] Based on FBI photographs, Monsignor John Powis alleged that Shakur was involved in an armed robbery at his Our Lady of the Presentation Church in Brownsville, Brooklyn, on September 14, 1972.^[32]

In 1972, Shakur became the subject of a nationwide manhunt after the FBI alleged that she led a Black Liberation Army cell that had conducted a "series of cold-blooded murders of New York City police officers".^[33] The FBI said these included the "execution style murders" of New York City Police Officers Joseph Piagentini and Waverly Jones on May 21, 1971, and NYPD officers Gregory Foster and Rocco Laurie on January 28, 1972.^[34][35] Shakur was alleged to have been directly involved with the Foster and Laurie murders, and involved tangentially with the Piagentini and Jones murders.^[36] In Cuba, Shakur was asked about the BLA's alleged involvement in the killings of police officers; Shakur responded that "In reality, armed struggle historically has been used by people to liberate themselves... But the question lies in when do people use armed struggle... There were people [in the BLA] who absolutely took the position that it was just time to resist, and if black people didn't start to fight back against police brutality and didn't start to wage armed resistance, we would be annihilated."^[8]

Some sources identify Shakur as the de facto head of the BLA after the arrest of co-founder Dhoruba Moore.^[37] Robert Daley, Deputy Commissioner of the New York City Police, for example, described Shakur as "the final wanted fugitive, the soul of the gang, the mother hen who kept them together, kept them moving, kept them shooting".^[38] Years later, some police officers argued that her importance in the BLA had been exaggerated by the police, with one saying that they themselves had created a "myth" to "demonize" Shakur because she was "educated", "young and pretty".^[39]

As of February 17, 1972, when Shakur was identified as one of four BLA members on a short trip to Chattanooga, Tennessee, she was wanted for questioning (along with Robert Vickers, Twyman Meyers, Samuel Cooper, and Paul Stewart) in relation to police killings, a Queens bank robbery, and the grenade attack.^[40][41][42] Shakur was announced as one of six suspects in the ambushing of four policemen—two in Jamaica, Queens, and two in Brooklyn—on January 28, 1973.^[43]

By June 1973, an apparatus that would become the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF)^[44] was issuing nearly daily briefings on Shakur's status and the allegations against her.^[45][46]

According to Cleaver and Katsiaficas, the FBI and local police "initiated a national search-and-destroy mission for suspected BLA members, collaborating in stakeouts that were the products of intensive political repression and counterintelligence campaigns like NEWKILL". They "attempted to tie Assata to every suspected action of the BLA involving a woman".^[47] The JTTF would later serve as the "coordinating body in the search for Assata and the renewed campaign to smash the BLA", after her escape from prison.^[46] After her capture, however, Shakur was not charged with any of the crimes for which she was the subject of the manhunt.^[33][48]

Shakur and others^[33][48][49] claim that she was targeted by the FBI's COINTELPRO as a result of her involvement with the black liberation organizations.^[13] Specifically, documentary evidence suggests that Shakur was targeted by an investigation named CHESROB, which "attempted to hook former New York Panther Joanne Chesimard (Assata Shakur) to virtually every bank robbery or violent crime involving a black woman on the East Coast".^[50] Although named after Shakur, CHESROB (like its predecessor, NEWKILL) was not limited to Shakur.^[51]

New Jersey Turnpike shootout:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em;color:#54595d;"):}:[edit:{]}:

On May 2, 1973, at about 12:45 a.m.,^[52] Assata Shakur, along with Zayd Malik Shakur (born James F. Costan) and Sundiata Acoli (born Clark Squire), were stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike in East Brunswick for driving with a broken tail light by State Trooper James Harper, backed up by Trooper Werner Foerster in a second patrol vehicle.^[53] The vehicle was also "slightly" exceeding the speed limit.^[52][54] Recordings of Trooper Harper calling the dispatcher were played at the trials of both Acoli and Assata Shakur.^[53][55] The stop occurred 200 yards (183 m) south of what was then the Turnpike Authority administration building.^[52][55][56] Acoli was driving the two-door vehicle, Assata Shakur was seated in the right front seat, and Zayd Shakur was in the right rear seat.^[57][a] Trooper Harper asked the driver for identification, noticed a discrepancy, asked him to get out of the car, and questioned him at the rear of the vehicle.^[52]

It is at this point, with the questioning of Acoli, that the accounts of the confrontation begin to differ (see the witnesses section below).^[58] However, in the ensuing shootout, Trooper Foerster was shot twice in the head with his own gun and killed,^[53][58] Zayd Shakur was killed, and Assata Shakur and Trooper Harper were wounded.

According to initial police statements, at this point one or more of the suspects began firing with semiautomatic handguns and Trooper Foerster fired four times before falling mortally wounded.^[52] At Acoli's trial, Harper testified that the gunfight started "seconds" after Foerster arrived at the scene.^[57] At this trial, Harper said that Foerster reached into the vehicle, pulled out and held up a semi-automatic pistol and ammunition magazine, and said "Jim, look what I found",^[57] while facing Harper at the rear of the vehicle.^[59] At this point, Assata Shakur and Zayd Shakur were ordered to put their hands on their laps and not to move; Harper said that Assata Shakur then reached down to the right of her right leg, pulled out a pistol, and shot him in the shoulder, after which he retreated to behind his vehicle.^[57] Questioned by prosecutor C. Judson Hamlin, Harper said he saw Foerster shot just as Assata Shakur was felled by bullets from Harper's gun.^[57] Harper testified that Acoli shot Foerster with a .38 caliber semiautomatic pistol and then used Foerster's own gun to "execute him".^[60]According to the testimony of State Police investigators, two jammed semi-automatic pistols were discovered near Foerster's body.^[61]

Trooper Werner Foerster

This file has been proposed for deletion and may be deleted after Wednesday, 4 July 2018. View file page to object.

Acoli then drove the car (a white Pontiac LeMans with Vermont license plates)^[56]—which contained Assata Shakur, who was wounded, and Zayd Shakur, who was dead or dying—5 miles (8 km) down the road.^[53][52] The vehicle was chased by three patrol cars and the booths down the turnpike were alerted.^[52] Acoli then exited the car and, after being ordered to halt by a trooper, fled into the woods as the trooper emptied his gun.^[52] Assata Shakur then walked towards the trooper with her bloodied arms raised in surrender.^[52] Acoli was captured after a 36-hour manhunt—involving 400 people, state police helicopters, and bloodhounds.^[52][62][63] Zayd Shakur's body was found in a nearby gully along the road.^[52]

According to a New Jersey Police spokesperson, Assata Shakur was on her way to a "new hideout in Philadelphia" and "heading ultimately for Washington" and a book in the vehicle contained a list of potential BLA targets.^[52] Assata Shakur testified that she was on her way to Baltimore for a job as a bar waitress.^[64]

Assata Shakur, with gunshot wounds in both arms and a shoulder, was moved to Middlesex General Hospital under "heavy guard" and was reported to be in "serious condition"; Trooper Harper was wounded in the left shoulder, in "good" condition, and given a protective guard at the hospital.^[52][62] Assata Shakur was interrogated and arraigned from her hospital bed,^[65]and her medical care during this period is often alleged to have been "substandard".^{[7][66][67][68]} She was transferred from Middlesex General Hospital in New Brunswick to Roosevelt Hospital in Edison after her lawyers obtained a court order from Judge John Bachman,^[69] and then transferred to Middlesex County Workhouse a few weeks later.^[70]

During an interview, Assata Shakur talked about her treatment from the police and medical staff at Middlesex County Hospital. She stated that the police were beating and choking her and "doing everything that they could possibly do as soon as the doctors or nurses would go outside."^[71]