[Ppnews] Anti-COINTELPRO demonstration at Nebraska State Capitol for the Omaha Two

[Political Prisoner News]

Anti-COINTELPRO demonstration at Nebraska State Capitol for the Omaha Two

By Michael Richardson, COINTELPRO Examiner
http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/anti-cointelpro-demonstration-at-nebraska-state-capitol-for-the-omaha-two

Several dozen demonstrators spread a 30 foot banner across the 
entrance to the Nebraska State Capitol on Tuesday in behalf of the 
Omaha Two.  Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa (formerly David Rice) 
are serving life sentences at the Nebraska State Penitentiary in 
Lincoln for the 1970 murder of an Omaha policeman.

The Omaha Two were convicted after a COINTELPRO-tainted trial where 
Federal Bureau of Investigation Director J. Edgar Hoover had ordered 
evidence withheld from the jury.  Poindexter and Mondo were leaders 
of Omaha's Black Panther affiliate chapter and targets of Hoover's 
clandestine war of counterintelligence against domestic political activists.

Serving 41 years in prison, the Omaha Two are among America's 
longest-held political prisoners.

The capitol steps demonstration was organized by Ben Jones of the 
Anti-Oppression Art project.  Jones used Facebook to help recruit 
people to help hold the giant banner.

Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa continue to maintain their innocence 
for the murder of Larry MInard, Sr. on August 17, 1970.  Minard and 
seven other Omaha police officers were lured to a vacant house by an 
anonymous 911 call about a woman screaming.  Instead of a woman, 
police found a booby-trapped suitcase filled with dynamite which 
exploded in Minard's face as examined it.-

J. Edgar Hoover ordered the FBI crime laboratory to withhold a report 
on its analysis of a recording of the 911 call.  Omaha police had 
sent the tape to Washington to determine the identity of the 
anonymous caller.  The unknown caller presented a problem in making a 
case against the two Black Panther leaders.

For a year prior to the bombing, Paul Young, the Special 
Agent-in-Charge of the Omaha FBI office had been under pressure from 
Hoover to eliminate the Black Panther leadership.  After the Omaha 
Two trial in April 1971, where the jury never got to hear the voice 
of Minard's killer on the 911 tape, Young was rewarded for his role 
in the case with a transfer to head the Kansas City FBI office.

Ivan Willard Conrad, the FBI laboratory director, talked with Hoover 
about the unusual request to withhold information since it involved 
the death of a policeman.  Hoover told Conrad to withhold a report on 
the identity of the caller which Conrad noted on the COINTELPRO memo 
about the tape.  Hoover never publicly acknowledged his role in the frame-up.

The Omaha Two are on the agenda Saturday at the Left Forum at Pace 
University in New York.  The title of the panel discussion is 
Remembering Our Comrades and is one of the opening sessions.

For further information on the Omaha Two click HERE - 
http://www.examiner.com/omaha-two-story-in-national

Permission granted to reprint





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