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http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_michael__070829_the_fbi_s_secret_war.htm<br>
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<b>August 29, 2007<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=4>The FBI's secret war against the Black
Panthers is under close scrutiny in Omaha COINTELPRO case<br><br>
</b></font><font face="Verdana" size=2><i>By Michael Richardson<br><br>
</i>Omaha, Nebraska, birthplace of Malcolm X, has a long history of
racial tension. In September 1919 a white crowd of 4,000 burned the
Douglas County Courthouse to gain access to an accused black prisoner,
Will Brown. Brown had been erroneously accused of the rape of a white
woman and was in custody at the courthouse when the lynch mob gathered in
the streets of downtown Omaha. <br><br>
<br><br>
Mayor Edward Smith sought to quiet the mob and was dragged to a lamppost
and hanged with a makeshift noose. Pulled down by a quick acting
policeman the mayor hovered near death for several days. Will Brown was
not so lucky. The mob hanged Brown and then dragged his body through the
downtown streets behind a car before burning it on a street
corner.<br><br>
<br><br>
Fifty years later an Omaha policeman shot a 14 year-old girl, Vivian
Strong, in the back to disperse a crowd. The death of the youngster
triggered a year of intense tension between Omaha police and the black
community.<br><br>
<br><br>
Chief critics of the Omaha police were Black Panthers Ed Poindexter and
Mondo we Langa (formerly David Rice). Poindexter and Langa were the
leaders of the Panther group National Committee to Combat Fascism and
were at the center of attention.<br><br>
<br><br>
But it was not just the Omaha police that were watching the two Panthers,
the Federal Bureau of Investigation was conducting a nationwide secret
war against the Panthers code-named COINTELPRO. Poindexter and Langa were
targets of the COINTELPRO agents.<br><br>
<br><br>
It all came to a head one night in August 1970 when police were called to
a vacant house to investigate an emergency call about a woman screaming.
Instead, a suitcase bomb was waiting for the police. Officer Larry Minard
was killed and seven others injured in the blast.<br><br>
<br><br>
Police dragnets swept up dozens of people, multiple arrests were made but
in the end a 15 year-old, Duane Peak, confessed to placing the bomb. But
the COINTELPRO operation did not want a 15 year-old in custody, they
wanted to silence the Black Panthers in Omaha. Freedom of Information
requests have revealed that the FBI worked closely with Omaha police on
the case and that critical information was later withheld from defense
attorneys for Poindexter and Langa who were charged with the
crime.<br><br>
<br><br>
Peak was given a deal and sentenced as a juvenile in exchange for his
testimony against Poindexter and Langa. The tape of the emergency call
was withheld and later destroyed without ever being heard by a jury.
Evidence implicating an uncle of Vivian Strong was not pursued by police.
Conflicting testimony by police was made over dynamite allegedly found in
Langa’s residence.<br><br>
<br><br>
Poindexter and Langa both denied their involvement in the crime and
continue to proclaim their innocence from their prison cells, thirty-six
long years after the trial that resulted in life sentences for the
pair.<br><br>
<br><br>
However, a now-deceased police dispatcher, perhaps suspecting COINTELPRO
dirty trick tactics would be used in the case, quietly made his own copy
of the emergency call that lured police to the deadly trap. It took years
for the existence of the copy to become known but finally, in May of this
year, Douglas County District Judge Russell Bowie listened to the tape in
open court and heard testimony from an expert witness that the voice on
the tape was not that of Peak.<br><br>
<br><br>
The Nebraska chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has filed an
<i>amicus</i> brief with the court bringing judicial attention to the
abuses of COINTELPRO, a then secret operation unknown to the jury that
convicted Poindexter and Langa.<br><br>
<br><br>
Judge Bowie has spent the summer reviewing the 1971 trial transcript,
studying the legal briefs and considering the contradictory testimony of
police detective Robert Pheffer who claims he found dynamite in Langa’s
homedynamite never seen by the crime scene evidence
technicians.<br><br>
<br><br>
While the public waits for Judge Bowie to conclude his review of the
COINTELPRO tainted trial, two men wait more anxiously than the rest from
their cells in the Nebraska State Penitentiary. For Ed Poindexter and
Mondo we Langa justice is long overdue.<br><br>
<br><br>
<i>Permission granted to reprint<br><br>
<br><br>
<br>
</i>Authors Bio: Michael Richardson is a freelance writer based in
Boston. Richardson writes about politics, election law, human nutrition,
ethics, and music. In 2004 Richardson was Ralph Nader's national ballot
access coordinator. <br><br>
<br><br>
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