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</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>Original Content at
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http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_michael__080224_omaha_police_detecti.htm<br>
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<b>February 24, 2008<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=4>Omaha Police detective's
"evidence" in Black Panther murder case disappeared without a
trace raising perjury question<br><br>
</b></font><font face="Verdana" size=2><i>By Michael Richardson<br><br>
</i></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>The tragic bombing
murder of Omaha Police patrolman Larry Minard on August 17, 1970
triggered a series of events, monitored by J. Edgar Hoover,
director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, that led to the ultimate
release of Minard's confessed killer, Duane Peak, after several years of
juvenile detention. <br><br>
Peak's brokered testimony, which bought his freedom, implicated two
leaders of Omaha's Black Panther chapter, the National Committee to
Combat Fascism. Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa, formerly David
Rice, had been under surveillance by Hoover's secret, and illegal,
COINTELPRO operation designed to "disrupt" the Black Panthers,
were named by Peak as his co-conspirators. Both Poindexter and
Langa were convicted of murder and are incarcerated at the maximum
security Nebraska State Penitentiary serving life sentences. Both
men deny any involvement in the crime.<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br><br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>Although Peak was the
prosecution's murderous star witness, the testimony of Omaha detective
Robert Pheffer was also critical to the case as he corroborated the
account of detective Jack Swanson's claim to have found dynamite in
Langa's basement at the trial. Pheffer has since contradicted his
own trial testimony and now claims, under oath, that he found the
dynamite raising a question of perjury, either at the trial or at a May
2007 hearing before Douglas County District Court Judge Russell Bowie who
was considering a new trial request by Poindexter.<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br><br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>When confronted by
Poindexter's attorney, Robert Barle, over the discrepancy between his
1971 testimony at trial and his 2007 sworn testimony before Bowie,
Pheffer became noticeably flustered and denied his own trial testimony
claiming "the court reporter, somebody got it wrong."<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br><br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>Dynamite never appeared
in any evidence photos of Langa's house and only first shows up in the
trunk of a police squad car in any photograph.<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br><br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>Pheffer's new claim to
have found the dynamite brings into question other "evidence"
discovered by the Omaha detective in the course of the
investigation. Pheffer has testified to the discovery of other
bomb-making supplies at two locations--claims not supported by the trial
record or any police reports. Thus, the question of Pheffer's
credibility hinges on whether or not police destroyed or hid evidence of
bomb-making equipment, allegedly found by Pheffer, at two different
search locations.<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br><br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>At Langa's house, where
Pheffer now claims he found dynamite in the basement, Pheffer testified
to Judge Bowie that he also found in a bedroom closet three gray
Samsonite attaché cases with wires sticking out of them. Pheffer
claims after finding the three attaché cases a rope was passed through
the handles and "lead it out the bedroom through the front room,
outside the steps" where the cases were opened when they did not
detonate. Pheffer's dramatic discovery of the wired attaché cases
was not mentioned at trial nor were the purported bomb parts introduced
as evidence. Pheffer didn't even bother to enter the attaches cases
into the inventory list of the search. Nor did any other
officer. In fact, Pheffer is the sole witness to the
"evidence" he now claims to have found that somehow disappeared
without a trace.<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br><br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>At NCCF headquarters,
in a search the same day, Pheffer found more "evidence"
with another attaché case with wires. Pheffer did testify about
that purported discovery in 1971. Pheffer testified he found,
"an attache case in the front room with wires and a clothespin
attached to it." Yet once again, Pheffer failed to log in the
attaché case or even record it on the search inventory list. No
other officers filed reports or testified about the case and it was not
produced at trial as evidence despite Pheffer's claims.<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br><br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>From the Nebraska State
Penitentiary in Lincoln writes Ed Poindexter, "Robert Pheffer said
at our trial that when he and company raided NCCF on 24th Street that he
saw several unarmed suitcase bombs in various stages of
development….Pheffer was lying right in front of the jury."<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br><br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>"Needless to say,
said bomb finding did not exist on the record; that is, they were not on
the inventory list of items confiscated from HQ, and no one else appeared
to have seen them, and of course they did not exist in evidence.
Yet he went totally unchallenged in the courtroom when he blurted this
out."<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br><br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>"I've been harping
on this for umpteen years, but for some reason, no one likes to talk
about it."<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br><br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>In a recent prison
interview Langa commented on Pheffer's conflicting testimony, "We
come up to the present and here is Pheffer talking about we found a box
of dynamite in David Rice's house facing next to the furnace."<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br><br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>"I'm thinking
about this. Well, if a person was going to keep his dynamite next
to the furnace and I imagine it is to keep it warm, then it would also
make sense that if there were blasting caps in the house then it would
probably have been a good thing to have these kept like on top of the
stove to be consistent with this kind of absurdity. But it was a
make."<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br><br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>FBI agents assigned to
COINTELPRO worked closely with Omaha Police investigating the Black
Panthers. One of the techniques common to COINTELPRO operations was
creating false documents and making false statements to
"disrupt" the Panthers.<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br><br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>Judge Bowie ruled
Pheffer's contradictory dynamite testimony did not matter and did not
address the four attaché cases with wires that have vanished which
Pheffer claims to have found at two locations when he denied Poindexter's
bid for a new trial in September.<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br><br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>Now the Nebraska
Supreme Court must grapple with Pheffer's contradictory testimony and his
missing "evidence" which has left gaping holes in the case
against the two imprisoned Black Panthers. A date for the decision
in Poindexter's appeal has not been set.<br>
<i>Permission granted to reprint.<br><br>
<br><br>
</i></font><font face="Verdana" size=2>Authors Bio: Michael Richardson is
a freelance writer based in Boston. Richardson writes about politics,
election law, human nutrition, ethics, and music. Richardson is also a
political consultant on ballot access. <br><br>
<br><br>
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