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</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>Original Content at
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<b>March 31, 2008<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=4>Three days of deceit by FBI and Omaha
Police against Black Panthers ended search for caller who lured policeman
to trap<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>On August 17, 1970,
an anonymous caller to the Omaha, Nebraska police emergency hotline
reported a woman screaming at a vacant house. Eight police officers
responded only to find a booby-trapped suitcase instead of a crime
victim. Officer Larry Minard, the father of five young children,
was killed instantly when the suitcase bomb exploded in his face.
The other seven police officers were all injured in the blast.
Minard was buried three days later on what would have been his thirtieth
birthday.<br><br>
The Federal Bureau of Investigation immediately responded to assist the
Omaha Police track down the killer. However, what wasn't known at
the time was a secret directive from FBI director J. Edgar Hoover to
"disrupt" the Black Panther Party by any means possible called
Operation COINTELPRO. The joint investigation, under the COINTELPRO
mandate, targeted Omaha's Black Panther chapter called the National
Committee to Combat Fascism. <br><br>
William Sullivan, Assistant Director of the FBI under Hoover, was the
point person and chief architect of the covert COINTELPRO
operation. Sullivan served as Hoover's screener and selected
Hoover's daily reading list out of the thousands of COINTELPRO memoranda
and field communications that flowed into FBI headquarters each
year. Sullivan described COINTELPRO to a Congressional Committee on
Nov. 1, 1975, as an operation where, "No holds were
barred."<br><br>
Sullivan's "no holds barred" policy was in effect when a
decision was made and jointly-implemented by Omaha Police and the FBI
Special Agent-in-Charge to let the unidentified caller who had lured
Larry Minard to his death go free rather than endanger a plan to convict
two Panther leaders, Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa (then known as
David Rice). The two leaders had been COINTELPRO targets for two
years before the bombing.<br><br>
The story lay hidden for years behind a secrecy stamp at FBI headquarters
in a COINTELPRO file and buried in little-known and long-forgotten
testimony to the U.S. House Committee on Internal Security. Three
days of deception in October 1970 that led to one of Minard's killers
going free are documented in records now available to the
public.<br><br>
Within days after the bombing, a 15 year-old dropout, Duane Peak, was
identified as the bomber. Peak named a former Panther, Raleigh
House, as the supplier of the dynamite and admitted to making the fatal
call that lured Minard to his death. Police stretched out the
interrogation for days as Peak gave a half-dozen different versions of
the crime. Finally, Peak told the investigators what they wanted to
hear, that NCCF leaders Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa helped him
build and store the bomb.<br><br>
But there were problems with the official version of the case.
House, the supplier of the dynamite, was never formally charged or
prosecuted for his role in the crime, raising suspicion that he was a
COINTELPRO informant. House spent one night in jail and was
released on his own signature without posting any bond.
The whereabouts of Raleigh House today are unknown.<br><br>
Further, the voice of the deadly caller was that of a middle-aged man,
not that of a 15 year-old, leaving an unidentified accomplice on the
loose. Poindexter and Langa, both in their 20's, were never
suspected or accused of making the call. Peak's older accomplice
was still on the loose because Peak, apparently to protect the older male
caller, continued to maintain he made the fatal phone call.<br><br>
Shortly after the bombing, Omaha detectives rushed a tape of the
emergency call to FBI headquarters for vocal analysis. Police also
made plans with the FBI to analyze other voice samples in an effort to
identify the unknown caller.<br><br>
At Peak's preliminary hearing in September he persisted in his claim that
he made the emergency call and that House supplied the dynamite.
However, if the voice on the tape was not that of Peak the case against
Poindexter and Langa, built upon the claims of Peak, would unravel.
Assistant Chief of Police Glenn Gates conferred with his COINTELPRO
liaison, the Special Agent-in-Charge of the Omaha FBI office that led to
deceit that would seal the fate of Poindexter and Langa and let the
deadly caller walk away from the murder.<br><br>
October 12, 1970, the first day of deceit, would bring William Sullivan's
first public admission that he had knowledge of the Omaha case in a rare
public speech to a United Press International conference about the Black
Panthers where he falsely denied FBI involvement in a
"conspiracy" against the Panthers. About Minard's death,
Sullivan would say to the gathered reporters and correspondents, "On
August 12, 1970 [sic] an Omaha, Nebraska police officer was literally
blasted to death by an explosive device placed in a suitcase in an
abandoned residence. The officer had been summoned by an anonymous
telephone complaint that a woman was being beated [sic] there. An
individual with Panther associations has been charged with this
crime."<br><br>
Sullivan would go on to describe a variety of violent acts for which he
blamed the Black Panthers including the deaths of rival group members in
California that later would be discovered as COINTELPRO initiated
shootings. Dismissing the growing body of evidence that there was
some sort of a coordinated national effort against the Black Panthers
that used illegal tactics Sullivan complained, "Panther cries of
repression at the hands of a government "conspiracy" receive
the sympathy not only of adherents to totalitarian ideologies, but also
of those willing to close their eyes to even the violent nature of
hoodlum "revolutionary" acts."<br><br>
October 13, 1970, the second day of deceit, would put Omaha Police
Captain Murdock Platner in Washington, D.C. in a committee room of the
U.S. House Committee on Internal Security investigating the Black
Panthers. It would also be the date of a confidential memorandum
from the Special Agent-in-Charge of the Omaha FBI office to J. Edgar
Hoover stating: "Assistant COP GLENN GATES, Omaha PD, advised
that he feels than any uses of this call might be prejudicial to the
police murder trial against two accomplices of PEAK and, therefore, has
advised that he wishes no use of this tape until after the murder trials
of Peak and the two accomplices has been completed."<br><br>
The COINTELPRO memo continued, "[N]o further efforts are being made
at this time to secure additional tape recordings of the original
telephone call." No more recordings, no more voice analysis,
and no more search for the identity of the anonymous murderous
caller. <br><br>
In May 2007, voice analysis expert witness Tom Owen testified about the
sophisticated tests he performed on a recording of the emergency call in
a bid by Poindexter for a new trial. Owen testified before Douglas
County District Court Judge Russell Bowie that to a "high
degree" of probability the voice was not that of Peak.<br><br>
October 14, 1970, the third day of deceit, would again find Captain
Platner in a Congressional committee room but this time under oath and
testifying, falsely, about the source of the dynamite that killed his
fellow officer. Despite Peak's repeated assertions that Raleigh
House, the man with the get-out-of-jail-free card, supplied him with the
dynamite and testimony against House several weeks earlier at his
preliminary hearing, Platner boldly made a sworn false statement to the
committee about the explosives to name Mondo we Langa instead of
House.<br><br>
"Duane Peak, a16-year old boy who was arrested, testified in a
preliminary hearing. It is from this preliminary hearing you are
bound over to the district court to stand trial. In the preliminary
hearing he testified that David Rice [Mondo we Langa] brought a suitcase
filled with dynamite to his house or to somebody's house, I'm not for
sure just which place; that they removed all the dynamite from the
suitcase except three sticks, made the bomb, the triggering device, and
so on, and put it together; and then packed the suitcase with newspapers
and that he left with this suitcase."<br><br>
The unknown man who made the fatal call that lured Larry Minard to his
untimely and tragic death was dropped from the case following the three
days of deceit in October 1970 because his existence interfered with the
story told by killer Duane Peak and further investigation would only
undermine the state's case against Ed Poindexter and Mondo we
Langa. Sadly, the fatal caller walked free, unidentified, so that
the two Panther leaders could be convicted of the crime.<br><br>
Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa are serving life sentences at the
maximum security Nebraska State Penitentiary in Lincoln. Both men
deny any involvement in Larry Minard's murder. The Nebraska Supreme
Court is reviewing Poindexter's request for a new trial. No date
has been set for a decision.<br><br>
<i>Permission granted to reprint</i> <br><br>
<br><br>
</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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