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<font size=3>Greetings!<br><br>
Here is the first installment of a series of articles examining the
conviction of the Omaha Two 40 years ago, click link for article, video,
and slideshow<br><br>
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/last-cointelpro-trial-40-years-ago-by-the-fbi-against-the-omaha-two-examined">
http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/last-cointelpro-trial-40-years-ago-by-the-fbi-against-the-omaha-two-examined</a>
<br><br>
Michael Richardson<br>
COINTELPRO Examiner<br><br>
</font><h2><font size=4><b>Last COINTELPRO trial 40 years ago by the FBI
against the Omaha Two examined</b></font></h2><font size=3><b>Omaha Two
story: An explanation<br><br>
</b>The Omaha Two are
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/prison-interview-with-ed-poindexter-on-cointelpro-and-the-omaha-police">
Edward Poindexter</a> and
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/prison-interview-with-mondo-we-langa-on-cointelpro-and-omaha-two-case">
Mondo we Langa</a> (formerly David Rice). Both men are imprisoned
at the Nebraska State Penitentiary in Lincoln where they are serving life
sentences for the August 17, 1970 bombing murder of an Omaha police
officer.<br><br>
Both Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa deny any involvement in the death
of patrolman
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/larry-minard-was-the-policeman-betrayed-by-j-edgar-hoover-to-frame-the-omaha-tw">
Larry Minard, Sr</a>. Minard, a 29 year-old father of five young
children, was killed instantly when he handled a booby-trapped suitcase
in a vacant house.<br><br>
Minard had been lured with seven other officers to the vacant house on
Ohio Street in Omaha by a false 911 emergency call reporting a woman
screaming at the residence. Police immediately suspected the local
Black Panther chapter, called the National Committee to Combat Fascism,
of the crime and focused their attention on the Panthers.<br><br>
Poindexter was Chairman of the chapter and Mondo was the Minister of
Information. Both men had been targets of
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/crimes-of-cointelpro-heard-at-northeastern-law-school-seminar">
COINTELPRO</a>, an illegal counter-intelligence operation of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation under J. Edgar Hoover.<br><br>
Hoover had been personally monitoring the COINTELPRO actions against
Black Panther chapters across the United States. In December 1969
Hoover chastised the Special Agent-in-Charge of the Omaha office, Paul
Young, for not getting the Panther leadership off the streets.<br><br>
When the report of Minard’s death came in to the FBI office, Young sprang
into action and proposed making a case against the Panther leaders
offering to deal with the incriminating
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/attorney-tim-ashford-on-the-withheld-911-tape-of-the-omaha-two-case">
911 tape</a>. A recording of the killer’s voice was sent to the FBI
crime laboratory for analysis with the instruction to make
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/attorney-robert-bartle-on-withheld-evidence-by-fbi-omaha-two-case">
no report</a> on the findings other than a phone call to the local FBI
office.<br><br>
When Ivan Willard Conrad, the FBI lab director, got the COINTELRO memo he
called Hoover to verify he was to not issue a report on the identity of
Minard’s killer. Hoover told Conrad to proceed as directed and the
lab boss noted Hoover’s directive on the memo, initialing and dating he
entry.<br><br>
The jury that convicted the Omaha Two in April 1971 never heard the 911
tape nor were told of COINTELPRO and Hoover’s role in the case.
Despite the later revelation of the withheld report and subsequent police
conflicting testimony, plus new scientific analysis of the 911 tape, the
two men have been repeatedly denied new trials.<br><br>
EXAMINER is going to go back in time and relive the turbulent era in
Omaha four decades ago in a continuing series of reports culminating in a
day-by-day recap of the trial.<br><br>
The series will begin in 1919 with a lynching in downtown Omaha to set
the scene and then advance to March 1968 when George Wallace sparked a
small riot in Omaha during a campaign appearance. From there the
story will advance as events of the time occurred.<br><br>
<i>Permisson granted to reprint<br><br>
<br><br>
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