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<a href="http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/omaha-police-arrest-3-men-with-stolen-dynamite-and-impose-media-blackout">
http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/omaha-police-arrest-3-men-with-stolen-dynamite-and-impose-media-blackout<br>
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</a></font><h2><font size=4><b>Omaha police arrest 3 men with stolen
dynamite and impose media blackout</b></font></h2>
<ul>
<li><font size=3>By
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/user-richardsonreports">Michael
Richardson</a>, COINTELPRO Examiner
<li>March 27th, 2011 8:40 pm ET
</ul><br>
<b>Omaha Two story: July 28, 1970<br><br>
</b>Several days after a blotched federal raid on the headquarters of the
Omaha Black Panther affiliate chapter, renamed the National Committee to
Combat Fascism, the Omaha Police Department got a lead on stolen dynamite
being sold in the city.<br><br>
Agents of the Division of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms had sought to
search the headquarters looking for machine guns and explosives based on
a tip from an adolescent informer. Omaha was on edge after a series
of bombings including one at a police sub-station in North
Omaha.<br><br>
The Federal Bureau of Investigation put a stop to the search and
initiated their own investigation. Omaha police were working their
informants and learned of three men selling dynamite. On July 28,
1970, a buy was set up.<br><br>
Omaha Police Captain Murdock Platner later testified in Washington, D.C.
to the U.S. House Committee on Internal Security that the dynamite
had been stolen in Des Moines, Iowa and was suspected to be the source of
explosives used in recent Omaha bombings:<br><br>
“We received information from a party that had been approached to buy
dynamite. We had him buy it and he bought 10 sticks. It was 2
and-a-half by 16-inch sticks. He came back later and said he could
buy more of this dynamite. So we set for him to buy and then…we did
move in and arrested three young men in a car. In their possession
they had 41 sticks of this same type of dynamite.”<br><br>
Platner called the owner of Quick Supply Co. in Des Moines, Iowa where
dynamite of that size was stolen earlier in the summer. According
to Platner, “he was almost positive it had to be their dynamite.”
Platner investigated further, “Sergeant Gladson checked back with the
manufacturer of the dynamite, and they told him that was the only
shipment of that size dynamite in the year 1970.”<br><br>
Then something curious happened. Despite banner headlines in the
newspaper and regular television reports about the bombings, not a single
media report was filed about the arrest of the three men. Their
arrest records were part of the public record reviewed daily by crime
beat reporters. The three men all appeared in open sessions of
court following the arrest and not a peep out of the Omaha news
media.<br><br>
The reporters and editors sitting on the story had most likely been asked
for cooperation by police trying to further trace the stolen
dynamite. Eager to escape felony charges, the three men, Luther
Payne, Lamont Mitchell, and Conrad Gray, told police a story that found
an interested audience.<br><br>
The three men in jail denied any involvement in the Des Moines
burglary. Instead, they claimed they found the dynamite in the back
room of a local anti-poverty agency. A detective working the case
was Sergeant Jack Swanson, who was the complaining witness against the
men in court.<br><br>
The day after the trio’s first court appearance in Omaha, the U.S. Senate
Committee on Government Operations began hearings in Washington, D.C. on
the Black Panthers and bombings around the country.<br><br>
On August 7, 1970, in Marin County, California, a courtroom rescue
attempt by Black Panther George Jackson’s brother, Jonathan, resulted in
a shootout killing four people including Judge Harold Haley. The
bloody courthouse shootout captured national attention and helped
demonize the Black Panthers to many.<br><br>
Back in Nebraska on August 9, 1970, in Bellevue, a suburb of Omaha, a
paper sack was found along a street with ten sticks of dynamite.
The news media, still ignoring the arrest of Payne, Mitchell, and Gray,
snapped to action and duly reported on the sack of dynamite.<br><br>
Two days later, on August 11th,
<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>, then David Rice, was fired from his job at Greater
Omaha Community Action. Mondo had worked at the GOCA anti-poverty
agency for over a year as a community outreach worker but earned the
animosity of his supervisor for his off-duty work as Minister of
Information of the National Committee to Combat Fascism.<br><br>
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/prison-interview-with-ed-poindexter-on-cointelpro-and-the-omaha-police">
Ed Poindexter</a>, Chairman of the NCCF chapter, dropped by Mondo’s house
the next day to commiserate his termination. Poindexter’s own job
at the U.S. Post Office slipped away after he was pictured in the
<i>Omaha World-Herald </i>with other Black Panthers protecting a GOCA
office during 1969 rioting in Omaha. Poindexter’s visit was noted
by police who stopped Poindexter for questioning near the
residence.<br><br>
Tensions between the black community and police were so strong the
Commission on Church and Race held a forum at First Central
Congregational Church on August 14th but did not invite police
representatives to avoid a confrontation.<br><br>
On August 15, 1970, Paul Young, head of the Omaha FBI office, was still
plotting a smear campaign against Ed Poindexter using bogus letters under
a mandate from
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/fbi-s-director-hoover-let-killer-of-omaha-policeman-get-away-with-murder-40-years-ago">
J. Edgar Hoover</a>. Hoover was waging his own private war on the
Black Panthers with a clandestine counter-intelligence operation
code-named
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/operation-cointelpro-was-the-fbi-s-war-on-american-citizens">
COINTELPRO</a> and had tasked Young with devising a plan to “destroy” Ed
Poindexter and Mondo we Langa’s leadership of the Black
Panthers.<br><br>
The pair are now known as the Omaha Two and are imprisoned for life at
the Nebraska State Penitentiary for their purported role in the bombing
murder of an Omaha police officer. Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa
deny any role in the crime.<br><br>
<b>To view all the Omaha Two story articles click
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/omaha-two-story-in-national">HERE</a><br>
<br>
</b><i>Permission granted to reprint<br>
</i> <br>
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<br>
Michael Richardson<br>
COINTELPRO Examiner<br>
Examiner.com<br><br>
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