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<a href="http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/witnesses-put-duane-peak-at-scene-of-1970-bombing-omaha-two-case">
http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/witnesses-put-duane-peak-at-scene-of-1970-bombing-omaha-two-case</a>
<br><br>
</font><h2><b>Witnesses put Duane Peak at scene of 1970 bombing in Omaha
Two case</b></h2>
<ul>
<li><font size=3>By
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/user-richardsonreports">Michael
Richardson</a>, COINTELPRO Examiner
<li>April 7th, 2011 10:23 am ET
</ul><b>Omaha Two story: April 7, 1971<br><br>
</b>Confessed killer
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/confessed-omaha-bomber-changes-story-during-preliminary-hearing">
Duane Peak</a>, 16, returned to the witness stand Wednesday morning,
April 7, 1971, in the murder trial of the Omaha Two.
<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>, then David Rice, were leaders of the Nebraska
affiliate chapter of the Black Panthers and were charged with the
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/cointelpro-plan-hatched-omaha-to-withhold-evidence-of-policeman-s-killer">
August 17, 1970 bomb murder</a> 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>.<br><br>
Duane Peak testified he was trying to protect Ed Poindexter and Mondo we
Lanaga when he told a story to police on August 28, 1970, implicating
only himself in the Minard slaying.”<br><br>
Assistant Douglas County Attorney Arthur O’Leary guided Peak through a
series of redirect-examination questions. When young Peak left the
courtroom that morning, after ten hours of testimony over three days, he
effectively vanished from Omaha never to return.<br><br>
A friend of Duane Peak, Anna Norris, testified that she heard Peak say,
“The next time a dumb cop sees a suitcase in the middle of the door, he
isn’t going to go over and pick it up.”<br><br>
Norris testified that she saw Peak, the prosecution’s key witness with a
suitcase the evening of Aug. 16th. Norris said Peak and his older
brother, Donald, were at the Norris home the evening before the bombing
with a suitcase.<br><br>
The Peak brothers left with the suitcase, Miss Norris said, but Duane
returned for about five minutes, without the suitcase, between midnight
and 1 a.m. and then left again. Norris was still awake an hour
later when she heard an explosion as she was in the dining room of her
home.”<br><br>
After the slaying, Norris said Duane came by again and made remarks about
the “dumb cop.”<br><br>
Donald Peak, 20, Duane’s older brother and the man many in North Omaha
suspect was the 911 caller that lured police to a bomb-rigged vacant
house testified as a prosecution witness.<br><br>
Donald testified that he and Duane were “always laughing and joking”
about something.<br>
The elder Peak brother said he “may have smirked” when hearing of the
explosion but he couldn’t recall for sure.<br><br>
Duane Peak’s sister, Delia, testified that she saw Duane with a suitcase
about 10 p.m about four hours before the fatal explosion at 2867 Ohio
Street. Delia said that Duane, her boyfriend Willie Haynie, two of
her children, and Donald went for a ride about that time.<br><br>
Duane placed the suitcase in the trunk, Delia testified, and then took it
with him when he got out of the car in an alley behind 2867 Ohio
Street. Delia gave no explanation for the unusual drop-off of Duane
in the middle of the night.<br><br>
Willie Haynie testified the day after the bombing he and Duane and Donald
drove to the area of the demolished house. Haynie admitted that he
once said in a sworn statement to authorities that Duane had commented,
“It was funny a pig got killed.” <br><br>
Under questioning, Haynie also acknowledged a previous statement where he
quoted Peak as saying, “It should have been more than one.”<br><br>
County Attorney Donald Knowles told reporters the prosecution hoped to
rest its case sometime Friday morning. Judge Hamilton said he
planned to recess the trial Friday afternoon, Good Friday, and resume
again Monday morning.<br><br>
The prosecution began laying a foundation for the introduction of
scientific evidence on Wednesday afternoon.<br><br>
Special investigator Richard A. Kurd of the
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/atf-agents-compete-with-fbi-summer-1970-to-arrest-black-panthers-omaha">
Division of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms </a>testified about gathering
evidence and sending it to Washington, D.C. for laboratory
analysis.<br><br>
Kurd was asked to examine prosecution exhibits, including three pairs of
pliers taken in an August 22, 1970 raid at Mondo’s home at 2816 Parker
Street<br><br>
Kurd testified “scrapings” taken from under Mondo’s fingernails and
cotton swabs which were passed over his fingers were sent in for
analysis. The ATF tests would later come back negative for traces
of explosives.<br><br>
Prosecutor Sam Cooper handed Kurd a suitcase handle wrapped inside a
plastic bag. Kurd identified it as an item he found embedded in the
earth at 2867 Ohio Street shortly after the explosion.<br><br>
Although the jury heard about ATF lab tests on evidence, the jury was not
told about FBI lab tests on evidence, specifically a recording of the 911
caller that lured Minard to his death.
<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> had ordered the withholding of a report on the
identity of the 911 caller just two days after the bombing.<br><br>
Hoover’s order to withhold evidence in the case was part of the
clandestine
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/crimes-of-cointelpro-heard-at-northeastern-law-school-seminar">
COINTELPRO</a> operation that conducted an illegal and secret war on
domestic political activists that Hoover disliked. The Black
Panthers were the primary target of COINTELPRO and Hoover was determined
to “destroy” the Black Panther leadership.<br><br>
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/j-edgar-hoover-orders-omaha-fbi-to-be-imaginative-against-black-panther-leaders">
Paul Young</a>, Omaha FBI Special Agent-in-Charge, had been chastised by
Hoover for inaction against the local National Committee to Combat
Fascism. On the day of the bombing, Young offered to help with the
investigation and obtained the 911 recording from the Omaha Police
Department.<br><br>
The jury was never allowed to hear the taped voice of Larry Minard’s
killer.<br><br>
<b>To view all of the Omaha Two articles click
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/omaha-two-story-in-national?page=1">
HERE</a><br><br>
</b><i>Permission granted to reprint<br><br>
</i>Michael Richardson<br>
COINTELPRO Examiner<br>
Examiner.com<br><br>
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