” they were told it was to “send a message to Trump”.”
It was? Okay, where the hell were they back in the 60’s when all colors of people were being slaughtered.
“And what’s this about people being slaughtered?”
I guess you weren’t around then. So instead of covering the years, basically from 1964 till 1974, I will give you a chronology of one year of murders I can call nothing short of slaughtering.
• January 14, 1969: The Los Angeles chapter of the Panthers gets into a shootout with members of the competing US Organization, and two Panthers are killed.
• April 7, 1968, seventeen-year-old Panther national treasurer Bobby Hutton was killed, and Eldridge Cleaver, Black Panther Party Minister of Information, was wounded in a shootout with the Oakland police. His conviction of was later overturned by a court technicality.
• April 1969: Twenty-one members of the New York chapter are indicted and jailed for a bombing conspiracy.
• May 1969: Two more southern California Panthers are killed in violent disputes with US Organization members
• May 1969: Members of the New Haven chapter tortured and murdered Alex Rackley, who they suspected of being an informant
• July 17, 1969: Two policemen are shot and a Panther is killed in a gun battle in Chicago
• October 18, 1969: A Panther is killed in a gunfight with police outside a Los Angeles restaurant
• October 28, 1967, Oakland police officer John Frey was shot to death in an altercation with Huey P. Newton during a traffic stop.
• November 13, 1969: A Panther is killed in a gunfight with police in Chicago
• December 4, 1969: Fred Hampton and Mark Clark are killed by law enforcement in Chicago.
And this isn’t all of them. Many of the cases were never finished due to lack of evidence or witnesses.
And to show you it didn’t stop there, I’ll also give you a little of 1970 to 1974, but not near most of it:
According to a Justice Department report on BLA activity, the Black Liberation Army was suspected of involvement in over 70 incidents of violence between 1970 and 1976. The Fraternal Order of Police blamed the BLA for the murders of 13 police officers.
On October 22, 1970, the BLA was believed to have planted a bomb in St. Brendan’s Church in San Francisco while it was full of mourners attending the funeral of San Francisco police officer Harold Hamilton, who had been killed in the line of duty while responding to a bank robbery. The bomb was detonated, but no one in the church suffered serious injuries.
On May 21, 1971, as many as five men participated in the murder of two New York City police officers, Joseph Piagentini and Waverly Jones. Those arrested and brought to trial for the shootings include Anthony Bottom (a.k.a. Jalil Muntaqim), Albert Washington, Francisco Torres, Gabriel Torres, and Herman Bell.
On August 29, 1971, three armed men murdered 51-year-old San Francisco police sergeant John Victor Young while he was working at a desk in his police station, which was almost empty at the time due to a bombing attack on a bank that took place earlier - only one other officer and a civilian clerk were there. Two days later, the San Francisco Chronicle received a letter signed by the BLA claiming responsibility for the attack.
On November 3, 1971, Officer James R. Greene of the Atlanta Police Department was shot and killed in his patrol van at a gas station. His wallet, badge, and weapon were taken, and the evidence at the scene pointed to two suspects. The first was Twymon Meyers, who was killed in a police shootout in 1973, and the second was Freddie Hilton (a.k.a. Kamau Sadiki), who evaded capture until 2002, when he was arrested in New York on a separate charge, and was recognized as one of the men wanted in the Greene murder. Apparently, the two men had attacked the officer to gain standing with their compatriots within Black Liberation Army.
On January 27, 1972, the Black Liberation Army assassinated police officers Gregory Foster and Rocco Laurie at the corner of 174 Avenue B in New York City. After the killings, a note sent to authorities portrayed the murders as a retaliation for the prisoner deaths during 1971 Attica prison riot. To date no arrests have been made.
The BLM grew out of the Panthers.
There was a tremendous amount of violence and brutal killings and torture during those years. And it was accomplished by both sides. But, for me, the real issue came down to categorizing the way I have is when on august 22, co-founder and leader of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, Huey P. Newton was fatally shot outside 1456 9th St in West Oakland by 24-year-old Black Guerilla Family member, Tyrone Robinson.
Black on black, white on black, black on white, it didn’t matter. Ir was war on the street and everyone could play.
And BTW, my term for “you” of course doesn’t mean people not born yet. My reference is where were the activist like them before and why now when other times would have been easier/better? There was no talk. Only violence.
And the threat is still there today. An example is a case concerning an incident that occurred during the 2008 election. The New Black Panther Party and two of its members, Minister King Samir Shabazz and Jerry Jackson, were charged with voter intimidation for their conduct outside a polling station in Philadelphia.
The Department of Justice later narrowed the charges against Minister King Shabazz and dismissed the charges against the New Black Panther Party and Jerry Jackson. The decision to dismiss the charges has led to accusations that the Department of Justice under the Obama administration is biased against white victims and unwilling to prosecute minorities for civil rights violations. These charges have been most notably made by J. Christian Adams, who in May 2010 resigned his post in the Department of Justice in protest over the Obama administration’s perceived mishandling of the case, and by his former supervisor Christopher Coates.
The conduct for which members of the New Black Panther Party were accused of voter intimidation took place on Election Day in November 2008, at a polling station in a predominantly African-American, Democratic voting district of Philadelphia.
Two members of the New Black Panther party, Minister King Samir Shabazz, and Jerry Jackson, stood in front of the entrance to the polling station in uniforms that have been described as military or paramilitary. Minister King Samir Shabazz carried a billy club, and is reported to have pointed it at voters while both men shouted racial slurs, including phrases such as “white devil” and “you’re about to be ruled by the black man, cracker.
See the similarity? See the needless violence? And I can just as easily find trash on the cops, the KKK, skin heads, and all the many mafias throughout the US. But I hope I made my point about the current activists and their timing and tactics of the activist right now. Everyone is wrong. When are we going to talk? And talk constructively?
rwood