Some thoughts on Assata Shakur
The Political Clout of the term ‘Cop-Killer’ and ‘Terrorist’
A few days ago, my SO mentioned that she wanted to name one of our future kids ‘Assata’… I asked her why… I’ve never heard the name and wondered as to its origins.
Being a womanist and a (pan)afrocentrist, she mentioned it was from a famous pan-african advocate, Assata Shakur. I of course did my research.
At first I just thought she was related to Tupac…
Turns out the name means ‘One who suffers/struggles’… we agreed we didn't want that for our daughter.
Unfortunately, that is very much the living Assata Shakur’s life. She is a convicted cop-killer and ‘terrorist.’ The only woman on the FBI’s top 10 Most Wanted List.
Honestly… that alone seemed very suspect. There are plenty of cop killers who aren't deemed terrorists, why is she different?
(Down the rabbit hole I went)
So first, she is apparently a fugitive living in Cuba, despite being a convict.
Second, when I googled who she was (before this recent Feminist vs CNN Tapper thing) many of the articles prominently talked about how the terrorist title was bogus. Reading into those articles, many point out how it was never actually proven that she killed a cop.
The descriptions were all kinda vague…
I know Wikipedia isn't exactly the best of sources, but go ahead and read her wiki:
It is extremely well cited. Particularly, look at the sections on evidence:
A key element of Shakur’s defense was medical testimony meant to demonstrate that she was shot with her hands up and that she would have been subsequently unable to fire a weapon. A neurologist testified that the median nerve in Shakur’s right arm was severed by the second bullet, making her unable to pull a trigger.[109] Neurosurgeon Dr. Arthur Turner Davidson, Associate Professor of Surgery at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, testified that the wounds in her upper arms, armpit and chest, and severed median nerve that instantly paralyzed her right arm, would only have been caused if both arms were raised, and that to sustain such injuries while crouching and firing a weapon (as described in Trooper Harper’s testimony) “would be anatomically impossible.”[60][159]
Worse yet…
Neutron activation analysis administered after the shootout showed no gunpowder residue on Shakur’s fingers; her fingerprints were not found on any weapon at the scene, according to forensic analysis performed at the Trenton, New Jersey crime lab and the FBI crime labs in Washington, D.C.[163] According to tape recordings and police reports made several hours after the shoot-out, when Harper returned on foot to the administration building 200 yards (183 m) away, he did not report Foerster’s presence at the scene; no one at headquarters knew of Foerster’s involvement in the shoot-out until his body was discovered beside his patrol car, more than an hour later.[60]
Oh, and let’s not gloss over this little known fact:
Under cross-examination at both Acoli and Shakur’s trials, Trooper Harper admitted to having lied in these reports and in his Grand Jury testimony about Trooper Foerster yelling and showing him an ammunition magazine, about seeing Shakur holding a pocketbook or a gun inside the vehicle, and about Shakur shooting at him from the car.[60][124] Trooper Harper retracted his previous statements and said that he had never seen Shakur with a gun and that she did not shoot him.[149]
This (likely biased) site also has a list of facts that coincide with the Wiki, none are cited.
Nonetheless, notice that no articles that simply deem Assata Shakur a ‘cop-killer’ and a ‘terrorist’ make even the slightest attempts to address these glaring holes in her conviction.
If people really cared about bringing justice to Foerster and his family, wouldn't they want all the facts?
Instead, they just hop on the revenge train screaming blindly about her ‘atrocities’ and being a ‘cold-blooded murderer’ despite the lack of evidence.
Looking at the recent glut of cops killing or assaulting innocent people (blacks just being the most visible) done even today, when we have ample video evidence of them (bad cops) doing everything from shooting completely defenseless and compliant people to even planting evidence…. It is no stretch of the imagination at all to wonder as to the validity of these allegations made in a time when the government was ‘secretly’ spying on and framing revolutionaries.
COINTELPRO wasn't an anti-terrorist agency…. it was quite infamously working against even famously non-violent revolutionaries like MLK Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference…
In fact, many minorities were paranoid that they were being bugged.
Innocent black activists were being murdered in their beds.
An FBI operation codenamed CHESROB (similar to NEWKILL) was set up specifically to:
hook former New York Panther Joanne Chesimard (Assata Shakur) to virtually every bank robbery or violent crime involving a black woman on the East Coast.
Through all that… they couldn't pin a real crime on her… until this.
Turns out dubbing someone a ‘cop-killer’ and then (40 years later) a ‘terrorist’ effectively discourages fair treatment or even impartial (re)consideration.
Even in Cuba, she still suffers as she struggles for freedom…
