www.dissidentvoice.org/Jan07/Allen07.htm
Justice for the Omaha Two
by Joe Allen
www.dissidentvoice.org
January 7, 2007
Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa are not names familiar to most Americans.
The longest-serving political prisoners in the United States, these two
former Black Panthers have spent more than 35 years behind bars for a crime
they did not commit -- the 1970 murder of Omaha, Nebraska, police officer
Larry Minard.
The American media and the political establishment scoff at the very idea
that there are political prisoners in the United States. Yet many '60s
militants -- especially Black and Native American revolutionaries -- were
deliberately framed by the police and FBI in their efforts to suppress the
radical movements of that period. The Omaha Two were also caught in that
dragnet. It has been known for decades that they were targets of the FBI’s
infamous Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO), but it is only lately
that long, thought-to-be-destroyed evidence has emerged that could lead to a
new trial for Ed Poindexter.
A breakthrough in Poindexter’s case could have important ramifications for
Mondo we Langa (formerly known as David Rice), who exhausted his appeals
thirty years ago. Amnesty International has classified Mondo we Langa and Ed
Poindexter -- known as the Omaha Two at the time of their trial in 1971 --
as “prisoners of conscience.” The Omaha police and the political leadership
of Nebraska have labeled them “cop killers” and have blocked efforts at
commuting their sentences or getting them new trials for decades.
Racism in the Heartland
It is a testament to the vibrancy and breadth of the civil rights and Black
Power movements that even small cities like Omaha, Nebraska, felt its
impact. North Omaha has long been the center of the Black community in the
city, where racism was a daily fact of life. Many of Omaha’s Black residents
faced job and housing discrimination, in addition to police brutality.
During the course of the 1960s a small but vocal movement arose to combat
these issues.
The racial situation in Omaha became more polarized during the course of
1968, when arch-segregationist George Wallace made a stop in the city during
his independent campaign for president. White racists attacked Blacks and
whites protesting the notorious bigot at one of his campaign rallies. Later
that night, Omaha cops killed a local Black high school student. The
following month, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis,
leading to uprisings in 100 American cities. The Black Panther Party (BPP)
became the prime target of the FBI’s COINTELPRO operations with the stated
goal of “neutralizing” their leadership. Mondo we Langa and Ed Poindexter
were community activists in North Omaha at the time. They joined the BPP in
1969 and were soon recognized as the leaders of the party in Nebraska.
Poindexter, like a growing number of Panthers, was also a Vietnam veteran.
The situation in Omaha got even bloodier in 1969. Vivian Strong, a
fourteen-year-old Black teenager, was shot in the back of the head and
killed by the police in June of that year. The police officer who killed
her, patrolman John Loder, was found not guilty of manslaughter by an
all-white jury and was reinstated to the Omaha Police Department (OPD) with
back pay and benefits. “Among the most vocal critics of such police abuse of
power,” according to Rutger’s law professor Lennox Hinds, “were members of
the local chapter of the Black Panther party and its successor, the National
Committee to Combat Fascism (NCCF).” Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa left
the Panthers and founded the NCCF in 1970, with Mondo as chairman and
Poindexter as minister of information. They were repeatedly harassed and
arrested by the Omaha police for their political activities.
The Bomb
On August 17, 1970, Omaha patrolman Larry Minard was killed by a bomb
planted in a suitcase while he was searching an abandoned house. The police
were responding to a 911 call that claimed a woman was being taken into a
house against her will, possibly to be raped. Soon after the death of
Minard, Duane Peak, a fifteen-year-old Black youth, who had been a member of
the NCCF, was terrorized into confessing to planting the bomb and making the
911 call. Peak made a series of sworn statements to the police that he
acted alone. He did not implicate or mention Mondo or Poindexter. However,
after the police interrogated him and threatened him with the electric
chair, he changed his story and Mondo and Poindexter were soon after charged
with murder. Peak himself was allowed to plead to a lesser charge of
“juvenile delinquency” in exchange for his testimony.
But Peak would prove to be an unreliable witness for the prosecution. Under
police pressure he told at least six different stories about the bombing,
and at a key moment in the trial he blurted out the truth, only to be
bludgeoned back into lying. At Mondo and Poindexter’s 1971 trial, the
prosecuting attorney asked Peak if they had anything to do with the killing.
Peak responded by saying no, at which time the prosecutor asked for a
recess. When the trial reconvened, the prosecutor once again asked Peak if
Mondo and Poindexter were involved and he responded yes, they were involved.
Peak was wearing dark sunglasses when he returned to court after the recess.
When he was asked to remove the glasses by the defense counsel, many of
those present in the courtroom couldn’t help but notice that he appeared to
have been beaten and was crying. Ernie Chambers, who was present in court
that day and later became one of the few Black state senators in Nebraska’s
unicameral legislature, told the BBC that, “a noticeable gasp” was heard
from the courtroom audience, who were shocked at Peak’s condition.
Dynamite and other bomb-making material was found during an illegal search
of Mondo we Langa’s home while he was out of town, but Mondo has always
maintained that the material was planted. The police could not find Mondo or
Poindexter’s fingerprints on the dynamite and were not clear as to the exact
location of the dynamite in Mondo we Langa’s house. The Omaha Police claimed
that after Mondo and Poindexter were arrested, the clothes they wore were
tested and were found to have dynamite particles in the shirt and pants’
pockets. Yet, Mondo’s and Poindexter’s hands were tested for dynamite
particles and none were found there or on the rest of their clothing. The
forensic tests were so faulty, according to the defense, that they could
have easily tested positive for such items as kitchen matches or phosphorous
detergents among other household products used for cleaning. Mondo’s home
mysteriously burned down after their trial was over.
The only other evidence was a tape recording of the 911 call that police
claim Peak made, but then claimed was destroyed by accident. Peak testified
that he made the 911 call, but since the police claimed that no recording
existed, jurors had to take Peak at his word that he made the call. The
whole case ultimately rested on that tape recording. In an interview with
the Washington Post on January 8, 1978, County Prosecutor Art O’Leary
admitted that without Peak’s testimony, Mondo and Poindexter would not have
been convicted. Also, Peak was never tested for dynamite particles. The
trial judge, Donald A. Hamilton, overruled the defense motions to suppress
the alleged “evidence” found in the home of Mondo and on the clothing of
both of them. They were found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to
life in prison. The lone Black juror later said that he voted to convict
Mondo and Poindexter on the condition that the death penalty was not
imposed. Peak was sentenced to four years at a juvenile facility and
released in 1974. After his release, he promptly disappeared for more than
two decades.
Mondo and Poindexter appealed their convictions to the Nebraska Supreme
Court, which denied their requests for a new trial and upheld their
convictions. A Federal court later overturned Mondo’s conviction, ruling
that the search of his home and clothing violated his rights against
unreasonable search and seizure. But their hopes for a new trial were dashed
in 1976 when the U.S. Supreme Court overruled the lower court’s decisions in
favor of the prosecution. Mondo and Poindexter have remained in prison ever
since, despite the efforts of Amnesty International, which has called for
their immediate release or a new trial, and the support of such prominent
individuals as the recently deceased former governor of Nebraska, Frank
Morrison.
Two decades after their arrest, Jack Swanson, an Omaha Police Department
detective and one of the key figures in the persecution of Mondo and
Poindexter, starkly revealed to the BBC the political agenda behind the
case. “We feel we got the two main players in Mondo and Poindexter, and I
think we did the right thing at the time, because the Black Panther Party...
completely disappeared from the city of Omaha... and it’s... been the end of
that sort of thing in the city of Omaha -- and that’s 21 years ago.”
Since 1993, the Nebraska Parole Board has voted unanimously and repeatedly
to commute both men’s sentences to time served. However, the Nebraska Board
of Pardons (made up of elected officials -- the governor, the attorney
general, and secretary of state) has refused to grant a pardon or
commutation for Mondo or Poindexter. One member of the Board of Pardons has
even declared that there are “no circumstances” under which he would
consider commutation.
Suppressed Evidence
It has been known since the late 1970s that the Black Panther Party and its
supporters were victims of political repression spearheaded by the FBI
working with local police departments across the country during the 1960s
and 70s (COINTELPRO). Mondo and Poindexter were repeatedly harassed and
under surveillance from the FBI and the Omaha police, but it was only
after their trial that the role of the FBI in suppressing key evidence was
revealed. For supporters of Mondo and Poindexter, the role of Duane Peak
in the bombing death of Minard has always been a point of contention. Did
Peak really make a bomb and plant it? Did he, in fact, make the 911 call
that brought Minard and police officers to the house, where the bomb
exploded? How would a troubled fifteen-year-old get the knowledge to build
a bomb and detonate it? Why would he do it?
The prosecution tried to argue that Poindexter provided the bomb-making
skills because he was a veteran, but he was a medical aide and mechanic in
the military, not an explosives expert. The prosecution’s case rested on
the recording of the 911 call that they claimed had been destroyed.
While we may never know exactly who destroyed the original tape recording,
we do know that the FBI and the local police knew what was on it and made
every effort to prevent the defense from getting it. According to an FBI
memo dated October 13, 1970, “Assistant COP [Chief of Police] GLENN GATES,
Omaha PD, advised that he feels that any use of tapes of this call might be
prejudicial to the police murder trial against two accomplices of PEAK and,
therefore, has advised that he wishes no use of this tape until after the
murder trials of PEAK and the two accomplices has been completed.” When we
translate the bureaucratic language of the FBI into plain English, the memo
clearly reveals that the Omaha Police felt that the real contents of the
call didn’t help their case. The FBI memo continued, “no further efforts are
being made at this time to secure additional tape recordings of the original
telephone call.”
In 2005, a copy of the tape of the 911 call was uncovered. On January 23,
2006, Bob Bartle, Ed Poindexter’s attorney, obtained a ruling from Douglas
County, Nebraska, District Court Judge Richard Spethman to compel Duane Peak
to give a voice sample for examination and comparison to the 911 caller.
Duane Peak, who had been living under the name of Gabriel Peak in Washington
state, complied with the court’s request in February and gave a sample of
his voice. Tom Owens, one of the leading audio analysts in the country, has
testified for the prosecution and the defense in twenty states. In a written
opinion in April, Owens stated that “the voice of Duane Peak from 2006 is
NOT the same voice” on the 911 tape. Is this enough to get Ed Poindexter a
new trial? “We have a shot,” says Bob Bartle. Hearings will be held in
December and January to determine whether this will happen. But after three
decades, this is an important development in a case that too few people are
aware of and exemplifies the legacy of political repression in 1960s and
1970s.
Legacy of Repression
“There are hundreds, perhaps even thousands of people I would call political
prisoners” in the United States, declared Andrew Young in 1978, when he was
the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Young’s indiscreet remarks
ignited a hailstorm of attacks from newspapers and politicians across the
country. That same year, Amnesty International published a report that found
that criminal activities of the FBI’s COINTELPRO operations had undermined
the trials of a number of political activists during the 1970s, the most
prominent of whom was American Indian Movement activist Leonard Peltier. It
has been decades since a major political figure in the United States has so
publicly spoken about political prisoners in this country. In 1980, former
FBI Director L. Patrick Grey and Edward S. Miller, one-time head of the
FBI’s domestic counterintelligence unit in New York, were convicted of
having “conspired to injure and oppress the citizens of the United States,”
for their involvement in COINTELPRO. They served no time in prison and were
pardoned in 1981 by President Reagan. Yet their victims remain in prison.
Currently, Black journalist and Pennsylvania death row inmate Mumia
Abu-Jamal and Ed Poindexter have the possibility of new trials. A victory in
one or both cases could have an enormous impact in unlocking the doors of
the American gulag.
Joe Allen is a frequent contributor to the ISR. This article appears in the
current issue. Thanks to Mary Dickinson of Nebraskans for Justice for her
help in writing this article.
Letters of support can be written to:
Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa (s/n David Rice) # 27768
PO Box 2500, Lincoln, NE 68542-2500
Ed Poindexter #27767
P.O. Box 2500, Lincoln, NE 68542
Other Articles by Joe Allen
* Three Decades of Injustice: Gary Tyler Still Sits in Angola Prison
* The Myth of the Kennedys
* Congress’ Cushy Pension Plan: What They Have That You Don’t
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