COINTELPRO prosecution of Black Panthers
haunts Nebraska justice system while policeman's killers go free
By
Michael Richardson
On August 17, 1970, an anonymous
caller to the Omaha, Nebraska police emergency hotline reported a woman
screaming at a vacant house. Eight police officers responded only to find
a booby-trapped suitcase instead of a crime victim. Officer Larry Minard,
the father of five young children, was killed instantly when the suitcase bomb
exploded in his face. The other seven police officers were all injured in
the blast. Minard was buried three days later on what would have been his
thirtieth birthday.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation immediately responded to assist the Omaha
Police track down the killers. However, what wasn't known at the time was
a secret directive from FBI director J. Edgar Hoover to "disrupt" the
Black Panther Party by any means possible called Operation COINTELPRO.
The joint investigation, with a tainted agenda under the COINTELPRO mandate,
targeted Omaha's Black Panther chapter called the National Committee to Combat
Fascism instead of a real search for Minard's killers.
William Sullivan, Assistant Director of the FBI under Hoover, was the point
person and chief architect of the covert COINTELPRO operation. Sullivan
served as Hoover's screener and selected Hoover's daily reading list out of the
thousands of COINTELPRO memoranda and field communications that flowed into FBI
headquarters each year. Sullivan described COINTELPRO to a Congressional
Committee on Nov. 1, 1975, as an operation where, "No holds were
barred."
Sullivan's "no holds barred" policy was in effect when a decision was
made and jointly-implemented by Omaha Police and the FBI Special
Agent-in-Charge to let the unidentified caller who had lured Larry Minard to
his death go free rather than endanger a plan to convict two Panther leaders,
Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa (then known as David Rice). The two
leaders had been COINTELPRO targets for two years before the bombing.
The story lay hidden for years behind a secrecy stamp at FBI headquarters in a
COINTELPRO file and buried in little-known and long-forgotten testimony to the
U.S. House Committee on Internal Security. Three days of deception in
October 1970 that led to Minard's killer's going free are documented in records
now available to the public.
Within days after the bombing, a 15 year-old dropout, Duane Peak, was
identified as the bomber. Peak named a former Panther, Raleigh House, as
the supplier of the dynamite and admitted to making the fatal call that lured
Minard to his death. Police stretched out the interrogation for days as
Peak gave a half-dozen different versions of the crime. Finally, Peak
told the investigators what they wanted to hear, that NCCF leaders Ed
Poindexter and Mondo we Langa helped him build and store the bomb.
But there were problems with the official version of the case. House, the
supplier of the dynamite, was never formally charged or prosecuted for his role
in the crime, raising suspicion that he was a COINTELPRO informant. House
spent one night in jail and was released on his own signature without
posting any bond. The whereabouts of Raleigh House today are
unknown.
Further, the voice of the deadly caller was that of a middle-aged man, not that
of a 15 year-old, leaving an unidentified accomplice on the loose.
Poindexter and Langa, both in their 20's, were never suspected or accused of
making the call. Peak's older accomplice was still on the loose because
Peak, apparently to protect the older male caller, continued to maintain he made
the fatal phone call.
Shortly after the bombing, Omaha detectives rushed a tape of the emergency call
to FBI headquarters for vocal analysis. Police also made plans with the
FBI to analyze other voice samples in an effort to identify the unknown caller.
At Peak's preliminary hearing in September he persisted in his claim that he
made the emergency call and that House supplied the dynamite. However, if
the voice on the tape was not that of Peak the case against Poindexter and
Langa, built upon the claims of Peak, would unravel. Assistant Chief of
Police Glenn Gates conferred with his COINTELPRO liaison, the Special
Agent-in-Charge of the Omaha FBI office that led to deceit that would seal the
fate of Poindexter and Langa and let the deadly caller walk away from the
murder.
October 12, 1970, the first day of deceit, would bring William Sullivan's first
public admission that he had knowledge of the Omaha case in a rare public
speech to a United Press International conference about the Black Panthers
where he falsely denied FBI involvement in a "conspiracy" against the
Panthers. About Minard's death, Sullivan would say to the gathered
reporters and correspondents, "On August 12, 1970 [sic] an Omaha, Nebraska
police officer was literally blasted to death by an explosive device placed in
a suitcase in an abandoned residence. The officer had been summoned by an
anonymous telephone complaint that a woman was being beated [sic] there.
An individual with Panther associations has been charged with this crime."
Sullivan would go on to describe a variety of violent acts for which he blamed
the Black Panthers including the deaths of rival group members in California
that later would be discovered as COINTELPRO initiated shootings.
Dismissing the growing body of evidence that there was some sort of a
coordinated national effort against the Black Panthers that used illegal
tactics Sullivan complained, "Panther cries of repression at the hands of
a government "conspiracy" receive the sympathy not only of adherents
to totalitarian ideologies, but also of those willing to close their eyes to
even the violent nature of hoodlum "revolutionary" acts."
October 13, 1970, the second day of deceit, would put Omaha Police Captain
Murdock Platner in Washington, D.C. in a committee room of the U.S. House
Committee on Internal Security investigating the Black Panthers. It would
also be the date of a confidential memorandum from the Special Agent-in-Charge
of the Omaha FBI office to J. Edgar Hoover stating: "Assistant COP
GLENN GATES, Omaha PD, advised that he feels than any uses 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."
The COINTELPRO memo continued, "[N]o further efforts are being made at
this time to secure additional tape recordings of the original telephone
call." No more recordings, no more voice analysis, and no more
search for the identity of the anonymous murderous caller.
In May 2007, voice analysis expert witness Tom Owen testified about the
sophisticated tests he performed on a recording of the emergency call in a bid
by Poindexter for a new trial. Owen testified before Douglas County
District Court Judge Russell Bowie that to a "high degree" of
probability the voice was not that of Peak.
October 14, 1970, the third day of deceit, would again find Captain Platner in
a Congressional committee room but this time under oath and testifying,
falsely, about the source of the dynamite that killed his fellow officer.
Despite Peak's repeated assertions that Raleigh House, the man with the
get-out-of-jail-free card, supplied him with the dynamite and testimony against
House several weeks earlier at his preliminary hearing, Platner boldly made a
sworn false statement to the committee about the explosives to name Mondo we
Langa instead of House.
"Duane Peak, a16-yearold boy who was arrested, testified in a preliminary
hearing. It is from this preliminary hearing you are bound over to the
district court to stand trial. In the preliminary hearing he testified
that David Rice [Mondo we Langa] brought a suitcase filled with dynamite to his
house or to somebody's house, I'm not for sure just which place; that they
removed all the dynamite from the suitcase except three sticks, made the bomb,
the triggering device, and so on, and put it together; and then packed the
suitcase with newspapers and that he left with this suitcase."
But Platner was not the only member of the Omaha Police Department that would
give false sworn testimony in the case. The questioning of the killer's
family and Delia Peak, simultaneous with the police search of Langa's house,
led to Lieutenant James Perry's false testimony in court to justify the
search. U.S. District Judge Warren Urbom best tells the story of Lt.
Perry's false sworn statements.
"Lt. Perry's testimony that Delia Peak told him that Duane Peak, Edward
Poindexter and David Rice were constant companions is in no way corroborated by
the remainder of the record before me. The police report of her interview
reveals nothing about Duane Peak's being a constant companion of David Rice's,
and the rights advisory form she signed indicates that only Sgt. R. Alsager and
Richard Curd were present for her interview. Moreover, her interview did
not begin until the very hour police first approached David Rice's house and
was not completed until after the decision has been made to enter his
house. The police report of her interview also reveals that she had seen
Duane Peak at about 5:00 p.m. the night before. Thus, it simply is not so
that Duane Peak's family had not seen him in the two days before they had
entered the petitioners house and is persuasive that Delia Peak's family did
not make a contrary statement. Finally, there is no indication in the
police reports of interviews with Duane Peak's family prior to the entry of
Rice's house that they were concerned that he might have been eliminated.
On the basis of the entire record before this court and having heard and seen
Lt. Perry testify, it is impossible for me to credit his testimony in the
respects mentioned."
Sergeant Jack Swanson testified at the murder trial that he went down to the
basement and found the dynamite. Sergeant Robert Pheffer backed up
Swanson saying he first saw the dynamite when Swanson carried it
upstairs. Pheffer testified he never went down in the basement.
At an Omaha court hearing in May 2007 in Poindexter's bid for a new trial,
Pheffer testified that his trial testimony was not correct and that he, not
Swanson found the dynamite. The dynamite was never seen in the basement
by anyone else and only first appears in an evidence photo pictured in the
trunk of a police squad car. Robert Bartle, Poindexter's attorney
describes the contradictory testimony in an appeal brief to the Nebraska
Supreme Court where the case is now pending.
"At Poindexter's trial, Sgt. Swanson testified that he found dynamite in
Rice's basement at 2816 Parker and that Sgt. Pheffer was also in the basement
when Swanson found it. Contrary to Swanson's trial testimony, Pfeffer
testified at trial that he (Pheffer) never went down into Rice's basement and
that he (Pheffer) first saw the dynamite found by Swanson when Swanson carried
it up from Rice's basement. At Poindexter's post-conviction hearing on
may 30, 2007, Pheffer's testimony about finding the dynamite in Rice's basement
was significantly different from his sworn trial testimony 36 years
earlier. On May 30, 2007, Pheffer testified that he was the one
who found the dynamite in Rice's basement at 2816 Parker on August 22 ,
1970. Pheffer claimed that Swanson was right behind him and that when
Pheffer saw the dynamite, he became scared and told Swanson that they needed to
'get the heck out of here.' When confronted with the discrepancy between
Pheffer's sworn trial testimony in 1971 and his recent testimony of actually
being the officer who found the dynamite, Pheffer swore that this trial
testimony in 1971 was not correct, that 'the court reporter, somebody got it
wrong.'"
The unknown man who made the fatal call that lured Larry Minard to his untimely
and tragic death was dropped from the case following the three days of deceit
in October 1970 because his existence interfered with the story told by killer
Duane Peak and further investigation would only undermine the state's case
against Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa, the COINTELPRO targets. Raleigh
House, the supplier of the dynamite did one night in jail before being released
on his own recognizance. Peak, the confessed bomber served 33 months of
juvenile detention and was released
Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa are serving life sentences at the maximum
security Nebraska State Penitentiary in Lincoln. Both men deny any
involvement in Larry Minard's murder. The Nebraska Supreme Court is
reviewing Poindexter's request for a new trial. No date has been set for
a decision sometime this fall.
This article is featured in the third issue of Abu-Jamal News (to be
released July 4th) published by the media-activist group Journalists for Mumia
Abu-Jamal whose website is Abu-Jamal-News.com Permission granted to
reprint.
Authors
Bio: Michael Richardson is a freelance writer based in Boston. Richardson
writes about politics, election law, human nutrition, ethics, and music.
Richardson is also a political consultant on ballot access.
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