![]() In the Black Liberation Army’s first-ever phone call to the press, a caller to United Press International took credit in the name of the Attica Brigade of the “Afro-American Liberation Army’’-exiled Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver’s name for the BLA-saying, “We have more grenades, and we will be back.” The NYPD immediately issued a 13-state alarm calling for her arrest. Later, the man identified Joanne Chesimard, who had been with the BLA since its foundation that spring and had taken part in its training camp outside Atlanta, as one of his assailants. As the officers leaped unhurt from the burning cruiser, the Pontiac roared off toward Brooklyn, where a few minutes later its occupants jumped out, rushed toward a man at a Sunoco gas station and stole his car. To the officers’ amazement, it exploded beside the car, wrecking it. It was, of all things, a hand grenade-an M-26 fragmentation grenade to be exact, the kind used by the U.S. As the chase continued, someone in the Pontiac rolled down a window and lobbed something toward the cruiser. When the cruiser lit its rolling lights, the Pontiac took off, racing to the corner of Flushing Avenue and 57th Street, where it turned southwest, toward Brooklyn. Following at a safe distance, the officers checked its license plate and discovered the car was stolen. When the cruiser approached, the Pontiac pulled from the curb. This is the untold story behind them.Īt 9:30 in the morning on December 20, 1971, in Queens, two patrolmen spied four people in a green Pontiac-one woman and three men-parked in front of a Bankers Trust branch on Grand Avenue at 49th Street, acting suspiciously. The BLA’s most notorious attack, however, came in 1972, when it carried out perhaps the most gruesome assassination of police officers in the history of New York, killing two patrolmen, Greg Foster and Rocco Laurie, on an East Village sidewalk. Loosely led by the Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver, then in exile in Algeria, the group emerged in May 1971 with a pair of attacks on New York policemen that left two cops dead there were later ambush attacks on police in San Francisco and Atlanta as well. The Weather Underground did so with bombs, until one went off accidentally, killing three of its members, leading the group to disavow murderous violence.īut it was the Black Liberation Army, known as the BLA and a violent offshoot of the Black Panther Party, that posed the greatest threat to police. ![]() ![]() The underground groups of the ‘70s thus made police their first and most frequent targets. It was a time when police brutality was rampant-far worse than today, by most measures-and white police officers rarely were prosecuted when they killed black civilians. While groups like the Weather Underground, the Black Liberation Army and the Symbionese Liberation Army were vehemently anti-war, their core motivation was rallying the black community toward open revolt. Copyright (c) 2015 by Bryan Burrough.Ī fter the social upheavals of the 1960s failed to trigger the vast systemic changes many protesters sought, the early 1970s saw a number of militant groups form secret underground cells that pledged to use violence in an attempt to fight for civil rights, end the Vietnam War and, in the minds of the hard core, trigger a violent revolution in the streets of America. This article has been adapted from his recent book, DAYS OF RAGE, which published April 7, and reprinted by arrangement of Penguin Press, a member of Penguin Random House, Inc. He is expected to be arraigned Saturday morning in Rochester city court.Bryan Burrough is a special correspondent at Vanity Fair and the author of six books. Vickers has been charged with murder in the second degree, attempted murder in the second degree, assault in the second degree and two counts of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree, said Smith. The gun recovered following the arrest of Vickers matched the bullets recovered at the scene and in the home of the 15-year-old girl, according to Umbrino. The suspect allegedly fired 17 rounds into the officers' vehicle from about 10 to 15 feet away, said Umbrino. The suspect was taken into custody without incident. ![]() Kelvin Vickers, 21, was arrested within an hour of the shooting, Captain Frank Umbrino, Commanding Officer of the Rochester Major Crimes Unit, said in an update Friday evening. He is "now recuperating from his injuries at home with his wife and children," according to Smith.Ī 15-year-old girl who was inside her home near the incident was also grazed by one of three bullets that penetrated a wall of her home, officials said. ![]() Seng was taken to Rochester General Hospital, where he was treated and released. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |