Mondo we Langa & Ed Poindexter Update

[Moorbey]

Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/gen...g_dynamite.htm
January 30, 2008

Conflicting dynamite testimony by police detailed to Nebraska Supreme Court raises doubt in 1971 Black Panther case

By Michael Richardson

Black Panther leaders Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa, formerly David Rice, are serving life sentences for the 1970 bombing murder of Omaha police officer Larry Minard. Targets of the secret COINTELPRO operation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation against the Black Panthers, Poindexter and Langa were already under close surveillance when they were arrested along with a dozen others during the murder investigation.

Eventually charges would be dropped against all but 15 year-old Duane Peak, the confessed bomber, and the two Panther leaders who ran the Omaha chapter then called the National Committee to Combat Fascism. Peak struck a deal with prosecutors and implicated Poindexter and Langa in exchange for sentencing as a juvenile which allowed him to walk free in 1974.

Two Omaha detectives, Jack Swanson and Robert Pheffer, came up with the dynamite, purportedly found in Langa's basement, that corroborated Peak's story. However, police crime scene photographs of the basement do not picture dynamite. The explosives do not appear in evidence photos until they show up in the trunk of a police squad car.

In a bid for a new trial, filed in 2004, Poindexter is now before the state high court where the justices must rule on a variety of matters including the discovery of the dynamite. Poindexter's appeal brief details the different versions given by the two officers.

"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, Pheffer testified 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 he was the one who found the dynamite in Rice's basement….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.'".

"At trial, Officer Swanson testified that he found dynamite in Rice's basement, and that Officer Pheffer was also in the basement when he found it. Contrary to Swanson's testimony, Pheffer testified that he never went down to the basement. Whether perjury or simply inconsistent statements, Pheffer's testimony about being in the basement when the dynamite was found was an extremely significant discrepancy."

"When confronted with this contradiction on May 30th, he vehemently denied that he had testified thus at trial. For Officer Pheffer now to disavow his trial testimony calls into question the credibility of the trial testimony of both Officers Swanson and Pheffer."

District Judge Russell Bowie, who heard Pheffer's contradictory testimony, shrugged off the opposing sworn statements in his Sept. 10, 2007 ruling against a new trial. "Other than the conflicting reports about who found the dynamite in Rice's basement, there is no evidence to suggest that the dynamite was planted by police. The bottom line is that dynamite was found in Rice's basement, who found it is immaterial."

Another reason the credibility of Pheffer is now in question strongly suggests perjury rather than inconsistency. Pheffer has twice claimed to have found evidence of bomb-making supplies that were never seen by anyone else, not identified in any police report, and are missing from Pheffer's own investigative reports.

"Pheffer's post-conviction testimony is also notable related to what he claimed to have found in a closet in Rice's first floor bedroom. Pheffer claimed that during the search he went into Rice's bedroom, and in a closet, he found three attaché suitcases, Samsonite, kind of grayish, kind of bluish, gray color that had wires sticking out of all three of them. Pheffer claimed that after finding these attaché cases, either the ATF or one of the cruisers got a rope and "gingerly wrapped" the rope through the three handles of the suitcase and "lead it out the bedroom through the front room, outside the steps, hid behind a cruiser and pulled it." Pheffer then claimed that because the suitcases didn't "go off", they opened the cases and found they were wired inside, probably, he assumes, to make three more suitcase bombs."

"Asked about the reports that he completed regarding the search at 2816 Parker, Pheffer acknowledged that Exhibit 142 and 106 were reports of the search; but that these reports stated nothing about any attache cases being found."

"Interestingly, Pheffer also claimed to have found an attaché case during the search of NCCF headquarters on August 22, 1970. More specifically, Pheffer testified at Poindexter's suppression hearing that he (Pheffer) found "an attaché case in the front room with wires and a clothespin attached to it." Pheffer also acknowledged that the property and incident reports surrounding the search at NCCF headquarters contained no mention whatsoever of finding the attaché case with wires and a clothespin attached."

The next step in the litigation is for the prosecution to submit a response to Poindexter's appeal. No date has been scheduled for a decision.

Poindexter's attorney, Robert Bartle of Lincoln, Nebraska, sums the case up with a simple statement, "It is about injustice."

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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[Moorbey]

Dynamite supplier for bomb that killed Omaha policeman walked free in COINTELPRO case against Black Panthers

By Michael Richardson

The investigation into the tragic bombing murder of Omaha Police patrolman Larry Minard on August 17, 1970, which led to the conviction and lifetime imprisonment of two Black Panther leaders, was marred by false police statements, withheld evidence and ended with the named supplier of the fatal explosives going unpunished.

The two convicted Panthers, Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa (formerly David Rice), were leaders of the Omaha chapter of the National Committee to Combat Fascism and both were targets of J. Edgar Hoover's secret and illegal Federal Bureau of Investigation operation, code-named COINTELPRO, which was ordered to "disrupt" the Black Panthers.

Poindexter and Langa, who deny any involvement in the crime, were implicated by 15 year-old Duane Peak, the confessed bomber. Peak obtained his freedom with brokered testimony against the Panther leaders and served less than three years in juvenile detention for the murder of Larry Minard.

Although Peak gave police a half-dozen different versions of the crime before naming Poindexter and Langa, the young killer stated he obtained the dynamite for his suitcase bomb from another Panther, Raleigh House. Peak testified at his preliminary hearing that he obtained the explosives from House, repeated the claim during his deposition, and testified at the 1971 murder trial that House supplied the dynamite for the bomb.

Officer Minard was killed and seven other Omaha policemen were injured when they responded to an emergency call about a woman screaming in a vacant house. A booby-trapped suitcase at the scene exploded when Minard examined it killing him instantly.

Federal agents and Omaha police had recruited informants within the Black Panther group as part of the campaign to disrupt the organization and had a lengthy list of suspects when they began a sweep of Omaha's Near-Northside in the days following Minard's murder.

At least 60 people were brought in for questioning and over a dozen were arrested on various charges while the police searched for Peak. On August 23, 1970, the police arrested Raleigh House, a former "lieutenant of information" of the Omaha Black Panther chapter, and, according to the Omaha World-Herald, charged him with suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder. House was jailed with a $10,000 bond placed on him. After House's arrest, Assistant Chief of Police Glenn Gates told the newspaper that naming suspects had made, "every member of the Police Division extremely glad." Gates called Minard "a brother officer" whose death "does strike fear into the heart of officers on the street."

Gates would later ask the FBI to cancel a voice analysis of the emergency call tape that lured Minard to his death. The emergency call was allegedly made by Peak. According to a secret COINTELPRO memo that surfaced years later from the Omaha FBI Special-Agent-in-charge to J. Edgar Hoover, Gates explained the tape would be "prejudicial" to the prosecution. In 2007, voice analyst Tom Owen testified in an Omaha courtroom that to a high degree of probability the voice was not that of Peak--leaving an unidentified accomplice on the loose.

Mysteriously, out of the 13 people arrested while Peak was still at large during the first weekend following the bombing, one suspect was released after just one day in jail, Raleigh House. Even more unusual was that House did not have to post $10,000 bail, instead he was released on a signature bond. Police told the Omaha World-Herald that House was freed under the authorization of Chief Deputy County Attorney Arthur O'Leary who refused to comment on House's release.

After Peak was arrested and questioned, he implicated House as the source of the dynamite. At his preliminary hearing in open court, Peak testified Raleigh House drove him to House's residence where House picked up a suitcase full of dynamite and gave it to him.

Peak persisted in his deposition and again at the murder trial that House supplied the dynamite that took Minard's life. However, House, who had been released on his own recognizance, was never formally charged for providing the explosives according to Douglas County District Court records.

Two months after the bombing, and just days after Peak's preliminary hearing where Peak fingered House, Omaha Police Captain Murdock Platner traveled to Washington, D.C. and gave a false statement under oath to the U.S. House Committee on Internal Security about the source of the dynamite. Platner falsely testified, "In the preliminary hearing he [Peak] testified that David Rice [Langa] brought a suitcase filled with dynamite to his house or to somebody's house, I'm not for sure just which place."

From the Nebraska State Penitentiary where Poindexter is serving a life sentence for a crime he denies, the imprisoned Panther leader has an explanation. "Raleigh House was implicated by Duane Peak, but the state did not pursue it because they were after only Mondo and myself, the so-called ring leaders. Selective prosecution is the term for that….they got who they were after."

Poindexter has been seeking a new trial because of evidence withheld from the original jury and contradictory testimony of police witnesses. Additionally, the role of the FBI in the case and the abuses of justice under Hoover's COINTELPRO operation were not known until long after the original trial was over. The matter is now pending before the Nebraska Supreme Court where no date has been set for a decision.





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