Tale of Another Fugitive...Assata Shakur...
...a/k/a Joanne Chesimard has political asylum in Cuba after escaping from a New Jersey jail. She was convicted of taking part in the 1973 murder of a New Jersey State Trooper when she and her friends were pulled over on the New Jersey Turnpike for a DWB and a shootout occurred. Different versions of what happened were told, with each side claiming the other initiated the violence. Assata and her friends were members of the Black Panthers.
Despite evidence that Assata was shot in the back with her hands raised in surrender, Assata was convicted of murder by an all-white jury in 1977 and ordered to serve a sentence of 26-33 years. During her incarceration, Assata was repeatedly raped by guards and subjected to cruelties while prusuing her appeals. Assata escaped prison in 1979 and was living in or around New Jersey for about 7 years. She took on folk heroine status and it was not hard to come across people in Newark or New York black neighborhoods who claimed to have seen "Joanne" at some time or another during her American fugitive period. Assata then turned up in Cuba in 1986 where she was granted asylum. Assata wrote a best selling book to tell her compelling story and could sometimes be seen on American television offering sage political commentary on issues pertaining to African-Americans and the diaspora. Her prominence as a high profile fugitive infuriated the powers that be. The House of Representatives passed a resolution calling for Assata's extradition. Governor Christine Todd Whitman offered a $50,000 reward for her capture. In a perverted acknowledgement of racial 'progress,' the current New Jersey Attorney General realized that Mrs. Whitman's paltry sum would be no incentive for the apprehension of the most 'criminally' wanted black woman since Harriet Tubman. He raised the bounty to $1,000,000 and encouraged bounty hunters to go to Cuba to hunt down, kidnap, shackle and return Assata. Assata has repeatedly proclaimed her innocence and claimed that the vehicle stop, shooting, and her conviction were all racially motivated. Certainly the response of the government to the Assata Shakur's flight is racially biased. While Posada Carriles lives freely here in the U.S., Assata Shakur has raised the ire of politicans and law enforcement like no black fugitive since Frederick Douglass. Perhaps Senors Chavez and Castro should take a page from the Americans' book and offer an equal reward for the capture of the terrorist Carriles.