Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark will be speaking about reopening the COINTELPRO-tainted Omaha Two case in an appearance at the Malcolm X Center. Clark’s effort to reopen a forty-two year old murder investigation will be launched with trip to Omaha and a speech at the Malcolm X Center.
Ramsey Clark has established himself as a human rights advocate for his relentless appearances at trouble spots and locales of injustice championing human rights and calling for justice. Clark’s Omaha appearance is sponsored by the Nebraskans for Justice, a group dedicated to bringing justice to the Omaha Two.
The Omaha Two are Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa (formerly David Rice), convicted for the 1970 bombing murder of an Omaha policeman, Larry Minard, Sr. The two men were leaders of the National Committee to Combat Fascism, a Black Panther affiliate group, and the targets of J. Edgar Hoover.
J. Edgar Hoover, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for 48 years, conducted an illegal and secret counterintelligence operation codenamed COINTELPRO, against political activists he opposed. The massive, clandestine operation, began in 1956 and terminated in 1971, reached its most lethal intensity against the Black Panthers.
Hoover had been hounding the Special Agent-in-Charge, Paul Young, to get results against the Black Panthers and made the Omaha agent file reports on his progress every two weeks. The August 17, 1970 bombing murder of Larry Minard presented a perfect opportunity to convict Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa except for one detail. The voice of the 911 caller who lured Minard to his death with a false report of a woman screaming at a vacant house was captured by the police communications center.
Paul Young proposed to send the 911 recording to the FBI laboratory for analysis but keep the results off-record with no laboratory report on the identity of the anonymous caller. Hoover agreed to withhold evidence and no report was made and the jury that convicted the Omaha Two never got to hear the voice on the tape.
Modern scientific analysis of the recording has left the caller unidentified. Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa continue to maintain their innocence after more than four decades behind bars. Both men are imprisoned at the maximum-security Nebraska State Penitentiary serving life sentences.
Ramsey Clark will be speaking to the public at the Malcolm X Center, 3463 Evans Street, Omaha, Nebraska, at 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 13, say event sponsors.
For further information on the Omaha Two
