[...] FTR #21 Louis Far­rakhan and the Pol­i­tics of Mur­der [...]

Dave two ques­tions what do you think of Karl Evanz­z’s new doc­u­men­tary They killed Mal­colm X the Black Zaprud­er film? His chief researcher film mak­er Omar Shabazz also made his own doc­u­men­taries about Mal­colm’s murder/assassination and led demon­stra­tions at the job site of the shot­gun assas­sin. His film is called The Laugh­ing Lieu­tenant. I’m ask­ing because many of us are on lim­it­ed bud­gets and would like your opin­ion before order­ing.

@Matthew jack­son–

I haven’t seen the film, so I can’t com­ment intel­li­gent­ly.

Evanz­z’s book “The Judas Fac­tor,” is excel­lent.

One of the secu­ri­ty men from the mosque for­mer­ly head­ed by Mal­com X was con­vict­ed in the mur­der and then giv­en a job at the same mosque by Far­rakhan after his release from prison.

Good to hear from you.

Best,

Dave

Looks like the NYC shoot­er sus­pect, as I sus­pect­ed, was NOI or NOI-adja­cent. His social media includes endorse­ments of Far­rakhan, pic­tures of Eli­jah Muham­mad, and incite­ments to vio­lence. This is from con­ser­v­a­tive Andy Ngo, so any caveats apply. How­ev­er, he got it right with the Jeren Miles/Facebook sto­ry.

https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1514029565622075405

Here is one of his youtube chan­nels that for some rea­son isn’t delet­ed. His oth­er one was just delet­ed in the last 10 min­utes.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC25wqoWdSUBACwu-6AXVsvA/videos

I saved an image from a delet­ed video on his oth­er chan­nel of him rant­i­ng in front of a pic­ture of Jim Jones. I will upload to imgur and post lat­er (imgur is down right now).

I also have that video in my cache that I will watch when I can use vol­ume. I will also try to cap­ture it for pos­ter­i­ty. May not be any­thing worth­while, but it piss­es me off when Youtube does this before researchers have more time.

Also, I find it odd that he goes by the name “Prophet of Doom 88” on Youtube. He is old and was­n’t born in 1988, so I won­der about the 88? As weird as it sounds, there are sec­tors of the polit­i­cal world where some Blacks view Hitler pos­i­tive­ly, and the NOI is cer­tain­ly a breed­ing ground for those kinds of views.

Far­rakhan him­self has lit­er­al­ly called Hitler a “great man” many times over the years, and I have found that the evi­dence that Fard Muham­mad, NOI founder, was an Axis col­lab­o­ra­tor to be fair­ly strong. Who knows, maybe “Prophet of Doom 1–87” were tak­en, but that 88 real­ly jumps out at me.

Also, the Feds cleared him pre­vi­ous­ly dur­ing pre­vi­ous inves­ti­ga­tions.

https://www.newsweek.com/brooklyn-subway-attack-being-investigated-terrorism-official-says-1697298

It’s hard to get one’s hopes up when it comes to the reopen­ing of gov­ern­ment-spon­sored polit­i­cal assas­si­na­tions. And yet, it’s also hard not to be at least a lit­tle hope­ful fol­low­ing the announce­ment of a $100 mil­lion wrong­ful death suit announced this week by attor­ney Ben­jamin Crump on behalf of the fam­i­ly of Mal­colm X. Crump served “for­mal notice” to the City and State of New York, the FBI, and the CIA, and oth­er fed­er­al agen­cies in a suit that effec­tive­ly accus­es the US gov­ern­ment of stag­ing the assas­si­na­tion of cov­er­ing it up. Crump specif­i­cal­ly named the FBI and J. Edgar Hoover as being cul­pa­ble in the plot.

So what is it about this law­suit that should inspire hope? Well, it’s the fact that the law­suit appears to be the lat­est move in a series of rev­e­la­tions that fol­lowed the Novem­ber 2020 release of a deathbed con­fes­sion by for­mer police offi­cer Ray­mond Wood. As Wood describes it, he was ordered to effec­tive­ly entrap key mem­bers of Mal­colm X’s secu­ri­ty detail right before the assas­si­na­tion to ensure that Mal­colm X lacked the prop­er secu­ri­ty dur­ing the assas­si­na­tion, which was the case.

Now, only one of the three fig­ures con­vict­ed of shoot­ing Mal­colm X has ever admit­ted guilt. The oth­er two, Muham­mad Abdul Aziz and Khalil Islam, main­tained their inno­cence. Wood’s let­ter prompt­ed NY Dis­trict Attor­ney Cy Vance to reopen their cas­es and in Novem­ber 2021 Both Aziz and Islam were exon­er­at­ed. That’s part of the con­text of this new law­suit: it has legal momen­tum behind it. The kind of legal momen­tum that often requires some­thing like a deathbed con­fes­sion.

As we’re also going to see in the fol­low­ing TPM piece, the fam­i­ly of Mal­colm X has, in the past, expressed sus­pi­cions that don’t just include the US gov­ern­ment. It turns out TPM reporter Hunter Walk­er got to con­duct phone inter­views of both Gami­lah Shabazz and Quibi­lah Shabazz back in 2010 as part of his Mas­ter’s The­sis project on the assas­si­na­tion. As Walk­er recounts, Gamil­lah described it as ‘an Inter­na­tion­al Con­spir­a­cy.’ That anoth­er part of the con­text of this law­suit: it’s already clear that there’s A LOT under this rock. And plen­ty of rea­son to be open to the pos­si­bil­i­ty that there’s even more under this rock than many sus­pect:

Talk­ing Points Memo

‘It Was An Inter­na­tion­al Con­spir­a­cy’: Law­suit Fol­lows A Half Cen­tu­ry Of Pain And Ques­tions For Mal­colm X’s Fam­i­ly

By Hunter Walk­er
Feb­ru­ary 23, 2023 6:52 p.m.

A planned law­suit from the fam­i­ly of slain civ­il rights leader Mal­colm X fol­lows decades of trau­ma and lin­ger­ing ques­tions for his daugh­ters. The $100 mil­lion wrong­ful death suit was announced on Tues­day by attor­ney Ben Crump, who said he was pro­vid­ing “for­mal notice” to the City and State of New York, the FBI, and the CIA, as well as oth­er fed­er­al agen­cies.

“For this great injus­tice, we will be fil­ing a wrong­ful death law­suit against these gov­ern­men­tal enti­ties for $100 mil­lion on behalf of his daugh­ters that are com­ing for­ward,” Crump said. “But there is no mea­sure of mon­ey, there is no mea­sure of expla­na­tion that they could ever offer this fam­i­ly. The only thing they can do is try to right a his­toric wrong, not just for his fam­i­ly, but for his peo­ple and this world. We have to right this his­toric wrong.”

Mal­colm X was shot and killed on Feb­ru­ary 21, 1965 at the Audubon Ball­room in New York City. Mul­ti­ple gun­men were involved in the assas­si­na­tion. Three men were arrest­ed and con­vict­ed of tak­ing part. Two of them have since been exon­er­at­ed.

Crump announced the law­suit at The Mal­colm X & Dr. Bet­ty Shabazz Memo­r­i­al and Edu­ca­tion­al Cen­ter, which is inside the for­mer ball­room. Crump was flanked by two of Mal­colm X’s daugh­ters, Ilyasah and Qubi­lah Shabazz, who would be among the plain­tiffs in the suit.

Qubi­lah, who has rarely spo­ken to the press, did speak with me in 2010 as I was com­plet­ing a Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty School of Jour­nal­ism master’s the­sis project on the assas­si­na­tion. She dis­cussed the expe­ri­ence of los­ing her father and her per­sis­tent belief that a gov­ern­ment con­spir­a­cy was behind his death.

“I have nev­er got­ten over it. My father loved me and that was tak­en from me. My life was a total night­mare after he died,” Qubi­lah said in an inter­view for the project, which has not pre­vi­ous­ly been pub­lished out­side of the uni­ver­si­ty.

Dur­ing a brief tele­phone con­ver­sa­tion con­duct­ed dur­ing the 2010 research project, anoth­er one of Mal­colm X’s daugh­ters, Gami­lah Shabazz, who Crump also iden­ti­fied as one of the plain­tiffs, sug­gest­ed she too believed there were larg­er forces behind her father’s death before declin­ing to com­ment fur­ther.

“You know, it was an inter­na­tion­al con­spir­a­cy,” Gami­lah said.

Ilyasah Shabazz, anoth­er one of Mal­colm X’s daugh­ters who is bring­ing the suit, is the only mem­ber of his fam­i­ly who spoke at Crump’s press con­fer­ence. Her fam­i­ly is look­ing for “the truth” and to put an end to their “unan­swered ques­tions,” she said.

“We want jus­tice served for our father,” said Ilyasah, who did not imme­di­ate­ly respond to an inter­view request for this sto­ry.

Qubi­lah, who was four years old when her father was killed, said dur­ing her 2010 inter­view with me that she “blocked out a lot” for a year or two after his death and “didn’t cry for a few years” until see­ing a pho­to of his body brought the mem­o­ries flood­ing back.

“My father was the soft, car­ing, play­ful par­ent… my father nev­er gave us speech­es at home, he gave us love,” Qubi­lah said. “When he died, that was all gone.”

Qubi­lah declined to com­ment on record for this sto­ry. Gami­lah could not be reached.

It’s Not Just About The Trig­ger­men

There are exten­sive ques­tions about Mal­colm X’s killing. Only one man, who was named Tal­madge Hay­er, has admit­ted to shoot­ing Mal­colm X. Hay­er, who lat­er became known as Mujahid Hal­im, was arrest­ed at the scene of the crime after being shot in the thigh by one of Mal­colm X’s body­guards. Over the years, wit­ness­es have offered con­flict­ing accounts of what hap­pened that day, stat­ing that there were any­where from three to five peo­ple involved in the shoot­ing.

Two oth­er men, Nor­man 3X But­ler and Thomas 15X John­son, were con­vict­ed along with Hay­er in 1966 and sub­se­quent­ly sen­tenced to life in prison. All three men were mem­bers of the Nation of Islam, a Black Mus­lim group that Mal­colm X helped lead in the first years of his polit­i­cal career. Both But­ler and John­son con­sis­tent­ly main­tained their inno­cence, but they were not released from prison until the 1980s. Hay­er, who was paroled in 2010, con­fessed to tak­ing part in the killing. How­ev­er, he said on mul­ti­ple occa­sions that the oth­er two men con­vict­ed along­side him were inno­cent and claimed he had four oth­er accom­plices.

In Novem­ber 2021, fol­low­ing a joint inves­ti­ga­tion con­duct­ed by the Man­hat­tan Dis­trict Attorney’s Office and lawyers for the two men, But­ler and John­son, who are now known as Muham­mad Abdul Aziz and Khalil Islam, had their con­vic­tions thrown out. For­mer Man­hat­tan Dis­trict Attor­ney Cy Vance launched the inves­ti­ga­tion after a Net­flix doc­u­men­tary series released between 2019 and 2020 explored the case. Accord­ing to the New York Times, inves­ti­ga­tors ulti­mate­ly deter­mined pros­e­cu­tors, the Fed­er­al Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion, and the New York City Police Depart­ment with­held excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence and “failed to dis­close the pres­ence of under­cov­er offi­cers in the ball­room at the time of the shoot­ing.”

At the press con­fer­ence announc­ing the law­suit, Crump said it was prompt­ed by the exon­er­a­tions. Crump, who did not imme­di­ate­ly respond to requests for com­ment on this sto­ry, also sug­gest­ed he has uncov­ered fur­ther evi­dence.

“The dis­trict attorney’s office in the city … admit­ted that these gen­tle­men were wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and that there was excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence that would have exon­er­at­ed them that they did not release or reveal,” Crump said. “There are many things that will be put forth in our law­suit that speaks to this fac­tu­al evi­dence, things that many peo­ple have spec­u­lat­ed over the decades, but were not sub­stan­ti­at­ed. We believe that now it could be sub­stan­ti­at­ed based on the recent exon­er­a­tions.”

Crump, who has become a promi­nent civ­il rights leader in his own right while seek­ing civ­il judg­ments for Black peo­ple in high pro­file cas­es of alleged injus­tice, also said his team will use the suit to pur­sue more new evi­dence.

“We plan on tak­ing depo­si­tions of many of the fig­ures that were involved — either right­ful­ly or wrong­ful­ly — in the assas­si­na­tion of Mal­colm X. It’s not just about the trig­ger­men. It’s also about those who con­spired with the trig­ger­men to do this das­tard­ly deed that killed that 39-year-old young father,” Crump said, lat­er adding, “We believe we’ll be able with the force of law to sub­poe­na and depose any indi­vid­ual that has rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion. That’s what has nev­er hap­pened in the after­math of the assas­si­na­tion of Mal­colm X.”

In response to a ques­tion from a reporter, Crump said he believed gov­ern­ment agen­cies were involved in Mal­colm X’s death.

“The con­spir­a­cy includ­ed many, many indi­vid­u­als and many, many gov­ern­ment enti­ties … and many affil­i­ates of those agen­cies,” Crump said.

Crump specif­i­cal­ly named the FBI and its for­mer direc­tor J. Edgar Hoover, who spear­head­ed aggres­sive efforts to sur­veil and sab­o­tage civ­il rights activists. Mal­colm X’s FBI file, which has been par­tial­ly declas­si­fied, shows that, dur­ing his life, Mal­colm X was mon­i­tored by the bureau and a slew of oth­er gov­ern­ment agen­cies includ­ing the Cen­tral Intel­li­gence Agency, the State Depart­ment, Army, Air Force, and Naval Intel­li­gence Units, the Depart­ment of Jus­tice, the Secret Ser­vice, and sev­er­al local police depart­ments includ­ing the NYPD.

Star­ing At The Fire

Mal­colm X was killed short­ly after a bit­ter break with his for­mer allies in the Nation of Islam. In his auto­bi­og­ra­phy, which was orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished in the year before his death, Mal­colm X wrote about how he was a “hus­tler” as a young man. He described sell­ing drugs and engag­ing in bur­glar­ies. He joined the Nation of Islam dur­ing a stint in prison between 1946 and 1952. Upon his release, he rose to become one of the top evan­ge­lists for the reli­gion, which blend­ed the Koran and Black nation­al­ist ide­ol­o­gy. How­ev­er, by the late 1950s, Mal­colm X began to drift apart from the Nation of Islam’s leader, Eli­jah Muham­mad.

In March 1964, Mal­colm X for­mal­ly broke away from the Nation of Islam. He went on to found two orga­ni­za­tions of his own: Mus­lim Mosque Incor­po­rat­ed and the Orga­ni­za­tion of Afro-Amer­i­can Uni­ty. MMI was a reli­gious orga­ni­za­tion while the OAAU was focused on self-defense pro­grams and pre­sent­ing the con­cerns of Black Amer­i­cans in front of the Unit­ed Nations. The 11 months between Mal­colm X’s depar­ture from the Nation of Islam and his death were marked by con­stant and esca­lat­ing infight­ing between his allies and Eli­jah Muhammad’s inner cir­cle. Both Muham­mad and Mal­colm X claimed the oth­er threat­ened their life through inter­me­di­aries.

On Feb­ru­ary 14, 1965, a week before his death, the threats turned to vio­lence. Uniden­ti­fied assailants threw a molo­tov cock­tail at Mal­colm X’s home in Queens, New York while he and his fam­i­ly slept. Quibi­lah Shabazz told me she was awok­en by the blaze.

...

Accord­ing to Qubi­lah, Mal­colm, who was wear­ing “his long johns,” grabbed his fam­i­ly and his rifle and ran out into the dri­ve­way. As his wife and daugh­ters fled to a neighbor’s house, Qubi­lah said Mal­colm kept watch out­side, gun in hand.

“If that Molo­tov cock­tail had gone through the win­dow rather than hit­ting my house and drop­ping, it would have hit my bed,” said Qubi­lah.

In the week fol­low­ing the fire­bomb­ing, Mal­colm X’s wife, Bet­ty Shabazz, who was preg­nant, and her daugh­ters stayed with fam­i­ly friends. Mal­colm X moved between hotels to avoid detec­tion.

On the day Mal­colm X was shot, he appeared at an OAAU ral­ly at the Audubon. Due to the explo­sive cli­mate, women and chil­dren were advised not to come to the Audubon ral­ly. How­ev­er, Qubi­lah Shabazz said that, short­ly before he was due to appear, Mal­colm called his wife, Bet­ty, and asked her to bring the oth­er four chil­dren to see him speak. Qubi­lah isn’t sure why he made this last-minute request.

“No one knows why he changed his mind,” said Qubi­lah. “He prob­a­bly want­ed to see his fam­i­ly one last time.”

Mal­colm X’s wife and daugh­ters were sit­ting in the ball­room when the shots rang out.

“It was total may­hem,” Qubi­lah said, “I can remem­ber there being chairs knocked over, peo­ple rush­ing to get out of there.”

Police­men who were sta­tioned across the street at Pres­by­ter­ian Hos­pi­tal did not secure the scene, even as Mal­colm X’s body­guards implored them to stop the assas­sins from escap­ing. Despite the large crowd, NYPD offi­cers only took three wit­ness state­ments.

In July 1995, Qubi­lah was arrest­ed and charged with attempt­ing to hire a hit­man to kill Louis Far­rakhan, who was one of Eli­jah Muhammad’s top lieu­tenants and now heads the Nation of Islam. Qubi­lah main­tained the gov­ern­ment was try­ing to frame her. Far­rakhan, who has apol­o­gized to Mal­colm X’s fam­i­ly for con­tribut­ing to the volatile cli­mate that led to Mal­colm X’s death, sup­port­ed Qubilah’s defense. Farrakhan’s posi­tion and the government’s reliance on a crim­i­nal infor­mant led to the charges against Quibi­lah being dropped.

For her part, in the 2010 inter­views, Qubi­lah said she believed “the gov­ern­ment” was “behind” her father’s killing. How­ev­er, she also sus­pect­ed the peo­ple who want­ed Mal­colm X dead had help from inside of his inner cir­cle.

“I want to know who actu­al­ly facil­i­tat­ed it,” Qubi­lah said at the time.

While she and her sis­ters have deep ques­tions about the cir­cum­stances of her father’s killing, as of 2010, Qubi­lah doubt­ed she would ever get answers.

“I can’t see that there will ever be any clo­sure on this. The pow­ers that be, I think they believed my father got what he deserved,” Qubi­lah said, lat­er adding, “Jus­tice has def­i­nite­ly not been done.”

Now, after more than half a cen­tu­ry, that may be about to change.

———–

“‘It Was An Inter­na­tion­al Con­spir­a­cy’: Law­suit Fol­lows A Half Cen­tu­ry Of Pain And Ques­tions For Mal­colm X’s Fam­i­ly” by Hunter Walk­er; Talk­ing Points Memo; 02/23/2023

“Mal­colm X was shot and killed on Feb­ru­ary 21, 1965 at the Audubon Ball­room in New York City. Mul­ti­ple gun­men were involved in the assas­si­na­tion. Three men were arrest­ed and con­vict­ed of tak­ing part. Two of them have since been exon­er­at­ed. ”

Two out of three of the con­vict­ed gun­men were exon­er­at­ed two years ago. It’s a long over­due step in the right direc­tion, but also obvi­ous­ly just the start. If Nor­man 3X But­ler and Thomas 15X John­son were inno­cent, who was respon­si­ble? That’s the ques­tion at the heart of the new $100 mil­lion law­suit by Mal­colm X’s fam­i­ly. A law­suit point­ing strong­ly in the direc­tion of a gov­ern­ment coverup. A gov­ern­ment coverup for a gov­ern­ment-spon­sored mur­der:

...
It’s Not Just About The Trig­ger­men

There are exten­sive ques­tions about Mal­colm X’s killing. Only one man, who was named Tal­madge Hay­er, has admit­ted to shoot­ing Mal­colm X. Hay­er, who lat­er became known as Mujahid Hal­im, was arrest­ed at the scene of the crime after being shot in the thigh by one of Mal­colm X’s body­guards. Over the years, wit­ness­es have offered con­flict­ing accounts of what hap­pened that day, stat­ing that there were any­where from three to five peo­ple involved in the shoot­ing.

Two oth­er men, Nor­man 3X But­ler and Thomas 15X John­son, were con­vict­ed along with Hay­er in 1966 and sub­se­quent­ly sen­tenced to life in prison. All three men were mem­bers of the Nation of Islam, a Black Mus­lim group that Mal­colm X helped lead in the first years of his polit­i­cal career. Both But­ler and John­son con­sis­tent­ly main­tained their inno­cence, but they were not released from prison until the 1980s. Hay­er, who was paroled in 2010, con­fessed to tak­ing part in the killing. How­ev­er, he said on mul­ti­ple occa­sions that the oth­er two men con­vict­ed along­side him were inno­cent and claimed he had four oth­er accom­plices.

In Novem­ber 2021, fol­low­ing a joint inves­ti­ga­tion con­duct­ed by the Man­hat­tan Dis­trict Attorney’s Office and lawyers for the two men, But­ler and John­son, who are now known as Muham­mad Abdul Aziz and Khalil Islam, had their con­vic­tions thrown out. For­mer Man­hat­tan Dis­trict Attor­ney Cy Vance launched the inves­ti­ga­tion after a Net­flix doc­u­men­tary series released between 2019 and 2020 explored the case. Accord­ing to the New York Times, inves­ti­ga­tors ulti­mate­ly deter­mined pros­e­cu­tors, the Fed­er­al Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion, and the New York City Police Depart­ment with­held excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence and “failed to dis­close the pres­ence of under­cov­er offi­cers in the ball­room at the time of the shoot­ing.”

...

In response to a ques­tion from a reporter, Crump said he believed gov­ern­ment agen­cies were involved in Mal­colm X’s death.

“The con­spir­a­cy includ­ed many, many indi­vid­u­als and many, many gov­ern­ment enti­ties … and many affil­i­ates of those agen­cies,” Crump said.

Crump specif­i­cal­ly named the FBI and its for­mer direc­tor J. Edgar Hoover, who spear­head­ed aggres­sive efforts to sur­veil and sab­o­tage civ­il rights activists. Mal­colm X’s FBI file, which has been par­tial­ly declas­si­fied, shows that, dur­ing his life, Mal­colm X was mon­i­tored by the bureau and a slew of oth­er gov­ern­ment agen­cies includ­ing the Cen­tral Intel­li­gence Agency, the State Depart­ment, Army, Air Force, and Naval Intel­li­gence Units, the Depart­ment of Jus­tice, the Secret Ser­vice, and sev­er­al local police depart­ments includ­ing the NYPD.
...

And note the scope of the fam­i­ly’s sus­pi­cions, as expressed by Gami­lah Shabazz to Hunter Walk­er back in 2010 dur­ing a phone inter­view for Walk­er’s Mas­ter’s The­sis: “You know, it was an inter­na­tion­al con­spir­a­cy”:

...
Crump announced the law­suit at The Mal­colm X & Dr. Bet­ty Shabazz Memo­r­i­al and Edu­ca­tion­al Cen­ter, which is inside the for­mer ball­room. Crump was flanked by two of Mal­colm X’s daugh­ters, Ilyasah and Qubi­lah Shabazz, who would be among the plain­tiffs in the suit.

Qubi­lah, who has rarely spo­ken to the press, did speak with me in 2010 as I was com­plet­ing a Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty School of Jour­nal­ism master’s the­sis project on the assas­si­na­tion. She dis­cussed the expe­ri­ence of los­ing her father and her per­sis­tent belief that a gov­ern­ment con­spir­a­cy was behind his death.

“I have nev­er got­ten over it. My father loved me and that was tak­en from me. My life was a total night­mare after he died,” Qubi­lah said in an inter­view for the project, which has not pre­vi­ous­ly been pub­lished out­side of the uni­ver­si­ty.

Dur­ing a brief tele­phone con­ver­sa­tion con­duct­ed dur­ing the 2010 research project, anoth­er one of Mal­colm X’s daugh­ters, Gami­lah Shabazz, who Crump also iden­ti­fied as one of the plain­tiffs, sug­gest­ed she too believed there were larg­er forces behind her father’s death before declin­ing to com­ment fur­ther.

“You know, it was an inter­na­tion­al con­spir­a­cy,” Gami­lah said.
...

How much of the over­all con­spir­a­cy will this new law­suit reveal? His­to­ry sug­gests not much. It’s an appar­ent gov­ern­ment coverup, after all. These things aren’t just casu­al­ly exposed.

But then again, when you have some­thing like the Novem­ber 2020 deathbed con­fes­sion let­ter from for­mer police offi­cer Ray­mond Wood, doors that have remained closed just might start open­ing. At least that’s the hope with the open­ing of this law­suit. Hope par­tial­ly root­ed in the fact that Wood’s deathbed con­fes­sion was pow­er­ful enough to result in the exon­er­a­tion of Aziz and Islam rough­ly a year lat­er. Few things reopen cold cas­es more effec­tive­ly then a damn­ing unde­ni­able death bed con­fes­sion:

CBS News

Mal­colm X’s fam­i­ly reveals let­ter impli­cat­ing FBI and NYPD in his assas­si­na­tion

By McK­ay Bold­en
Feb­ru­ary 22, 2021 / 7:12 AM

The three daugh­ters of Mal­colm X joined civ­il rights attor­ney Ben­jamin Crump on Sat­ur­day to reveal what they say is evi­dence that proves the NYPD and the FBI con­spired to have him assas­si­nat­ed.

The civ­il rights activist and promi­nent fig­ure in the Nation of Islam was killed at the Audubon Ball­room in Man­hat­tan in Feb­ru­ary 1965.

The fam­i­ly mem­bers and Crump said the alle­ga­tions were in a deathbed let­ter by a for­mer police offi­cer, Ray­mond Wood.

In the Jan­u­ary 25, 2011 let­ter, Wood, who was on duty the day of Mal­colm X’s death, said he “par­tic­i­pat­ed in actions that in hind­sight were deplorable and detri­men­tal to the advance­ment of my own black peo­ple.”

“Under the direc­tion of my han­dlers, I was told to encour­age lead­ers and mem­bers of the civ­il rights groups to com­mit felo­nious acts,” Wood said in the let­ter.

Wood stat­ed he was coerced by his NYPD super­vi­sors to entice mem­bers of Mal­colm X’s secu­ri­ty detail into com­mit­ting crimes that result­ed in their arrest days before the dead­ly shoot­ing.

“It was my assign­ment to draw the two men into a felo­nious fed­er­al crime so that they could be arrest­ed by the FBI and kept away from man­ag­ing Mal­colm X’s door secu­ri­ty on Feb­ru­ary 21, 1965,” Wood wrote. “At that time, I was not aware that Mal­colm X was the tar­get.”

Those arrests were a part of con­spir­a­cy between the NYPD and FBI to have Mal­colm X killed, accord­ing to the let­ter.

...

The office of Man­hat­tan Dis­trict Attor­ney Cy Vance start­ed review­ing the con­vic­tions last year.

After Sat­ur­day’s news con­fer­ence, Vance’s office released a state­ment say­ing its “review of this mat­ter is active and ongo­ing.” The NYPD also pro­vid­ed a state­ment say­ing it has “pro­vid­ed all avail­able records rel­e­vant to that case to the Dis­trict Attor­ney” and “remains com­mit­ted to assist with that review in any way.”

Mal­colm X’s daugh­ter, Ilyasah Shabazz, said she has always had uncer­tain­ty in regards to her father’s death.

“Any evi­dence that pro­vides greater insight into the truth behind that ter­ri­ble tragedy should be thor­ough­ly inves­ti­gat­ed,” she said at the news con­fer­ence.

———–

“Mal­colm X’s fam­i­ly reveals let­ter impli­cat­ing FBI and NYPD in his assas­si­na­tion” by McK­ay Bold­en; CBS News; 02/22/2021

“The fam­i­ly mem­bers and Crump said the alle­ga­tions were in a deathbed let­ter by a for­mer police offi­cer, Ray­mond Wood.”

The deathbed let­ter strikes again! This time, it was a Jan­u­ary 25, 2011 from for­mer offi­cer Ray­mond Wood, who is pret­ty explic­it in his admis­sions. He was giv­en orders to ensure Mal­colm X did­n’t have prop­er secu­ri­ty:

...
In the Jan­u­ary 25, 2011 let­ter, Wood, who was on duty the day of Mal­colm X’s death, said he “par­tic­i­pat­ed in actions that in hind­sight were deplorable and detri­men­tal to the advance­ment of my own black peo­ple.”

“Under the direc­tion of my han­dlers, I was told to encour­age lead­ers and mem­bers of the civ­il rights groups to com­mit felo­nious acts,” Wood said in the let­ter.

Wood stat­ed he was coerced by his NYPD super­vi­sors to entice mem­bers of Mal­colm X’s secu­ri­ty detail into com­mit­ting crimes that result­ed in their arrest days before the dead­ly shoot­ing.

“It was my assign­ment to draw the two men into a felo­nious fed­er­al crime so that they could be arrest­ed by the FBI and kept away from man­ag­ing Mal­colm X’s door secu­ri­ty on Feb­ru­ary 21, 1965,” Wood wrote. “At that time, I was not aware that Mal­colm X was the tar­get.”
...

Note how Wood claims that, at the time, he was­n’t aware that Mal­colm X was the ulti­mate tar­get. It points towards the com­part­men­tal­ized nature of these kinds of oper­a­tions, with local police being involved but not nec­es­sar­i­ly know­ing the scope of the plot at work. That’s worth keep­ing mind in rela­tion to Gami­lah Shabaz­z’s spec­u­la­tions about the inter­na­tion­al nature of the con­spir­a­cy.

And as the Novem­ber 2021 exon­er­a­tion of Aziz and Islam make clear, Ray­mond Wood’s deathbed con­fes­sion has legs. A con­fes­sion that hint­ed at a much larg­er and more orga­nized gov­ern­ment plot to assas­si­nate a civ­il rights leader. A plot large enough and orga­nized enough to con­vict two inno­cent men and keep it all under wraps for decades:

CBS News

Judge exon­er­ates two men con­vict­ed in 1965 killing of Mal­colm X

By Zoe Chris­ten Jones
Novem­ber 18, 2021 / 3:27 PM

A judge has exon­er­at­ed two of the three men con­vict­ed of the 1965 killing of civ­il rights leader Mal­colm X. The deci­sion fol­lows a two-year inves­ti­ga­tion from Man­hat­tan’s dis­trict attor­ney that deter­mined Muham­mad A. Aziz, 83, and the late Khalil Islam were “wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed.”

“I regret that this court can­not undo the seri­ous mis­car­riage of jus­tice,” state Supreme Court judge Ellen Biben said in court Thurs­day. “There can be no ques­tion that this is a case that cries out for fun­da­men­tal jus­tice.”

Dis­trict Attor­ney Cyrus Vance Jr. said most of the phys­i­cal evi­dence and wit­ness­es could­n’t be re-inves­ti­gat­ed because of the time that’s passed and the inves­ti­ga­tion found that sev­er­al wit­ness­es told the FBI they had not seen Aziz or Islam with the mur­der weapon. The inves­ti­ga­tion also deter­mined that pros­e­cu­tors with­held evi­dence that could have cleared Aziz and Islam at tri­al.

“The events that brought us to court today should nev­er have occurred; those events were and are the result of a process that was cor­rupt to its core — one that is all too famil­iar to black peo­ple in 2021,” Aziz said in court Thurs­day. “While I do not need this court, these pros­e­cu­tors, or a piece of paper to tell me I am inno­cent, I am glad that my fam­i­ly, my friends, and the attor­neys who have worked and sup­port­ed me all of these years are final­ly see­ing the truth we have all known, offi­cial­ly rec­og­nized.”

“I am an 83-year-old man who was vic­tim­ized by the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, and I do not know how many more years I have to be cre­ative,” he added. “How­ev­er, I hope the same sys­tem that was respon­si­ble for this trav­es­ty of jus­tice also takes respon­si­bil­i­ty for the immea­sur­able harm it caused me dur­ing the last 55 years.”

Mal­colm X, who was born Mal­colm Lit­tle, was killed while giv­ing a speech at New York’s Audubon Ball­room on Feb­ru­ary 21, 1965. Aziz, Islam, and anoth­er man, Thomas Hagan, were con­vict­ed for the mur­der, but Aziz and Islam main­tained their inno­cence.

“This points to the truth that law enforce­ment over his­to­ry has often failed to live up to its respon­si­bil­i­ties,” Vance told The New York Times. “These men did not get the jus­tice that they deserved.”

In Novem­ber 2020, a let­ter from for­mer under­cov­er NYPD offi­cer Ray­mond Wood was released. Wood claimed he was coerced by his NYPD super­vi­sors to lure mem­bers of Mal­colm X’s secu­ri­ty detail into com­mit­ting crimes that result­ed in the FBI arrest­ing them days before the shoot­ing.

“There was no secu­ri­ty to pre­vent the gun­man from com­ing into the build­ing,” his cousin, Regi­nald Wood Jr. said.

The dis­trict attor­ney’s office opened the inves­ti­ga­tion fol­low­ing the release of the Net­flix doc­u­men­tary “Who Killed Mal­colm X?” Phil Ber­telsen, who pro­duced the doc­u­men­tary, spoke about the film with the “CBS Evening News.”

“The FBI had eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny from pre­sum­ably the nine infor­mants that were in the room that day about who did the crime. Full descrip­tions of the men, and par­tic­u­lar­ly the man who wield­ed the shot­gun. That was infor­ma­tion that was not giv­en to the NYPD,” Ber­telsen said.

...

———–

“Judge exon­er­ates two men con­vict­ed in 1965 killing of Mal­colm X” by Zoe Chris­ten Jones; CBS News; 11/18/2021

“Dis­trict Attor­ney Cyrus Vance Jr. said most of the phys­i­cal evi­dence and wit­ness­es could­n’t be re-inves­ti­gat­ed because of the time that’s passed and the inves­ti­ga­tion found that sev­er­al wit­ness­es told the FBI they had not seen Aziz or Islam with the mur­der weapon. The inves­ti­ga­tion also deter­mined that pros­e­cu­tors with­held evi­dence that could have cleared Aziz and Islam at tri­al.”

As we can see with the exon­er­a­tion of Aziz and Islam, Ray­mond Wood’s deathbed let­ter was­n’t lack­ing in sub­stance. It direct­ly lead to two exon­er­a­tions in less than a year. In oth­er words, this is an inves­ti­ga­tion with momen­tum:

...
In Novem­ber 2020, a let­ter from for­mer under­cov­er NYPD offi­cer Ray­mond Wood was released. Wood claimed he was coerced by his NYPD super­vi­sors to lure mem­bers of Mal­colm X’s secu­ri­ty detail into com­mit­ting crimes that result­ed in the FBI arrest­ing them days before the shoot­ing.

“There was no secu­ri­ty to pre­vent the gun­man from com­ing into the build­ing,” his cousin, Regi­nald Wood Jr. said.

The dis­trict attor­ney’s office opened the inves­ti­ga­tion fol­low­ing the release of the Net­flix doc­u­men­tary “Who Killed Mal­colm X?” Phil Ber­telsen, who pro­duced the doc­u­men­tary, spoke about the film with the “CBS Evening News.”

“The FBI had eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny from pre­sum­ably the nine infor­mants that were in the room that day about who did the crime. Full descrip­tions of the men, and par­tic­u­lar­ly the man who wield­ed the shot­gun. That was infor­ma­tion that was not giv­en to the NYPD,” Ber­telsen said.
...

Is there enough momen­tum at this point to result in a major break­through? Time will tell. But it’s worth keep­ing in mind one of the oth­er aspects of this sto­ry and and the oth­er still unre­solved polit­i­cal assas­si­na­tions of the 1960s: It’s cer­tain­ly bet­ter lat­er than nev­er for the truth to be revealed. But when it takes 60 years or more to get to that truth, bet­ter lat­er than nev­er can still be too late for real jus­tice. Bet­ter late than nev­er isn’t good enough. In oth­er words, yes, it will be nice for this trav­es­ty of jus­tice to final­ly get revealed. But tak­ing this long to reveal a trav­es­ty is still a trav­es­ty of its own. We’ll see how long this par­tic­u­lar trav­es­ty of jus­tice con­tin­ues to play out. Assum­ing it ever ends. One has to hope. Because when it comes to US polit­i­cal assas­si­na­tions, blind hope for jus­tice as good as it gets. Fin­gers crossed.