Alex Rackley

From Metapedia

Alex Rackley was a twenty-four year old member of the New York chapter of the Black Panther Party who was kidnapped and taken to Panther headquarters in New Haven, Connecticut. He was held there for two days, tortured and killed because fellow members suspected he was a police informant.

[edit] Death

On the morning of May 21, 1969, Rackley was fatally shot in the wetlands of Middlefield, Connecticut; his body was dumped into the Coginchaug River. This event led to the arrest and trial of the "New Haven Nine," Bobby Seale, and Ericka Huggins on charges of murder. The situation gained nationwide notoriety as the New Haven Black Panthers trial, which coincided with the beginning of the student strike of 1970.

At the time, suspicion was widespread that the FBI had agents infiltrating the Panthers. In September 1968, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover described the Black Panthers as "The greatest threat to the internal security of the country^[1]." By 1969, the Black Panthers were the primary target of the FBI's COINTELPRO, and the target of 233 of 295 authorized "Black Nationalist" COINTELPRO actions.

Rackley's body was discovered by 23-year-old factory worker John Mroczka, who had stopped his motorcycle near a bridge on Route 147 to look for a trout-fishing spot on the river bank. State police recovered the body, later identified from fingerprints as Rackley, of a black male whose wrists were tied with gauze, with a noose made from a wire coat hanger around his neck. The autopsy stated that the man had been severely tortured; extensive burns were on wide areas of his chest, wrists, buttocks, thighs, and right shoulder. Additionally, he had been beaten around his face, groin, and lumbar region with a hard object, and was killed by shots to the head and chest within the preceding 12 to 24 hours. After an informant reported seeing Rackley being tortured by scalding, New Haven police raided the home of Warren Kimbro on May 22 at 365 Orchard St., which served as the New Haven headquarters of the Black Panther party. [1]

[edit] Convictions

Kimbro, Bridgeport, Connecticut Panther Lonnie McLucas, and national Panther field marshal George W. Sams, Jr. were convicted of the killing. It was discovered that Sams ordered the execution, Kimbro shot Rackley in the head, and McLucas shot him again when Sams ordered him to ensure death. Sams and Kimbro turned state's evidence in exchange for reducing the charges to second degree murder, thus receiving mandatory life sentences; however, each spent four years in prison. McLucas was found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder and sentenced to 12 to 15 years in prison. ^[2] [2], ^[3] Despite Sams' testimony that he was acting on orders from Seale, who had been in New Haven to speak the day before the murder, no corroborating evidence was found. Therefore, the trial of Seale and Huggins resulted in a deadlocked jury, 11 to 1 for Seale's acquittal and 10 to 2 for Huggin's acquittal; the prosecution declined to retry the case.