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Joanne Cheismard, who goes by the name of Assata Shakur, has made history in a sad way, as she has become the first woman on the FBI’s list of “Most Wanted Terrorists.” In 1973, Shakur, a member of the Black Liberation Army, found herself involved in a shootout with a New Jersey State Trooper named Werner Foerster during a traffic stop. She had been riding with fellow BLA members Sundiata Acoli and Zayd Shakur. She was wounded in the shooting, and Foerster was killed by his own firearm. Four years after the incident, she was convicted of first-degree murder, and sent to prison, where she was reportedly treated inhumanely. And by 1979, she found a way to escape from her New Jersey prison, and has been residing in Cuba since 1984. Many attempts have been made to try and capture her, but to no avail. Shakur is now 65, and in the mind of New Jersey State Police Col. Rick Fuentes, she “flaunts her freedom” while living in the country. So now the FBI has decided to try and paint her as a terrorist of all things and doubled the reward for her capture to $2 million so that they can finally get someone to send in a tip about where she is. Good luck with that…

“To this day from her safe haven in Cuba Chesimard has been given a pulpit to preach and profess, stirring supporters and groups to mobilize against the United States by any means necessary,” says Fuentes. New Jersey Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa also told reporters, “We want her to come back here and face justice and serve out her sentence.”

But to paint her as a “supreme terror,” when she hasn’t been tied to any type of terrorist group or new threat is an extreme. As ABC News said, “Her supporters believe she was a target of law enforcement’s campaign against the Black Panther movement in the 1960s and 1970s,” and it today, she’s clearly still a major target, though she hasn’t been affiliated with any sort of terrorist activity since she’s been in political asylum. I’m all for people getting justice, but the way the FBI is handling this? No bueno.

Do you think they’ll find her? What do you think of the FBI making her a “Most Wanted Terrorist”?

 

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