Editing Assata Shakur (section)

===Kidnapping trial===
Shakur was indicted on May 30, 1974, on the charge of having robbed a Brooklyn bar and kidnapping bartender James E. Freeman for ransom.<ref name="2case"/> Shakur and co-defendant Ronald Myers were accused of entering the bar with pistols and shotguns, taking $50 from the register, kidnapping the bartender, leaving a note demanding a $20,000 ransom from the bar owner, and fleeing in a rented truck.<ref name="baracquit"/> Freeman was said to have later escaped unhurt.<ref name="baracquit"/> The text of Shakur's opening statement in the trial is reproduced in her autobiography.<ref>Christol, 2001, p. 140. Her other texts in the book are a July 4, 1973, speech ("To My People"), which was broadcast on many radio stations, an exposition on the theory of "armed revolutionary struggle", and many poems.</ref> Shakur and co-defendant Ronald Myers were acquitted on December 19, 1975, after seven hours of jury deliberation, ending a three-month trial in front of Judge William Thompson.<ref name="baracquit">''The New York Times'' (December 20, 1975). "[https://www.nytimes.com/1975/12/20/archives/acquittal-is-won-by-miss-chesimard.html Acquittal Is Won By Miss Chesimard"], p. 54.</ref>