Editing Assata Shakur (section)

==Allegations and manhunt==

On April 6, 1971, Shakur was shot in the stomach during a struggle with a guest at the [[Statler Hilton Hotel]] in [[Midtown Manhattan]]. According to police, Shakur knocked on the door of a guest's room, asked "Is there a party going on here?", then displayed a revolver and demanded money.<ref name="NYT_1971-04-07">{{cite news |last=Waggoner|first= Walter H.|date= April 7, 1971 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1971/04/07/archives/woman-shot-in-struggle-with-her-alleged-victim.html |title=Woman Shot in Struggle With Her Alleged Victim|newspaper=The New York Times |page=40|access-date=June 12, 2008}}</ref> In 1987, Shakur confirmed to a journalist that there was a drug connection in this incident but refused to elaborate.<ref name="howell" />

[[File:Mugshot of Assata Shakur, April 1971.jpg|thumb|upright|[[New York City Police Department]] mugshot of Shakur, April 1971]]
She was booked on charges of attempted robbery, assault, reckless endangerment, and possession of a deadly weapon, then released on bail.<ref>{{cite news |newspaper=The New York Times |date=November 23, 1977 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/11/23/archives/metropolitan-briefs-plea-by-joanne-chesimard.html |title=Metropolitan Briefs{{Snd}}Plea by Joanne Chesimard |page=23}}</ref> Shakur is alleged to have said that she was glad that she had been shot; afterward, she was no longer afraid to be shot again.<ref>Seedman, Albert and Peter Hellman. (1975) ''Chief!''. Avon {{ISBN|0-380-00358-9}}. pp. 451–452.</ref>

Following an August 23, 1971, bank robbery in Queens, Shakur was sought for questioning. A photograph of a woman (who was later alleged to be Shakur) wearing thick-rimmed black glasses, with a high hairdo pulled tightly over her head, and pointing a gun, was widely displayed in banks. The [[New York Clearing House Association]] paid for full-page ads displaying material about Shakur.<ref>Williams, 1993, pp. 4–5.</ref> In 1987, when asked in [[Cuba]] about police allegations that the BLA gained funds by conducting bank robberies and theft, Shakur responded, "There were expropriations, there were bank robberies."<ref name="howell" />

[[File:Police officers next to a patrol car hit by a hand grenade thrown from a pursued stolen car during a chase through Queens, New York, December 20, 1971.jpg|thumb|upright|Police stand next to the patrol car that was destroyed by a hand grenade attack on December 20, 1971.]]
On December 21, 1971, Shakur was named by the [[New York City Police Department]] as one of four suspects in a hand grenade attack that destroyed a police car and injured two officers in [[Maspeth, Queens]]. When a witness identified Shakur and Andrew Jackson from FBI photographs, a 13-state alarm was issued three days after the attack.<ref>{{cite news |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date= December 22, 1971 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1971/12/22/archives/2-suspects-named-in-grenade-attack.html |title=2 Suspects Named In Grenade Attack |page= 23}}</ref><ref>Pace, Eric (December 27, 1971). "Police See More Military Arms in Use", ''The New York Times'', p. 10.</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1972/01/01/archives/a-suspect-in-panthers-death-here-is-slain-by-fbi-in-south.html |newspaper=The New York Times |date=January 1, 1972 |title=A Suspect in Panther's Death Here Is Slain by F.B.I. in South |page=6}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Kaufman |first=Michael T. |author-link=Michael T. Kaufman |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1972/02/09/archives/9-in-black-army-are-hunted-in-police-assassinations-small-band-of.html |date=February 9, 1972 |title=9 in Black 'Army' Are Hunted in Police Assassinations |newspaper=The New York Times |page=1}}</ref> Law enforcement officials in [[Atlanta, Georgia]], said that Shakur and Jackson <!-- Give full name of Jackson; was he a suspect too? -->had lived together in Atlanta for several months in the summer of 1971.<ref>{{cite news |last=Kaufman |first=Michael T. |date=January 30, 1973 |title=Police by Hundreds Comb 2 Boroughs for 6 Suspects in Ambush Shootings |newspaper=The New York Times |page=43 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1973/01/30/archives/police-by-hundreds-comb-2-boroughs-for-6-suspects-in-ambush.html}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Kaufman |first=Michael T. |date=May 3, 1973 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1973/05/03/archives/seized-woman-called-blackmilitants-soul-wanted-for-bank-robery.html |title=Seized Woman Called Black Militants' 'Soul' |newspaper=The New York Times |page=47}}</ref>

Shakur was wanted for questioning for wounding a police officer on January 26, 1972, who was attempting to serve a traffic summons in [[Brooklyn]].<ref name="w5">Williams, 1993, p. 5.</ref> After an $89,000 Brooklyn bank robbery on March 1, 1972, a ''[[New York Daily News|Daily News]]'' headline asked: "Was that JoAnne?" Shakur was identified as wanted for questioning after a September 1, 1972, bank robbery in [[the Bronx]].<ref name="w5"/> Based on FBI photographs, Monsignor John Powis alleged that Shakur was involved in an armed robbery at Our Lady of the Presentation Church in [[Brownsville, Brooklyn]], on September 14, 1972.<ref name="Daily News Article">Daly, Michael (December 13, 2006). "The Msgr. & the Militant", ''New York Daily News''.</ref>

In 1972, Shakur became the subject of a nationwide manhunt after the FBI alleged that she led a Black Liberation Army cell that had conducted a "series of cold-blooded murders of New York City police officers".<ref name="churchill308">Churchill and Vander Wall, 2002, p. 308.</ref> The FBI said these included the "execution style murders" of New York City Police Officers Joseph Piagentini and Waverly Jones on May 21, 1971, and NYPD officers Gregory Foster and Rocco Laurie on January 28, 1972.<ref>Churchill and Vander Wall, 2002, p. 409.</ref><ref>[[Seedman, Albert A.]] (1975). ''Chief!''. New York: Avon Books.</ref> Shakur was alleged to have been directly involved with the Foster and Laurie murders, and involved tangentially with the Piagentini and Jones murders.<ref>Jones, Robert A. (May 3, 1973), "2 Die in Shootout; Militant Seized", ''Los Angeles Times'', p. 22.</ref>

Some sources identify Shakur as the ''de facto'' head of the BLA after the arrest of co-founder [[Dhoruba al-Mujahid bin Wahad|Dhoruba Moore]].<ref>Camisa, Harry (2003). ''Inside Out: Fifty Years Behind the Walls of New Jersey's Trenton State Prison''. Windsor Press and Publishing. {{ISBN|0-9726473-0-9}}, p. 197.</ref> Robert Daley, Deputy Commissioner of the New York City Police, for example, described Shakur as "the final wanted fugitive, the soul of the gang, the mother hen who kept them together, kept them moving, kept them shooting".<ref>Williams, 1993, p. 6.</ref> Years later, some police officers argued that her importance in the BLA had been exaggerated by the police. One officer said that they had created a "myth" to "demonize" Shakur because she was "educated", "young and pretty".<ref name="bb" />

As of February 17, 1972, when Shakur was identified as one of four BLA members on a short trip to [[Chattanooga, Tennessee]], she was wanted for questioning (along with Robert Vickers, Twyman Meyers, Samuel Cooper, and Paul Stewart) in relation to police killings, a Queens bank robbery, and the grenade attack on police.<ref>{{cite news |last=Kaufman |first=Michael T. |date=February 17, 1972 |title=Evidence of 'Liberation Army' Said to Rise |newspaper=The New York Times |page=1 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1972/02/17/archives/evidence-of-liberation-army-said-to-rise-by-michael-t-kaufman.html}}</ref><ref>McFadden, Robert D. (February 19, 1972). "Warrant Issued In Police Slaying". ''The New York Times'', p. 1.</ref><ref>Montgomery, Paul L. (February 20, 1972), "3D Suspect Linked To Police Slayings", ''The New York Times'', p. 43.</ref> Shakur was reported as one of six suspects in the ambushing of four policemen—two in [[Jamaica, Queens]], and two in [[Brooklyn]]—on January 28, 1973.<ref>Perlmutter, Emanuel (January 29, 1973), "Extra Duty Tours For Police Set Up After 2D Ambush", ''The New York Times'', p. 61.</ref>

On April 16, 1981, Shakur was allegedly in the back seat of a van connected with a burglary. After the vehicle was pulled over, two men stepped out of the vehicle and opened fire on NYPD officers John Scarangella and Richard Rainey. The two men were charged with the murder of Officer Scarangella and attempted murder of Officer Rainey.<ref>{{Cite news|last1=Stepansky|first1=Joseph|last2=McShane |first2=Larry|last3=Tracy|first3=Thomas|title=Death of cop Richard Rainey could have been due to 1981 shooting, could mean life in jail for shooter Abdul Majid |newspaper=New York Daily News |url=https://www.nydailynews.com/2015/03/05/death-of-cop-richard-rainey-could-have-been-due-to-1981-shooting-could-mean-life-in-jail-for-shooter-abdul-majid/|access-date=February 14, 2022|date=March 5, 2015}}</ref>

By June 1973, an apparatus that would become the FBI's [[Joint Terrorism Task Force]] (JTTF)<ref>According to Churchill and Vander Wall (2002): "What had emerged in the 1980s was a formal amalgamation of FBI COINTELPRO specialists and New York City red squad detectives known as the Joint Terrorist Task Force (JTTF), consolidating the more ''ad hoc'' models of such an apparatus which had materialized in cities like Chicago and Los Angeles during the late 1960s" (p. 309); "JTTF: The Joint Terrorist Task Force, created in the late 1970s as an interlock between the FBI and New York City red squads to engage in COINTELPRO-type activities" (p. xiii).</ref> was issuing nearly daily briefings on Shakur's status and the allegations against her.<ref>Williams, 1993, p. 3.<br/>"It was the spring of 1973 and for the last two years the nationwide dragnet for her capture had intensified each time a young African American identified as a member of the BLA was arrested or wounded or killed. The Joint Terrorist Task Force, made up of the FBI and local police agencies across the country, issued daily bulletins predicting her imminent apprehension each time another bank had been robbed or another cop had been killed. Whenever there was a lull in such occurrences, they leaked information, allegedly classified as 'confidential,' to the media, repeating past accusations and flashing her face across television screens and newspapers with heartbeat regularity, lest the public forget."</ref><ref name="ck16">Cleaver and Katsiaficas, 2001, p. 16.</ref>

According to Cleaver and [[George Katsiaficas]], the FBI and local police "initiated a national search-and-destroy mission for suspected BLA members, collaborating in stakeouts that were the products of intensive political repression and counterintelligence campaigns like [[NEWKILL]]". They "attempted to tie Assata to every suspected action of the BLA involving a woman".<ref>Cleaver and Katsiaficas, 2001, p. 13.</ref> The JTTF would later serve as the "coordinating body in the search for Assata and the renewed campaign to smash the BLA", after her escape from prison.<ref name="ck16"/> After her capture, however, Shakur was not charged with any of the crimes for which she was purportedly the subject of the manhunt.<ref name="churchill308"/><ref name="marable529">[[Manning Marable|Marable, Manning]], and [[Mullings, Leith]]. (2003). ''Let Nobody Turn Us Around: Voices of Resistance, Reform, and Renewal: an African American Anthology''. Rowman & Littlefield. {{ISBN|0-8476-8346-X}}. pp. 529–530.</ref>

Shakur and others<ref name="churchill308"/><ref name="marable529"/><ref>[[Howard Zinn|Zinn, Howard]], and [[Anthony Arnove]] (2004). ''Voices of a People's History of the United States''. [[Seven Stories Press]]. {{ISBN|1-58322-628-1}}, p. 470.</ref> claim that she was targeted by the FBI's [[COINTELPRO]] as a result of her involvement with the [[Black liberation movement|black liberation]] organizations.<ref name="james"/> Specifically, documentary evidence suggests that Shakur was targeted by an investigation named [[CHESROB]], which "attempted to hook former New York Panther Joanne Chesimard (Assata Shakur) to virtually every bank robbery or violent crime involving a black woman on the East Coast".<ref>O'Reilly, Kenneth (1989), ''Racial Matters: The FBI's Secret File on Black America, 1960–1972''. Collier Macmillan. {{ISBN|0-02-923681-9}}.</ref> Although named after Shakur, CHESROB (like its predecessor, NEWKILL) was not limited to Shakur.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Wolf |first1=Paul |title=COINTELPRO: The Untold American Story |url=http://cldc.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/COINTELPRO.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160817132841/http://cldc.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/COINTELPRO.pdf |archive-date=2016-08-17 |url-status=live |date=2001}}</ref>

Years later when she was living in Cuba, Shakur was asked about the BLA's alleged involvement in the killings of police officers. She said, "In reality, armed struggle historically has been used by people to liberate themselves... But the question lies in when do people use armed struggle... There were people [in the BLA] who absolutely took the position that it was just time to resist, and if black people didn't start to fight back against [[Police brutality in the United States|police brutality]] and didn't start to wage armed resistance, we would be annihilated."<ref name="howell" />