The Fountain Valley massacre was a

mass shooting There is a lack of consensus on how to define a mass shooting. Most terms define a minimum of three or four victims of gun violence (not including the shooter or in an inner city) in a short period of time, although an Australian study from 200 ...

that occurred on the afternoon of 6 September 1972 at the Fountain Valley Golf Course in

St. Croix Saint Croix; nl, Sint-Kruis; french: link=no, Sainte-Croix; Danish and no, Sankt Croix, Taino: ''Ay Ay'' ( ) is an island in the Caribbean Sea, and a county and constituent district of the United States Virgin Islands (USVI), an unincor ...

United States Virgin Islands The United States Virgin Islands,. Also called the ''American Virgin Islands'' and the ''U.S. Virgin Islands''. officially the Virgin Islands of the United States, are a group of Caribbean islands and an unincorporated and organized territory ...

. The incident left eight resort employees and tourists dead. Another eight were either shot at or wounded.

The massacre

The perpetrators were five Virgin Islanders, Ishmael LaBeet, Beaumont Gereau, Meral Smith, Warren Ballentine, and Raphael Joseph. Authorities initially believed the five had committed the execution-style shootings in the course of a robbery gone bad, but later developments suggested that the killing may have been pre-planned by at least one of the perpetrators. Joseph and Ballentine testified at trial that they had only expected to be committing a robbery, but that things got out of hand because LaBeet was adamant that they also make "a political statement"; LaBeet told them "he was angry about foreigners coming in to take our money and leaving us with nothing." According to Joseph, during the commission of the robbery LaBeet suddenly began shooting people, while yelling epithets like, "I hate you white motherfuckers!"

Trial and convictions

All five defendants were convicted after a jury trial in the District Court of the Virgin Islands, a federal territorial court, on multiple charges of murder, assault, and robbery under Virgin Islands law. Each was sentenced to eight consecutive life terms. Led by

civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...

activist lawyers

William Kunstler William Moses Kunstler (July 7, 1919 – September 4, 1995) was an American lawyer and civil rights activist, known for defending the Chicago Seven. Kunstler was an active member of the National Lawyers Guild, a board member of the American Civil ...

and

Chauncey Eskridge Chauncey Eskridge (November 11, 1917 – January 18, 1988) was an American attorney and judge. He provided legal counseling for activist Martin Luther King Jr., one of the leaders of the civil rights movement. He served on the legal team of worl ...

, the defense at trial argued in part that the accused were politically motivated victims of systematic race-based civil rights deprivation; all of the defendants were

Afro-Caribbean Afro-Caribbean people or African Caribbean are Caribbean people who trace their full or partial ancestry to Sub-Saharan Africa. The majority of the modern African-Caribbeans descend from Africans taken as slaves to colonial Caribbean via the ...

, while seven of the eight victims were white. The convictions were affirmed in 1974 by the

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (in case citations, 3d Cir.) is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts for the following districts: * District of Delaware * District of New Jersey * Ea ...

, which subsequently also upheld the denial of motions for a new trial. LaBeet has since denied any involvement in the 1972 shooting.

Aftermath

The public's perception of a racial motivation for the killings and fear of further violence led to a steep decline in tourism to St. Croix, from which the island's tourism industry did not begin to recover until decades later. American musician Sherman Kelly has claimed he was assaulted by some of the same perpetrators three years prior to the 1972 Fountain Valley shooting. While recovering from the assault, Kelly wrote the song "

Dancing in the Moonlight "Dancing in the Moonlight" is a song written by Sherman Kelly, originally recorded in 1970 by Kelly's band Boffalongo, and then a hit single by King Harvest in 1972, reaching number 5 in Canada and number 13 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100. In 200 ...

" to imagine "an alternate reality, the dream of a peaceful and joyful celebration of life." The song, released in 1970, later became a hit for

King Harvest King Harvest was a 1970s French-American rock band who formed initially in Ithaca, New York, but broke up and reformed in Paris where they began recording their first songs. They are known for their 1972 hit single "Dancing in the Moonlight" ...

and again for

Toploader Toploader are an English rock band from Eastbourne, East Sussex, formed in 1997, with over two million album sales and several top 20 hits both home and abroad. Their debut album, ''Onka's Big Moka'', sold over one million units and peaked in ...

. On 31 December 1984, the group's leader, Ishmael LaBeet (then calling himself Ismail Muslim Ali), hijacked American Airlines Flight 626 while in United States federal custody on a transfer to a new place of detention, using a handgun stashed in a lavatory. He forced the pilot to land the plane in

Havana, Cuba Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.

, where LaBeet escaped. He was never recaptured by U.S. authorities. With the thawing of Cuban–American relations in 2015, LaBeet was confirmed to be living at large in Cuba following an indeterminate amount of time spent in a Cuban prison. LaBeet was the subject of the 2016 documentary film ''

The Skyjacker's Tale ''The Skyjacker's Tale'' is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Jamie Kastner and released in 2016. The film centres on Ishmael Muslim Ali (formerly Ishmael LaBeet), who was convicted of murder in the Fountain Valley massacre of 1972 and imp ...

''. Joseph received a pardon from the Governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands in 1994 after 22 years' imprisonment, but died four years later of a drug overdose. The other three served 29 years in federal prisons before being returned to Virgin Islands custody, and then retransferred to private prisons in the United States.

References

{{Reflist, refs= {{cite news, last1=Day, first1=Jim, title=30 YEARS AFTER MASSACRE, LABEET'S FATE UNKNOWN, url=http://stcroixsource.com/content/news/local-news/2002/09/05/30-years-after-massacre-labeets-fate-unknown, accessdate=26 November 2014, work=St. Croix Source, date=6 September 2002, location=St. Croix, United States Virgin Islands {{cite news, last1=Greaux, Jr., first1=Jean P., title=FOUNTAIN VALLEY PUT V.I. IN UNWANTED SPOTLIGHT, url=http://stcroixsource.com/content/news/local-news/2002/09/05/fountain-valley-put-vi-unwanted-spotlight-1, accessdate=26 November 2014, work=St. Croix Source, date=6 September 2002, location=St, Croix, United States Virgin Islands {{cite news, last1=Kerr, first1=Peter, title=NEW YORK-BOUND FLIGHT HIJACKED TO CUBA BY CONVICTED MURDERER, url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/01/01/us/new-york-bound-flight-hijacked-to-cuba-by-convicted-murderer.html, accessdate=26 November 2014, work=

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

, date=1 January 1985, location=New York, New York {{cite news, last1=Pennington, first1=Shaun, title=Cuban Diary: Fountain Valley Killer LaBeet Alive and Well in Cuba, url=http://stcroixsource.com/content/news/local-news/2015/04/23/cuban-diary-fountain-valley-killer-labeet-alive-and-well-cuba, accessdate=24 April 2015, work= St. Croix Source, date=23 April 2015, location=St. Croix, United States Virgin Islands {{cite book , last1=Joseph , first1=Michael A. , title=Fountain Valley 1972 , date=2014 , publisher=Strategic Book Publishing & Rights , isbn = 9781628579840 Attacks on tourists 1972 murders in the United States 1972 in the United States Virgin Islands Crimes in the United States Virgin Islands Events in the United States Virgin Islands Mass murder in 1972 Mass murder in insular areas of the United States Mass murder in the United States Massacres in 1972 Racially motivated violence against European Americans Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands September 1972 events in North America