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Lonnie McLucas was a Black Panther Party member in Bridgeport, Connecticut who was found guilty of
conspiracy to commit murder Conspiracy to murder is a statutory offence defined by the intent to commit murder. England and Wales The offence of conspiracy to murder was created in statutory law by section 4 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 and retained as ...
for his involvement in the May 21, 1969 murder of
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Panther
Alex Rackley Alex Rackley (June 2, 1949 – May 20, 1969) was an American activist who was a member of the New York chapter of the Black Panther Party (BPP) in the late-1960s. In May 1969, Rackley was suspected by other Panthers of being a police informant. He ...
, in the first of the
New Haven Black Panther trials In 1969-1971 there was a series of criminal prosecutions in New Haven, Connecticut, against various members and associates of the Black Panther Party. The charges ranged from criminal conspiracy to first-degree murder. All charges stemmed from t ...
in 1970. Rackley had been held and tortured at
New Haven, Connecticut New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134 ...
Panther headquarters for two days, under suspicion of being an informant for the
FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, t ...
's
COINTELPRO COINTELPRO (syllabic abbreviation derived from Counterintelligence, Counter Intelligence Program; 1956–1971) was a series of Covert operation, covert and illegal projects actively conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation ( ...
program. It was established at the trial that afterwards, Warren Kimbro, a resident of the house, McLucas, and national Panther field marshal George W. Sams, Jr. had driven Rackley to the marshes of
Middlefield, Connecticut Middlefield is a town in Middlesex County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 4,217 at the 2020 census. The town includes the village of Rockfall in the northeast section. History Middlefield, in Middlesex County, is so named becau ...
, where Kimbro and McLucas had each shot Rackley, on Sams' orders. Sams testified that national Panther leader
Bobby Seale Robert George Seale (born October 22, 1936) is an American political activist and author. Seale is widely known for co-founding the Black Panther Party with fellow activist Huey P. Newton. Founded as the "Black Panther Party for Self-Defense", ...
, who had been speaking at
Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...
the day previous to the murder, had personally ordered the killing, but there was no corroborating evidence, and Seale was acquitted by a
hung jury A hung jury, also called a deadlocked jury, is a judicial jury that cannot agree upon a verdict after extended deliberation and is unable to reach the required unanimity or supermajority. Hung jury usually results in the case being tried again. T ...
. According to Michael Koskoff, one of the lawyers for McLucas,
Many of the people in the New Haven chapter of the Panthers were
middle class The middle class refers to a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, often defined by occupation, income, education, or social status. The term has historically been associated with modernity, capitalism and political debate. Com ...
. They were defined more by their propaganda than by their own personalities. And they were young and impressionable. Lonnie, for example, was so eager to please and so easy to manipulate. If you told him to jump off a bridge, he'd do it.
McLucas was arrested a month after the murder in
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, and brought back to New Haven for trial. He pleaded not guilty to a charge of conspiracy to commit murder, but was found guilty and received a sentence of twelve to fifteen years, but served only a small part of that sentence. The case later became part of an
urban legend An urban legend (sometimes contemporary legend, modern legend, urban myth, or urban tale) is a genre of folklore comprising stories or fallacious claims circulated as true, especially as having happened to a "friend of a friend" or a family m ...
that falsely claims that
Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, and former lawyer who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States sen ...
defended Bobby Seale and helped him get acquitted. This was not true, as Clinton was a student at the time and not a lawyer.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McLucas, Lonnie People from Bridgeport, Connecticut Members of the Black Panther Party Living people Year of birth missing (living people)