Lonnie McLucas was a

Black Panther Party The Black Panther Party (BPP), originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was a Marxist-Leninist and black power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in October 1966 in Oakland, Califo ...

member in

Bridgeport, Connecticut Bridgeport is the List of municipalities in Connecticut, most populous city and a major port in the U.S. state of Connecticut. With a population of 148,654 in 2020, it is also the List of cities by population in New England, fifth-most populous ...

who was found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder for his involvement in the May 21, 1969 murder of New York City Panther Alex Rackley, in the first of the New Haven Black Panther trials in 1970. Rackley had been held and tortured at New Haven, Connecticut Panther headquarters for two days, under suspicion of being an informant for the FBI's COINTELPRO program. It was established at the trial that afterwards, Warren Kimbro, a resident of the house, McLucas, and national Panther

field marshal Field marshal (or field-marshal, abbreviated as FM) is the most senior military rank, ordinarily senior to the general officer ranks. Usually, it is the highest rank in an army and as such few persons are appointed to it. It is considered as ...

George W. Sams, Jr. George W. Sams Jr. (born c. 1946) was a member of the Black Panther Party convicted in the 1969 murder of New York Panther Alex Rackley, which resulted in the New Haven Black Panther trials of 1970. Sams turned state's evidence in return for ...

had driven Rackley to the marshes of Middlefield, Connecticut, where Kimbro and McLucas had each shot Rackley, on Sams' orders. Sams testified that national Panther leader Bobby Seale, who had been speaking at Yale University 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. 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. They were defined more by their
propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...
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 Salt Lake City, Utah, 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 that falsely claims that Hillary Clinton 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)