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BLACK MEN!--GERONIMO PRATT DIED AT PEACE IN AFRICA FINALLY LIVING IN BLACK FREEDOM IN TANZANIA!-FROM LA TIMES ATI NYTIMES NEWSPAPERS
from latimes.com
Elmer 'Geronimo' Pratt, a former Black Panther leader, dies in Tanzania
June 2, 2011 | 7:36
pm
Elmer
G. "Geronimo" Pratt, a former Los Angeles Black Panther Party leader
who spent 27 years in prison for a murder he says he did not commit and
whose case became a symbol of racial injustice during the turbulent
1960s, has died. He was 63.
Pratt died at his home in a small
village in Tanzania, where he had been living with his wife and child,
according to Stuart Hanlon, a San Francisco attorney who helped overturn
Pratt's murder conviction. Hanlon said he was informed of the death by
Pratt's sister.
Pratt's case became a cause celebre for elected
officials, Amnesty International, clergy and celebrities who believed he
was framed by the government because he was African American and a
member of the Black Panthers.
"Geronimo was a powerful leader," Hanlon told The Times. "For that reason he was targeted."
Pratt was
convicted in 1972 and sentenced to life in prison for the 1968 fatal
shooting of Caroline Olsen and the serious wounding of her husband,
Kenneth, in a robbery that netted $18. The case was overturned in 1997
by an Orange County Superior Court judge who ruled that prosecutors at
Pratt's murder trial had concealed evidence that could have led to his
acquittal.
Elmer
G. Pratt, a Black Panther leader who was imprisoned for 27 years for
murder and whose marathon fight to prove he had been framed attracted
support from civil rights groups and led to the overturning of his
conviction, died on Thursday in a village in Tanzania, where he was
living. He was 63.
Mr.
Pratt, who was widely known by his Panther name, Geronimo ji-Jaga, had
high blood pressure and other ailments, his longtime lawyer, Stuart
Hanlon, said. Mr. Hanlon said he did not know the exact cause of death.
To
his supporters — among them Amnesty International, the N.A.A.C.P. and
the American Civil Liberties Union — Mr. Pratt came to symbolize a
politically motivated attack on the Black Panther Party for Self Defense
and other radical groups. But from the start, the grisly facts of the
murder of a 27-year-old teacher dominated discussions of the case,
including those of the parole board that denied parole to Mr. Pratt 16
times.
The
teacher, Caroline Olsen, and her husband, Kenneth, were accosted by two
young black men with guns on Dec. 18, 1968, in Santa Monica, Calif.
They took $18 from Mrs. Olsen’s purse. “This ain’t enough,” one said,
according to the police, and ordered the couple to “lie down and pray.”
Photo
Elmer Pratt, known as Geronimo, in court in California in 1997.Credit
Haywood Galbreath/Associated Press
Shots were fired, hitting Mr. Olsen five times and his wife twice. Mrs. Olsen died 11 days later. Mr. Pratt was arrested.
The
case against Mr. Pratt included evidence that both the pistol used as
the murder weapon and the red-and-white GTO convertible used as the
getaway car belonged to him. An informant wrote an eight-page letter
asserting Mr. Pratt had bragged to him that he committed the murder.
Fellow
Panthers did not support Mr. Pratt’s alibi that he was in Oakland, more
than 300 miles away, at the time of the killing. A witness identified
Mr. Pratt as one of two men who tried to rob a store shortly before the
murder. And Mr. Olsen identified Mr. Pratt as the assailant.
Mr. Pratt was convicted of first-degree murder on July 28, 1972, and sentenced to life imprisonment a month later.
Information
gradually surfaced that the jury had not known about when it reached
its verdict. Mr. Olsen had identified someone else before he identified
Mr. Pratt. Documents showed that the informant who said that Mr. Pratt
had confessed to him had lied about himself. Wiretap evidence that might
have supported Mr. Pratt’s alibi mysteriously vanished from F.B.I.
files.
A
public debate erupted over the extent to which Mr. Pratt and the Black
Panthers had been singled out by law enforcement agencies. J. Edgar
Hoover, director of the F.B.I., called the Panthers a threat to national
security, and an F.B.I. report spoke of “neutralizing” Mr. Pratt.
Others saw the Panthers and their leaders as a voice of black
empowerment and as a service group that provided free breakfasts to the
poor.
In
an interview with The New York Times in 1997, John Mack, president of
the Los Angeles Urban League, said, “The Geronimo Pratt case is one of
the most compelling and painful examples of a political assassination on
an African-American activist.”
As
Mr. Pratt languished in solitary confinement, his supporters shed light
on his case by hanging a banner from the Statue of Liberty. His
lawyers, led by Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. — famed for defending O.J.
Simpson — assembled ammunition for an appeal.
In 1997 a California Superior Court judge, Everett W. Dickey, vacated Mr. Pratt’s conviction
on the grounds that the government informant, Julius C. Butler, had
lied about being one. Moreover, it was learned that the Los Angeles
Police Department, the F.B.I. and prosecutors had not shared with the
defense their knowledge that Mr. Butler was an informant.
A
juror, Jeanne Rook Hamilton, told The Times: “If we had known about
Butler’s background, there’s no way Pratt would have been convicted.”
California
lost its appeal to nullify Judge Dickey’s decision in 1999, and the Los
Angeles County district attorney ruled out a new trial. In 2000, Mr.
Pratt received $4.5 million from the federal and local governments as
settlement in a wrongful-imprisonment suit.
Mr.
Pratt said he would have preferred to press the matter in a trial so he
could air the government’s “evil scheme,” but decided to accept his
lawyers’ advice and take the settlement.
Elmer
Gerard Pratt, the name he rejected at 20 as that of a “dirty dog” slave
master, was born on Sept. 13, 1947, in Morgan City, La. His father was
in the scrap-metal business. Elmer liked to shoot rabbits and sell them.
He was a high school quarterback, then joined the Army, serving two
tours in Vietnam, earning two Purple Hearts and emerging a sergeant.
Mr.
Pratt attended the University of California, Los Angeles, where he
studied political science and joined the Panthers. He rose to lead the
Los Angeles branch. He moved to Tanzania because he had friends there
and had always wanted to live in Africa.
He is survived by a daughter, three sons, two sisters and two brothers. He was godfather to the slain rapper Tupac Shakur.
A version of this article appears in print on June 4, 2011, on page A19 of the New York edition with the headline: Elmer G. Pratt, 63, Jailed Panther Leader. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe
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