COINTELPRO Legacy Lies and Continued Suffering

Omaha Two story: An explanation

The Omaha Two are Edward Poindexter and Mondo we Langa (formerly David Rice). Both men are imprisoned at the Nebraska State Penitentiary in Lincoln where they are serving life sentences for the August 17, 1970 bombing murder of an Omaha police officer.

Both Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa deny any involvement in the death of patrolman Larry Minard, Sr. Minard, a 29 year-old father of five young children, was killed instantly when he handled a booby-trapped suitcase in a vacant house.

Minard had been lured with seven other officers to the vacant house on Ohio Street in Omaha by a false 911 emergency call reporting a woman screaming at the residence. Police immediately suspected the local Black Panther chapter, called the National Committee to Combat Fascism, of the crime and focused their attention on the Panthers.

Poindexter was Chairman of the chapter and Mondo was the Minister of Information. Both men had been targets of COINTELPRO, an illegal counter-intelligence operation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation under J. Edgar Hoover.

Hoover had been personally monitoring the COINTELPRO actions against Black Panther chapters across the United States. In December 1969 Hoover chastised the Special Agent-in-Charge of the Omaha office, Paul Young, for not getting the Panther leadership off the streets. …more