4um: New Panthers' war on whites

Some people wear their heart on their sleeve. Minister King Samir Shabazz wears his on his forehead. Right between the eyes.

"If you want to stop the revolution, that's what you got to hit," Shabazz said, pointing to the target tattooed onto his forehead. "I fight my oppressor, and I give him the target."

Shabazz is chairman of the New Black Panther Party's Philadelphia chapter. In black beret atop dreadlocks and a black military uniform, he spends most weekdays near City Hall condemning "crackers" and exhorting black passers-by to rise up against their "slavemasters" - and to give him $2 for the party's semi-annual newspaper.

He is one of the most recognizable black militants in a city known, since the days of MOVE, for its vocal black-extremism community.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which monitors hate activity globally, listed the New Black Panther Party as among the most active and tough-talking of black-separatist groups.

Black Hebrews also have grown increasingly active in recent years, according to the SPLC, especially in Philadelphia, where robed street preachers shout out their beliefs daily near City Hall, the Convention Center, Germantown Avenue and other heavily trafficked areas.

Followers of the movement claim that African-Americans are God's true chosen people because they, not the people traditionally known as Jews, are the real descendants of the biblical Hebrews.

Their views, while often just as extreme, tend to be couched in religious rhetoric about "Edomites" (the descendants of Esau) and such terms that barely slow the stride of most passers-by.

* On whites: "I'm about the total destruction of white people. I'm about the total liberation of black people. I hate white people. I hate my enemy. . . ."

* On Jews: "I don't care how much they try to promote the Jewish Holocaust. The African people have suffered a hell of a cost. . . . "

* On Barack Obama and voting: "He's a puppet on a string. I don't support no black man running for white politics. I will not vote for who will be the next slavemaster." Besides, he added, Obama is "a Negro who doesn't even support reparations for black people in America."

* On white supremacists: "They're sissies; they want to put their feelings on a flier. Well, come into the black neighborhood with that rhetoric and we will show you what a strong awakened black man looks like."

* On the Phillies: "They can kiss my ass. The Phillies are not doing nothing for our 'hoods."

Shabazz, who also considers himself a Black Hebrew, said that his beliefs are rooted in high school, where lessons about slavery led to an "awakening."

He doesn't like to talk about himself. He won't divulge his real name, which he shed years ago because it was a "slave name that still had an umbilical cord on it."

He's 38 and has children, but he won't say how many or provide any more details about his personal life, partly for security reasons but also because this reporter is a "cracker."

He listens to "revolutionary, cracker-killing hip-hop" on his headphones and says things like: "I'll get black to you on that."

And he says that he never worries what response his violent rhetoric might provoke in listeners.

"The only thing the cracker understands is violence," said Shabazz, whose face also bears the tattoos "Freedom," "BPG" (Black Power Gang) and "NBPP" (New Black Panther Party). "The only thing the cracker understands is gunpowder.

From another thread, we're taken back 35 years to the Kill Whitey deeds of the *OLD* Black Panther Party. Same shit; different century:

MOST SERIAL KILLINGS in America take on a life of their own through movies, books and documentaries. The crimes of Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer and The Son of Sam are still well remembered years after they were committed. Yet there is one set of serial killings that has been almost completely forgotten and is rarely mentioned in popular culture.

The Zebra Killings occurred in the San Francisco bay area between 1972 and 1974 and left 71 people dead. They were dubbed the Zebra Killings because of the radio channel used by the police investigating the case (channel Z). The name would take on a more sinister meaning as it became apparent that a group of blacks was systematically stalking and killing whites simply because of the color of their skin.

Zebra (1979) was written by crime writer Clark Howard and remains the definitive book on the murders. Using court records, police reports, witnesses and interviews with the killers themselves, Howard was able to piece together the horrid details of the murders and the unrelenting hatred that inspired the killers.

The majority of the attacks were carried out by five members of a group within Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam called the "Death Angels." Jesse Lee Cooks, J.C. Simon, Larry Green, Manuel Moore and Anthony Harris were part of this group which believed that whites were created 3,000 years ago by a black mad scientist named Yacub who wanted a race of inferiors to rule over. Death Angels believed they could earn "points" towards going to heaven when they died if they killed whites. For them, whites were not human beings but "grafted snakes," "blue-eyed devils" and "white motherf-----s."

Howard describes the vicious and cowardly nature of the attacks, which were made at gunpoint and mostly carried out against women and weak or old men who could not fight back. The first victims in San Francisco were a couple named Richard and Quita Hague. The Hagues were out for an after dinner walk when they were abducted at gunpoint and forced into a van. They were bound and Richard was beaten over the head with a lug wrench and knocked unconscious. Quita was sexually molested and hacked with a machete. While begging for her life she was decapitated. Before leaving, the attackers hacked at the face of the still unconscious man. Miraculously, he survived and was able to give valuable information to the police.

Brutality and a lack of remorse on the part of the criminals mark the attacks. Vincent Wollin was shot in the back and killed on his 69th birthday. Mildred Hosler, an obese, older woman was shot while frantically trying to get away from her younger, faster attacker. Ilario Bertucci, a 135-pound, 81-year-old man, was killed while walking home from work. Marietta DiGirolamo, a 5'1" white woman was shot and killed on her way to a neighborhood bar. In none of these cases did the victims do anything to provoke the murderers. They simply had white skin and were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

There were even some high profile victims. Art Agnos, who would later go on to become mayor of San Francisco, was shot and almost killed by the Death Angels. A member of the California Commission on Aging, Agnos was attending a community meeting in a black neighborhood to discuss building a government funded health clinic in the area. In the same neighborhood the killers were hunting for whites. As the meeting let out, Agnos stopped to talk with two women. One of the killers came up behind him and shot him twice in the back. The bullets ripped apart his lungs, spleen and kidneys. Bystanders called an ambulance and Agnos barely survived.

Lou Calabro was a street patrol sergeant with the San Francisco Police Department at the time and notes that as the murders added up, the SFPD came under increasing pressure to stop the killings:

"In what was known as Operation Zebra, more police were put on the street and security checks were beefed up. Despite the increased police presence, the attacks did not stop. They would often happen when we were on full alert. Some officers suspected a black cop who was a member of `Officers for Justice,' a black police officers association formed to get more promotions for themselves, was tipping off the killers, though this was never proven. We were very frustrated at not being able to stop the killings."

The increased police presence had the effect of angering the black community. Twenty years before the Los Angeles riots and O.J. Simpson trial, blacks were already making statements to the press that showed a stunning lack of remorse for what was happening to their white neighbors. Howard quotes from interviews conducted by the San Francisco Examiner in 1974. Among the responses by blacks were, "I don't feel comfortable with all the police around. But then, I never have felt safe around them." A young housewife stated, "I'm really glad the police are concerned for a change. I just wonder if they would be as much concerned if it were black people getting killed." A black lawyer added, "I commend the police for their beefing up of the force, but I hope it's not just directed at blacks. I hope blacks aren't being harassed."

Still other blacks blamed "unemployment" and "oppression" for the attacks. One man said, "the madness that drives black men to kill innocent people . . . involves a sickness that is as American as apple pie." Black Panther leader Bobby Seale declared, "every black man in the Bay area is in danger of losing his life." The Reverend Cecil Williams claimed that the entire black community was "under a police state that could erupt into a racial war." Howard observes, "although they were responding only to a question about Operation Zebra, it was curious that none of the blacks interviewed took the occasion to condemn the unknown street killers or express sympathy for the victims."

Detectives Gus Coreris and John Fotinos were 13-year veterans of the Homicide Unit and led the investigation which eventually cracked the case. Though they both suspected the Black Muslims, it was hard to get any information on the possible suspects because of a ban on surveillance of religious institutions. Moreover, the closed atmosphere of the NOI made it hard to get spies into the organization.

Coreris and Fotinos were able to link the murders because the killers were using the same weapon for each attack. They were also able to put together information and descriptions from those who survived such as Agnos and Hague. The case was solved when one of the members of the Death Angels came forward with information on the other killers. A total of eight black men with previous records were arrested. All were members of the Death Angels. Though this group committed most of the killings, they do not account for all of the criminals. Some are still free to this day.

The Nation of Islam paid for the legal representation of every one of the killers except Cooks, who immediately admitted to his murders. The Death Angels are still in prison but are up for parole in 2002. The European American Issues Forum (EAIF), headed by Calabro, has pledged to attend the parole hearings and work to insure that the killers spend the rest of their lives in jail. In addition, on October 19 of this year, the EAIF will hold its fifth annual Zebra Victims Memorial Service on the steps of San Francisco City Hall. As with the previous five ceremonies, government and community leaders such as Mayor Willie Brown and the leader of the local NAACP will be invited to attend. They have declined to attend any of the ceremonies so far and are not likely to show up this year. Indeed, the lack of publicity and recognition of these racially motivated hate crimes is consistent with the efforts of government agencies, civil rights groups and the media to portray European-Americans as the only perpetrators of hate crimes.

This same type of black-on-white serial murder occurred in the Miami area in the early 1990's. The racist cult of Yahweh-ben-Yahweh began systematically killing whites in the same manor as the Death Angels. Whites were again described as subhuman "devils" by the cult leaders who urged their black followers to murder random whites. In what was strictly local news, seven whites were ritually slaughtered before the cult was stopped. The leaders of Yahweh-ben-Yahweh are also up for parole in 2002.

It has been almost 30 years since the Zebra Killings and, with the exception of Clark Howard's book, little has been written about the murders. That is why they have disappeared from the public consciousness. At least one filmmaker who tried to get funding for a documentary on the killings has said that producers will not touch it, as it involves the taboo of black-on-white racism. Needless to say, there is no such taboo on discussing white-on-black racism. But a society that memorializes Emmett Till, Medgar Evers and James Byrd should also make room for the victims of the Zebra Killings. Justice demands it.

QUIZ IN '72 COP KILLING

22 AT MOSQUE FACE GRILL

By PHILIP MESSING

April 12, 2007

Thirty-five years after one of the NYPD's most notorious cop killings, detectives plan to reinterview witnesses to the chaotic scene inside the Harlem mosque where Officer Philip Cardillo was slain, sources said.

Major Case Squad detectives are tracking down 16 witnesses who were inside Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam Mosque No. 7 and another half-dozen people who were senior mosque officials when Cardillo was fatally wounded on April 14, 1972.

Cardillo was shot and three other officers were badly beaten after they responded to what turned out to be a phony 911 call of a fellow cop in trouble in the West 116th Street mosque.

Following the sensational shooting, the 16 witnesses were located in the mosque's basement - but all were quickly let go to ease racial tensions.

Only one man, Lewis 17X Dupree, was ever arrested in the case. His first murder trial ended in a hung jury and his second with acquittal.

He can't be tried again because it would be double jeopardy - but cases might still be made against other murder suspects as well as the person who made the phony 911 call.

The Post reported last October that Police Commissioner Ray Kelly launched a probe to reopen the case.

Since then, detectives have reviewed hundreds of pages of documents from the FBI to determine what the bureau knew about the incident at the time, a source said.

The FBI was conducting an unrelated probe near the mosque. But the documents fail to support rumors that FBI agents had a special relation with Dupree and kept it from prosecutors.

James Harmon, the Manhattan assistant district attorney who prosecuted Dupree, was hopeful of a break in the case.

"There was more to this case than the shooter," he said. "We know that somebody called up to create a confrontation here."

"If that was part of a deliberate attempt to kill a police officer, that's clearly a conspiracy."

The shooting and the ensuing police raid on the mosque touched off a controversy that resulted in City Hall apologizing for the NYPD.

Despite the passage of time, the case remains controversial. In February, actor Nicholas Cage bought the film rights to portray a detective who investigated the shooting.

Harmon said, "Just because the case is an old case doesn't mean it can't be solved. Sometimes time works to your advantage."

philip.messing@nypost.com

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