He was picked up by the FBI in Salt Lake City, where he made a statement to an FBI agent. After extensive questioning he later made a second statement, in the form of answers to questions, to the New Haven policeman who returned with him from Salt Lake City. In his testimony at the trial McLucas agreed that these statements were correct except for a few details. He admitted tying Rackley in the basement, boiling the water, and firing the shot into Rackley's dead body. But he stressed the fact that the statements omitted one thing which the officials "didn't seem interested in" -that George Sams, during that three-day period in May, constantly carriedand waved threateningly his .45.
The Prosecution stressed the fact that during the three days after the torture session and before Alex Rackley was murdered, Lonnie McLucas had numerous opportunities to "do something" about Alex Rackley's situation. State's Attorney Markle considered McLucas' failure to do something, along with the three actions which he admitted performing, proof of his complicity in a plot to murder Rackley; tree likelihood of his explanation depends on the context in which one sees the Black Panther Party, Lonnie McLucas and George Sams.
Alex Rackley was supposedly murdered for being a police informer. There is no other evidence of Black Panthers ever harming a supposed informer. It is recorded Panther policy that when an informer is discovered he is expelled from the Party and his picture is published in the Party newspaper. Lonnie McLucas knew this. He testified that the morning of the torture session, when he boiled water at Sams' order, he hoped that Sams intended the boiling water as an empty threat and was shocked to see it actually used. My surmise is that during the following three days, while busy with other tasks such as organizing the security for Bobby Seale's speech and helping in the search for a lost child, Lonnie McLucas kept hoping that Panther policy would be followed.
He believed Sams was a national officer of the Party; he knew Sams had a gun and was capable of dealing brutally with those who disagreed with him. Until the moment Rackley was shot, or shortly before that moment, I am sure Lonnie McLucas continued to believe, and to want to believe, that Rackley would be released. I would guess that Warren Kimbro acted under the same suppositions.
There were not many alternatives open to Lonnie McLucas that I can imagine. He could not have called the police; police tend to enter Panther offices shooting. He could not have left New Haven himself without abandoning his political life and the woman he loved. He could not have acquired a gun and challenged Sams without endangering himself and whoever else was present. He could perhaps have challenged Sams anyway, or contacted national headquarters and reported Sam's actions, asking for help and advice. That he did not do so, that he thought of no other alternative for action, probably shows a failure on his part. I do not believe that he is responsible to the State of Connecticut for this failure. No more than a draftee who can think of no other alternative except joining the United States Army and fighting in Vietnam is responsible to the United States government for that possible failure of imagination, judgment, or resources.
III. Conclusions?
As I write (almost a year and a half after the murder) there are seven Panthers still in jail awaiting trial, with scanty evidence against them.
Landon Williams and Rory Hithe are in Colorado fighting extradition. According to Sams' version of the story. they also ordered him to arrange Rackley's murder. Until the issue of extradition is resolved we will not learn their version of the truth.
Three Panther women. Rose Smith, Peggy Hudgins and Ericka Huggins, are in jail in Connecticut. There seems to be no evidence against Rose Smith and Peggy Hudgins (who suffers severely from arthritis and who still has not been allowed to see a doctor of her own choice) except their occasional presence in the Kimbro apartment and their knowledge that Rackley had been maltreated. These facts obviously do not necessarily mean complicity in a plot to murder Rackley. Ericka Hudgins' voice is on the tape recording Sams ordered made of the torture session; this does not seem to be proof of complicity, either.
George Edwards is the other New Haven Panther still jailed. The extent of Edwards' participation, according to all testimony so far, is one visit to the Kimbro apartment at the conclusion of the torture session. George Edward's wife attended court almost every day. A large, placid woman, she waited in line with other spectators and matter-of-factly told stories about her 7-month-old baby, born while her husband was in jail, whomhe has been able to see only a few times. She mentioned that she had been told the state has to find something against Edwards after holding him for over a year; otherwise he could sue for illegal detention.
Another Panther woman, Frances Carter, is presently free. After serving several months in jail, Frances Carter was ordered freed on bail by a Federal court which declared there was not enough evidence against her to justify her detention. When she refused to testify, she was again jailed, for contempt of court. After having served a total time of five and a half months, she was granted a satisfactory immunity, agreed to testify, and was freed.
And Bobby Seale, of course, is still in jail awaiting trial.
Where do we go from here?
The official statement of the Panther Party concerning Alex Rackley's murder, released at a press conference held by Huey P. Newton in New Haven, says that the members of the New haven chapter who allowed this incident to occur were young and immature, and that the Party must stand criticized for allowing a man like George Sams to ever become a member. I agree.
The Black Panther Party is an organization which exists in opposition to the government of the United States. It exists because the government of the United States offers not justice but systematic oppression to the community the Panther Party attempts to serve. It is an incidental but illuminating fact that the routine of jury selection in New Haven County tends to automatically disallow the poor (those who would receive no pay while serving as jury members) and the young (students are considered unacceptable).
The Panther Party must be strongly criticized for its failures that allowed the murder of Alex Rackley to occur. The State of Connecticut must be strongly criticized for its administration of legal matters following the murder, for organizing trials and testimony not in an attempt to serve justice but to damage the Panther Party as severely as possible. And the government of the United States must be opposed for creating and maintaining a situation in which resistance such as the Panthers practice is one of the only ways the Panthers could survive with some degree of control over their own lives.
But I'm not outraged or surprised anymore-and I suspect neither are you-to discover further evidence of the need for opposition to that government. I am more outraged and surprised that Panthers killed a man and made themselves and their Party even more vulnerable to the state with no good reason. I may feel that outrage because in so far as the Panther Party is the vanguard of our revolution the pressures they face are pressures we will eventually face: an opposition force with infinitely greater material resources, that can tap our phones, break down our doors, suborn our comrades, and shoot us down with the law on its side; the constant threat of pain and death. And mistakes the Panthers make, under that pressure, are mistakes we may make someday.