Malcolm X’s family files lawsuit against several law enforcement agencies
By Herb Boyd, from New York Amsterdam News
Attorney Ben Crump (at podium) with Malcolm X’s daughter, Dr. Ilyasah Shabazz, and Khaleel Sultarn Sayyed at a press conference on February 21. Credit: Ariama C. Long photo
In his relentless drive to bring justice and possibly obtain reparations in the assassination of Malcolm X (El Hajj Malik El-Shabazz), attorney Benjamin Crump and his team filed a lawsuit against the Department of Justice, the FBI, CIA, and the NYPD on behalf of the family of Malcolm X.
Surrounded by several attorneys and Dr. Ilyasah Shabazz at the Shabazz Center Friday morning, Crump continued in his determination to show how the government agencies conspired to fraudulently conceal information about the assassination, thereby reducing protection of the famed human rights leader and leaving him vulnerable to attacks and his assassination on Feb. 21, 1965.
Crump, as he has done in previous press conferences, claimed the finding of new evidence “of people never having spoken before, and about what they witnessed during those turbulent times in the 1960s.”
He contended that the assassination and the cover-up, “spanned decades, blocking the Shabazz family’s access to the truth and their right to pursue justice. We are making history by standing here to confront those wrongs and seeking accountability in the courts.” As he did back in February, Crump again cited as his key witness to the shooting, Mustafa Hassan (Richard Melvin Jones) who was working security for OAAU (Organization of Afro-American Unity). He said he saw a man running down the aisle toward the exit of the Audubon Ballroom after the shooting. “I made the decision to attempt to stop the person because he had a gun in his hand and was heading directly at me.”
FILE – Malcolm X’s daughters Malikah Shabazz, left, Attallah Shabazz, second from left, Malaak Shabazz, third from left, and Gamilah Shabazz, talk to the media outside the Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx borough of New York, following the death of their mother, Betty Shabazz, June 23, 1997. ( Credit: AP Photo/Ron Frehm, File)
He was not present at Friday’s press conference but the case was broadened by the appearance of the attorney for the slain Fred Hampton, the Black Panther Party leader gunned down in Chicago on December 4, 1969. Hampton’s lawyer Flint Taylor of People’s Law Firm in Chicago said the killing of Malcolm was more than a civil rights but was also a human rights matter. “We now know that J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI and the Cointelpro organization were all involved in the death of Malcolm and Fred Hampton, ” he said. They targeted Malcolm, Martin Luther King, Jr., Stokely Carmichael and the Black Panther Party. That’s some of the stuff we are looking for in this case,” Taylor said.
Dr. Shabazz recounted the night when their home was firebombed before Malcolm was assassinated. “We are not only seeking justice for my father but for all of those who have wrongfully murdered, so I am grateful to be standing here for me and my five sisters,” she said.
After a couple of questions, Crump closed out the press conference, reading from the lawsuit. For years now it is widely known that there were undercover officers in the ballroom who did nothing to intervene in the shooting. Moreover, the lawsuit charges that there has been a coordinated attempt to conceal evidence and files to show how widespread the conspiracy was in the murder of Malcolm X.
The filing of this lawsuit is just another step in getting to the truth of what happened and the extent to which government agencies either helped facilitate Malcolm’s murder or did nothing to prevent it. Another half century or more may go by before the government releases the files related to this crime.