I’ve mentioned before that my former partner, who died in his early forties following a heart attack, was Cuban by birth and came to this country when he was five. After a stint in the Marines, Candido entered police work, where he excelled. He was funny, smart and one of the best cops I’ve ever known. We spent a lot of time in an unmarked car — traveling, on surveillance, looking for people, places and things — and we talked a lot about Cuba. By coincidence, his family originally settled in New Jersey when they arrived, so I’ve always had more than a passing interest in the case of Joanne Chesimard, convicted cop killer, prison escapee and fugitive from justice.
The man Chesimard murdered, New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster, was gunned down following a traffic stop on the New Jersey Turnpike on May 2, 1973, when Chesimard and two others were in a car stopped by Foerster and another trooper, James Harper. Both men were shot, but Chesimard wasn’t satisfied to simply make an escape. She picked up Foerster’s own service weapon and shot him twice in the head. The three killers were apprehended and tried. Chesimard, who espoused radicalism, drew a sentence of life plus 26 to 33 years. That should have meant she would never again breathe free air. But in 1979, she escaped from prison with the help of four others, making her way to Cuba in 1986. She’s lived there ever since under the name of Assata Shakur.
Cuba has granted Chesimard asylum and refused US demands to extradite her. She’s a convicted cop killer and should be returned to the US to finish serving out her term.
The facts
- Chesimard stood trial and was convicted. Chesimard escaped from prison. Chesimard fled to a communist regime with which the US had no diplomatic relations and has managed to make a life there for the past 30 years. That’s three decades of living as a free woman when she should be behind bars.
- Mr. Obama continues to court the Cuban government (despite Fidel Castro’s blistering editorial rejection of the president’s overtures and Cuba’s demands for money). He should remember that the Cuban government has given refuge to a cop killer — one that has a two-million dollar bounty on her head — and try to represent ALL American interests.
- Chesimard isn’t the only fugitive in Cuba. Among those protected and welcomed by the Cuban government are domestic terrorists, a man believed to have murdered another state trooper, plane hijackers and an individual accused of killing eight people. Joanne Chesimard is not only the most famous of the bunch, but she’s also the one that sticks the most in the craw of law enforcement officers across the country.
LEOs put their lives on the line on a daily basis. By not demanding Chesimard’s return, the president of this nation has telegraphed that it’s not that important an issue to his administration. That’s a kick in the teeth to the hundreds of thousands of active-duty and retired law enforcement officers in this country. Judging by Fidel Castro’s reaction to Obama, the subject of Chesimard’s return won’t be coming up any time soon.
Chesimard should return to the US in handcuffs and spend the remainder of her life on US soil, living like the convicted murderer she is. Nothing else is acceptable and the federal government should realize how deeply offensive not addressing this issue is to the US LEO community.
