Thread: Evidence disappears in case of two NYPD officers killed in East Village by 3 members

EXCLUSIVE: Evidence disappears in case of two NYPD officers killed in East Village by 3 members of the Black Liberation Army

BY GRAHAM RAYMAN, THOMAS TRACY
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Saturday, January 23, 2016, 6:06 PM

KEVIN HAGEN/FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

The NYPD held the 40th anniversary memorial service for Rocco Laurie and Gregory Foster.


NYPD investigators will mark the 44th anniversary of the assassination of Police Officers Rocco Laurie and Greg Foster this week, knowing they may never get justice for the two murdered cops.

Nearly all of the evidence recovered from the fatal 1972 East Village ambush committed by black radicals has disappeared, bringing the investigation to a standstill, the Daily News has learned.

“It’s an embarrassment,” said retired NYPD Lt. Francisco Velez, who investigated Laurie and Foster’s murder during the critical 48 hours after the murders. “I’m just amazed they lost it with all the protocols in place. As far as I know, no one was held accountable.”
A Chrysler Imperial was recovered near the bloody scene on Ave. B and E. 11th St. And a bag of items that may have belonged to the suspected killers was among the items that vanished from police custody, Velez said.

On Jan. 27, 1972, three members of the Black Liberation Army blasted away at Laurie and Foster. The officers were shot in the back.

AARONSON, ALAN

The scene where Gregory Foster was murdered.


As the two cops fell, the suspects ran up to them, took the officers’ guns and then shot them again.

Foster, who was black, was shot eight times and died at the scene, leaving behind a wife and two toddlers. Laurie, who was white, was shot seven times and died at Bellevue Hospital five hours later.
The two U.S. Marines were friends and had served together in Vietnam before each put on a patrolman's holster, friends said.

Laurie’s widow Adelaide Laurie, still lives in the Staten Island home that she and the two-year NYPD officer bought before his death.

She was stunned to hear that the evidence had disappeared.

“You’re the first one who brought that to my attention,” Adelaide Laurie, 67, told The News on Saturday. “It concerns me. Everyone involved in his death should be brought to justice.”

HURLEY, FRANK

Adelaide Laurie and Jacqueline Foster grieve over the death of their husbands.


Velez learned that the evidence had disappeared last May when NYPD Manhattan Cold Case detectives reached out to him asking if he had any notes or documents from the investigation.

At the time of the killings, Velez and his partner, retired Detective Nathan Allen, were part of a secret unit in the NYPD’s Intelligence Division, tasked with locating and monitoring radical groups planning to cause violence in the city.

"(Cold Case detectives) called me up and said, 'We know you were part of some team, some special unit, do you have anything in that case?’" Velez remembered. “I kept everything I got. I made copies of everything back then.”

“I just thought it was too important not to make copies,” he said.

Investigators were so eager to get their hands on Velez’s box of notes, witness statements and reports he and Allen filed that they traveled down to Florida to get the items.

AARONSON, ALAN

Police search for suspects in the shooting of Gregory Foster.


Cops began looking into the case anew when Robert Vickers, a suspect long believed to be involved in the killings but never charged, was arrested in Albany for heroin trafficking.

For years, cops tried to get Vickers to admit his involvement, Velez said. Undercover cops buddied up to him and informants plied him with money for heroin, but he never confessed.

Vickers was convicted of selling heroin to undercover cops and sentenced on Jan. 7 to 21 years in prison.
At about the same time, President Obama announced that the U.S. was renewing diplomatic ties with Cuba — giving detectives hope of getting their hands on Joanne Chesimard, one of the leaders of the Black Liberation Army who may have information about the murders.

Chesimard, 68, (l.) has been hiding out in the island nation 94 miles south of Key West since she escaped prison in 1979.

With tensions easing between the two countries, authorities have already begun discussions to have Chesimard brought back to New Jersey, where she took part in the murder of a state trooper in 1973, officials said.

Two other suspects died in shootouts months after the murders of Laurie and Foster, officials said.
An NYPD spokesman admitted that some of the evidence in the slayings disappeared.

“Certain evidence collected at the scene is to date unaccounted for,” the spokesman said.
But this isn’t a recent discovery, the spokesman noted.

“The items have been missing for decades,” he said.

“But this case still has detectives assigned to it and if we find any way to link this case to a suspect, we are going to get it done.”

Department officials speculate that poor storage procedures and documentation as the items were shuffled between jurisdictions investigating the Black Liberation Army — which were responsible for about 10 cop killings in the early 1970s — set the stage for the vanishing act.

ALBANY COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE

HANDOUT

Robert Vickers (l.) was a suspect in the 1970's murder. “It’s an embarrassment,” said retired NYPD Lt. Francisco Velez (r.), who investigated Laurie and Foster’s murder during the critical 48 hours after the murders.

Hundreds of cops flooded the East Village after Foster and Laurie were killed — among them former Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, who was a sergeant at the time. Kelly didn’t return calls seeking comment.
The Black Liberation Army quickly claimed responsibility for the killings.

An offshoot of the Black Panthers, the BLA were particularly violent group, Allen remembered.

When they took aim at cops, they specifically targeted partners from different races, Allen said.

“Their mantra at the time was shooting cops, but it wasn't just cops, it was black and white cops," Allen said. "They were trying to say it was not the individuals that were being targeted, but the uniform. In their mind, whoever wears the uniform was bad and was going to get killed."

The assassinations were considered the worst cop killings in the city's history and were the subject of the 1975 television movie "Foster and Laurie" starring actress Talia Shire of "Rocky" fame. Shire played Adelaide Laurie.

Velez and Allen arrived the next morning and were told that about five men and one woman were hiding inside a bodega near the scene of the crime.

The group was staring outside the door, as if they were waiting for the cops to walk by.

“The owner thought he was going to be held up that night,” Velez remembered. “They kept looking out the window.”

After the cops had fallen, one of the lookouts "did a little dance" the bodega owner told police.
"They could have been the actual trigger people," Allen said. "They were probably waiting for the cops to pass."

One of the suspects left behind a black canvass bag that contained clothes, pistol clips, a book about Malcolm X, materials to make explosives and a newspaper clipping about the murder of Police Officers Waverly Jones and Joseph Piagentini who were shot and killed by the Black Liberation Army in Harlem in 1971.

"You don't have to be a genius to find a bag like this and realize that something was wrong," Allen said.
But Velez and Allen were never allowed to take part in the murder investigation.

They were told to hand over the bag to other investigators and ordered onto another case, Velez recalled.
"Perhaps the powers that be thought that the bag should have been found the night before,” said Allen, who retired in 2002. “Maybe the squad was embarrassed that they had not found it first. You can speculate until the cows came home. It was just disappointing."

Allen heard later that they lifted prints off the bag that was connected to Vickers, although he was never arrested.

The bodega owner also said the woman with the suspects looked like Chesimard.

"She was at the scene," Allen said. "She was knee-deep in those things at the time."
Velez agreed.

“I don't know what she was doing (there), but I sure as hell know she wasn't sightseeing,” he said.

Police sources said Chesimard was heavily involved in the BLA but was not believed to be an actual participant in the Laurie and Foster murders.

Another suspect in the case, Ronald Carter, was killed in a gun battle with police in St. Louis in February, 1972 — less than a month after Laurie and Foster were murdered. Laurie's gun was found in Carter's car.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/...icle-1.2507296

“Their mantra at the time was shooting cops, but it wasn't just cops, it was black and white cops," Allen said. "They were trying to say it was not the individuals that were being targeted, but the uniform. In their mind, whoever wears the uniform was bad and was going to get killed."

Sounds just like Black Lives Matter. They almost have the same initials and how coincidental is that.