Colin Kaepernick Donated $25,000 to Group Honoring Convicted Cop Killer
Keith Griffith, Daily Mail, September 29, 2017
Colin Kaepernick’s $25,000 donation to a charitable group honoring a convicted cop killer has been revealed.
Kaepernick’s foundation made the donation to Chicago-based Assata’s Daughter’s, named after former Black Liberation Army member Assata Shakur, in April as part of a $1million charitable pledge.
Shakur was convicted of first-degree murder in the 1973 shooting death of New Jersey state trooper Werner Foerster and sentenced to life in prison, but staged a daring jailbreak and now lives as a fugitive in Cuba.
Kaepernick, who is well known for his protests against police during the national anthem as a former San Francisco 49ers quarterback, made the donation as part of his pledge to donate $100,000 a month for 10 months to ‘organizations working in oppressed communities’.
Assata’s Daughters was founded in 2015 to ‘develop and train young people, ages 4-19, in the Black queer feminist tradition and in the spirit of Assata,’ according to the group’s website.
‘We prioritize this work to help the current momentum of the Black Lives Matter movement to carry on into the future,’ the statement continues.
Kaepernick’s foundation specified that $2,500 of the donation would go to Cop Watch, a program that trains volunteers to follow and video police officers.
Another $15,000 is earmarked for ‘teen workshops’.
Shakur, whose legal name is JoAnne Deborah Chesimard, has become a revered figure in some activist circles, despite currently lodging on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.
A former Black Panther who joined a more militant offshoot of the group, Shakur was already wanted on several charges when Trooper Foerster pulled over a car she was in for a broken taillight.
In a shootout, Foerster was killed and Shakur was wounded. Accounts differ as to whether she or another occupant of the car pulled the trigger, but she was successfully convicted of murder under aiding and abetting laws.
Shakur was sentenced to life in prison, but escaped in 1979 when members of the Black Liberation Army visited her behind bars with concealed handguns, took prison officials hostage and commandeered a van.
Through the two are not related, Shakur was godmother to rapper Tupac Shakur, whose stepfather was convicted of aiding her escape from prison.
Word of Kaepernick’s donation, which was first reported by the Washington Times, comes as the protest against police that he launched last year creates a national furor.
President Donald Trump last week blasted National Football League players who, imitating Kaepernick’s protest, kneel during the national anthem.
Players across the league responded in defiance, amplifying the protest and polarizing their fan base, many of whom saw the gesture as an insult to national symbols.
Shakur is believed to be living under political asylum in Cuba. The FBI warns that she should be considered armed and dangerous.