She never renounced political violence and terrorism as methods of struggle
Cuba’s Foreign Ministry announced earlier today: “On September 25, 2025, U.S. citizen Joanne Deborah Byron, ‘Assata Shakur,’ passed away in Havana, Cuba, as a result of health ailments and her advanced age.” Her full name was Joanne Deborah Byron Chesimard, and she was a terrorist who escaped justice in 1979 while serving a life term for the murder of a New Jersey State Trooper.
The People’s Forum described her in a social media post as an “Anti-racist activist & freedom fighter.”
What happened in 1973?
Troopers Werner Foerster and James Harper arrested Joanne Chesimard and two of her associates on the New Jersey Turnpike on May 2, 1973, for a motor vehicle infraction. Unbeknownst to the troopers, all three subjects were carrying semi-automatic weapons and had fake identities. Chesimard opened fire from the front passenger seat, injuring Trooper James Harper in the shoulder. Chesimard got out of the car and kept shooting at both troopers until Harper’s return fire wounded her as she fled for cover.
Trooper Harper fatally injured James Coston, the passenger in the back seat, who also fired at the troopers. Trooper Werner Foerster and Clark Squire, the driver of the vehicle, were fighting hand-to-hand. After suffering serious injuries to his right arm and abdomen, Foerster was killed by roadside execution with his own military weapon. The jammed firearm belonging to Chesimard was discovered beside Foerster.
Forty years after the cold-blooded murder of this New Jersey state trooper, the fugitive convicted of the killing, Joanne Chesimard a.k.a. Assata Shakur, was named a Most Wanted Terrorist by the FBI, apparently the first woman ever to make the list, on May 2, 2013.
Reports by NPR and the New York Times have whitewashed what happened on May 2, 1973, but the FBI account which provides both context and an outline of what took place is damning.
Chesimard was an active, prominent member of the Black Panther Party and later the Black Liberation Army, which was described as one of the most violent militant organizations of 1970s. During this same time, the Black Liberation Army claimed responsibility for the murder of several police officers throughout the United States. On May 2, 1973, Chesimard and two accomplices were stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike by Troopers James Harper and Werner Foerster for a motor vehicle violation. All three subjects possessed fictitious identification, and, unbeknownst to the troopers, all three were armed with semi-automatic handguns. From the front passenger seat, Chesimard fired the first shot, wounding Trooper James Harper in the shoulder. As Harper moved for cover, Chesimard exited the car and continued to fire at both troopers until she was wounded by Harper’s return fire.
The rear seat passenger, James Coston, also fired at the troopers and was mortally wounded by Trooper Harper. Trooper Werner Foerster was engaged in a hand-to-hand combat with the vehicle’s driver, Clark Squire. Foerster was severely wounded in his right arm and abdomen and then executed with his own service weapon on the roadside. Chesimard’s jammed handgun was found at Foerster’s side.
The three assailants returned to their car and drove down the road approximately five miles before abandoning the vehicle. Within half an hour, Chesimard was arrested by New Jersey State Troopers. Coston was found to have died near their vehicle, and Squire was found 40 hours later within a mile of their car.
Chesimard and Squire were charged, convicted, and sentenced for the murder of Trooper Werner Foerster, as well as on additional charges. Squire remains in jail. In 1979, Chesimard escaped with help from a coalition of radical, domestic terror groups who took two guards hostage during an armed assault at the facility where she was being lodged. She later fled to Cuba. Since this time, she has been classified as a federal fugitive and the subject of an unlawful flight to avoid confinement warrant.
Domestic terrorist who attacked U.S. Capitol broke Chesimard out of prison in 1979
Some more details on her escape. On November 2, 1979, Joanne Deborah Chesimard was broken out from Clinton Correctional Facility for Women by members of the Revolutionary Armed Task Force under the direction of the Black Liberation Army. Leftists over social media have celebrated the escape of this individual on the anniversary of her escape with the hashtag #AssataShakurLiberationDay.
She is not the only American woman to have links to Cuba and terrorism against the United States. Marilyn Buck engaged in terrorist actions including murdering three police in 1981 and bombing the U.S. Capitol in 1983 to protest the invasion of Grenada. Buck also helped to break Joanne Chesimard out of prison. Buck died of uterine cancer at home at age 62 on August 3, 2010. The Cuban government’s official media refer to her as an “activist and former political prisoner.”
Havana’s ideological defense of terrorism
The Castro dictatorship that harbored her continues to advocate revolutionary violence. The Mini-Manual of the Urban Guerilla by Carlos Marighella which has a chapter on terrorism and in its 1969 introduction states:
The accusation of “violence” or “terrorism” no longer has the negative meaning it used to have. It has acquired new clothing; a new color. It does not divide, it does not discredit; on the contrary, it represents a center of attraction. Today, to be “violent” or a “terrorist” is a quality that ennobles any honorable person, because it is an act worthy of a revolutionary engaged in armed struggle against the shameful military dictatorship and its atrocities.
The Cuban dictatorship published copies of the Mini-Manual in numerous languages and distributed copies worldwide in an effort to encourage urban guerrilla action and terrorism. Many on the left consider Joanne Chesimard a political prisoner because the murder of the police officer was politically motivated. However, she is not a prisoner of conscience because of the acts of violence she committed and continued to espouse until her death.
Who was Werner Foerster, the man Chesimard was found guilty of murdering?
Werner Foerster served two years and 10 months with the New Jersey State Police, and left behind his wife Rosa Charlotte Heider Foerster, and his 3 year-old son Eric. Prior to working for the police he had been a welder. Werner was just 34 years old. Both Werner and Rosa were German immigrants.
Werner Foerster with his son Eric
Today, let us remember Chesimard’s victims, and the sad fact that she evaded justice thanks to the dictatorship in Havana - that also advocated for the terrorism and political violence - leading to blood shed on American soil.
#RememberWernerFoerster
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