Assata Olugbala Shakur ( born July 16, 1947, as JoAnne Deborah Byron, married name Chesimard ) is an African-American activist and escaped convict who was a member of the Black Panther Party ( BPP ) and Black Liberation Army ( BLA ).

Between 1971 and 1973, Shakur was accused of several crimes and made the subject of a multi-state manhunt.

In May 1973 Shakur was involved in a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike, during which New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster and BLA member Zayd Malik Shakur were killed and Shakur and Trooper James Harper were wounded.

Between 1973 and 1977, Shakur was indicted in relation to six other alleged criminal incidents — charged with murder, attempted murder, armed robbery, bank robbery, and kidnapping — resulting in three acquittals and three dismissals.

Shakur was then incarcerated in several prisons, where her treatment drew criticism from some human rights groups.

Shakur was born in Jamaica, Queens, New York City, on July 16, 1947, where she lived for three years with her parents and grandparents, Lula and Frank Hill.

Shakur was arrested for the first time in 1967 with 100 other BMCC students, on charges of trespassing.

That same year she changed her name to Assata Shakur and joined the Black Liberation Army ( BLA ), " a politico-military organization, whose primary objective ( was ) to fight for the independence and self-determination of Afrikan people in the United States.

On April 6, 1971, Shakur was shot in the stomach during a struggle with a guest at the Statler Hilton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan and was arrested on a string of charges.

Shakur then allegedly displayed a revolver and a struggle ensued, during which she was shot.

Shakur is alleged to have said that she was glad that she had been shot since now that she had experienced what it was like she was no longer afraid to be shot again.

Following an August 23, 1971, bank robbery in Queens, Shakur was sought for questioning, and a photograph of a woman ( who was later alleged to be Shakur ) with thick rimmed black glasses, a high hairdo pulled tightly over her head, and a steadily pointed gun became ubiquitous in banks and full page print ads paid for by the New York Clearing House Association.

On December 21, 1971, Shakur was named as one of four suspects by New York City police in a hand grenade attack that destroyed a police car and slightly injured two patrolmen in Maspeth, Queens ; a 13-state alarm was issued three days after the attack when a witness identified Shakur and Andrew Jackson from FBI photographs.

Shakur was one of those wanted for questioning for wounding a police officer attempting to serve a traffic summons in Brooklyn on January 26, 1972.

After her capture, however, Shakur was not charged with any of the crimes that had made her the subject of the manhunt.

Kunstler joined the defense staff of Assata Shakur in 1977, charged in New Jersey with a variety of felonies in connection with a 1973 shootout with New Jersey State Troopers.

* Jeral Wayne Williams ( aka Mutulu Shakur ), charged in part with conspiracy in 1979 BLA prison break of Chesimard ( Assata Shakur ), FBI's top ten Fugitive # 380.

Marrow's hip hop albums helped shape the gangsta rap style, with music journalist tracing works of artists such as Tupac Shakur, Notorious B. I. G., Eminem and N. W. A to " 6 in the Mornin '".

Shakur was alleged to have been directly involved with the Foster and Laurie murders, and involved with the Piagentini and Jones murders.

As of February 17, 1972, when Shakur was identified as one of four BLA members on a short trip to Chattanooga, Tennessee, Shakur was wanted for questioning ( along with Robert Vickers, Twyman Meyers, Samuel Cooper, and Paul Stewart ) in relation to police killings, a Queens bank robbery, and the grenade attack.

Shakur and others claim that she was targeted by the FBI's COINTELPRO as a result of her involvement with these organizations.

On May 2, 1973, at about 12: 45 a. m., Assata Shakur, along with Zayd Malik Shakur ( born James F. Costan ) and Sundiata Acoli ( born Clark Squire ), was stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike in East Brunswick by State Trooper James Harper, backed up by Trooper Werner Foerster in a second patrol vehicle ( Car 820 ), for driving with a broken tail light.

It is at this point, with the questioning of Zayd Shakur, that the accounts of the confrontation begin to differ ( see the witnesses section below ).

However, in the ensuing shootout, Trooper Foerster was shot twice in the head with his own gun and killed, Zayd Shakur was killed, and Assata Shakur and Trooper Harper were wounded.

Acoli then drove the car ( a white Pontiac LeMans with Vermont license plates )— which contained Assata Shakur, who was wounded, and Zayd Shakur, who was dead or dying — down the road at milepost 78 across from Service Area 8-N ( the Joyce Kilmer Service Area ), where Assata Shakur was apprehended.

According to Palentchar, Assata Shakur then walked towards him from away with her bloody arms raised in surrender.

Assata Shakur, with gunshot wounds in both arms and a shoulder was moved to Middlesex General Hospital, under " heavy guard ", and was reported to be in " serious condition "; Trooper Harper was wounded in the left shoulder, in " good " condition, and given a protective guard at the hospital.

Shakur was announced as one of six suspects ( pictured left ) in the ambushing of four policemen — two in Jamaica, Queens, and two in Brooklyn — on January 28, 1973, despite the fact that the assailants were identified as male.

As a result, DMX was the second rapper in history ( following Tupac Shakur ) to have released two albums in the same year, which both debuted at number one on Billboard 200.

Shakur is best known for planning the infamous $ 1. 6 million robbery of a Brinks armored truck in New York in which a guard and two police officers were killed.

Shakur has four children, including two daughters ( Sekiywa and Nzingha ) and two sons ( Mopreme, Chinua ).

Two months after the death of Shakur, Kadafi was killed in a housing project in New Jersey ; after two years, Napoleon convinced his cousin to turn himself in for shooting Kadafi.

These events led to public speculation, but after two days of questioning Anderson in detention the Las Vegas homicide detective Lt. Larry Spinosa told the media, " At this point, Orlando Anderson is not a suspect in the shooting of Tupac Shakur .".

The following year, Rouleau contributed two tracks to the video game 25 To Life, which also featured music by Tupac Shakur, Public Enemy, DMX, Geto Boys and Tech N9ne.

* In 1979 three members walked into the visitor ’ s center at the Clinton Correctional Facility for Women near Clinton, took two guards hostage, and freed Assata Shakur, a member of the Black Liberation Army.

Despite initial critical cynicism of the program's concept, it quickly gained cult status and was praised for the quality of its production, witty and often cringe-induced humour ( one recalls a contestant's sobbing lament of the deaths of two icons she held dear-Diana, Princess of Wales, and Tupac Shakur ).

Stretch appeared on numerous albums and movies with Tupac Shakur before the relationship between the two allegedly turned sour after Shakur was shot in New York City, New York, on November 30, 1994.

"; Shakur was also wanted for questioning after a further September 1, 1972 Bronx bank robbery.

Specifically, documentary evidence suggests that Shakur was targeted by an investigation named CHESROB, which " attempted to hook former New York Panther Joanne Chesimard ( Assata Shakur ) to virtually every bank robbery or violent crime involving a black woman on the East Coast ".

In the 1980s, he was arrested on Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act ( RICO ) charges of bank robbery and aiding his sister, Assata Shakur, in her escape from prison on November 2, 1979.

He is the elder stepbrother of slain rapper Tupac Shakur, and the son of convicted bank robber Mutulu Shakur.