Joanne Chesimard has been added to the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorist list, after she allegedly was a member of multiple violent extremist organizations in the 1970s, and killed a state trooper.
Chesimard is although believed to have escaped to Cuba with the help of armed accomplices that aided her breaking out of the woman's facility.
She is the first woman and second domestic terrorist added to the list, reports NorthJersey.com.
Now known as Assata Shakur, former-Chesimard has been seen as one of New Jersey's most dangerous criminals since her conviction in 1977, four years after the fatal gun fight that occurred on the New Jersey Turnpike.
After the shootout, Chesimard faced charges of murder, attempted murder, armed robbery, bank robbery and kidnapping.
She was acquitted, then dismissed.
"No person, no matter what his or her political or moral convictions are, is above the law," Aaron Ford, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Newark Division said at a recent press conference. "Joanne Chesimard is a domestic terrorist who murdered a law enforcement officer execution style."
He added that she is "an inspiration to the radical, left-wing, anti-government black movement."
Chesimard was a member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army. As a Black activist, she staged protests at the college she attended, Borough of Manhattan Community College, and was a leading member of the BPP's Harlem branch. One of her main activities with the Panthers was putting together a school breakfast program.
For Ford, though, Chesimard was simply a criminal. He mentioned that she had attended diplomatic events and given anti-American speeches that "promoted terroristic ideology."
After she broke out of prison, Chesimard sought refuge in Cuba, where she was found in the mid 1980s. She has been living there since, under the protection of Cuban law.
