Assata: An Autobiography

by Assata Shakur

was the racism in Middlesex County, fueled by biased, inflammatory publicity in the local press before and throughout the trial, fanned by the documented government lawlessness, that made it possible for the white jury to convict Assata on the uncorroborated, contradictory, and generally incredible testimony of trooper Harper, the only other witness to the events on the turnpike. Harper’s testimony as well as that of all the other state’s witnesses was riddled with inconsistencies and discrepancies. On three separate official reports, including his grand jury testimony, Harper said that he saw Assata take a gun from her pocketbook, while in the car, and shoot him. He admitted, on cross-examination during both Sundiata’s trial and Assata’s trial, that he never saw Assata with a gun and did not see her shoot him—that, in fact, he had lied.