The event at the college, scheduled to take place on April 6, is titled “History of Black Resistance, U.S. Political Prisoners & Genocide: A Conversation with Jalil Muntaqim.”
Jalil Muntaqim, known in 1971 as Anthony Bottom, was a member of the Black Panther Party and was involved in the deaths of New York Police Department Officer Waverly Jones and his partner, Officer Joseph Piagentini when he was 19 years old.
Muntaqim, now 70, spent 50 years in prison for the killings and was released from prison on parole in 2020.
SUNY has been under fire for the event, and calls for the school to cancel have been mounting, but the college has stood strong in its belief that the event must continue.
On March 14, Brockport President Heidi Macpherson issued a statement acknowledging the feedback the school has received, which stated:
“We do not support the violence exhibited in Mr. Muntaqim’s previous crimes, and his presence on campus does not imply endorsement of his views or past actions. However, we believe in freedom of speech. SUNY Brockport has routinely held speaking events involving controversial speakers from various background and viewpoints, and will continue to do so. These conversations are uncomfortable. They are meant to be. They’re about gaining a new perspective.”
Patrick Lynch, president of the Police Benevolent Association in New York City said in a statement that Muntaqim “is not a hero. He was not a political prisoner. He is an unrepentant murderer who can teach nothing but how to tear our society apart through violence.”
And Diane Piagentini, the widow of Officer Piagentini, wrote a formal letter to the school expressing her desire for the cancellation of the lecture. In it, she wrote that “Your bio presentation of Jalil Muntaqim (Anthony Bottom) is incorrect.”
“While my husband lay on the ground pleading with them not to kill him, pleading he had a wife and children, Bottom took his service revolver and emptied it into his body. There were 22 bullet holes in his body,” Piagentini’s letter read.
In fact, the New York City Police Benevolent Association took to Twitter in support of the widow, saying “Tell them to #teachthetruth.”
SUNY’s Chief Diversity Officer, Damita Davis, announced on Wednesday that while the school will not cancel, the committee has decided to rescind the grant that was used for the event, “and no funding will be used to pay the speaker.”
Muntaqim joined the Black Panther Party when he was 16 years old after seeing his uncle killed by a police officer when he was 8 years old, he said, according to parole hearing records obtained by PIX11 News. They also reported that at 19, he moved to New York City with intent to kill police officers.
The records stated that Muntaqim started going to therapy while in prison, “dealing with the fact that I killed two people.”
The records showed him saying, “having to accept that, killing those two police officers, was something I had blocked over the years trying to rationalize it and justify it in some kind of way.”
In his parole hearing in 2020, he said, “It was screwed up thinking at the time. We thought we were defending the Black community. We thought at some point in time the Black community would rally to our cause.”
Newsweek reached out to SUNY, who directed us to the school’s official statements.
