He also charged with five counts of assault with a firearm with the infliction of great bodily injury, The Seattle Times reported. He was arraigned on one count of attempted premeditated murder in the attack on Muhammad. The man who shot Muhammad is James Edward Bess, a defrocked minister in the Nation of Islam. The note does not appear to be significant.″ Whodunit Muhammad unexpectedly left through an unguarded door.īut Fortier said, ″I don’t see it as a diversion. Muhammad read the note and then suggested that the crowd leave the auditorium. Police Chief Ken Fortier said police were trying to find out the source of a note that was handed to Muhammad on stage moments before the shooting. Security and suspicionįollowing the shooting, police said they were investigating why Muhammad deviated from security plans after his two-hour speech. The crowd beat the shooter before authorities could break up the fight, The Los Angeles Times reported. Two or three other people were also wounded, none of them seriously, according to police. Muhammad underwent two hours of surgery, Riverside Community Hospital said in a statement, according to AP News.Īfter the shooting, a crowd surrounded the gunman in the parking lot outside the university auditorium where Muhammad had spoken. One bodyguard was hit in the chest and the shoulder. He looked up and saw the shooter coming at him “from 5 o’clock.” Wounded but not downĪ bullet hit Muhammad in the upper left leg as his bodyguards flung him to the ground. Then, after the speech he left by the front door and continued a question-and-answer session with audience members. Muhammadblamed the "devil white media" and city officials for the lowturnout.“Both before and after the speech, he found himself avoiding use of the most logical entrance and exit point for a speaker: the backstage door, where he is convinced the would-be assassin at first waited,” The Chicago Tribune reported. He organized a second and third "Million Youth March," but themost recent one drew a crowds of about 100, police said. The rally, attended by about 6,000 people, ended in a clashbetween police and marchers. Muhammad led the "Million Youth March" in New York City in1998. Members of the New Black Panther Party, who call themselvesanti-capitalist, believe in socialism and nationalism among blacks.The organization has chapters in Dallas, Atlanta, South Carolina,New Jersey, New York, West Virginia and Philadelphia.
"I was born to give the white man hell, and I will give himhell from the cradle to the grave," he told an Atlanta crowd in1995. He remained unrepentant about his rhetoric. I am going to bite the tail of thehonkies," Muhammad said. That is the way I am goingto be against the Jews. In April 1994, before a cheering audience of about 2,000,Muhammad denounced Jews as "honkies." Hewas ousted by Farrakhan after a 1993 speech during which hereferred to Jews as "bloodsuckers" and urged mob murder of whiteSouth Africans. In his own public speaking engagements, Muhammad quickly becameknown for his virulent attacks on Jews, homosexuals and whites. It was Farrakhan who gave him the name Khalid - meaning warrior- but he was born Harold Moore Jr. He served at Nation of Islam mosques inNew York and Atlanta throughout the decade, and in 1991 becameFarrakhan's personal assistant. Muhammad was named one of Farrakhan's top lieutenants in theNation of Islam in 1981. It was there that he became interested in the blackliberation movement after hearing Louis Farrakhan speak. Muhammad attended Dillard University in New Orleans, in the late1960s. Hospital officials were not immediately available for comment. We are sad but at the same time we arehappy because we know that his place is secure," Shabazz said. They chanted"Long live Khalid Muhammad!" and "Black Power!" He was surrounded by Muhammad's family and eight party memberswearing black uniforms, combat boots and berets. He declined to reveal how the 53-year-old Muhammad died, sayingonly that it was of "very serious and natural causes." The leaderhad shown no prior signs of illness, Shabazz said.