On 04-30-08, MIMI GALLANDT said to ALL:


MG>In February 1970, my father, a New York State Supreme Court justice, was
MG>presiding over the trial of the so-called "Panther 21,"
members of the
MG>Black Panther Party indicted in a plot to bomb New York landmarks and
MG>department stores. Early on the morning of February 21, as my family
MG>slept, three gasoline-filled firebombs exploded at our home on the
MG>northern tip of Manhattan, two at the front door and the third tucked
MG>neatly under the gas tank of the family car. (Today, of course, we'd call
MG>that a car bomb.) A neighbor heard the first two blasts and, with the
MG>remains of a snowman I had built a few days earlier, managed to douse the
MG>flames beneath the car. That was an act whose courage I fully appreciated
MG>only as an adult, an act that doubtless saved multiple lives that night.


I remember that. I was living in New York state at the time, hadn't been out
of the Army long, and sometime around that incident there was an attempt to
blow up the federal court building in my hometown one night.


The explosion did heavy damage to the building, but the charges were set
wrong and the expected result didn't come to pass. It was thought that the
regular police patrols might have disturbed the bombers, and they didn't get
a chance to set the charge the way they intended.


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*Durango b301 #PE*