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5
2867 OHIO
Moments after the 911 call, two cruisers were dispatched to 2867 Ohio. The first officers to arrive at the scene,
Officers Minard and Moran were not assigned to cover the call. They came from a bordering district. It was one of
these officers, Larry Minard, who was killed in the blast. They checked the exterior of 2865 Ohio that the caller had
given as his address. Twenty-eight sixty-five Ohio was bearded-up. A black man in a bathrobe approached Officer
Moran. According to a deposition, the first thing he asked this man was, "Are you a prowler?" The man in the
bathrobe was the caretaker for the two vacant houses.
The next car to arrive was the unit that was assigned as a back-up. Officers Rust and Tworek checked the exterior
of 2865 and 2867 Ohio. They did not see or hear anything. Officers Toay and Tess were in the third car to arrive
and were also not assigned to this call. Officer Toay inspected the house to the east of 2865 Ohio. The occupants
did not know anything about the 911 call, nor did they hear a woman screaming just moments before. The last car
to arrive was the car that was assigned to cover the call. Officers Sledge and Lamson approached 2867 Ohio and
shouted to the officers at 2865 Ohio that they were checking the wrong house. On the porch of 2867 Ohio they saw
a suitcase lying on its side halfway in and halfway out of the doorway.
There is something you need to know in order to put yourself in the frame of mind of these officers. There had been
a number of dynamite bombings in Nebraska and Iowa since May. The Police Station in Ames, Iowa and the Police
Station in Des Moines, Iowa were damaged with bombs made of dynamite. In June, the Iowa police discovered a
toolbox under a highway overpass that turned out to be a dynamite bomb. Also in June, in North Omaha, a police
assembly station was damaged with a bomb made of dynamite. Only one month prior, in July, Components
Concepts Corporation in North Omaha was damaged by a dynamite bomb.
Furthermore, the officer assigned to cover this call, Officer Sledge, had a brother who was an ATF (Alcohol,
Tobacco and Firearms Division of the United States Treasury Department) agent. His brother was an Omaha
Police Officer for eight years before he became an ATF agent. Agent Sledge obtained a warrant on July 20, 1970 to
search NCCF headquarters. He claimed that an informant told him she saw five men make a suitcase bomb out of
dynamite. The raid was scheduled for July 21st, other law enforcement agencies (the police) were notified, and
then the raid was called off.
It was two in the morning. The caller had given a fictitious address. None of the neighbors have corroborated the
report that a woman was heard screaming just moments before.
Nevertheless, according to police testimony at the trial, none of the officers voiced any concern that the suitcase
was suspicious. Officer Lamson said he commented out loud, "That suitcase might belong to the girl." Officer
Sledge stepped over the suitcase and went into the house. Four other officers stepped over the suitcase after him
without touching it, including the officer who will be killed. They fanned out into the house. The officers assigned to
the call were toward the back of the house when the suitcase exploded. The two officers who were not assigned to
the call were near it. Officer Minard returned to inspect the suitcase. In the first statement of Officer Tess taken at
the hospital, he said Officer Minard kicked the suitcase or tripped over it. It exploded and killed him instantly. Officer
Tess was just a few feet away.
During direct examination by the County Attorney, Duane Peak testified at the trial, on page 475 of the Bill of
Exceptions, that he placed the suitcase on its side with the wire sticking straight up. If we are to believe the
testimony of Duane Peak, the hole with the wire sticking out of it would have been visible to the officers as they
stepped over it.
Those are the circumstances under which Officer Minard was murdered.
WEEK AFTER BOMBING
The week after the bombing, the police systematically questioned hundreds of people in the black community. They
conducted warrant-less searches and arrest sweeps. Members of the NCCF were arrested, but there was no
evidence to hold any of them. Five days after the bombing, the police had no clue who built the bomb . According
to the police reports, an unnamed informant supposedly told the police that the Norris family had information about
the murder and might have explosives stored at their home. Mrs. Norris was a mother whose 18-year old daughter,
Annie Lee, lived at home with her. The police showed up at their home late at night on the 21st of August. They
searched the home for narcotics and explosives but found nothing. They took Annie Lee to the police station. They
read her Constitutional rights to her and treated her like a suspect. They kept her there until 3:30 in the morning.
She told them that Duane Peak had a suitcase that Sunday. He explained that he was joining the Job Corps and he
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