A witness to Malcolm X’s 1965 assassination says he heard comments from police officers as they restrained the alleged killer that suggest law enforcement was in on the killing.
The details were relayed Tuesday by civil rights attorney Ben Crump and co-council Ray Hamlin during a press conference.
Speaking at the press conference, Mustafa Hassan, 84, said he was a part of Malcolm X’s security detail at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City on Feb. 21, 1965, the day he was assassinated.
Hassan said he tried to stop an armed man – later identified as Thomas Hagan, a.k.a., “Talmadge X Hayer” – from fleeing the scene.
Police intervened to stop Malcolm’s followers from beating Hayer. Hassan claimed he heard officers asking each other: “Is he with us?”
Hassan said the police’s actions suggested they were trying “assist in [Hayer] getting away.” He added that he was never questioned by police despite remaining at the scene.
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“We will show that the defendants concealed evidence, which gives us a cause of action,” Crump said. “It wasn’t due to a lack of diligence. No one will say that Malcolm’s family had accepted what the government had told them. They always sought the truth.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to the NYPD for comment.
Malcolm X was shot 21 times after appearing on stage to give a speech at the Audubon Ballroom in Upper Manhattan. His wife and daughters were among those in the audience.
Three men were convicted, but two were exonerated in 2021 after a renewed investigation into the cases against them showed the evidence to gain convictions was shaky and that authorities had held back some information.
Malcolm X was a prominent civil rights leader who preached a more radical message than his contemporary, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. From the late 1950s through the early 1960s, he gained prominence as a major voice of the Nation of Islam, advocating for Black people to claim their civil rights “by any means necessary.”
Towards the end of his life, Malcolm X split from the Black militant group and converted to Orthodox Islam. After a trip to Mecca, he started speaking about the potential for racial unity – earning him the hire of the National of Islam, who saw him as a traitor.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.