Ilyasah Shabazz, daughter of activist Malcolm X, has filed a lawsuit against the FBI, CIA, Department of Justice and New York Police Department accusing them of being partly responsible for the assassination of the African American human rights activist in 1965. The family seeks $100 million in damages and demands answers regarding some outstanding questions about that distant Feb. 21.
According to documents filed with the court, the agencies were aware of the death threats Malcolm X was receiving, but they never intervened. And, following his assassination, they allegedly proceeded to cover up any evidence that could lead back to involvement.
“As a direct result of the Defendants’ intentional, bad faith, willful, wanton, reckless, unreasonable and/or deliberately indifferent acts and omissions, Malcolm X was deprived of his federal constitutional rights, was robbed of his life and freedom, and sustained severe physical, emotional, and monetary damages, including conscious physical pain and suffering,” the lawsuit states. Under the directives of the chief at the time, J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI “actively conspired to reduce Malcolm X’s protections leaving him vulnerable to an attack they knew was imminent.”
On February 21, 1965, Shabazz was sitting in the front row of Manhattan’s Audubon Ballroom with his mother and his three sisters, waiting for his father to speak. Malcolm X never had a chance to speak that day: as soon as he took the stage, he was shot with 21 bullets by three men who were initially convicted of murder. According to court documents filed just days earlier, the NYPD had arrested the African American activist’s escort and had not placed any officers inside the arena. Moreover, the feds present on the scene allegedly did not intervene at the time of the shooting.
In 2020, then-Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance reopened the case. At the end of the review, in 2021, two of the three men convicted were exonerated because, according to the court, prosecutors, the FBI and NYPD had withheld evidence critical to their innocence. But no other culprit was identified. Shortly thereafter, in a letter, a former NYPD officer accused the two agencies of covering up details of the assassination. Neither the FBI nor the NYPD has commented on the matter.
