Assata Olugbala Shakur, born JoAnne Deborah Byron, sometimes referred to by her married surname Chesimard, is a former member of the Black Liberation Army, who was convicted, under New Jersey's "aiding and abetting" statute, of the first-degree murder of State Trooper Werner Foerster during a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1973. On November 2, 1979, she escaped from prison, and in 1984, she surfaced in Cuba, where she was granted political asylum.
Joanne Chesimard
