Prison Abolition Collective hosted “Jalil Muntaqim” at Pitzer.
Former militant Anthony Bottom, better known by his alias Jalil Muntaqim, delivered a talk for the 5C Prison Abolition Collective on Wednesday, February 5th, at Pitzer College’s Benson Auditorium. Sponsors included the Pomona departments of Media Studies, Religious Studies, Politics, Theater, Art History, Middle Eastern Studies, Gender and Women’s Studies; the Scripps departments of Anthropology and Religious Studies; the Motley Coffeehouse; and the CMC Department of Modern Languages and Literature.
Bottom, previously a member of the Black Panther Party (BPP) and affiliated Black Liberation Army (BLA), served 49 years in prison between 1971 and 2020 for the murder of two NYPD officers. On May 21st, 1971, officers Waverly Jones and Joseph A. Piagentini responded to a domestic disturbance call at an apartment building where the militants intentionally ambushed them. Bottom used a pistol to shoot Jones four times. Piagentini was kept alive to beg for his life, repeatedly mentioning his one-and-three-year-old daughters to no avail. Bell shot him a dozen times in intentionally non-lethal wounds so the trio could continue to hear the cop’s begging. After the officer had lost much blood, Bottom lethally shot Piagentini. A witness recalled that the officer’s last words mentioned his daughters. A weeks-long manhunt, made nationally famous by the 1985 film Badge of the Assassin, culminated in the capture of all three murderers in San Francisco, where the BPP/BLA cell was located.
At the time, Bottom claimed innocence of the murders but admitted to having bombed a church planned as the site of an officer’s funeral. He would eventually plead guilty to the murder of both officers. Bottom had joined the militias to engage in “armed struggle” against what he saw as white supremacy institutionalized within the United States government. Bottom was denied parole eleven times. At one hearing, he declared the murders were part of “a war.”
Bottom was eventually released in 2020, eventually expressing regret for having ambushed and murdered the officers. His release was heavily lobbied against by Diane Piagentini, the widow of one of the slain officers, who described the decision as “gut-wrenching” and herself as “heartbroken.” The BPP and BLA dissolved within ten years of his prosecution in the face of escalating prosecutorial efforts from federal authorities in response to a series of organized killings and robberies.
Bottom’s speech to 5C students avoided the topic of his killings, instead focusing on his organizing of prisoners. Considering himself to have been a “political prisoner,” he called for the abolition of prisons as institutions. Bottom encouraged students to resist “white supremacy” and demand an end to capitalism and imperialism.
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