Warren Aloysious Kimbro (April 29, 1934 – February 3, 2009) was aBlack Panther Party member inNew Haven, Connecticut who was found guilty of the May 21, 1969, murder ofNew York City PantherAlex Rackley, in the first of theNew Haven Black Panther trials in 1970.[1]
Kimbro had been a resident of the New Haven Panther headquarters at 365 Orchard Street, where Rackley was held and tortured for two days under suspicion of being an informant for theFBI'sCOINTELPRO program. It was established at the trial that afterwards, Kimbro,Bridgeport, Connecticut PantherLonnie McLucas, and national Pantherfield marshalGeorge W. Sams, Jr. had driven Rackley to the marshes ofMiddlefield, Connecticut, where Kimbro and McLucas had each shot Rackley, on Sams' orders. Sams testified that national Panther leaderBobby Seale, who had been speaking atYale University the day before the murder, had personally ordered the killing. Seales was at the Black Panther Headquarter the night Rackley was executed.[2] The jury in Seale's subsequent trial was unable to reach a verdict, and the prosecution chose not to re-try the case.
According toMichael Koskoff, one of the lawyers for McLucas,
At the trial, Sams and Kimbro both turnedstate's evidence in exchange for the reduced charge ofsecond degree murder, for which each received the mandatorylife sentence and served four years. In 1972, Kimbro met with a parole board and was permitted to attendHarvard University's School of Education.[4]
In 1975, after only four years of his prison term Kimbro became the Assistant Dean ofEastern Connecticut State University.[5]
For more than 20 years, Kimbro was president and CEO of Project MORE, a non-profit agency in New Haven that offers both day programs and residence to ex-convicts, helping them to re-enter society.
Kimbro also volunteered for many years at the Pilot Pen International tennis tournament in New Haven.[6]
The Rackley case and Kimbro's journey from murderer to one who rehabilitates convicts were the subject of a 2006 book,Murder in the Model City: The Black Panthers, Yale and the Redemption of a Killer by Paul Bass, editor ofThe New Haven Independent, and Douglas Rae, professor of management and political science at theYale School of Management.[7] (Basic Books, 304 pages).
