Elmer G. “Geronimo” Pratt, the former Black Panther Party leader who was imprisoned for 27 years for a crime he said he didn’t commit before winning his freedom in 1997, was living in a small village in Tanzania when he died Thursday. Pratt was arrested in 1970 and later convicted for the shooting death and robbery of a woman on a Santa Monica tennis court that supposedly netted $18. Pratt maintained that the FBI knew he was innocent because they had him under surveillance in Oakland at the time of the murder. Add: Stuart Hanlon, Pratt’s longtime San Francisco attorney who, along with the late Johnnie Cochran, fought for his release for two decades, tells the LA Times: “Geronimo was a powerful leader. For that reason, he was targeted.” Obituary: LA Times
