User:Cullen328/sandbox/Essex

The book Black Rage in New Orleans published by an academic press, Louisiana State University Press, says "Loosely involved" is not a synonym for Black Panther Party membership. The Black Panther Party demanded total commitment to the party. The book Hunting Humans: The Rise Of The Modern Multiple Murderer published by the venerable Canadian company McClelland & Stewart, quotes an FBI report as saying that Essex. There is no mention of Black Panther Party membership, and if he had been an actual member, the FBI would certainly have said it, since the FBI and the BPP were literally at war at that time. The book New Orleans Disasters: Firsthand Accounts of Crescent City Tragedy, published by The History Press, discusses Essex's associates before the killings, saying. If Essex had gone on to join the Black Panther Party, the author certainly would have said so. A book called The Management of Police Tactical Units, published by Charles C Thomas, Publisher, Limited, which has specialized in books about criminology and policing since 1927, says while he was in the Navy. The book does not say that Essex ever actually joined the Black Panther Party, which they certainly would have noted if it was true. The book The Copycat Effect: How the Media and Popular Culture Trigger the Mayhem in Tomorrow's Headlines, published by Pocket Books, which goes back to 1939, says Aligning with a faction does not mean that he joined the party, since the party leadership had already ousted the Cleaver faction by then. That book says that Essex was more aligned with the Black Liberation Army than the Black Panther Party after he investigated these movements. These are all serious authors from a variety of backgrounds and orientations, whose work is issued by solid publishers and none of them says that Essex actually joined the Black Panther Party, when it would have been easy and logical and predictable for them to have said so if it was true. It was not an easy or trivial matter to join the Black Panther Party in those days. An applicant had to undergo an ideological review and vetting, and all the evidence indicates that Essex's ideology was incompatible with that of the leadership of the Black Panther Party at that time. The bottom line is that Essex was certainly interested in the Black Panther Party, that he read and accumulated Black Panther Party literature, and that he had friendships with Black Panther Party members and supporters. But there is no good evidence in high quality sources that he was ever a formal member of the BPP, and his final acts prove that he rejected BPP ideology, which never advocated for the mass murder of white people.