Behind the Standoff: The Kenneth Borden Story – 53 years later
This year marks the 53rd anniversary of the standoff and shootout between the New Orleans Police Department and the Black Panther Party in the Desire Housing Project
This year marks the 53rd anniversary of the standoff and shootout between the New Orleans Police Department and the Black Panther Party in the Desire Housing Projects.
The police were adamant to rid New Orleans of the National Committee to Combat Fascism and their ideology during the time the city was on the cusp of change.
WWL-TV shared the story in the documentary “Story behind the Standoff” that aired in October 2020.
There was a part of the story we didn’t share but was recently acknowledged by the New Orleans City Council as a grave travesty of justice. The day police officers met the NCCF with a barrage of bullets there was one death, and it wasn’t a member of the party.
Kenneth Borden was shot and killed by NOPD officers who accused him and three others of attempting to firebomb a local grocery store. The explanation was reportedly never factchecked and accounts from witnesses say that Kenneth was an innocent bystander.
The city council not only acknowledged this injustice thanks to the help of the Louis A Berry Institute for Civil Rights and Justice but gave Kenneth’s family the opportunity to set the record straight and to keep his memory alive.
The Recounting
In our WWL-TV archive, residents gave their accounts of what happened that tragic day. One person’s account remembered NOPD officers shooting at random:
“I was down on Pleasure Street down there and when the little boy got shot, he hit the street, that's when I see two more fell down in the street. I called from behind the house, and I got behind this car over here with all the holes in it and he went to shooting at me. I kept hollering and I said, 'Stop,' I said, 'A man is hit.' They said, 'I don't care. Get away.' And they said, 'Stand up,' and I said, 'No, for what? So you can shoot me.'”
Another Desire resident told us:
“Well, the fellas were walking across the streets and the fellas up in grocery opened fire on him. He shot four times and three of them fell in the middle of the street and one man crawled on the other side of the street. And he laid out there, I don’t know how long, before they had any help to come. Nobody could move nowhere cause if the police, if anyone would pass the police would shoot and tell them to stop! Turn! Don’t go down that way, go the other direction.”
The victim was Kenneth Borden. A 21-year-old man who had a lifelong battle with sickle cell anemia. According to eyewitnesses, Borden was not only shot in the head, neck and shoulder but there were no attempts to tend to his injuries.
The Shooting
The shooting happened in the aftermath of the drastic shootout with NOPD, Sept. 15, 1970. Tensions in the community were high and police were on edge along with the Desire residents.
New Orleans police claimed Kenneth Borden, along with two other men, were "advancing towards Broussard’s grocery with Molotov cocktails and other weapons." Multiple eyewitness accounts say that simply wasn’t true. Witnesses also debunked another rumor that Borden fired first at officers. Despite this loss of life, Borden’s murder would become a footnote in the larger story of the standoff. Leaving rumor to take place of fact and Kenneth’s family with no real answers.
“I think the effort to control the narrative was the huge, the largest reason that Kenneth Borden gets lost in this,” said Ada Lampkin, the Director of the Louis A Berry Institute for Civil Rights and Justice. “There was a lot of information that was lost and hidden. We did not know the attorney that the family hired. There were no legal documents. There were no court records.”
The Dismissal
The Borden family attempted to file a $1.5 million lawsuit against then Mayor Moon Landrieu, Police Superintendent Clarence Giarusso and the two officers accused in Kenneth's murder.
Not only were the officers not charged in Kenneth's shooting, but Judge Herbert Christenberry dismissed the lawsuit. Ada says she can't find those records, or the names of the other people injured by gunfire. She doesn't believe it’s by coincidence.
“At the time, New Orleans was a city that was dealing with a lot of integration and a lot of pushbacks to that integration,” said Lampkin. “And that includes the federal agencies, integrating with local law enforcement agencies to make sure that COINTELPRO, which was the co-intelligence program under J. Edgar Hoover's administration of the CIA, was successful in making sure that communities remained free from black nationalism, or ideas of black people being able to have self-determination in their own communities.
"So, Kenneth Borden was an inconvenient death and I think his association with the Panthers really created the opportunity for him to be lost through that association.”
The Case Study
Cases like Kenneth Borden's are currently being investigated by Lampkin in partnership with the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project at Northeastern University School of Law in Boston.
“We teach students how to investigate cases of racially-motivated homicides under the Emmett Till Unresolved Civil Rights Crimes Act,” said Lampkin. “One of our students, Whitley Parker, was able to find a member of the family after doing about six months of investigation.”
For the family there was an expected hesitancy as speaking about Kenneth's murder reopened old wounds. They came forward not only to set the record straight 53 years later but to bring awareness to the family member they lost and his story that was lost along with him.
Kenneth's nephew, Keith Melancon, tells us the day he learned his uncle was murdered.
“We got a knock on the door and a guy came in. He told my grandmother; your son was just shot in in the 9th ward. It was traumatic for her. She just starts screaming. Everybody got up. Grandfather got up. And it was just total chaos,” said Melancon.
“My older brother came to knock on my door. I was living in the 7th Ward,” said Reginald Borden, Kenneth’s brother. “He said they shot Kenneth. I jumped up, put my clothes on and went to the Charity Hospital. It was chaotic at Charity Hospital. They had more cops out there.”
Reginald says he got into a fight and was badly beaten by multiple officers after one officer used a racial expletive towards him leading to his arrest along with his older brother Edward. He never got the chance to see his brother at the hospital.
The Truth
The family also says there's no way, physically, Kenneth would have been able to throw a Molotov cocktail as he had recently had major surgery.
“Kenneth had sickle cell and Kenneth had just had surgery the week before,” said Melancon. “Just had a big cut on his abdomen. Could you imagine a week ago you just had surgery and you trying to lift your arm from probably 150 feet away into a fire.”
The family says while police claim to have evidence of a Molotov cocktail, no evidence was ever provided. Despite rumors of Kenneth being a member of the Black Panther Party, they say he was not involved with that organization either.
“Kenneth was a young man and at 21 you're kind of still a boy. That just was curious,” said Melancon. “People came from all over the city just to see the spot where it happened.”
Kenneth’s murder was devastating for his family. Reginald says it was the beginning of the end of a tight-knit relationship.
“When that happened, everybody split,” said Reginald. Because something like that happened and nothing was done about it.”
Several family members left New Orleans, only returning now to re-visit the wound that never truly healed.
So, what does justice look like for this family. Ada Lampkin says if you were to ask each of them, they’ll tell you something different, but everyone can agree they want the opportunity for the truth to be told.
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