Maine House Speaker Ryan Fecteau said a Democratic member’s social media post about a woman who was convicted of killing a New Jersey state trooper was “wrong” but that he will not remove her from a committee after police groups asked him to do so.
In a since-deleted Facebook post made in February in honor of Black History Month, Rep. Nina Milliken, D-Blue Hill, summarized the case of Assata Shakur and how the member of the Black Liberation Army and Black Panther Party was convicted of killing New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster in 1973 during a shootout on the state’s turnpike.
Shakur, also known as Joanne Chesimard, was found guilty of murder and given a life sentence before she escaped from a New Jersey prison in 1979. The FBI made her the first woman on its “Most Wanted Terrorists List” and believes she has remained in Cuba after fleeing and receiving asylum there. She has been defended and celebrated over the years as a civil rights activist.
Milliken wrote in her post that there was “lots to unpack with this situation” but that the state has “enormous resources” to come after those who “present a challenge to systems of oppression.” Milliken also quoted Shakur as saying they “convicted a woman with her hands up” and ended her post with a “fun fact” on how Shakur is the late rapper Tupac Shakur’s godmother.
The Maine Fraternal Order of Police and Maine State Trooper’s Association responded by asking Fecteau, the Democratic House speaker from Biddeford, to remove Milliken from her spot on the Legislature’s Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee.
“Rep. Milliken’s defense and support of this cop killer goes well beyond any reasonable bounds of decency and logic,” said the letter signed by Maine FOP leader Mike Edes to Fecteau and House Minority Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham, R-Winter Harbor. Edes also wrote Milliken “has violated that trust and forfeited any credibility she might have had on the committee.”
Fecteau spoke with Milliken about how her post was “wrong” and “callous” and then told the FOP that Milliken had deleted it, Fecteau spokesperson Victoria Foley said Tuesday. Fecteau also “reiterated he holds everybody to a very high standard” and felt the situation did not need additional action after Milliken removed the post, Foley said.
Edes, the state FOP’s executive director, told a reporter via email Tuesday he appreciated how Fecteau was “honest” and “frank” in his response and that the speaker “has a long history of supporting Maine’s police officers.” But Edes said the law enforcement groups still want Milliken to step down from the criminal justice committee.
“Her blatant bias towards the police makes her basically ineffective in helping improve and increase public safety for Maine’s citizens and does nothing but [put] Maine’s police on the defensive,” Edes said.
Milliken did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday. She is serving her second term and represents the Hancock County towns of Blue Hill, Brooksville, Castine, Sedgwick, Surry and Trenton.
