Activists aligned with the "Defund the police" movement honored convicted cop-killer and former Black militant Assata Shakur, dead at 78. "Rest in Power, Assata Shakur," DSA wrote on X. "The American state brutally oppressed Assata and her Black Panther Party Comrades. Shakur was a member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army — violent revolutionary groups active during the 1960s and '70s. Just two years into a life sentence, Shakur escaped from a New Jersey women's prison in 1979 aided by the Black Liberation Army.