Fountain Valley massacre

The Fountain Valley massacre was a mass shooting that occurred on the afternoon of 6 September 1972 at the Fountain Valley Golf Course in St. Croix, United States Virgin Islands.[1] The shooting left eight employees and tourists dead. Another eight were either shot at or wounded.

Fountain Valley massacre
LocationFountain Valley Golf Course, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands
Coordinates17°44′31″N 64°48′52″W
Date6 September 1972
Attack type
Mass shooting, robbery
WeaponsFirearms
Deaths8
Injured8
PerpetratorsFive Afro-Caribbean men

The perpetrators were five Virgin Islanders whom authorities initially believed to have committed the execution-style shooting in the course of a robbery gone bad. However, in court, the defense, led by civil rights activists William Kunstler and Chauncey Eskridge, argued in part that the accused were politically motivated victims of systematic race-based civil rights deprivation; all of the defendants were Afro-Caribbean, while seven of the eight victims were white. Two of the accused, Rafael Joseph and Warren Ballentine, explained that they had only planned on committing a robbery,[2] but that things got out of hand because one of the co-defendants, Ishmael LaBeet, was adamant that they also make "a political statement" because "he was angry about foreigners coming in to take our money and leaving us with nothing." According to Joseph, LaBeet, during the commission of the robbery, suddenly began shooting people while yelling epithets like, "I hate you white motherfuckers!"[3] LaBeet, who escaped from custody and fled to Cuba in 1984, has denied this version of events, as well as any involvement at all in the shooting.

All five men were convicted after a trial in federal court of multiple charges of murder, assault, and robbery, in violation of Virgin Islands law. Each was sentenced to eight consecutive life sentences.[4]

The public's perception of a racially tinged motivation for the killings and fear of further violence led to a steep decline in tourism to St. Croix, from which the island's tourism industry did not begin to recover until decades later.[4]

On 31 December 1984, the group's leader, Ishmael LaBeet, hijacked American Airlines Flight 626 while in United States federal custody on a transfer to new detention.[5] The flight was forced to land in Cuba, where LaBeet escaped. He was never recaptured. With the thawing of Cuban–American relations in 2015, was confirmed to be living at large in Cuba following an indeterminate amount of time spent in a Cuban prison.[6] Three of the five remain in prison; Joseph received a pardon from the Governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands in 1994 after 22 years' imprisonment, but died four years later of a drug overdose.[4][7] LaBeet was the subject of the 2016 documentary film The Skyjacker's Tale.[8]

References
  1. Day, Jim (6 September 2002). "30 YEARS AFTER MASSACRE, LABEET'S FATE UNKNOWN". St. Croix Source. St. Croix, United States Virgin Islands. Retrieved 26 November 2014.
  2. Joseph, Michael A. (2014). Fountain Valley 1972. Strategic Book Publishing & Rights. ISBN 9781628579840.
  3. Michael A. Joseph (2014). Fountain Valley 1972. SBPRA. ISBN 9781628579840.
  4. Greaux, Jr., Jean P. (6 September 2002). "FOUNTAIN VALLEY PUT V.I. IN UNWANTED SPOTLIGHT". St. Croix Source. St, Croix, United States Virgin Islands. Retrieved 26 November 2014.
  5. Kerr, Peter (1 January 1985). "NEW YORK-BOUND FLIGHT HIJACKED TO CUBA BY CONVICTED MURDERER". The New York Times. New York, New York. Retrieved 26 November 2014.
  6. Pennington, Shaun (23 April 2015). "Cuban Diary: Fountain Valley Killer LaBeet Alive and Well in Cuba". St. Croix Source. St. Croix, United States Virgin Islands. Retrieved 24 April 2015.
  7. Michael A. Joseph (2014). Fountain Valley 1972. SBPRA. ISBN 9781628579840.
  8. "'The Skyjacker's Tale': Film Review | TIFF 2016". The Hollywood Reporter, September 11, 2016.
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