Assata Olugbala Shakur, born JoAnne Deborah Byron is a former member of the Black Liberation Army (BLA), who was convicted as accomplice of the first-degree murder of State Trooper Werner Foerster during a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1973. Shakur was also the target of the FBI's COINTELPRO (counterintelligence program) directed against Black Power movement groups and activists.