Tom Manning is an anti-imperialist political prisoner, known for his involvement in the murder of a police officer during a routine traffic stop, and for his involvement with the United Freedom Front (UFF) who bombed a series of U.S. military and commercial institutes in the 1970s and early 1980s.
Tom was born to a Boston postal clerk. As a youth, he shined shoes and raised pigeons, before finding work as a stockboy. He joined the US Military in 1963, and the following year was stationed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba before being transferred off to spend the following year in the Vietnam War.
Some time shortly after 1965, he was sentenced by a Massachusetts state court to five years in prison for armed robbery and assault, serving the last ten months in Massachusetts Correctional Institution – Cedar Junction. He claims it was during these years that he became heavily politicized. He took part in food and work strikes, read Che and united with other prisoners from other cultures.
After his release in 1971, he married Carol and together they produced three children, Jeremy, Tamara, and Jonathan.
He also became active in political organizing, particularly with a Portland, Maine group known as SCAR. Much of this work centered around working with prisoners, ex-prisoners and their loved ones. This work rapidly expanded to many areas of social concern including employment and housing for people coming out of prison, housing, welfare, advocacy, transportation for visits of prisoners family, childcare, a bail fund and a bookstore.
Through this work and the study required to do it effectively, class contradictions became very clear to Tom. Eventually these realities lead Tom to become active in the armed clandestine movement, first in the 1970s with the Sam Melville/Jonathan Jackson Unit, and later in the 80s in the United Freedom Front. The armed anti-imperialist and anti-racist activities of these organizations lead to a massive seven year hunt by all federal state and local authorities in the north eastern U.S. This hunt ended in his capture and Tom is now serving a double life, plus multiple sentences.
Together with his arrest for the bombings, Manning was also convicted for his role in killing New Jersey police officer Philip Lamonaco during a traffic stop on December 21 1981. The killings launched the largest manhunt in NJ police history, and ended with the arrests of Raymond Levasseur, Patricia Gross, Richard Williams, Jaan Laaman, and Barbara Curzi on November 4th 1984, and Manning and his wife Carol on April 24, 1985. All of them were associated with the United Freedom Front.
He pled self-defense at his trial, while defense counsel showed that Lamonaco had emptied his .357 Magnum revolver at Manning and his associates. He was sentenced on February 19, 1987 to 58 years in federal prison.
Write Tom
Thomas Manning
#10373-016
FCI Cumberland
P. O. Box 1000
Cumberland, MD
USA 21501
