Feb. 26, 1965 - A member of the Black Muslim guard was arrested early today and charged with the slaying of Malcolm X, the black nationalist leader.
Norman Butler, also known as Norman 3X, a husky, round-faced expert in karate, was seized at his apartment in the Soundview housing project in the Bronx and was questioned for three hours before Assistant District Attorney Herbert Stein ordered him booked on a homicide charge.
The arrest marked the first direct police linkup of the Black Muslims to the assassination of Malcolm X. The police had worked on the theory that Malcolm’s defection from Elijah Muhammad’s Black Muslims last spring lay behind the slaying.
Since the shooting last Sunday at a rally at the Audubon Ballroom, some Negroes have voiced the suspicion that although the slayers were black, the orders to kill had come from whites.
Fearing that racial tensions might explode on the eve of tomorrow’s funeral for Malcolm X, the police today blanketed Harlem. Stores on 125th St., most of them owned by whites, had been threatened with picketing unless they closed at 3 p.m. and remained shut through tomorrow in tribute to Malcolm’s memory.
Today’s arrest of Butler left three of the five suspects in the assassination still at large. Butler was charged with acting in concert with Talmadge Hayer, 22, also known as Thomas Hagan, who was arrested immediately after the shooting.
Hayer, who was wounded by a bodyguard of Malcolm, has been held in Bellevue Hospital. He has refused to say whether he is a member of the Black Muslims.
Butler, 26, offered no resistance when detectives arrested him. Last month, when he was arrested in connection with the shooting of another Muslim defector, Benjamin Brown, a city correction officer, the police approached him wearing steel alloy masks as protection against a karate attack.
According to the police, Butler on that occasion swung a karate blow with his hand that fractured the mask of one of the policemen.
Brown, no recovering at his home in the Bronx, from a .22-caliber rifle wound in his left shoulder, recalled today that Butler had been a faithful follower of Malcolm X until Malcolm broke with Elijah Muhammad to form his own group.
He said Butler stayed with the Black Muslims and rose to the rank of lieutenant in the elite guard known as Fruit of Islam. Members of this disciplinary “enforcer” unit are trained in karate as well as in the use of firearms, the police said.
Only two years ago, Butler tried to join the New York Police Department. He passed the department’s examination for patrolman, but a character check rated him as unacceptable.
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