From: "part2001" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 23:37:05 -0000 Subject: [DopeXResistance-L.A.] L.A. Jericho meets to defend new political prisoners, oppose torture
The Jericho Amnesty Coalition Los Angeles had scheduled its next meeting for Sunday, January 28 at 2:00 PM in Little Tokyo, 333 S. Alameda, suite 323 (third floor in the shopping mall) to discuss an upcoming activity featuring "Legacy of Torture: The War Against the Black Liberation Movement," about the torture of Black Panther Party members in the 1970s, and the more recent incarceration of several as grand jury resisters. (The movie is scheduled for next month as part of Black History month activities and will be shown at the Southern CA Library). However, the meeting takes on new urgency in the light of breaking news that authorities have indicted and/or arrested eight people and charged them with the 1971 death of a police officer in San Francisco. The eight, including LA area residents Ray Boudreaux and Hank Jones, and currently incarcerated political prisoners Herman Bell and Anthony Jalil Muntaquin Bottom, are accused of being members of the Black Liberation Army (BLA), a group that fought back from underground against the FBI/police COINTELPRO domestic war on the BPP. It is urgent that all people of conscience and defenders of the Black Liberation struggle get involved in the political and legal defense of these comrades, who have dedicated their lives, in some cases from behind bars, to the struggle for freedom. Please make every effort to attend this meeting and please forward this message widely. Here's the LA Times story on the arrests: 8 arrested in 1971 cop-killing tied to Black Panthers By JOHN M. GLIONNA, Times Staff Writer 2:32 PM PST, January 23, 2007 BLA members arrested SAN FRANCISCO -- Eight men were arrested today in connection with the 1971 shotgun murder of a San Francisco police officer in a case that authorities said involved a five-year conspiracy to kill police officers throughout the United States. A joint task state and federal task force identified seven of the arrested as former members of the Black Liberation Army, a violent arm of the Black Panthers. The arrests, which were made in California, New York and Florida, were the culmination of an investigation into the activities of the BLA, which in the late 1960s and early '70s "were bent on creating terror and chaos by assassinating police officers," said Morris Tabak, deputy chief of investigations for the San Francisco Police Department. The eight men have been charged with the murder of Sgt. John V. Young, who was gunned down Aug. 29, 1971 at a police station here. They have also been charged with conspiracy to murder police officers, authorities said. The men arrested today were: Ray Michael Boudreaux, 64, and Henry Watson Jones, 71, both of Altadena; Richard Brown, 65, of San Francisco; Francisco Torres, 58, of Queens, N.Y.; Herman Bell, 59, and Anthony Bottom, 55, who are both incarcerated in New York state; and Harold Taylor, 58, of Panama City, Fla. Another man, Richard O'Neal, 57, of San Francisco, was arrested on conspiracy to murder police officers. He was not charged "as an active participant" in the Young killing, authorities said. A ninth suspect, Ronald Stanley Bridgeforth, 62, was charged with murder, conspiracy to commit murder and aggravated assault on a police officer in connection with the killing of Young. Bridgeforth was still at large. Authorities said they will seek extradition of all of the men to stand trial in California. The investigation, named the Phoenix Task Force, has for years been collecting evidence on a series of nationwide attacks on police officers. Investigators today named four incidents in the years between 1968 and 1973, including the bombing of a police officer's funeral and the attempted bombing of a police station, both in San Francisco; the murder of two New York City police officers; and three armed bank robberies, whose proceeds, they said, were used to fund the BLA's criminal activities. This is not the first time arrests have been made in the Young killing. In 1975, three defendants were charged with the shooting, but a judge dismissed the case, ruling that evidence gathered against the men was gained through torture. An attorney representing one of the men has said that the police used cattle prods and wet blankets in an attempt to force a confession. At a news conference in San Francisco, task force members refused to discuss specifics of their ongoing investigation. Several task force members addressed reporters next to visual aids that included an enlarged photograph of Officer Young, an undated mug shot of Bridgeforth, as well as an aerial view of the Ingleside police station where Young was killed. Authorities said the probe into the death of the San Francisco officer was reopened in 1999 "after advances in forensic science led to new evidence in one of the unsolved cases," according to a press release. They would not confirm that DNA samples were part of the evidence. "There was a strong anti-government sentiment in the late 1960s and early 1970s when the BLA members were bent on creating terror and chaos by assassinating police officers," Tabak said. "We believe the motive for the crimes was the furtherance of these revolutionary views." Investigators on Tuesday also offered a $100,000 reward for information into the 1970 killing of San Francisco police officer Richard P. Radetich. They declined to specifically link Radetich's death to today's arrests but said his killing happened at the same time as the other attacks on police. On the night of Young's killing, five black men strode into the Ingleside station about 9:40 p.m. As the officer stood behind bulletproof glass at the visitor's window, one of the men stuck a 12-gauge shotgun in the speaking hole and fired. The buckshot caught Young in the chest and upper body. An office clerk was hit in the back but was not seriously injured. A second officer in the station at the time dove to the floor when he heard the gunshots. He crawled over to the wounded Young, who gasped "Help me," according to a recent story about the case in a San Francisco weekly. "The evidence we believe will show that the motivation of these men was to kill police officers," said Maggy Krell, a prosecutor in the state attorney general's office. "They ambushed an innocent person because of the uniform he wore." Speaking at the news conference, San Francisco Police Chief Heather Fong called Young's killing "coldblooded." She described him as busy in neighborhood affairs, "someone who was doing community policing before the term was even coined." "Now," Fong continued, 36 years after this brutal death, arrests have been made." Authorities said the arrests helped close an emotional historical chapter in which officers were targeted indiscriminately. "We never stopped working this case," Tabak said. "Like other murders, you go back and check things double and triple. If you think about this, any group's targeting law enforcement for assassination strikes at the core of any civilized society. The arrests, he said, were "a great sense of relief, a victory for law enforcement." 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