Hank, Ray, Jalil, Herman Bell among 8 charged in 1971 SF police killing

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
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 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."
 
 john.glionna@latimes.com <mailto:john.glionna%40latimes.com>  
 
 
     
            

 

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