[Freethe SF8] Torture: an interview wit’ Harold Taylor of the San Francisco 8

[SF-8 case]

Torture: an interview wit' Harold Taylor of the San Francisco 8

http://www.sfbayview.com/20070926448/News/This_week/Torture_an_interview_wit_Harold_Taylor_of_the_San_Francisco_8.html

by Minister of Information JR
Wednesday, 26 September 2007
Part 1

SF 8 celebrate release of 6 at Hamilton Rec

At the San Francisco 8 community party Monday, all six members out on 
bail came out to the Hamilton Rec Center in the Fillmore and 
celebrated this rare milestone wit' their supporters. Panthers, 
former political prisoners, the SF 8 and community members vowed to 
continue the fight for the release of Jalil Muntaqim and Herman Bell. 
Come support the SF 8 at their next court appearance Wednesday, Oct. 
10, 9:30 a.m., at 850 Bryant, San Francisco. And reach out by writing 
or visiting the two who aren't allowed to bail out. Their addresses 
are Herman Bell, 2318931, 850 Bryant St., San Francisco CA 94103, and 
Jalil Muntaqim, 2311826, 850 Bryant St., San Francisco CA 94103. 
Photo: Minister of Information JR

Harold Taylor is one of the political prisoners released on bail in 
the San Francisco 8 case that is currently underway at 850 Bryant in 
San Francisco. The police and the government are using a 1971 
unsolved police murder in the Ingleside District of San Francisco to 
continue their torture and life-long harassment of community workers.

Most of them were members of the Black Panther Party, which at one 
time FBI director J. Edgar Hoover called "the greatest threat to the 
internal security of the United States."

Just as in the police murder cases of fellow political prisoners 
Mumia Abu Jamal, Imam Jamil Al-Amin and the MOVE 9, to name a few, 
the prosecution has no evidence and is using these charges to 
prosecute these community servants because of their political 
beliefs. Although the government is illegally trying this case for a 
second time, after the court acknowledged that the defendants were 
tortured and it was thrown out in '75, the prosecution is pushing 
full steam ahead.

Since the arrest of the San Francisco 8 in January of this year, 
there has been an enormous tidal wave of support nationally and 
internationally, pushing for the charges to be dropped and for their 
unconditional release. Here is how the case started.

MOI JR: Harold, can you tell us how this case started in 1971?

H. Taylor: In 1971, during the split of the Black Panther Party, I 
was in Los Angeles at the time. Myself, Ray Boudreaux and John 
Bowman, we were all in the party at that time, and Bowman and 
Boudreaux were visiting Los Angeles, and we got together. This was in 
September of '71.

Harold Taylor

SF 8 defendant Harold Taylor at a party in Frisco Sunday celebrating 
his release on bail. Photo: Minister of Information JR

An incident happened where some people had given me a phone call 
pertaining to Geronimo Elmer Pratt, concerning some personal property 
that belonged to him, and they wanted to know if I would come pick it 
up. I told them that I would do that. I made arrangements with 
somebody for me to come meet them at a house, and I would pick up 
Geronimo's property. It turned out to be that this particular person 
was an informant for the FBI, and it was a setup.

I was going by myself, but I happened to go to a house party, and 
John Bowman and Ray Boudreaux were there, and I told them that I 
couldn't stay long because I had an errand to run. They decided to go 
with me - and wanted to go with me - and I told them that that was fine.

We went, and at the time it was an ambush. It was a setup by the 
Criminal Conspiracy Section of the Los Angeles Police Department. The 
SWAT team and the FBI agents had set it up for me to go to this house.

It was an informant's house. When I got to the house, nobody was 
there. We got ready to leave and were followed by some police cars, 
and I didn't know they were police because they were plain cars. And 
during that time, there was a split in the party and numerous threats 
on people, and I didn't know if it was members of the party or the 
police, but it turned out that it was the police.

And when they pulled us over, they started shooting. They started 
shooting, and we had weapons, because during that time, people 
carried a lot of weapons because you had people getting killed all of 
the time by the police and by renegades, and numerous other things 
was going on at the time. It was real hectic.

And we defended ourselves. We all were shot. They shot into the car 
over 200 and something times. They shot me six times and shot John 
Bowman in the back and shot him a few times and also shot Ray 
Boudreaux five or six times. We all went to the hospital. We all survived.

After we went to the hospital, we went to county jail to defend 
ourselves against "assault on a police officer." That's what they 
called it. They attacked us - and charged us. While we were there, I 
got wind of this incident in San Francisco, the Ingleside thing 
(killing of a police officer), and I became a suspect.

I was in jail, and it just happened one day, when they brought me out 
to see my lawyer, I looked at the tag on my door, where they control 
the doors for opening, and I just happened to notice that it had a 
tag on my door that said "suspect in San Francisco police shooting." 
So I asked my lawyer about it, and she investigated and found out 
that John, Ray and I were suspects. That was the first I ever heard 
of Ingleside.

We got out on bail in '73, and this is during the time of the 
Watergate hearings and all of that stuff, raids on Black Panther 
offices and a number of different killings, and we felt that we 
weren't going to get any justice in the courts, so we decided that we 
weren't going to come back to court. At least I did, and I stayed in 
Los Angeles.

I do not know where Boudreaux and Bowman went. But later on, I got a 
call from Bowman. I ended up in New Orleans and I was only there for 
about three or four days, when I was arrested along with John Bowman, 
Reuben Scott and a number of other people. And that's what took place there.

After that time, that's where the torture and questioning began, with 
Ingleside and a
SF 8, Panthers Ronald Freeman, Arthur Lee, SQ Sundiata Tate

SF 8 defendant Harold Taylor was surrounded by his comrades at a 
celebration for the six of the San Francisco 8 who were recently 
released on bail. Black Panthers Arthur Lee and Ronald Freeman and 
former San Quentin political prisoner Sundiata Tate were there with 
Harold and at Monday's party. Photo: Minister of Information JR

number of other different cases across the country, with a number of 
different police departments from all over the country. That's when 
the beatings and the torture started - plastic bags over your head, 
chained to chairs, cattle prods stuck to your private parts, 
ear-slapping, hot blankets and numerous other ways of torturing you, 
keeping you up all night and dragging you into a gauntlet of police 
officers, while they kick you and beat you and spit on you and call you names.

That went on for it seemed like forever, but it probably was a week 
or so, and they were asking a bunch of questions, and I think that I 
stayed there from August to December. I stayed to testify in Reuben 
Scott's case on a bank robbery, to testify on the suppression of 
evidence on the torture that took place there, to help him on his case.

They extradited us back to California. When I was tried there, they 
figured that they had the strongest case against me, so we decided on 
a strategy that I would be tried first. And I was tried first, in 
'75, and I was found not guilty by a jury of 12 people of all counts, 
and it was a total of six counts: assault on a police officer and 
possession of firearms. If we didn't have weapons, we all would have 
been dead. It was a Cointelpro (Counter Intelligence Program of the 
FBI) operation. We later found out all of this.

After that, when I got out of jail, they took me to San Diego on a 
charge that they had for possession of a firearm that happened in 
1969, when I was working there as a section leader reorganizing a 
branch, the San Diego branch. And they got me for possession of a 
firearm, but they dismissed it when I got there and released me, and 
I got out.

And I tried working in Los Angeles, but I couldn't keep a job because 
the FBI and LAPD kept harassing me, coming on the job and talking to 
people. They wouldn't keep me on the job, so I had to leave, and I 
ended up leaving the state, and I moved to Florida.

And I was there until this came about. I came here on the grand jury 
thing in 2005. I stayed here in jail one time for a month and a half, 
because I refused to testify in front of the grand jury.

I stood on my constitutional rights. I took the 5th amendment and the 
14th amendment, and I refused to testify, and they held me for a 
month and a half and let me go. Then they came to my house about a 
year later; they wanted DNA samples, and they came threatening, 
saying that they were going to arrest me again and that they were 
going to charge me with this and so forth.

And then on Jan. 23, they arrested us. They came and got me at about 
9 o'clock in the morning, and I stayed in Florida jail for a month 
fighting extradition; then I came here eventually. And I just got out 
- as a matter of fact, the night before last, at 8 o'clock, and I've 
been with Richard Brown ever since.

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