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<body>
<font size=3>the Roxie theater holds about 270 people and was sold out.
There was a second showing of about 75 or so.<br>
Thanks to all of those who came out to support these brothers!<br><br>
a new website can be found at
<a href="http://www.cdhrsupport.org/" eudora="autourl">
www.CDHRsupport.org</a>. <br>
email sign up will make it possible to get news items about further
developments.<br><br>
KRON:
<a href="http://www.kron.com/" eudora="autourl">http://www.kron.com/<br>
</a>KGO:
<a href="http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/front" eudora="autourl">
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/front</a> (Transcript:
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=local&id=4979816)<br><br>
Supporters rally for 8 former black militants accused in \'71 police
killing<br>
The Associated Press<br><br>
<br>
Lawyers and civil rights activists rallied support Sunday for eight
former black militants arrested in the 1971 killing of a police officer,
saying the men were tortured during an earlier investigation.<br><br>
<a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/01/29/america/NA-GEN-US-Old-Police-Killing.php" eudora="autourl">
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/01/29/america/NA-GEN-US-Old-Police-Killing.php<br>
<br>
<br>
</a>The original article can be found on SFGate.com here:<br>
<a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2007/01/28/state/n164520S90.DTL" eudora="autourl">
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2007/01/28/state/n164520S90.DTL<br>
</a>
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Sunday, January 28, 2007 (AP)<br>
Supporters rally for defendants in '71 San Francisco cop slaying<br>
By MARCUS WOHLSEN, Associated Press Writer<br><br>
<br>
(01-28) 16:45 PST San Francisco (AP) --<br><br>
Lawyers and civil rights activists rallied support Sunday
for eight former<br>
black militants arrested in the 1971 slaying of a police officer,
saying<br>
the men were tortured during an earlier investigation of the
murder.<br><br>
At a news conference held before the premiere of a
documentary detailing<br>
the decades-old abuse allegations, supporters described last week's<br>
arrests as part of a law enforcement vendetta against the Black
Panthers<br>
and other black liberation groups that has lasted 40 years.<br><br>
"The case began in torture. It's now moved into
fabricated evidence," said<br>
Stuart Hanlon, a lawyer for one of the men accused of storming the
lobby<br>
of a San Francisco police station nearly 36 years ago, and killing
Sgt.<br>
John V. Young, 51, with a shotgun and injuring a civilian clerk.<br><br>
Prosecutors describe the men as former members of the Black
Liberation<br>
Army, a violent offshoot of the Black Panthers, and say Young's murder
was<br>
part of the BLA's broader conspiracy of violence against law
enforcement<br>
in the 1960s and 70s.<br><br>
Recent analyses of old shotgun shells and a fingerprint on a
cigarette<br>
lighter left at the crime scene provided new evidence that led to<br>
Tuesday's arrests, according to court papers filed by
prosecutors.<br><br>
"We believe that the evidence we have put together is
more than enough to<br>
prove beyond a reasonable doubt that these men are responsible for
this<br>
terrible crime," said Nathan Barankin, a spokesman for California
Attorney<br>
General Jerry Brown.<br><br>
Arrested Tuesday on charges of murder and conspiracy were:
Harold Taylor,<br>
58, of Panama City, Fla.; Francisco Torres, 58, of Queens, New York;<br>
Richard Brown, 65, of San Francisco; Ray Michael Boudreaux, 64, of<br>
Altadena; Henry Watson Jones, 71, of Altadena; Herman Bell, 59, and<br>
Anthony Bottom, 55, both of whom are currently incarcerated in New
York.<br><br>
Richard O'Neal, 57, of San Francisco, was arrested on a
charge of<br>
conspiracy.<br><br>
A ninth suspect, Ronald Bridgeforth, is believed to have
fled the country.<br><br>
Three BLA members, including Taylor, were indicted in 1975
for killing<br>
Young. The case was eventually dismissed because the men had
allegedly<br>
been tortured by police officers during interrogations.<br><br>
In "Legacy of Torture," a documentary that debuted
Sunday, Taylor<br>
described being beaten, shocked and suffocated by New Orleans police<br>
before being questioned by two San Francisco police detectives<br>
investigating the case.<br><br>
"I followed their whole script. Everything they told me
to say, I said<br>
it," Taylor said in the film, claiming torture was used to coerce
him into<br>
making a false confession.<br><br>
Wayne Thomspon, a legal investigator for a San Francisco law
firm<br>
representing one of the men charged in 1975, said Sunday he
interviewed<br>
the men while they were being held in the New Orleans jail and saw
clear<br>
signs of physical abuse.<br><br>
"This government has continued to hound these men and
continued to seek to<br>
persecute" them, Thompson said. "It's a very sad day for
me."<br><br>
New Orleans police spokeswoman Bambi Hall said the
department had no<br>
knowledge of the case. Phone messages left Sunday with the San
Francisco<br>
Police Department were not immediately returned.<br><br>
State prosecutors were "not relying on any statements
that were made in<br>
Louisiana for this prosecution," Barankin said.<br><br>
Boudreaux, Brown, Jones and Taylor had all been scheduled to
appear at the<br>
film's premiere before they were arrested and jailed.<br><br>
The four men were also jailed briefly in 2005 when they
refused to answer<br>
grand jury questions regarding the case. After they were freed, they
went<br>
public to protest their treatment, speaking to activist and
community<br>
groups and gaining the support of Harvard law professor Charles
Ogletree<br>
and actor Danny Glover.<br><br>
Soffiyah Elijah, deputy director of the Criminal Justice
Institute at<br>
Harvard Law School, spoke at the premiere. She compared the alleged
abuse<br>
of BLA members to the police beating of Los Angeles motorist Rodney
King<br>
and the mistreatment of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib.<br><br>
"It's commonplace for law enforcement to claim that
they don't torture<br>
people, and in the end we always find out that they're lying,"
Elijah<br>
said.<br><br>
Elijah said it was "yet to be determined" whether
she or Ogletree would be<br>
directly involved in the eight men's defense.<br><br>
Glover was expected to attend Sunday's screening but was
delayed in<br>
transit, said Claude Marks, the film's producer. <br><br>
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<font size=3 color="#FF0000">The Freedom Archives<br>
522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br>
(415) 863-9977<br>
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