The trial of the San Francisco 8

The trial of the San Francisco 8

http://www.sfbg.com/blogs/politics/2009/05/the_trial_of_the_san_francisco.html#more

By Ben Terrall
May 04, 2009

On Monday, June 8, the seven former Black Panthers known as the San
Francisco 8 will face a preliminary hearing in Superior Court. The
defendants are charged in the 1971 death of a local police officer;
the charges were initially brought back in 1975, and dismissed when a
judge ruled that the central evidence in the case was obtained through torture.

In fact, the FBI COINTELPRO-era case has a chilling resemblance to
stories of torture at Guantanamo Bay: the statements were obtained
after several of the suspects were subject to sleep deprivation, wet
blankets used for asphyxiation, and beatings.

Now, although the San Francisco district attorney refused to file
charges, Attorney General Jerry Brown has brought the case back. In
2007, he charged eight men ­ all of them now in their 60s, 70s and
80s ­ with murder. One defendant has been dropped from the case.

The remaining defendants are Herman Bell, Ray Boudreaux, Richard
Brown, Henry (Hank)Jones, Jalil Muntaqim (Anthony Bottom), Harold
Taylor and Francisco Torres.

The case has attracted international attention, and Nobel Prize
winners including Desmond Tutu have called on Brown to drop the charges.

Locally, it's led to a fascinating battle within the San Francisco
Labor Council.

On Feb. 9, the council passed a resolution calling for the dismissal
of all charges.

Then Gary Delagnes, the SF Police Officers Association President,
launched an attack on the resolution and tried to get the council to repeal it.

But on April 13, in a victory for the activists and their backers, the
Delegates Assembly of the SF Labor Council voted against a motion to
rescind or repeal the SF 8 resolution. The 45 to 40 vote upheld the resolution.

Letter Carriers local 214 delegate Dave Welsh saluted the Labor
Council's decision, writing that progressive activists would "savor
this small but significant victory."

In a statement issued after the April 13 vote, the Free the SF 8
Committee argued, "This vote is a tribute to the solidarity of the
progressive labor movement in San Francisco and its willingness to
value political principles and refuse to endorse a 37-year old
prosecution based on statements made under police torture. We thank
all the delegates and the rank and file members of the Bay Area
unions that voted and signed statements of solidarity calling for the
dropping of charges against the San Francisco 8!"

Delagnes's opposition to the resolution cited old allegations from
the complaint against the SF 8. Supporters of the SF 8 note that the
prosecution claims to have a murder weapon but says it is now
missing." Further, the prosecution admitted in 2008 that DNA taken
from the defendants in June, 2006 did not match DNA from the crime
scene, and fingerprints alleged to match one of the defendants
apparently don't match at all.

Activists also point to the millions of dollars the case will cost
the State of California in the midst of a budget crisis and massive
layoffs of workers.

Black Panther Party members were targetted through the FBI's
COINTELPRO program for assassination, false imprisonment, and ongoing
police harassment.

The FBI's San Francisco Field Office generated thousands of pages
documenting illegal electronic surveillance of Panthers in the Bay
Area. The information was used to create divisions within the Party,
frame its members for crimes they didn't commit, and disrupt many of
the BPP's service programs, including breakfast programs for
children, health clinics, schools and child care centers.

Richard Brown, one of the 8, told us that the Black Panthers were
about "serving the people… and I continued to serve the people as an
individual by orking with community-based organizations." Now a
community court arbitrator at the Ella Hill Hutch Center who works to
push alternatives to violence among black and brown youth, Brown has
over 30 years experience working in support of affirmative action.

He told us, "I've always been an advocate, and have worked with all
kinds of people to see that women and minorities got what they
deserved." He also has years of experience with the African-American
Community Police Relations Board, which works to improve neighborhood
interactions with the SFPD.

Brown said that the Labor Council's decision was "wonderful … we [the
8] owe them a great deal of gratitude. We asked for support and we
got justice. They were wonderful, they came through." Brown said he
hoped that the debate about the resolution would not lead to future
division on the council, because the SFLC's history "of social
justice and moral stands" needs to continue.

At posting time, the SF Police Officers Association President had not
responded to Bay Guardian requests for a comment on the labor council's vote.

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