[Freethe SF8] San Francisco 8 Members Blame Murder Charges on Police Corruption

[SF-8 case]

San Francisco 8 Members Blame Murder Charges on Police Corruption
http://www.lawattstimes.com/life-and-style-mainmenu-31/arts-a-culture/737-san-francisco-8-members-blame-murder-charges-on-police-corruption.html
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CRUEL AND UNUSUAL ­ Hank Jones and Ray Boudreaux 
spoke before the Pasadena ACLU May 12 to tell the 
story of the “San Francisco 8,” former members 
and/or associates of the Black Panther Party who 
have been charged with the 1970 killing of a San 
Francisco police officer. The case against the 
men, initially dismissed in 1975 because 
confessions from some of them had been based on 
torture, was reopened in 2007. Pictured: (left to 
right) members of the San Francisco 8 ­ Hank 
Jones, the late John Bowman (front), Ray 
Boudreaux, Harold Taylor and Richard Brown.

May 21, 2009

BY NADRA KAREEM

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

A pair of men awaiting trial for their alleged 
involvement in the 1971 murder of San Francisco 
Police Sgt. John Young declared their innocence 
at the May 12 meeting in Pasadena.

In 2007, Ray Boudreaux, 64, and Hank Jones, 70, 
were two of eight men charged with murder and 
conspiracy in connection with the decades-old 
murder. Although a San Francisco judge dismissed 
the indictments against the “San Francisco 8” in 
1975 and ’76, the case was reopened based on the 
prosecution’s claims of new evidence linking the 
men to the killing. But Boudreaux and Jones argue 
that authorities targeted them as murder suspects 
due to their involvement with the Black Panther Party in the 1970s.

“COINTELPRO was pivotal in pitting the Black 
Panther Party and police against each other,” 
Jones said during his visit to the 
Pasadena-Foothill American Civil Liberties Union.

COINTELPRO is an acronym for the FBI’s Counter Intelligence Program.

Although the Black Panther Party acquired a 
reputation for being a militant group, Boudreaux 
and Jones, both Altadena residents now, said that 
it served the community’s needs at the time. 
Boudreaux was involved in the party’s free 
breakfast program, and Jones was an active member.

“There would have never been a Black Panther 
Party had there not been 
 racism 
 
discrimination,” Jones said. But the federal 
government “used the police to quiet the unrest in the black community.”

He argued that the Black Panther Party enjoyed 
widespread community support until COINTELPRO, he 
says, launched a misinformation campaign about 
the group, often casting them as violent 
aggressors instead of a group focused on self-defense.

On June 8, the “San Francisco 8” will have a 
preliminary hearing related to the cold case. 
Then, Boudreaux anticipates a favorable outcome.

“We expect the case to be dismissed sometime 
during this preliminary hearing,” he said. “Many 
of the motions to have the case dismissed by the 
judge were put off to the preliminary hearing.”

In Spring 2008, five of the defendants were 
cleared of conspiracy charges because the statute 
of limitations had run out. This completely 
cleared one of the eight ­ Richard O’Neal ­ as a 
defendant in the case because he was only charged 
with conspiracy and not murder. At the 
preliminary hearing, defense attorneys will seek 
to have conspiracy charges against the remaining three men dismissed.

In addition to O’Neal, Boudreaux and Jones, the 
remaining defendants include Francisco Torres, 
Harold Taylor, Herman Bell and Jalil Muntaqim (formerly Anthony Bottom).

Asked by an audience member if each member of the 
“San Francisco 8” was innocent, Boudreaux 
insisted that was the case. “We had nothing to do with it,” he said.

  Both he and Jones claim that confessions 
obtained by the police from the ’70s about the murder resulted from torture.

Police coercion factored in a judge’s decision to 
dismiss charges against the men in the ’70s. Now 
that the case has been reopened, Jones said he 
felt the prosecution was “
 looking for a face-saving way out of this.”

Jones said that no new evidence ties the men to the case.

“They say they have weapons,” he said. “There are no weapons.”

Jones and Boudreaux also said that before their 
murder arrests, some of the eight men did not know each other.

Although his political activism may have factored 
into why he was targeted as a suspect in the 
original case, Jones said he has no regrets over 
his involvement in the Black Panther Party.

“I’ve been an activist since the murder of Emmett 
Till in 1955,” he said. Till was a teenage boy 
from Chicago who was killed by white men for 
allegedly making a pass at a white woman in Mississippi.

“His mother was wise enough to leave that casket 
open,” Jones said of Till. “It affected me. 
Before then, I was a Marine, apolitical. I’ve 
been an activist ever since, and I’ll die one.”



Photo:  CO-San Fran 8.jpg



CRUEL AND UNUSUAL ­ Hank Jones and Ray Boudreaux 
spoke before the Pasadena ACLU May 12 to tell the 
story of the “San Francisco 8,” former members 
and/or associates of the Black Panther Party who 
have been charged with the 1970 killing of a San 
Francisco police officer. The case against the 
men, initially dismissed in 1975 because 
confessions from some of them had been based on 
torture, was reopened in 2007. Pictured: (left to 
right) members of the San Francisco 8 ­ Hank 
Jones, the late John Bowman (front), Ray 
Boudreaux, Harold Taylor and Richard Brown.

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