Black Panther Party

Half a dozen black men wearing leather jackets and carrying loaded guns burst through the massive doors of the California Assembly chamber. Twenty brothers in arms waited outside in the hall. The Assembly was in session, approaching lunchtime. Some lawmakers dived under their desks. Others darted for a side door. Most simply froze and stared in disbelief. That was 40 years ago Wednesday.

In the seven years since the San Francisco Police Department reopened its investigation into the 1971 slaying of Sgt. John V. Young, two of the suspects in the slaying hardly shunned the limelight. Ray Boudreaux and Henry Jones became fixtures on the left-wing activist circuit, touring the nation to denounce the Police Department's tactics and gaining high-profile allies such as actor Danny Glover and Harvard professor Charles Ogletree.

The racial tensions of the civil rights era marched back into this city Tuesday when eight former radicals -- some now husbands, grandfathers and community organizers -- were arrested in connection with the 1971 shotgun slaying of a white police officer. The men, including a real-estate appraiser and a Los Angeles County employee both living in Altadena, were mostly taken into custody during early-morning raids in California, New York and Florida.

In 1968, William Lee Brent, an ex-convict, attended a Black Panther Party rally in Oakland and walked away possessing a new and unshakeable world view. From that day forward, Brent viewed himself as a foot soldier in a war against racial and economic oppression. In the Black Panther Party, to which he pledged allegiance, he rose to the rank of captain and served as bodyguard for prominent party member Eldridge Cleaver.

Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. recommended against appealing a ruling that revived a Black Panther Party lawsuit against the government 25 years ago, according to documents released Wednesday. Alito, who was working in the Justice Department of the Reagan administration, argued that the department could win the case in a lower court. "None of the legal issues presented by this case seems to warrant Supreme Court review," Alito wrote on Nov.

Two men have been arrested in the 35-year-old killing of the first Berkeley police officer slain in the line of duty, but the Alameda County district attorney's office said Thursday that charges wouldn't be filed against one of them, and may not be filed against the other. "There's not enough evidence," said Morris Jacobson, a deputy district attorney. Police and prosecutors would not confirm published reports that the shooting of Officer Ronald T.

The release from prison of a man convicted of killing a park ranger near San Francisco 31 years ago has been delayed pending further review, law enforcement officials said Tuesday. Veronza Leon Curtis Bowers Jr., 59, and a former captain of the Black Panther Party, was expected to leave federal prison in Coleman, Fla., on June 21, after a decision last month by the U.S. Parole Commission. But the Fraternal Order of Police said Tuesday that U.S. Atty. Gen.

A former captain of the Black Panther Party, who was convicted of killing a park ranger near San Francisco 31 years ago, has been granted parole, despite a last-ditch attempt by law enforcement officials to block his release. Veronza Leon Curtis Bowers Jr., 59, is expected to leave a federal prison in Coleman, Fla., on June 21, said U.S. Parole Commission officials. "If he gets into trouble, he could be kept in," said Tom Hutchison, a spokesman for the Maryland-based commission.