Two people were arrested this morning in San Francisco, and others were arrested in Los Angeles, Florida, and New York. Two more are already in prison and a ninth is wanted but has fled the country.
The case against the people responsible has been going on and off for the past thirty-five years. In fact, there's been arrests in the case before but there wasn't enough evidence to prosecute anyone. In 1974, three people involved were charged but a year later, a judge dismissed them when it came out that some of the evidence was obtained by torture. Ahhh, the 70s, a much simpler time when torture was considered bad. In 1999 then police chief Fred Lau reopened the case and two years ago, a Grand Jury was convened to look over the case once again as well as a 1970 attack that killed Sgt. Brian McDonnell. In that incident, a bomb was planted in the Park Station police station. Four people were jailed for contempt of court for refusing to testify to the grand jury.
The people arrested were charged with conspiracy to try and kill police officers. The defense attorney for representing those charged says there's no new evidence to the case and that he expects those held to be released.