[Zahn:] We continue now with another unsolved murder mystery suddenly out in the open, thanks to modern DNA detective work. This week, authorities arrested eight men for their alleged role in the 1971 murder of a white police officer in San Francisco. Now, prosecutors say the suspects were part of a violent radical group with ties to the Black Panther Party. Dan Simon is following this case that dates all the way back to a time when some black militants spread their own brand of intolerance.
[Dan Simon, Cnn Correspondent:] The Black Panther Party started in Oakland, California in the 1960s, a group that believed military tactics could help African-Americans achieve civil rights in the Panthers' crosshairs, law enforcement officers, perceived as oppressors in that turbulent time.
[Unidentified Male:] The racist police agencies throughout the country are intensifying the terror, brutality, murder, and repression of black people.
[Simon:] On August 29, 1971, four men burst into a San Francisco police station, and opened fire, killing an officer in the reception area. Nearly 36 years later, a picture of Sergeant John Young hangs just feet from where he was killed. Attempts to bring people to justice over the years have been unsuccessful. The case went cold. But police say, advances in forensic science offered fresh leads, and led to this stunning announcement.
[Heather Fong, San Francisco Police Chief:] I'm pleased to announce that multiple arrests have been made in the 1971 killing of San Francisco Police Sergeant John V. Young.
[Simon:] The arrest, eight of them, were carried out in New York, Florida, and California. Some of the suspects are now grandfathers with respectable jobs. But police say all but one of them are former members of the Black Liberation Army, a violent offshoot of the Black Panthers. [voice-over]: Seven have been charged with Young's murder, one charged only with conspiracy to murder police officers. Attorneys for two of the suspects questioned the motives behind the arrests and whether there's truly new evidence.
[Stu Hanlon, Defense Attorney:] This is 35 years old. I think, by the government's own concession, they concede that there's no new scientific evidence. And I have not seen or heard of anything new.
[Jim Bustamante, Defense Attorney:] It's a broad conspiracy that covered the entire 1960s, late '60s and early '70s, and the political landscape of that time. And I don't see how we can try that period of history.
[Simon:] But some find that sentiment offensive. Diarmuid Philpott spent 32 years in the San Francisco Police Department, and was a close friend of the murdered officer.
[Diarmuid Philpott, Retired San Francisco Police Officer:] If you take that to an extreme, somebody could commit a heinous crime now and say 20 years from now, say, well, oh, it's 20 years ago. I'm sorry. It's all over. Oh, no. There's a responsibility.
[Simon:] For Philpott and other retired officers, the case brings back memories of an era when race relations boiled over in the city and across the country.
[Philpott:] It was a very tense time. It was very stressful. But you you grew accustomed to it. Over 12-month period we lost seven police officers shot dead on the streets or shot in bombing or shooting attacks on the stations.
[Unidentified Male:] Is this the way the racist government works?
[Simon:] The Black Panthers and the Black Liberation Army have long since collapsed but their legacy is still being debated. Dan Simon, CNN, San Francisco.
[Zahn:] Once again, our "Out in the Open" panel is standing by. Republican consultant Reverend Joe Watkins, Air America's Rachel Maddow and Democratic strategist Jamal Simmons. Welcome back. Let's start with the San Francisco case tonight. As we know, attorneys for the defendants are questioning the motive for following through with these arrests. Is this about revenge?
[Watkins:] I don't think so. I think ultimately it's about justice. Justice is supposed to be colorblind and blind, period, so anybody who has done an injustice would have the person who committed the crime brought to justice. And I agree with what the police officer said just a few seconds ago, even if a crime was committed 20 or 30 years ago, it's important for the person who committed it to be brought to justice.
[Zahn:] What kind of wounds does this reopen?
[Maddow:] Well, there's no statute of limitations on murder for a reason. Because murder is a crime we treat specially. You wouldn't 35 years later try a property crime, you wouldn't 35 years later even try an assault. But with murder it's different. It never goes away in terms of the statute of limitations. That's why that's important. In terms of what wounds this is going to open and whether or not this looks like more revenge or more like a political case rather than justice, we're going to have to wait to see what evidence there is. If there isn't new scientific evidence, if there isn't something new that indicates the guilt of these men who they've arrested, there are going to be questions to be asked about why now?
[Zahn:] And those are legitimate questions, aren't they, Jamal?
[Simmons:] Those are absolutely legitimate questions. In some sense I feel like we need a truth and reconciliation commission to go back into the '60s and look at all these different crimes. But if someone has murdered a police officer they should be held to account for that. Now the question that we don't know, at that time there was a lot of FBI activity monitoring the groups, COINTELPRO, setting people up for different altercations. I would also like to see some investigation into whether the police forces had any role in that altercation.
[Zahn:] Let's go back to the case I just talked about with Charles Moore whose brother of course was murdered some 43 years ago, finally, after decades and decades of looking for his murderer, the family has justice. A man has been arrested. What does it say that it took that long to get an arrest in this case? Does it say anything about the dead man's race? He was black.
[Simmons:] Well, it's clear that back when the crime occurred there was not the pursuit of justice that should have taken place. What's positive is maybe that now we're at a place in society where we will hold white men accountable for killing black men, which was not necessarily the case 40 years ago. For some reason, that may be cause for a little celebration.
[Zahn:] Your thoughts on that?
[Watkins:] Again, justice in a perfect world, justice is blind. If anybody commits a crime, be that person black or white, takes another person's life, they ought to pay for it or be prepared to pay for it. And it has taken a long time. It's just as sweet for the families of those two men, who were killed, it's just as sweet for them today knowing somebody has been arrested for the crime.
[Maddow:] We've got to say something about justice delayed is justice denied. There is something different about someone being held to account when that happened. The guy who they arrested today, this week, is the guy they arrested when the crime happened but the local authorities decided never to prosecute it. And they had to wait this long for somebody else to come in from outside the state, from outside the area and make it happen. That affects how we think of justice being done in this case.
[Zahn:] In the case of the murder of Charles Moore, the attorney general made it clear that today they couldn't charge him with murder because they just didn't have that evidence.
[Maddow:] But they could charge him with something. Nobody was ever charged with anything before.
[Watkins:] You have to ask the brother. You did. And the sister of the other fellow who was murdered. I mean, are they happy about this? Do they feel this is some semblance of justice? I think the answer is yes.
[Zahn:] Certainly Thomas Moore was relieved.
[Simmons:] Happy maybe is too strong of a word. But satisfaction.
[Maddow:] I think there's something important about how ambivalent we all feel about the prospect of 71-year-old, 75, 65-year-old men going to prison for crimes committed long ago. It kind of shows you that prison maybe shouldn't be the only thing we have to do to people in our justice system. Prison doesn't necessarily feel right in this case. I'm not sure what would be right. We only have got one tool, prison. That's it. And it makes you wish we had some sort of reconciliation process beyond just locking people up.
[Zahn:] Well that will fuel another debate another night. We don't have time to bite that one off. We wanted you all to stick around. Thank you. Just about every traveler knows the frustration of waiting for a cab only to have one zip right by you without stopping. Well something like that is happening a lot at one airport. Coming up, is it because the Muslim drivers are practicing their religion or intolerance?