L.A. citizens help keep peace
LOS ANGELES (UPI)—Police issued volunteer "peace keeper" identification badges Tuesday to residents of south central Los Angeles, the scene 24 hours earlier of a five-hour gun battle between police and members of the Black Panther party.
Three officers and five Panthers were wounded Monday when 300 officers laid siege to the Panther headquarters. Twenty-one members of the black militant group were arrested, including eight taken into custody at two other locations without resistance.
Tuesday, residents of the besieged area began showing up at police division headquarters asking if there was any way they
could help keep the peace, police said, and officers began distributing lapel identification tags.
Police radios broadcast the message:
"Many public spirited citizens have volunteered to assist in maintaining calm in our community by their presence on streets in patrol area two. These persons will be identified by wearing Los Angeles Police Department identification tags. Their sole function is to keep the peace by their presence and persuasion."
A police community relations officer said more than 50 Negroes were given the badges. Most were employees of the teen post or neighborhood adult participation programs.
Luke McKissack, an attorney for one of the arrested Panthers, charged Tuesday the police fired the first shots in the bloody confrontation. But a top police official said it was the Panthers who fired first and the policemen attempting to search the building did not have guns in their hands when they were hit in the burst of gunfire.
Assistant Police Chief Robert Houghton, who headed the raiding party, said it was the result of a series of incidents in recent months when police officers had been lured into Panther ambushes.
Before dawn Monday 300 officers wearing black coveralls and
Kopechne case ruling due
WILKES-BARRE, Pa. (UPI)—Judge Bernard C. Brominski will announce his long-awaited decision today on whether to permit an autopsy on the body of Mary Jo Kopechne, who died when Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's auto plunged off a bridge into a tidal pond in Massachusetts July 18.
The ruling, which Brominski has reserved decision since a hearing ended Oct. 21, has held up an inquest in Massachusetts into the death of the 28-year-old blonde secretary.
Legal battle to end
Brominski said Tuesday he would announce his decision today on the request last Aug. 15 by District Attorney Edmund S. Dinis of Massachusetts to ex-
hume and conduct an autopsy on the body of Miss Kopechne, who is buried in nearby Larksville.
A series of petitions against an autopsy were filed by the girl's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Kopechne of Berkley Heights, N.J.
The legal battle between Dinis and the parents resulted in a two-day hearing which opened here Oct. 20. A score of witnesses testified.
baseball caps surrounded the two-story storefront building, while ambulances and emergency vehicles pulled into nearby streets.
Dinis said in his petition an autopsy was needed to resolve the "doubt and suspicion surrounding the death" of Miss Kopechne.
Miss Kopechne's father testified at the hearing that an autopsy on his daughter "would be just like another funeral. We have had it."
On Nov. 6, District Judge James A. Boyle announced in Edgartown, Mass., he would set a date for an inquest into the death of Miss Kopechne after Brominski, Luzerne County Court president judge, ruled on the autopsy.
Three officers in bullet-proof vests and helmets used a battering ram to knock down the door. All three were wounded by gunfire.
Panthers, wearing gas masks and bullet-proof vests, tossed out
police tear gas canisters as fast as they were lobbed into the building and hurled hand greenades into the street. Officers dynamited the roof of the building.
After the suspects surrendered by waving a white flag, officers searched the building and seized two submachine guns, three sawed-off shotguns, eight handguns and 12 carbines and rifles.
Dec. 10
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