A San Francisco police sergeant who was killed 40 years ago today is being honored with a memorial service and vigil.
Sgt. John “Jack” Young was fatally shot in the department’s Ingleside Station on Aug. 29, 1971, allegedly by members of a militant black organization.
To mark the 40th anniversary of Young’s death, a commemorative plaque will be placed at the base of the station’s flagpole, and the flag will be illuminated continuously in his honor, according to police.
City officials and other dignitaries are expected to attend the memorial service, which is also open to the public.
Young, 51, had been with the department for more than 22 years when he was shot. Armed attackers entered the station, killing him with a shotgun blast fired through a talk port in the window of the lobby counter, police said.
The case involved an alleged plot by members of the Black Liberation Army, a militant offshoot of the Black Panthers, to murder police officers, blow up police stations and rob banks as part of a violent resistance movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Police in 2007 arrested several people in connection with the shooting, and the alleged gunman, Herman Bell, pleaded guilty to a voluntary manslaughter charge in 2009. Bell was already serving a life term in a New York prison for the killing of two police officers there, prosecutors said.
Dan McMenamin, Bay City News
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