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 Posted: Thu 15:56, 22 Aug 2013 Post subject: by William Swanson-spun4 |
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by William Swanson
The 1970 killing of St. Paul police officer James Sackett is really a real-life story with characters and plotline more fascinating compared to those found in many crime novels,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych].
In "Black White Blue: The Assassination of Patrolman Sackett,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]," veteran Twin Cities journalist William Swanson gives a detailed and "insider" account of one of Minnesota's most notorious murders.
It's a story which was decades in the making. It took police and prosecutors until 2006 to collect enough evidence to charge and prosecute two men -- Larry Clark and Ronald Reed,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], at that time middle-aged -- for any murder committed once they were young men living in turbulent racial times in St. Paul's Summit-University neighborhood.
Both men were found guilty of aiding and abetting first-degree murder and were sentenced to life prison terms. Clark's conviction was later overturned through the Minnesota Supreme Court, and prosecutors subsequently struck a plea deal that freed him this year instead of retry him -- an answer approved by the Sackett family.
Sackett,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], a father of four,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], was cut down with a single rifle bullet fired with a sniper when he along with a partner were lured to a house with a bogus call for help.
From beginning to end,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], police said the motive for that slaying was the young black radicals' hatred for police, whom the men blamed for illegal violence against innocent black community members during the 1960s in St. Paul. Sackett's uniform -- not the person -- was the target.
It is a fascinating behind-the-scenes account of how a joint FBI-St,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]. Paul police task force of investigators and prosecutors used the challenge of solving a decades-old cold case murder in 2003.
This is not a "CSI" television police drama with flashy DNA evidence. It took relentless and patient shoe-leather police work,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], including cultivation of reluctant witnesses being asked to share information they'd not offered by time from the murder.
The book's details can slow the momentum from the story,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]. And keeping all of the characters and details straight could be a chore for that reader,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]. But it is worth the effort.
Swanson is mindful from the sometimes stark differences between police and black community perceptions of the events of the 1960s, as well as the police force itself.
Black voices that expressed mistrust and hatred of police in those days -- voices that still strongly disagree to this day with the prosecution's account of the murder -- can be found throughout the story. And Swanson conducted prison interviews with Reed,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], who maintains his innocence. Yet the book is basically in line with the perceptions and views from the investigators and prosecutors, all of whom are white.
The situation was controversial,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], and the book perfectly may ignite controversy. But that will prove a fundamental theme that runs through the book: People of different races in the same community can view events through quite different lenses,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], and come to completely different conclusions by what is true.
Paul Gustafson is really a former Star Tribune reporter who covered the trials of Larry Clark and Ronald Reed,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych].
Review: The convicted murderer still maintains his innocence,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], plus some within the black community continue to disagree with the prosecution's outcome of the murder. William Swanson's account might easily provoke further controversy. But it is an amazing account of the 1970 ambush and murder of the St.
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