Prentice Earl Sanders

Learning about these murders, which were being committed at the same time the Zodiac Killer was terrorizing Californians and Patty Hearst was kidnapped, was a revelation. I remember hearing the news stories night after night about those two events. I do not remember hearing about the murders taking place in San Franscisco, nor about the danger brewing between the races as a result. The insights offered into the myth of West Coast liberalism by author and former SFPD police chief Sanders, especially as our nation, even almost fifty years later, still struggles to find harmony, are some that I will carry with me. The topic of this book was horrible. The reasons for the murders were horrible. The members of the homicide unit of the SFPD ushered in a better tomorrow, despite having absolutely no support.… (meer)

(AUDIO) An important book. A must read for anyone who wants equality for all colors and creeds in America. As visitor to beautiful San Francisco from the 70's through 2002, I was unaware of the strong racism that controlled the city. This book is more than a true-crime book that the title leads one to expect. It is a true story of one man's work to break the color barrier in San Francisco's police force. He did it through peaceful
means that affected police policies in cities throughout the United States. Well written, without a boring moment. Sadly, racism still exists everywhere, and must be peacefully fought by all of us who want equal opportunities for everyone.… (meer)

The Zebra Murders: A Season of Killing, Racial Madness, and Civil Rights, by Prentice Earl Sanders and Bennett Cohen, is about the serial killings in San Francisco in 1973 and 1974 carried out by certain members of the Nation of Islam against whites. Sanders was one of the homicide investigators during the killings, though the book is basically written by Cohen based largely on Sanders' input. Before this book was published, Clark Howard's Zebra was the only book available (and at this date one of the only easily-accessible sources) on the serial killing. Unlike Zebra, Sanders and Cohen's book is not a novelistic treatment. Also unlike Howard's book, it contextualizes the killings, especially pointing out the important role the Symbionese Liberation Army's activities had in the investigation. (Many people, including Mayor Alioto, believed there was a link between Zebra and the SLA, and the informant who broke open in the case told the Mayor -- probably untruthfully -- that he met Patty Hearst at the Nation of Islam mosque in San Francisco.) The story is largely the same as that of Howard's books, though some details about the crimes differ. Sanders and Cohen particularly show why certain crimes occurred at the times they did, in retaliation for racial incidents involving the police. Also, while Howard claims that a group within the Nation of Islam called the Death Angels was involved -- based entirely, it seems, on the informant's testimony -- Sanders and Cohen make the case that there was no such organization, that the radical element in the Nation was not so organized. But the book also tells the story of the integration of the San Francisco Police Department, through the lens of lawsuits filed by Officers for Justice, a largely black organization in which Sanders played an important role. On the whole, this is the much better book, putting Zebra into the perspective of the racially charged 1970s.… (meer)