I posted this article on the old site. I don't know if everyone saw it. Will we ever see a documentary regarding this outrage?
Remembering The Zebra KillingsRemembering The Zebra Killings
By James Lubinskas
FrontPageMagazine.com | August 30, 2001
MOST SERIAL KILLINGS in America take on a life of their own through movies,
books and documentaries. The crimes of Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer and The
Son of Sam are still well remembered years after they were committed. Yet there
is one set of serial killings that has been almost completely forgotten and is
rarely mentioned in popular culture.
The Zebra Killings occurred in the San Francisco bay area between 1972 and 1974
and left 71 people dead. They were dubbed the Zebra Killings because of the
radio channel used by the police investigating the case (channel Z). The name
would take on a more sinister meaning as it became apparent that a group of
blacks was systematically stalking and killing whites simply because of the
color of their skin.
Zebra (1979) was written by crime writer Clark Howard and remains the definitive
book on the murders. Using court records, police reports, witnesses and
interviews with the killers themselves, Howard was able to piece together the
horrid details of the murders and the unrelenting hatred that inspired the
killers.
The majority of the attacks were carried out by five members of a group within
Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam called the "Death Angels." Jesse Lee Cooks,
J.C. Simon, Larry Green, Manuel Moore and Anthony Harris were part of this group
which believed that whites were created 3,000 years ago by a black mad scientist
named Yacub who wanted a race of inferiors to rule over. Death Angels believed
they could earn "points" towards going to heaven when they died if they killed
whites. For them, whites were not human beings but "grafted snakes," "blue-eyed
devils" and "white motherf-----s."
Howard describes the vicious and cowardly nature of the attacks, which were made
at gunpoint and mostly carried out against women and weak or old men who could
not fight back. The first victims in San Francisco were a couple named Richard
and Quita Hague. The Hagues were out for an after dinner walk when they were
abducted at gunpoint and forced into a van. They were bound and Richard was
beaten over the head with a lug wrench and knocked unconscious. Quita was
sexually molested and hacked with a machete. While begging for her life she was
decapitated. Before leaving, the attackers hacked at the face of the still
unconscious man. Miraculously, he survived and was able to give valuable
information to the police.
Brutality and a lack of remorse on the part of the criminals mark the attacks.
Vincent Wollin was shot in the back and killed on his 69th birthday. Mildred
Hosler, an obese, older woman was shot while frantically trying to get away from
her younger, faster attacker. Ilario Bertucci, a 135-pound, 81-year-old man, was
killed while walking home from work. Marietta DiGirolamo, a 5’1" white woman was
shot and killed on her way to a neighborhood bar. In none of these cases did the
victims do anything to provoke the murderers. They simply had white skin and
were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
There were even some high profile victims. Art Agnos, who would later go on to
become mayor of San Francisco, was shot and almost killed by the Death Angels. A
member of the California Commission on Aging, Agnos was attending a community
meeting in a black neighborhood to discuss building a government funded health
clinic in the area. In the same neighborhood the killers were hunting for
whites. As the meeting let out, Agnos stopped to talk with two women. One of the
killers came up behind him and shot him twice in the back. The bullets ripped
apart his lungs, spleen and kidneys. Bystanders called an ambulance and Agnos
barely survived.
Lou Calabro was a street patrol sergeant with the San Francisco Police
Department at the time and notes that as the murders added up, the SFPD came
under increasing pressure to stop the killings:
"In what was known as Operation Zebra, more police were put on the street and
security checks were beefed up. Despite the increased police presence, the
attacks did not stop. They would often happen when we were on full alert. Some
officers suspected a black cop who was a member of ‘Officers for Justice,’ a
black police officers association formed to get more promotions for themselves,
was tipping off the killers, though this was never proven. We were very
frustrated at not being able to stop the killings."
The increased police presence had the effect of angering the black community.
Twenty years before the Los Angeles riots and O.J. Simpson trial, blacks were
already making statements to the press that showed a stunning lack of remorse
for what was happening to their white neighbors. Howard quotes from interviews
conducted by the San Francisco Examiner in 1974. Among the responses by blacks
were, "I don’t feel comfortable with all the police around. But then, I never
have felt safe around them." A young housewife stated, "I’m really glad the
police are concerned for a change. I just wonder if they would be as much
concerned if it were black people getting killed." A black lawyer added, "I
commend the police for their beefing up of the force, but I hope it’s not just
directed at blacks. I hope blacks aren’t being harassed."
Still other blacks blamed "unemployment" and "oppression" for the attacks. One
man said, "the madness that drives black men to kill innocent people . . .
involves a sickness that is as American as apple pie." Black Panther leader
Bobby Seale declared, "every black man in the Bay area is in danger of losing
his life." The Reverend Cecil Williams claimed that the entire black community
was "under a police state that could erupt into a racial war." Howard observes,
"although they were responding only to a question about Operation Zebra, it was
curious that none of the blacks interviewed took the occasion to condemn the
unknown street killers or express sympathy for the victims."
Detectives Gus Coreris and John Fotinos were 13-year veterans of the Homicide
Unit and led the investigation which eventually cracked the case. Though they
both suspected the Black Muslims, it was hard to get any information on the
possible suspects because of a ban on surveillance of religious institutions.
Moreover, the closed atmosphere of the NOI made it hard to get spies into the
organization.
Coreris and Fotinos were able to link the murders because the killers were using
the same weapon for each attack. They were also able to put together information
and descriptions from those who survived such as Agnos and Hague. The case was
solved when one of the members of the Death Angels came forward with information
on the other killers. A total of eight black men with previous records were
arrested. All were members of the Death Angels. Though this group committed most
of the killings, they do not account for all of the criminals. Some are still
free to this day.
The Nation of Islam paid for the legal representation of every one of the
killers except Cooks, who immediately admitted to his murders. The Death Angels
are still in prison but are up for parole in 2002. The European American Issues
Forum (EAIF), headed by Calabro, has pledged to attend the parole hearings and
work to insure that the killers spend the rest of their lives in jail. In
addition, on October 19 of this year, the EAIF will hold its fifth annual Zebra
Victims Memorial Service on the steps of San Francisco City Hall. As with the
previous five ceremonies, government and community leaders such as Mayor Willie
Brown and the leader of the local NAACP will be invited to attend. They have
declined to attend any of the ceremonies so far and are not likely to show up
this year. Indeed, the lack of publicity and recognition of these racially
motivated hate crimes is consistent with the efforts of government agencies,
civil rights groups and the media to portray European-Americans as the only
perpetrators of hate crimes.
This same type of black-on-white serial murder occurred in the Miami area in the
early 1990’s. The racist cult of Hashem-ben-Hashem began systematically killing
whites in the same manor as the Death Angels. Whites were again described as
subhuman "devils" by the cult leaders who urged their black followers to murder
random whites. In what was strictly local news, seven whites were ritually
slaughtered before the cult was stopped. The leaders of Hashem-ben-Hashem are
also up for parole in 2002.
It has been almost 30 years since the Zebra Killings and, with the exception of
Clark Howard’s book, little has been written about the murders. That is why they
have disappeared from the public consciousness. At least one filmmaker who tried
to get funding for a documentary on the killings has said that producers will
not touch it, as it involves the taboo of black-on-white racism. Needless to
say, there is no such taboo on discussing white-on-black racism. But a society
that memorializes Emmett Till, Medgar Evers and James Byrd should also make room
for the victims of the Zebra Killings. Justice demands it.
Paleoconservative James P. Lubinskas has written for Chronicles, The AIM Report,
American Renaissance, The Social Contract, VDARE, The Nationalist Times,
American Patrol and other journals.
Please see
www.eaif.org for more information on the Zebra Killings Memorial
Service.
*Zebra, by Clark Howard, is currently out of print. Used copies can still be
purchased on Amazon.com. Click here for details.
**The first chapter of Zebra can be read online by clicking here. (Link in PDF
format).
Topic: The Nation of Islam Exposed (Read 6851 times)