As President Clinton’s Dialogue on Race draws to a close, his panel will be offering a final report on how to remedy the evils of racism in America. Given the members of the hand-picked panel, it can be said with certainty that the racism to be remedied will be white racism and only white racism. But while this modern day Kerner Commission is working on its report, a California group is trying to focus attention on one of the most troubling episodes of racial murder in the nation’s history.

The San Jose-based European American Issues Forum (E/AIF) is going to hold a memorial ceremony on October 20 to mark the 25th anniversary of the Zebra killings—one of America’s worst cases of serial murder. These racially motivated hate crimes occurred 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). But the name would later take on a more sinister meaning as it became apparent that a group of blacks was systematically killing whites merely because they were white.

It was not until the attacks became centralized in San Francisco starting in October 1973 that police knew they had a case of serial killings on their hands. While all serial murders are disturbing and the work of psychopathic minds, authorities were doubly disturbed by the nature of these attacks. Not only were they racially motivated, but the victims tended to be women and slight or elderly men who could not fight back.

The victims were not chosen by chance. The killers were part of an organization called “The Death Angels,” a group within the Nation of Islam which believed the standard NOI line about whites: that whites were the evil, inferior creation of Yacub, the mad black scientist who wanted a race of inferiors to rule over. The Death Angels took this logic a step further in believing they could earn “points” towards becoming an angel when they died if they killed whites—especially women and children.

The first San Francisco killing occurred on October 20, 1973. Richard and Quita Hague were a young couple out for an after dinner walk when they were abducted at gunpoint and forced into a van. They were bound, and Richard was hit several times 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 information to the police.

The brutal attack on the Hagues marked the beginning of 179 days of terror in San Francisco that would result in 23 victims, 15 of them murdered; some of the others were left paralyzed or with permanent nerve damage. One of the survivors is Art Agnos, who would go on to become (an extremely liberal) mayor of San Francisco.

The Agnos shooting illustrates that the attacks were in no way a political protest of “oppression.” A member of the California Commission on Aging, Agnos was attending a meeting in a black neighborhood to discuss building a government health clinic in the area. In the same neighborhood, some of the killers were “hunting” for whites. As the meeting was letting 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. Luckily, bystanders called an ambulance and Agnos barely survived.

Zebra (1980) by crime writer Clark Howard, remains the definitive book on the killings. Using court records, police reports, witnesses, and interviews with the killers themselves, Howard was able to piece together the horrid details of the murder and the unrelenting hatred that inspired the killers.

Brutality and a lack of remorse on the part of the criminals mark the attacks. They were not murdering human beings but “grafted snakes,” “blue-eyed devils” and “white motherf–s.” More often than not, they chose the weak and defenseless to kill. Vincent Wollin was shot in the back and killed on his 69th birthday. Mildred Hosier, an obese older woman, was shot while walking to a bus stop after frantically trying to get away from her younger, faster attacker. Ilario Bertuccio—a 135 pound, 81-year-old man—was killed while walking home from work. Marietta DiGirolamo, a 5’1″ white woman with a black boyfriend, was shot and killed on her way to a nearby bar. In none of these cases did the victims do anything to provoke the murderers. They just had white skin and were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

As the murders added up, the San Francisco police came under pressure to solve and stop the crimes. In what was known as Operation Zebra, more police were put on the street and security checks were beefed up. E/AIF President Louis Calabro was a street patrol sergeant on the San Francisco Police Department at the time and was a part of Operation Zebra. He describes the mood of the police force during the attacks:

I think what most cops were thinking was how the hell are we going to end it. It kept happening while we were on full alert. They would hit and run and make their escape before it could be reported. There were rumors about . . . a department cop who was a member of the Officers for Justice, a black police officers association primarily formed to get more promotional jobs for themselves. We were all appalled and disgusted with the viciousness and randomness of the attacks—old people . . . stark terror at not being able to stop it.

The increased police presence had the predictable effect of enraging the black community. In what was perhaps a precursor to the Los Angeles riots and the O.J. Simpson trial, blacks in San Francisco showed a troubling lack of remorse at the murders of their white neighbors. Howard quotes from man-on-the-street 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 that the police are concerned for a change. I just wonder if they’d be as much concerned if it were black people getting killed.” A black attorney 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 Scale declared, “every black man in the Bay area is in danger of losing his life.” The Reverend Cecil Williams claimed the entire black community was “under a police state that could erupt into a racial war.”

It is disturbing that at a time when whites were being randomly killed because of their race, black citizens of San Francisco were venting their anger about possible police harassment and perceived double-standards. 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 expressed sympathy for the victims.”

Detectives Gus Coreris and John Fotinos were both 13-year veterans of the Homicide Unit and led the investigation which eventually cracked the case. Though both suspected the Black Muslims were involved, it was hard to get any information on the possible suspects because of a ban on surveillance of places of worship. Moreover, the strict, closed atmosphere of the NOI made it hard to get spies into the organization or to entice informants with rewards. Because the attackers were using the same weapons for each victim, Coreris and Fotinos were able to link the murderers. Also, the people who survived, such as Agnos and Richard Hague, were able to give descriptions of the attackers. Finally, one of the Death Angels came forward with information on the other killers. Those arrested were eight black men with prior prison records. All were members of the Death Angels. The core of the group that committed most of the murders consisted of five men: Jesse Lee Cooks, J.C. Simon, Larry Green, Manuel Moore, and Anthony Harris. Ironically, Harris was married to a white woman. Though this group of eight committed most of the killings, they do not account for all the members. Some killers remain free to this day.

The Nation of Islam paid for the legal representation of every one of the accused except for Cooks, who had immediately admitted to his killings. All the Death Angels caught are still in prison, though they do have a chance for parole. The E/AIF and family members of the victims have pledged to attend every parole hearing and to work to make sure the killers spend their lives in prison. On October 20, the same group will install a plaque at the sight where Richard and Quita Hague were abducted 25 years before.

The capture of the Death Angels put San Francisco at ease again, and the last 25 years has seen little to no publicity about the murders. It is interesting that while most serial killings take on a life of their own through movies, books, and documentaries (Jeffrey Dahmer, the Son of Sam, the Zodiac Murders), the Zebra killings have been all but forgotten. Calabro is often told that his remembrance of the murders is “inflammatory” and will create division. Still, he believes the innocent victims of this tragedy must be remembered. He will invite San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown to attend the memorial ceremony but does not expect an answer. The mayor’s office was invited to a smaller service last year but did not even bother to send a representative. Calabro, who expects some local media coverage for the event, detects a degree of “political correctness” in regards to the Zebra murders. “The lack of publicity’ and recognition of this terrible tragedy by government agencies, civil rights groups, and the media is consistent with their overt efforts to portray European-Americans as the perpetrators of hate crimes.”

Unfortunately, the same type of black-on-white serial murders occurred again. The Miami-based cult of Yahweh-Ben-Yahweh began systematically killing whites in the early 1990’s. As in the Zebra killings, whites were portrayed as “devils” to be killed at random. In what was mainly local news, seven people were ritually slaughtered before the cult was stopped.

It is said that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. The lack of attention given to this crime as it approaches its 25th anniversary does not bode well for the future of racial justice and reconciliation. Though the report of the President’s race panel will likely get more attention than the E/AIF memorial service, we would all do well to ponder the words of Clark Howard: “Monstrous behavior has never been restricted by race or religion—and never will be. The recounting of that behavior in books, articles, and films must never be restricted either— not by censor, not by conscience. For only in the telling of it might understanding surface.”