Fraters Libertas

Lost Twin Cities

This weekend brought welcome news that arrests were finally made in the 1970 murder of St. Paul police officer James Sackett. Thirty-five years ago this May, while on-duty and responding to a call of a woman in labor needing assistance, Officer Sackett was shot in the back by an assassin. It soon became apparent the original call of distress was itself a set up, the lure to bring a police officer, any police officer, into the sniper's kill zone. The facts of the case, from the Pioneer Press:

On May 22, 1970, [James] Sackett was back to work for the first time since the birth of his fourth child three weeks earlier. Sackett and his partner, Glen Kothe, had just finished their shifts but agreed to respond to 859 Hague Ave., on a call to help a woman going into labor. Police later realized the call was a ruse - they believe the killers were intent on shooting a cop. Kothe recounted Saturday that when there was no response at the front door, he went around back.

"I was at the back door, and there was a shot and a shout like he was surprised," said Kothe, who retired in 1997. "At first I thought it wasn't him. I ran around front not expecting what I found."

Jack Kirkwood, then 14, lived next door. He heard shots and ran to look out the window.

"I thought it was a cab driver getting robbed," said Kirkwood, now 48, on Saturday. "Then I saw it was the police. I saw officer Sackett lying on the ground moaning and groaning. Within seconds, the whole police force was there."

These facts are generally known to anyone familiar with St Paul's history. But the context of this murder is not as well remembered:

When Cmdr. Ron Ryan, then a rookie, arrived, Sackett was "laying on the sidewalk with a puddle of blood around him." A crowd had gathered and "they were there, laughing and jeering," said Ryan, adding that [the accused assailant Ronald Reed] was seen in the crowd. "It was a horrible, horrible time."

A crowd, celebrating the demise and defiling the service of a slain police officer. It's impossible to believe such things would happen in the safe, peaceful little city I know today. But they did. It's heartbreaking to note that Police Commander Ron Ryan provided the above observation, of the tragedy of seeing his brother peace officer murdered and then mocked. Heartbreaking, since Ryan, then a rookie cop with a bouncing, beautiful 2 year old boy at home would face tragedy again. For that two year old boy would grow up and 24 years later himself be murdered in the line of duty while serving the citizens of St. Paul.

Commander Ryan, perhaps more than anyone else, understands the fragility of the thin blue line, that small band of men and women dedicated to enforcing the law and putting themselves in the breach that separates civilization from anarchy. It's this willingness to serve that guides my instinctive sympathies toward police when they're subject to accusations and engaged in political strife with the communities they serve. Arguably, it was this very political strife that led to the murder of Officer Sackett. Again from the Pioneer Press:

The late 1960s and 1970s in St. Paul were a time of "a city divided," said Rome Hanson, who lived close to 859 Hague Ave. and was a friend of people who lived there (they were not involved, police determined).

"When Officer Sackett was shot, the mood in the hood at the time was 'good.' That was one less cop we had to deal with.

A mood which was likely cultivated by the accused killer's political affiliations (from the Star Tribune):

It was the Vietnam War era and a time of protests, and Reed had aligned himself with the philosophies of the Black Panthers, according to his notes.

Until recently, I never thought about the Black Panther presence in St. Paul. But this is the second time in a three weeks local news has chronicled their past exploits. The other, from the Associated Press on January 2:

An Inver Grove Heights woman has died from injuries resulting from a bombing 34 years ago at a St. Paul department store. Mary Peek was 82.

Peek's lungs were burned in the Aug. 22, 1970, blast at the Dayton's store, now Marshal Field's. The wounds led to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which eventually proved fatal. She was in the store restroom when a time bomb with a two-pound stick of dynamite exploded. A second timebomb was set to kill firefighters who responded to the scene, but it was defused.

A 15-year-old boy affiliated with the Black Panthers was convicted of attempted first-degree murder and spent three years in prison.

Interesting to note, the Dayton's bombing occurred just 3 months after the Sackett shooting. Two terrorist incidents, in spiritual alignment with what we're seeing in places such as Tikrit and Baghdad today, occurring right here in St. Paul 35 years ago.

Beyond digust, my primary reaction is surprise that the decent citizenry in 1970 didn't react more militantly themselves. Members of a radical political group indiscriminately slaughtering citizens and public servants, and what was the result? A measly 3 year sentence for the Dayton's bomber. An acquittal for the accomplice in the Sackett murder (the girlfriend of Reed, who placed the call to lure Sackett to his death, who then said she was under duress at the time and the jury believed her). And after that, the decision not to prosecute Reed and his alleged partner Larry Clark at all - despite the fact that the law enforcement community were convinced of their participation in the killing. It seems shocking post 9-11, but in 1970 extreme acts of political violence were treated with legal and moral indifference.

The local papers' attempts to explain the motives of the alleged killers may give us some insight into the mindset of the times. I wonder how much the people (or at least the cultural and political elite) shared this precious, sensitive understanding of the situation. From the Star Tribune:

Reed and Clark, charged last week with the 1970 slaying of officer James Sackett, came of age in the tumultuous '60s when many young people, black and white, distrusted the police and defied the "establishment." Those were days of rage, fueled by antiwar sentiments, oppression and poverty.

And the Pioneer Press:

In St. Paul and around the country, social turmoil raged over dissatisfaction with the progress of civil rights and the escalating war in Vietnam.

So, the history lesson given is that "dissatisfaction with progress" and the need to "defy the establishment" leads to "turmoil" and "distrust." Which all sounds very romantic and righteous. But here in the real world, on the streets of St. Paul , that was operationalized in 1970 as indiscriminate violence and cold blooded murder. (And someone needs to explain to me how shooting and bombing people was justified by "antiwar sentiment.")

I'd like to think we have matured as a society since 1970. As the "anti-war" counter culture fantasists begin to stir again, I'd like to think it won't all come out the same way. That those democratically selected to be out of power, those prone to (as in the 1960's) characterize our government as fascists, liars, and murderers, and those who, on their fringe, are still prone to romantic, deluded ruminations about violence and revolution - aren't really serious. And that we won't face the spasms and outbursts of 1970 again. But, as someone once said about real fascists after World War Two, the first lesson is - when someone says they want to kill you, believe them. I suspect Officer James Sackett would agree with that advice.