Good morning,
I share the reviewer's concern that this sad episode has largely faded from memory (except for books such as this one and magazines such as FrontPage.com), but one of the difficulties is that so much of what has been written seems to err in fact and context. For example:

1. This article puts the death toll at 71; however, the official count was 14 dead and seven wounded. Still heinous, but a major difference. See:
http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/mass/zebra_murders/16.html?sect=8

2. The quotes representing black community sentiment appear to be taken out of context. The primary concern of the black community members and leaders that I saw quoted was first, that the police were saying that there was a widespread conspiracy to kill white people, when in fact, this was the behavior of a small group of miscreants.

The second concern had to do with what we would now call racial profiling, and that was the basis of the judicial order to stop Operation Zebra. See:http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/mass/zebra_murders/12.html?sect=8. Racial profiling has been consistently been found to be an ineffective policing method, in addition to its troubling ethical ramifications.

Finally, the reviewer is mistaken: racially motivated against whites are prosecuted as hate crimes. See the FBI's annual hate crimes report, available here: http://www.fbi.gov/publications.htm. For 2003, the last year for which data is available, 830 incidents of anti-white bias crimes were reported, as compared to 2,548 incidents of anti-black bias crimes. One anti-white homicide is recorded; there were four anti-black homicides.

The Zebra killings deserve to be remembered as a horrible crime and as yet another tragic episode in which misinformation and misperceptions about race stirred up resentments and interfered with solving an important serial murder case.

So now we've discovered both how to attract the anti-semites and the klansmen to BC. Oh joy.

Dave

To treat RJ's closing question seriously for a second, I can't imagine how this could not be treated as a hate crime today. It fits the definition so well that if you accept the idea of hate crimes, you have to accept that this is one.

On the other hand, how much more can you punish these violent racists than to execute them, as their crimes deserve. Oh wait - one really shocking thing RJ failed to mention - even though California has the death penalty, the members of this group got only life in prison and are up for parole again this year, although like Manson their parole will likely never be granted.

Dave

Life in prison might be best for hate crimes, anyway. Let them rot in jail, waiting in vain for the "race war" they idiotically hope will occur any day now, but which stubbornly continues refusing to arrive.

I've spent good portions of my life working side by side with black Americans, black Africans, American Indians, Indians from India, and other people darker brown than the so-called "white" people of northern Europe. In doing so I've met many I would trust with my life.

If any race war ever did break out, I'd definitely rather be on the side of racial diversity. I could trust many of my dark-skinned friends to watch my back in such a conflict, far more than I could ever trust any of the creepy "white supremacists" I've seen posting here and elsewhere.

Racists conveniently forget the savagery of Europe's wars. The worst atrocities committed by black people in Zimbabwe, Rwanda, or South Africa have been evenly matched by the horrors carried out in the name of racial purity or religious purity by the supposedly civilized peoples of Europe.

History conclusively proves skin color has nothing to do with our capacity for violence and savagery. It is just as universal as our capacity for peaceful cooperation with each other.

It is up to each one of us to choose which capacity we will express.

My study of history tells me the forces of cooperation will prove stronger than the forces of racism and division, and I choose to be on the winning side of history.

Unemployment and oppression are two main causes for resentment, although I'm not sure they justify killing people. If you look at Africa and the Middle East, a lot of people are unemployed and oppressed. What breeds to fanaticism is the lack of a light at the end of the tunnel. Fanatics like those involved in the Zebra Killings or in the daily suicide bombings in Iraq see no light and have nothing to hope for in this life. They see only death.

Tan, that is one of the dumbest remarks I've seen in awhile. Congradulations! Precisely what "lack of hope" did the Zebra killers endure that would motivate them to do their heinous acts? I believe every one of them was employed by various NOI enterprises in San Francisco. Oh, since several had been in prison I suppose that makes them "oppressed?" You are correct in one respect when you said "They see only death"----only in this case the death they saw was the deaths of their innocent victims. Please use some commonsense next time and not compare the "persecution" of the Zebra killers with truely poor and oppressed persons in the third world.

There will be a Tenth Annual Zebra Victims Memorial Service on the Plaza Side of San Francisco City Hall on October 20th, 2006 at 12:00 Noon. Mayor Newsom and other dignataries will be invited to honor the 15 victims in San Francisco who were murdered because they were European American whites.

Louis Calabro, President, European/American Issues Forum

Thanks for bringing these crimes to light again ! I remember quite well as a child watching the news and reading over my fathers shoulders in the newspapers the Zebra killings... The victims of these ignorant bastards should be remembered and remind us all of how precious human life truly is. As far as the whole " racial thing" and why the Zebra Killings haven't been seen nor heard about on a national level is beyond stupid ! being a survivor of my brothers senseless murder... evil has no color ! evil will always be just that EVIL !

i have worked at the post office that delivers mr shields mail since before the murders and have to comment on the way the family handled this ordeal with dignaty. the 'zodiac" movie brought this to mind for me

First, just a couple of corrections to a very engaging commentary: Quita Hague was not quite decapitated, but close to it. The serial killing circle was actually better organized outside San Francisco and throughout all of California, where the murders were quite numerous and possibly in the hundreds.

Yes, it is a touchy subject. Society is not yet ready to ever whisper the taboo of Black on White hate crimes, yet it certainly does happen. Perhaps if and when Barack Obama becomes president, such crimes will be seen for what they are: pure cowardly hatred toward others. Thousands of films and books on Nazis and white serial killers, but only two books on the Zebra killings. But, the media is just to scared to raise a whisper and instead lambasts Hillary Clinton for every possible innuendo toward Barack Obama. Hey media, if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. These crimes were inspired with a hatred toward white skin.

When I wrote this:

But one wonders if such vile acts, were they to occur today, would be prosecuted as "hate crimes." After all, it was black-on-white, not the reverse. And prosecutors have been extremely reluctant to pursue convictions for "hate crimes" if the defendants are black.

Is this a particularly obvious example of a "hate crime"? Yes. But is it also obvious that this would be prosecuted as such, if it were to happen today? No.

And that is the problem with "hate crime" legislation: Unequal protection under the law...

...some of the commenters thought I was being silly. But read this:

In the aforementioned interview with Sheriff Mark Hackel, Frank Beckmann asked:

"Sheriff, all the kids in the video I saw are African-American. All of your victims are white. Is there evidence that this was somehow [attacks based on race]?"

Hackel responded with "It's a question that we are asking. ... If it's a hate crime and it happens to be a white person and the other people involved are African-Americans, we look at those things."

When Beckmann inquired as to whether or not there is a "law to charge them with some kind of hate crime," Hackel answered, "Well, that's questionable. I don't know if it applies to an unprotected class, and I don't know if whites are part of that. I'm not sure."

Beckmann was shocked to hear Hackel suggest that whites are not entitled to equal protection under the law. A taken aback Beckmann asked:

"You mentioned 'unprotected class.' You mean white people are not protected by hate crime legislation?"

Hackel answered that question by saying, "It doesn't appear as such at this point and time that there is something that would qualify."

Unequal protection under the law, anyone?