San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Former Panther falls ill after arrest
Items have been culled from The Chronicle’s archives of 25, 50, 75 and 100 years ago.
1994
March 2: Former Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver was listed in critical condition at Alta Bates Medical Center in Berkeley last night after five hours of brain surgery. The 56-year-old Cleaver became ill yesterday after being arrested early yesterday for possession of crack cocaine a few blocks from his Berkeley home. Two officers responding to a report of a prowler on Sacramento Street near University Avenue at 3:50 a.m. found Cleaver, said police spokesman Lieutenant Michel DeLatour. The officers said Cleaver’s speech seemed slurred and he had trouble standing. Officers arrested him for being under the influence, and when booking him found crack cocaine and a crack pipe in his vest pocket. Cleaver then apparently told officers that he is diabetic. “He started vomiting and it looked like he might be having a diabetic reaction,” DeLatour said. At 5:35 a.m. paramedics took Cleaver to Alta Bates, where doctors discovered he was suffering from a subdural hematoma, or bleeding of the brain. In a five-hour operation, doctors removed part of his skull to relieve pressure on the brain. A brain hemorrhage usually stems from a severe fall or blow to the head, but no mention of a head injury is in the police report.
“There was no physical confrontation in this situation at all,” DeLatour said . ... In fact, one of the officers was advised that he was not steady, so he kept the other officer with him at all times because he didn’t want (Cleaver) to fall down and hurt himself.”
Cleaver has had numerous brushes with the law. He was wounded and arrested in a bloody shootout with Oakland police in which Black Panther Bobby Hutton was killed. He jumped the $50,000 bail and fled to Havana and later to Moscow and Algeria before returning to the United States in 1979.
— Janet Wells
1969
Feb. 26: Police were called to the Board of Education meeting here last night to break up a bloody struggle that erupted during what turned into a bitter protest over school busing. An angry, fist-shaking throng of some 1000 persons jammed the Nourse Auditorium to yell their denunciations of a school desegregation plan. And midway through the meeting, a teenager carrying a newspaper headlined “End Racism” was set upon by several members of the crowd and was beaten bloody. Chronicle photographer Vincent Maggiora, who was photographing the incident, also was attacked and badly beaten by members of the crowd. Maggiora was grabbed, knocked to the ground and repeatedly kicked in the face and body as he lay there. His camera was smashed. As he was being beaten Maggiora yelled for help to policemen nearby. But he said they were too busy defending themselves against attackers.
After being beaten inside the lobby Maggiora was kicked and beaten again outside the building until San Francisco Examiner reporter Jim Wood managed to pull the assailants off. Maggiora then returned to the building where he was beaten a third time and his film taken. Before the violence broke out, the board members sat in stunned silence as speaker after speaker savagely assailed them as Communists and worse for considering busing students.
1944
March 2: Izzy Gomez, “last of the Barbary Coast brigands” received a presidential pardon for his bootlegging sins of 1933, it was learned yesterday. The pardon arrived by registered mail last Thursday and was signed by President Roosevelt and U.S. Attorney General Biddle. Izzy was arrested for bootlegging 10 years ago and was fined $500. He didn’t pay the fine. He went to jail. And he remained in jail from January 14 1932 to April 20 of that year. He was released after he had taken the pauper’s oath.
1919
March 3: With the tide sweeping their small craft into the ferry steamer fairway where their actions were witnessed by thousands, two men fought a grim duel on the bay yesterday. As the small boat floated past the stern of the steamer Newark one of the fighters threw his opponent into the water and shook his fist at the struggling figure who surfaced twice then was gone. Frantic with excitement passengers rushed to the second officer and demanded that a boat be lowered and an attempt be made to save the drowning man and arrest the murderer.
“Don’t worry about that fellow,” answered the officer. “That’s the third time he has gone overboard this morning.” Just then one of the Peterson launches with a crowd aboard hove down on the place of disaster. A cameraman turned the crank of his machine industriously and a voice roared out: “That’s good enough. If you had done as well the first time you’d a been ashore long ago. Now let’s get back to the ship for the rest of it.” And it seems that all of the commuters will have a chance to see the scene re-enacted for a movie company is hard at work making a picture with a lot of water thrills in it.