Nov. 2, 1973: 49 years ago, Nov 1 1973, Black 14-year-old Tyrone Guyton was murdered by [...]

49 years ago, Nov 1 1973, Black 14-year-old Tyrone Guyton was murdered by plainclothes Emeryville police in Oakland. A coalition of left groups, including the Black Panthers as well as Trotskyists, Maoists, Pan-Africanists, and labor unions fought to convict the cops responsible

Guyton, who lived in Oakland, had been hanging out with friends on a section of the San Pablo Strip in Emeryville, when two plainclothes police claimed to see them “tinkering” with a car. The cops chased the teenagers into Oakland, rammed their car, then opened fire as they fled

Guyton was shot by one of the officers, who proceeded to cuff the boy. As they were cuffing him, Officer Thomas Mierky shot him again, this time in the back. After killing Guyton, they claimed he had opened fire on them, but no gun or evidence of one was recovered from the scene

Guyton’s family contacted the Black Panthers, who formed the Committee For Justice For Tyrone Guyton. Other groups joined, including the Socialist Workers Party, Spartacist League, Revolutionary Union, October League, Progressive Labor Party, and Pan Afrikan People’s Organization

Organized labor played an important role in the committee, with militant caucuses of the International Longshore & Warehouse Union, United Auto Workers, American Federation of Teachers, and the National Alliance of Postal and Federal Employees donating time and money

The National Lawyers Guild provided legal aid (led by Dan Siegel, a radical lawyer & former Berkeley student leader who had been prosecuted for his role in the People’s Park riots). They were aided extralegally by the New World Liberation Front, who blew up an Emeryville cop car

Despite their efforts, the Committee soon fractured along sectarian lines, and the BPP, SWP, and Spartacist League left the coalition. The killer cops were not indicted and did not lose their jobs. In 1981, however, Guyton’s mother was awarded $200,000 for “wrongful death”