San Francisco 8: Torres, last defendent, has hearing delayed

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

A hearing to determine the status of one last defendant in a 38-year-old case of a slain San Francisco police officer was delayed Monday. The hearing will resume Oct. 9.

Francisco Torres is the last of the defendants who were to stand trial for the 1971 shotgun death of Sgt. John Young at the Ingleside Station.

San Francisco police arrested eight men in 2007 in connection with the attack, accusing them of murder and conspiracy to commit murder. After some of the conspiracy charges were dismissed because of the statute of limitations, one defendant was dropped from the case.

Earlier this summer, Anthony Bottom and Herman Bell, two defendants in the Ingleside case who are serving life sentences in New York for the murders of two New York City police officers in 1971, entered pleas to lesser charges. Bell pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter, and Bottom pleaded no contest to conspiracy to commit voluntary manslaughter.

Prosecutors then dismissed charges against all of the defendants except Torres. Police investigators say Torres’ fingerprint was found on a lighter left at the scene of the attack at Ingleside.