Black White Blue. William Swanson

Black White Blue - William Swanson

On May 22, 1970, responding to a bogus emergency call to help a pregnant woman, St. Paul patrolman James Sackett was killed by a sniper&#39;s bullet fired from a high-powered rifle.<br /><br />The white officer&#39;s assassination was the most shocking event in an era of shocking, racially charged events, punctuated by bombings at Dayton&#39;s Department Store and elsewhere, police harassment and shootings of young black men, an alleged hijacking plot, and random acts of urban violence. a once peaceful, close-knit community, St. Paul&#39;s summit-university neighborhood had reached a boiling point, heated by racism and rage.<br /><br />Award-winning journalist William Swanson masterfully walks the razor-edge between the grief and anger of a police force that lost one of its own and the deep-seated resentment and subsequent silence of a community that had many reasons not to trust the cops. Based on extensive interviews and archival research, Black White Blue recounts the details of one of the most extraordinary cold-case sagas in U.S. annals&mdash;a story featuring dozens of memorable characters, including a relentless &quot;super cop,&quot; an aggregation of conflicted informants, and a haunted woman who grew old with a terrible secret. The case culminates with the controversial trials, decades later, of Ronald Reed and Larry Clark. Black White Blue, is a powerful, true account of crime and punishment, time and memory, race, community, and personal relationships.