Ex-Cons Not Tied to Newton, Police Say

Three armed ex-convicts, including a reputed cocaine dealer, were arrested near where Black Panther Party co-founder Huey P. Newton was killed, but Oakland police Thursday steadfastly denied a published report that the men are suspects in the shooting.

The men were arrested within 14 hours of Newton’s slaying early Tuesday on suspicion of being ex-convicts in possession of firearms, but Oakland Police Sgt. Dan Mercado said they had not been linked to the former black militant’s death.

“God, I wish there was a link, but there isn’t,” Mercado said.

Speculation about the arrests began when the San Francisco Examiner late on Thursday quoted an unnamed source “close to the investigation” that Oakland police believed that the men may have killed Newton because, the paper said, he was disrespectful to them in a pre-dawn confrontation in a poor Oakland neighborhood plagued by drug dealing and violence.

The newspaper quoted its source as saying that police were unsure if the killers realized whom they were confronting.

Police immediately denied the report.

“I’m at a loss to explain to other news media why the Examiner would print that story,” said Police Lt. Mike Sims. “They certainly didn’t clear it through me, and I wish they had. It might have saved a lot of embarrassment--on their part.”

Sims said he could not even confirm that any of the arrested men had a drug record.

“If we had some knowledge that three men confronted Newton on the street and an argument ensued and they shot Newton, I would probably say, ‘No comment,’ ” Sims conceded, “but to my knowledge, no one has said that is how Newton was killed. That would indicate a motive.”

He said investigators still have not established a motive for the killing, in which Newton, 47, a leading figure in the 1960s’ Black Power movement, was shot in the head and left to die on an Oakland street corner near where he and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party in 1966.

The Examiner stood by its story despite police denials.

Police did say they are continuing to focus their investigation on the last few hours of Newton’s life, in hopes that a motive and suspects may be deduced by finding out why he was in that violent part of town at 5:30 a.m.

They have interviewed two people who spent time with him earlier in the morning and on the previous night, but declined to identify either person or disclose what they said.