Setback Dealt in 1970 Officer Slaying Case

A retired Oakland high school teacher who was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of shooting a rookie Berkeley police officer to death nearly 35 years ago was to be released Friday night after prosecutors said there was insufficient evidence to file charges.

Styles Price, 56, was to be released from the Alameda County jail after the district attorney’s office declined to file a criminal complaint against him, according to his Oakland attorney, William DuBois.

Charges against his alleged accomplice, Don Juan Warren Graphenreed, 56, a convicted burglar currently serving time at Corcoran State Prison, were also dropped. Police had said that Price was the gunman and Graphenreed drove the getaway car.

Graphenreed, according to authorities, was once a low-level member of the Black Panthers. It is the second time he has been arrested in the case and the second time prosecutors declined to file charges against him.

Officer Ronald T. Tsukamoto, 28, who was the first Japanese American member of the city police force, was gunned down shortly before 1 a.m. Aug. 20, 1970, as he was talking with a motorcyclist during a traffic stop in downtown Berkeley.

The motorcyclist said a man wearing a long coat approached, spoke to Tsukamoto, then pulled a handgun and shot the officer in the head before fleeing in a Studebaker driven by someone else.

Tsukamoto, a newlywed who had been on the force only 11 months, was the first Berkeley officer killed in the line of duty.

Berkeley police reopened the homicide probe about three years ago after new evidence surfaced, said department spokesman Joe Okies. Officials declined to describe the evidence.

But Friday, DuBois confirmed information from a law enforcement official who said a police sketch of the assailant, created in the days after the slaying from descriptions by the motorcyclist, was a “dead ringer” for a photo of Price, computer-modified to subtract 35 years. The official declined to be named.

Despite the setback, Berkeley police say the investigation continues.

“We are confident we have identified the people who were responsible for Ron’s murder,” Okies said. “We will continue to work with the district attorney’s office to get charges filed, and ultimately convictions.”