Lawyer: Accused cop killer will surrender

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 9 (UPI) -- A man charged with killing a San Francisco police officer in 1971 plans to surrender to fight the charge, a lawyer said Tuesday.

Paul Harris told the San Francisco Chronicle that Ronald Stanley Bridgeforth wants to plead guilty to another charge, that he fired at South San Francisco police officers trying to arrest him for credit card fraud in 1968. He said Bridgeforth plans to surrender Thursday morning in San Mateo County Superior Court in Redwood City.

"He has two sons, and he wants them to be the kind of man he is now, not the kind of man who he was that one day in November 1968," Harris said.

Bridgeforth, who had been a fugitive for almost four decades, was one of eight men charged in 2007 with killing Sgt. John Young at the Ingleside Police Station in San Francisco. Prosecutors said he was a member of the Black Liberation Army and drove the getaway car.

Charges against most of the men have been dropped, and two, already in prison for life, pleaded guilty to lesser charges.

Harris said Bridgeforth was not a member of the BLA.

Bridgeforth had made a new life for himself, Harris said, and was not at any risk of arrest. He said Bridgeforth worked as a janitor and then returned to college, eventually getting a job as a college teacher and student adviser.