Biography
James Reynolds Mendoza was a 19-year-old Chicano from Milwaukee's Southside held in the city jail for the July 1974 shooting deaths of off-duty policemen Robert Riley and Thomas Matulis, who were killed — possibly with their own guns — after a drunken altercation involving Matulis's own brother and his drinking companions. Mendoza was arrested at his cousin's house fourteen hours later. A witness who saw the shooting from ten feet said she knew the assailant by name and that it was not Mendoza and that no Mexican-Americans were at the scene; twenty other witnesses also failed to link him to the shooting, while police ransacked homes and searched without warrants for evidence against him. The Black Panther reported his case as that of a brother unjustly held while the poor white and Chicano Southside was thrown into upheaval. Reconstructed from The Black Panther, Vol. XII No. 3 (August 10, 1974); the later disposition of his case has not been located.
