Biography
Ronald Bridgeforth was a Black Panther Party member in San Francisco who spent more than forty years underground. In September 1968 he was arrested after a confrontation with police at a White Front discount store in San Francisco and pleaded guilty to assault with a deadly weapon; in 1969, rather than face sentencing, he fled and disappeared. Living under the name Cole Jordan, he earned bachelor's and master's degrees, raised a family, and worked for years as a community-college counselor in Michigan. In January 2007 he was charged in absentia as the ninth defendant in the San Francisco 8 case — the revived prosecution of former Panthers over the August 29, 1971 shotgun killing of SFPD Sergeant John Young at Ingleside station — while the eight others were arrested across the country. After the SF8 case largely collapsed, Bridgeforth surrendered voluntarily in San Francisco in November 2011, telling the press he had come back to account for his past and live openly. The murder charge was not pursued; he pleaded guilty to the 1968 assault charge and in March 2012, at age 67, was sentenced to a year in county jail. Reconstructed from coverage of the 2007 San Francisco 8 arrests and his 2011 surrender.
