On the evening of May 21, 1971, 33-year-old Black police officer Waverly Jones was fatally ambushed while on foot patrol with his partner, Joseph Piagentini, in the Colonial Park Houses at 159th Street and Harlem River Drive in Manhattan. Around 10:00 p.m., three assailants approached the officers from behind and opened fire. Officer Jones was shot in the back of the head and died instantly; Officer Piagentini was shot multiple times and later died en route to the hospital.

One of the attackers took Officer Jones’s service weapon. That same weapon was later recovered in San Francisco after members of the Black Liberation Army used it in an attack there. An investigation identified and led to the arrest of three members of the Black Liberation Army: Anthony Bottom, Albert Washington, and Herman Bell.

All three were tried and convicted for the murders and received 25 years to life.