CALIFORNIA IN BRIEF : TEHACHAPI : Black Panther Pratt Denied Parole Again

Former Black Panther Party leader Elmer (Geronimo) Pratt was denied parole for the 12th time since the 1968 murder of a Southern California woman during a $30 robbery. After a three-hour hearing, the Board of Prison Terms found that Pratt was “not suitable for parole at this time.” Pratt, who is serving a life sentence at the California Correctional Institute at Tehachapi and has always maintained his innocence, will be up for parole again in a year. Pratt, 46, was convicted in 1972, four years after Carolyn Olson, 27, a schoolteacher, was shot to death and her husband, Kenneth, 33, was wounded at a Santa Monica tennis court. Pratt has maintained he was at Black Panther headquarters in Oakland at the time of the slaying.