New York man indicted for 1971 Atlanta cop killing

ATLANTA - A New York man who belonged to a violent revolutionary group three decades ago was indicted Friday for the 1971 slaying of an Atlanta police officer. <br> <br> Freddie Hilton, 49, was brought to Fulton County from a New York prison last month because police believed they finally had enough evidence to charge him, one of the original suspects. <br> <br> Officer James Richard Greene was shot and killed in his patrol car Nov. 3, 1971, at an Atlanta gas station. <br> <br> Authorities suspected the Black Liberation Army in the shooting because Greene&#39;s gun and badge were taken, a mark of the revolutionary group that advocated killing policemen to protest racial discrimination. <br> <br> Police raided a DeKalb County farmhouse where the group lived, spending long hours at shooting practice and mapping banks for possible robberies. <br> <br> One of the men arrested, Samuel Cooper, told police that Hilton and Twyman Meyers had killed the officer to prove themselves after their leader berated them for doing ``stupid things.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> Cooper told police that Hilton and Meyers came back to the farmhouse with Greene&#39;s badge and gun and bragged about killing him. <br> <br> But the district attorney at the time, Lewis Slaton, said he didn&#39;t have enough evidence to prosecute the pair. <br> <br> ``I knew we had a good case, but the DA wouldn&#39;t go for it. That always bothered me,&#39;&#39; said former Lt. Louis Graham, who now works for the DeKalb Cuonty Sheriff&#39;s Department. <br> <br> Meyers died in 1973 after a shootout with police in New York City. <br> <br> Atlanta Det. Jim Rose rounded up at least seven more people willing to testify and rekindled the case. <br> <br> ``Some of them are truly remorseful about it,&#39;&#39; Rose said of the BLA members. ``But I don&#39;t think they would have been as willing to testify back then.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> Hilton went to New York, converted to Islam and changed his name to Kamau Sadiki. He&#39;s worked quietly for a phone company for the past 18 years. He was sent to Fulton County last month after police arrested him for suspected child molestation. Hilton was not charged in that case. <br> <br> Hilton&#39;s attorney questioned the late-coming indictment and said the evidence isn&#39;t any better now than it was almost 31 years ago. <br> <br> ``Thirty years to bring an indictment? My guess is the case must have been very weak or it would have been brought before that,&#39;&#39; attorney Akil Secret said. ``I think the state is guessing.&#34;