SAN FRANCISCO -- They'd long since exchanged the radical idealism of their youth for comparatively quiet lives as janitors, job counselors and Little League coaches. They'd become husbands, fathers and grandfathers.

But memories of a violent era in American history came rushing back this week when eight men with ties to the Black Panther Party were arrested in the 1971 killing of a San Francisco police officer.

Prosecutors say members of the Black Liberation Army, a violent offshoot of the Panthers, stormed the lobby of a police station that August night, killing Sgt. John V. Young by firing a shotgun through the speaking hole in a glass partition. A civilian clerk was hit in the arm as she ducked for cover behind a file cabinet.

According to prosecutors, Francisco Torres, Herman Bell and Henry Watson Jones staged the attack. John Bowman, Richard Brown and Harold Taylor were the lookouts. Ray Michael Boudreaux and Ronald Bridgeforth were the getaway drivers.

Anthony Bottom was supposed to be part of the attack team, but he was arrested the night before after attempting to fire a machine gun at a police sergeant.

Bowman died of liver cancer in December, and Bridgeforth is believed to have fled the country.

Seven others were arrested Tuesday on charges of murder and conspiracy to commit murder. An eighth, Richard O'Neal, was charged only with conspiracy.

Investigators say new evidence led them to finally make the arrests in Young's killing, but they won't specify what that is. Lawyers for some of the former BLA members say the case is really about revenge.

It isn't the first time their names were tied to Young's death, but six of the eight men had managed to live relatively normal lives in the ensuing 36 years.

Taylor, now 58, moved to Florida where he worked as a utility lineman and lived with his daughter and girlfriend.

Boudreaux, 64, and Jones, 71, moved to Altadena, north of Pasadena, where they live within a mile of each other and remain friends. Boudreaux is an electrician for Los Angeles County; Jones is a real estate appraiser.

Torres, 58, moved to Queens, New York where he's lived in the same house for 27 years, according to his lawyer, Michael Warren, who called this prosecution "ridiculous" and "without any merit whatsoever." He said his client is a married "family man" with two sons who's active in his community and coaches Little League. He said Torres served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam and was disabled by Agent Orange.

Richard Brown, 65, and Richard O'Neal, 57, stayed in San Francisco. Brown worked for nearly 20 years as a job counselor and developer at a community center and O'Neal worked as a custodian for the city.

Bell, 59, and Bottom, 55, were the two exceptions. Both are serving life sentences for killing two New York City police officers during the same violent spree that claimed Young, according to authorities.

But both men earned college degrees in prison, a warden has credited Bottom with helping to prevent riots. Bell, a former scholarship athlete, coaches inmate football teams. Both maintain they were framed by the FBI.

Police reopened the case in 1999, saying they had new information. A grand jury heard evidence and several members of the group refused to testify, but no charges were filed.

In 2005, police turned the case over to the state attorney general's office. Again, several people were summoned and refused to testify, including Taylor, Brown, Boudreaux and Jones. They argued the grand jury system is inherently unfair because defendants aren't allowed to have a lawyer present.

They also protested their treatment during an earlier phase of the investigation.

Two years after the killing, Taylor and Bowman were arrested in New Orleans. But a judge dismissed the charges in 1976 because the men had allegedly been tortured by San Francisco police officers during an interrogation.

Over three days, the men said, they were stripped, blindfolded and beaten. They were covered with blankets soaked in boiling water and their genitals shocked with an electric prod. Without food or water, Taylor has said publicly, the men finally relented and confessed.

Under those circumstances, Taylor recalled during a recent public speaking engagement, "Whatever you want me to say, I will say it."

Until the officers who beat them were brought to justice, the men said, they would refuse to answer the grand jury's questions. They went public, speaking to activist and community groups from Boston to Chicago and vowing to dedicate the rest of their lives to stopping torture.

They even gained the support of Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree and actor and San Francisco native Danny Glover. Ogletree did not return a call on Wednesday; Glover was in India and unavailable.

Two defense lawyers said Wednesday they believe the new charges are retaliation for the former Panthers' public statements.

"The government was embarrassed" when earlier attempts to indict the men fell through, said Warren, Torres' lawyer.

Taylor appeared briefly in court Wednesday via a video link from a Panama City jail, where he's being held without bail. He said he would fight extradition to California, but does not yet have a lawyer.

Jones' lawyer, John Philipsborn, said he looks forward to defending his client.

Boudreaux's lawyer, Michael Burt, said his client is innocent. "He didn't murder anybody," he said.

Brown's longtime friend, the Rev. Amos Brown, called him a "decent human being," who's been active in his community. He's a member of the African American Police Community Relations Board and an anti-poverty neighborhood group. The pastor of Third Baptist Church said he visited his friend in jail Tuesday and he declared his innocence.