Biography
Curtiss Ray Harris was a co-captain of Seattle’s Black Panther Party. Police arrested him and Aaron Dixon during the July 29, 1968 raid on the party office, alleging that a typewriter there had been stolen. Their confinement prompted demonstrations in the Central District, and both were later acquitted in the typewriter case.
In his May 13, 1970 testimony, Seattle detective Stanley K. Fridell reported Harris's September 18, 1968 arrest for threats to kill, an October 8 conviction and a $100 fine. He also reported a March 10, 1969 marijuana-possession arrest, followed by a June 9 conviction and a six-month suspended sentence. These are the witness's accounts of separate proceedings; a suspended sentence is not six months actually served, and the hearing supplies no custody endpoints for these arrests.
