Looking back at the Algiers Motel slayings

Law enforcement officers raided the motel, responding to reports of sniper attacks. No weapons were found inside the victims' rooms.

Witnesses said the three victims -- Carl Cooper, 17, Auburey Pollard, 19, and Fred Temple, 18 -- were shot while unarmed.

A diagram shows the position of the bodies found in the Algiers Motel annex, located behind the motel.

The sign for the Algiers Motel on Woodward at Virginia Park is seen in 1967.

Emergency workers remove a body from the Algiers Manor, the annex of the Algiers Motel. The men charged in the killings also were accused of brutally beating seven other black men, and stripping and beating two white women, in the raid.

David Senak, 27, one of the three Detroit policemen and a private guard being tried on federal conspiracy charges relating to the incident at the Algiers Motel, leaves court as the case went to the jury in 1970.

Algiers defendants, from left, David Senak, 25, Ronald August, 31, Robert Paille, 34, all Detroit policemen, and private guard Melvin Dismukes, 26, talk to the media Feb. 25, 1970, at a recess just before their acquittal by an all-white jury on federal conspiracy charges relating to the slayings.

Rev. Dan Aldridge, 75, shows a photo from the tribunal he organized after the slayings, an attempt to duplicate a real courtroom trial and get to the facts. A jury of white and black citizens, including Rosa Parks, found the defendants guilty on all counts.