A Brief History
On December 4, 1969, the Chicago Police took the “war” with the militant African-American extremists, the Black Panthers, right into the bedroom when they shot Fred Hampton, a high-ranking member of the Black Panther Party (BPP), to death while he was sleeping.
Digging Deeper
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Police had been keeping tabs on Panther activity with the help of an informant, William O’Neal.
O’Neal had given information on Panther whereabouts and weapons as well as details about the house that was raided at 4 a.m. on December 4, 1969. Expecting to find as many as 20 armed Panthers willing to fight to the death, the Police came in ready to shoot. Mark Clark, a Panther on “sentry duty” who was armed with a shotgun, was shot where he sat but still fired a round that was later determined to be the result of reflex from being fatally shot in the heart. Rushing into the bedroom where Police expected to find Hampton in bed, drugged by the informant O’Neal, they found the suspect asleep with his pregnant girlfriend. Hampton was shot and when found to still be breathing, shot again, this time with 2 shots to the head. The entire time he never woke up.
The Police Administration lauded the raiding officers for showing “remarkable restraint” and “professional discipline” for not killing all the Panthers present. Not only were black activists outraged, but the radical group the Weather Underground took umbrage and went on a police-car-bombing spree on December 6 and declared “war” on the United States Government in 1970.
Tensions also boiled higher between the Panthers and the Police, and on November 13, 1969, in a shootout between the militants and the cops, 2 officers and a Panther were killed, with 7 other policemen wounded and 1 Panther arrested for murder.
An investigation of the events of the early morning hours of December 4 showed that only 1 or 2 shots had been fired by Panthers, with no cops hit; whereas the Police had fired an estimated 90 to 99 shots. The uproar from the black community and sympathetic whites was enough to get the investigation reopened, and some cops were charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice. All internal investigations determined the raid had gone off properly and that the death of both Panthers was justifiable homicide. The Police were acquitted. Even a federal grand jury failed to return any indictments against the Police.
Hampton had spent his brief 21 years on earth educating himself about social issues and the legal system and had always been on the lookout for cases of police brutality. He associated with various dissident and civil rights groups and was persuasive enough to negotiate a truce between Chicago’s gangs. These activities put him on the FBI’s “agitator list,” and from 1967 to 1969, the FBI amassed a 4,000 page file on him and tapped his mother’s telephone. Hampton’s only major crime, however, for which he was prosecuted by authorities was the 1967 theft of $71 worth of ice cream bars.
As part of its COINTELPRO war on dissidents program, the FBI had also run a campaign to undermine Hampton and the Panthers by spreading false rumors and messages between various factions.
By 1990 attitudes had changed, and the City of Chicago declared December 4 “Fred Hampton Day,” though a proposal in 2006 to name a street after Hampton was met with opposition from the Police.
Question for students (and subscribers): Were the Police right to assassinate Fred Hampton and Mark Clark? Did they act properly? Hampton did carry guns and was known to have said, “I’m at war with the pigs.” as well as “There’s going to have to be an armed struggle.” There is so much more information than can quickly be summarized in this short article. Do your research, make up your own mind and tell us what you think in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Haas, Jeffrey. The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther. Chicago Review Press, 2011.