4th December 1969: Fred Hampton killed by Chicago police working with COINTELPRO
Fred Hampton was chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party (BPP), and deputy chairman of the national BPP. His talent as a political organiser was described as remarkable, and in 1968 he was on the verge of creating a merger between the BPP and a southside street gang with thousands of members, which would have doubled the size of the national BPP adn increased the BPP’s influence in white and latino communities. The US government viewed this as a huge threat and ordered an intense FBI crackdown to destroy the BPP “by any means neccessary.”
The FBI organised a raid on Hampton’s apartment in Chicago. FBI informant William O'Neal provided Chicago Police with documents showing the layout of the apartment, as well as slipping a sleeping agent into Hampton’s drink that night so that he wouldn’t awaken during the raid. Hampton fell asleep mid-sentence at 1:45 a.m. while talking to his mother.
At 4:00 a.m, heavily armed Chicago Police arrived at Hampton’s apartment and split into two teams, 8 for the front door and 6 for the back. At 4:45 a.m. they stormed the apartment, shooting Mark Clark (on security duty) in the chest and killing him instantly. The officers moved through the apartments, firing automatic weapons into the bedroom where Fred Hampton and his 9 months pregnant fiancee Deborah Johnson were sleeping. The officers then entered the room, shot Hampton twice in the head at point-blank range, dragged his body into the doorway and shot the remaining panthers.
The seven panthers who survived the raid were indicted by a grand jury on charges of attempted murder, armed violence, and various other weapons charges, however these charges were later dropped. During the trial, the Chicago Police Department claimed that the Panthers were the first to fire shots; however, a later investigation found that the Chicago police fired between ninety and ninety-nine shots while the Panthers had only shot once (a reflexive reaction after Mark Clark had been shot in the chest).
Chicago Police consistently refused any wrongdoing on their part and lied, saying they were attacked by the panthers and that the raid was, in fact, an act of self-defense. Hampton’s funeral was attended by 5,000 people, and he was eulogized by black leaders, such as Jesse Jackson and Ralph Abernathy.
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