Fatal raid led to indictments, but all acquitted - Dec. 4, 1969

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-pbox28.html

"You can murder a liberator but you can't murder liberation," a fiery Fred Hampton said in a speech in the spring of 1969.

By winter, Hampton was dead at age 21.

Was it murder? Hampton's supporters say that police, on Dec. 4, 1969, executed Hampton and another man in a pre-dawn raid at 2337 W. Monroe, an apartment that served as the local headquarters of the Black Panthers.

A federal grand jury later concluded that police, led by then-Cook County State's Attorney Edward Hanrahan, fired between 83 and 99 shots while the occupants had fired once.

[The Magistrate]

1. It Was Murder, Sir

There is no doubt in my mind at all that particular group of police went there for the express purpose of killing, not arresting, those young men....

[NNN0LHI]

9. Yes, Sir. I was only a young lad of 14 years old in 1969 and thought...

...the young men were murdered at the time and I still haven't seen any evidence to change my mind.

Don

[Jackpine Radical]

2. Those were crazy times. Maybe not as crazy as now, but crazy.

RFK, MLK, Hampton, Seale--the list is a long one. I was just a few months out of the army, in school at UW-Madison, breathing tear gas, going through a political/philosophical transformation & wondering which way was up.

[madrchsod]

4. madison in 69? ya -those were some days and nights alright

i spent alot of time in madison back then but somehow always missed the "riots".

[madrchsod]

3. i remember that day

it was front page news in the rockford newspaper because a panther from rockford was murdered in that raid. the panthers never had a chance in chicago

[Xeric]

5. A crime

Hanrahan was acquitted, but the City and Feds eventually paid 1.8 million to the survivors and relatives. The forensic evidence was clearly tampered with. It was as bad and as racist as any southern states miscarriage of justice. Hanrahan was a creep and the right hand man of the first Mayor Daley. As the States Attorney he was defeated by a Republican. No easy feat in Chicago.
There is absolutely no doubt that it was a cop riot. Just one of many atrocities committed at the time.

[newyawker99]

7. Hi Xeric!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[KT2000]

6. Yes - cold blooded murder

as I recall the police broke in and the people inside were sleeping.

I believe they were infiltrated and then murdered.

The Black Panthers were garnering respect and support in the community because they spoke about empowerment. That was what had to be "put down" by the powers of which bush is a part.

[DonP]

8. Huh?

"That was what had to be "put down" by the powers of which bush is a part."

I'm going to assume you are speaking metaphorically about power structures in general and not trying to link Bush to the people that ran Chicago in 1969.

Bush is an idiot, but the power structure that killed the Panthers was run by Mayor Richard J. Daley and his crew, all Democrats. We haven't had a Republican in power in Chicago in well over 50 years.

The Democrat party in Cook County did not want any other influences in the African American community that might affect their ability to control the votes. The Panthers were emerging as a potential political challenge to the old white Democrat power base in the city. Daley didn't want them to turn from protestors into politicians. Bobby Rush has clearly proven that they could.

[KT2000]

10. The way I saw it at the time

was that things were changing and the power in this country was going to be shared with many more people. That is what had to stop - hence the assassinations.
After Martin Luther King was murdered, there was a vacuum and the fear was that the Black Panthers would attract even more support. They had to be stopped on a national level. I don't think it was a strictly a Chicago thing. I believe Chicago was working in concert with federal interests, FBI etc. That murder pretty much stopped the momentum of the Panthers nationally.

There were winners after the murdering was through (JFK, MLK, RFK) - a corporate ruling elite. Bush is a representative of that elite - to say the least.