The Assassination of Fred Hampton

by Alicia Maynard

At some point in 1969, the Chicago police and the FBI managed to place a spy, William O’Neal, within the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party (ILBPP). O’Neal was Hampton’s trusted friend and bodyguard and was in charge of security the night of Hampton’s murder.^[1] During the night of December 3, it is widely believed that he drugged Fred Hampton to ensure that he would not be able to defend himself.^[2] Early the next morning, the police descended on 2337 West Monroe Street on Chicago’s West Side. Thanks to a floor plan provided to them by O’Neal through the FBI, they raided the apartment where Hampton, his pregnant fiancée Deborah Johnson, and several other Black Panthers were sleeping.^[3] The police entered the residence and shot Mark Clark, who was on guard, once in the chest. Either his death spasm or his falling to the floor caused him to fire his gun upward—the only shot the Black Panthers fired during this raid and done posthumously.^[4] The police, who were heavily armed, including with a submachine gun, open-fired throughout the apartment despite pleas to stop, firing at least ninety bullets.^[5] When the onslaught ceased, Fred Hampton and Deborah Johnson were miraculously only injured.^[6] The police entered the bedroom and removed Johnson, who had been attempting to shield Hampton with her pregnant body, and dragged her into another room. She then heard the police execute her fiancé.^[7] As summarized by lawyer Jeffrey Haas, “Johnson heard one officer ask, ‘Is he [Fred Hampton] still alive?’ After two gunshots were fired inside the room, the other officer said, ‘He’s good and dead now.’”^[8] It was later confirmed that Hampton had never been fully conscious, had never left his bed, and “had been shot at close range, with two bullets to the head.”^[9]

Immediately after the event, the authorities, led by State’s Attorney Edward Hanrahan and the police claimed many things, namely that the assassination had been a “shoot-out,” that Fred Hampton himself had fired on them, and that he had been killed by the bullets the police had sprayed across the room.^[10] These statements would all prove to be false. The Black Panthers countered this narrative by opening the rooms to the public and letting journalists examine them, exposing and driving home the level of violence that was used against them.^[11] This led to the discovery, published by the Chicago Tribune, that the bullet holes, supposedly caused by the Black Panthers’ bullets, were in fact from nails used to post materials to the door, thus causing a furor.^[12] This was essential and proved to many a Panther’s innocence. The media continued to publish both sides of the story, though the Chicago Tribune, to some extent, and the Chicago Defender (an African American publication), to a much greater extent, supported the Black Panthers.

This premeditated plot was concealed for many years until, after a great deal of struggle, it was brought out into open court.[13]  It would later come to light that the FBI and Chicago police colluded to execute Hampton and exchanged memos containing information, instructions, and directions, all for the purpose of destroying the Black Panther Party and other such movements. Crucially, these memos also included vital information about O’Neal’s role in the conspiracy.^[14] One of the main reasons for this assassination was that the government feared that Hampton’s effectiveness toward the success of the Black Panthers’ political aims. Hampton had a magnetic personality and the unique ability to unite people from many different walks of life. There was fear that he would be an “African-American messiah who they [the government] believed would lead an African-American revolt.”^[15] This assassination was part of a wider movement across the country among local police and the FBI to quell the Black Panther Party through the systematic elimination of prominent leaders within the party. Fred Hampton’s assassination was one of the most prominent examples of this targeting.^[16]