BIRTH(+)FACT(᙮)DEATH(-)

39th year  -  N° 137                 Thursday, 16 May 2024         Antwerpen		
Is it My Body? Someone I Might Be?
BirthFactDeath (-)
Thursday 4th of December 1969

55 years ago



Deputy chairman of the Black Panthers Fred Hampton is shot dead in a police raid at the age of 21 in 2337 West Monroe Street, Chicago, Illinois, United States.


FBI-informant William O'Neal had slipped the powerful barbiturate sleep agent Secobarbitol into a drink that Hampton consumed during the dinner in order to sedate Hampton so he would not awaken during the subsequent raid. Hampton fell asleep in mid-sentence talking to his mother on the telephone. Hampton was lying on a mattress in the bedroom with his pregnant fiancée who was eight-and-a-half months pregnant with their child. Two officers found him wounded in the shoulder and fellow Black Panther Harold Bell reported that he heard the following exchange: "That's Fred Hampton. Is he dead?... Bring him out. He's barely alive. He'll make it." Two shots were heard, which it was later discovered were fired point blank in Hampton's head. According to Deborah Johnson one officer then said: "He's good and dead now."