On December
7 and December 9, 1969, the New York Times reported
as an established fact, without giving any source for
the figure or qualifying it in any way , that twenty-eight
Panthers had been killed by police since January, 1968.
From this number of reported killings, concern grew
the killings might be part of national design to destroy
the Panther leadership.
The 28 killings were, however, a fictoid of the media.
In fact, there were only two cases in which Black Panthers
were killed by policemen whose lives were not being
directly threatened by those men. These are the cases
of Bobby Hutton, who was shot while allegedly running
from the scene of a ninety-minute. gun battle in which
three policemen had been wounded, and Fred Hampton,
who was apparently hit by stray bullets in a reckless
and uncontrolled fusillade.
For a full account of the real and fictional Black
Panther deaths, click
here.
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