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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