The report concluded that Hampton was murdered in his bed while unconscious, and that he was most likely drugged at the time of the raid. Search and Destroy (1973), a comprehensive analysis of the raid itself, looking at all the physical evidence and testimony, was put together by the NAACP and written by Roy Wilkins and Ramsey Clark. Leonard, in his Grand Jury Report, claimed that Panther rhetoric was more responsible for the Hampton and Clark deaths than the police shooting. Not surprisingly, the federal grand jury indicted no one for civil rights violations. However, Jerris Leonard, the federal prosecutor leading the investigation, who was also head of Nixon’s civil rights division, withheld from the federal grand jury the FBI and COINTELPRO role in setting up the raid. There was no shootout as the police described. He proved the Panthers fired, at most, one shot at the police - compared to the police, who raided Hampton’s apartment and shot at the Panthers ninety-nine times. First, the Federal Grand Jury Report (May 1970) explained the physical evidence quite accurately because it relied on an FBI firearms examiner who showed real integrity. Jeffrey Haas: There are five prior accounts worth mentioning. Monthly Review: Prior to your book, what were the leading accounts of the December 4, 1969, assassination of Fred Hampton by the FBI and the Chicago police? What has your book added to or corrected in these accounts? We interviewed Jeffrey Haas in late September 2009. It is the story of the path to Abu Ghraib. concern, but one that affects everyone in the world. Hampton’s story is no longer primarily a U.S. But the window was slammed shut in succeeding years, and was finally removed entirely - to be replaced by the blank prison wall of the USA Patriot Act. Jeffrey Haas and his partners at the People’s Law Office made good use of this opportunity through determined and creative litigation, and uncovered the story recounted in his book. The gradual collapse of the Nixon presidency and public outcry against White House-ordered burglaries opened a window permitting the exposure of secret police crimes, including the Hampton assassination. secret police force, engaged in a nationwide campaign of provocation, infiltration, and assassination, code named the Counterintelligence Program, or “COINTELPRO.” The resulting murders, on December 4, 1969, of charismatic, twenty-one-year-old Chicago Black Panther state chairman Fred Hampton and twenty-two-year-old Black Panther Mark Clark were a pivotal event in the suppression of militant black resistance and the emergence of today’s U.S. Police response to the 1960s upsurge of the black community was immediate and brutal, especially after the growth of a mass student and youth movement opposed to the Vietnam War. The story could not be more worth telling. Civil rights lawyer Jeffrey Haas, a founder, in 1969, of Chicago’s People’s Law Office, has written one of the top books of the year: The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2009).
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