On this day in 1969, the Chicago Police department, operating as a death squad, executed the Black Panther Fred Hampton w/ two shots to the head at point-blank range. The operation was a cold-blooded political assassination carried out with assistance from the FBI. 
Fred Hampton had been drugged by an FBI informant and was sleeping next to his 8-month pregnant partner when police raided his apartment. The police fired a hail of bullets (nearly 100) and the Panthers returned only 1 shot. Not a single officer was hurt in the operation.
Following Hampton’s execution, his body was left in a pool of blood. The officers then fired on the remaining Panthers, seriously wounding 4. The survivors were then beaten & dragged into the street, where they were arrested on phony charges of attempting to murder the officers.
Hampton successfully brokered peace agreements between powerful street gangs, believing that poor youth fighting each other in gang wars got them nowhere and only allowed the Mayor’s office to militarize the police and build political power against the city’s poor.
The FBI under Director J. Edgar Hoover, waged a war against the Black Panthers & many other radical, anti-racism & anti-war organizations through COINTELPRO. Using anonymous letters, the FBI sowed distrust & created a split between the Panthers and other radical organizations.
The FBI tapped Hampton's mother's phone and identified Hampton as a “key militant leader” in its “agitator Index”. In 1969, a FBI special agent in San Francisco filed a report to Hoover stating that the Panthers were primarily feeding breakfast to children.
Hoover replied that the agent’s career in the FBI would be over if he didn't file reports showing the Panthers were violent organization bend on overthrowing the US Government.
Hampton's funeral was attended by 5,000 people and he was eulogized by many black and community leaders. Eventually, the City of Chicago settled a lawsuit (for $1.85 million) brought by survivors and relatives of Fred Hampton over major violations of his civil rights.
G. Flint Taylor, an attorney representing the Hampton's family, said: "The settlement is an admission of the conspiracy that existed between the F.B.I. and (State Attorney) Hanrahan's men to murder Fred Hampton.
