Early in the morning on this day in 1969, the Chicago Police department executed the Black Panther leader Fred Hampton. The operation was a cold-blooded political assassination carried out with assistance from the F.B.I. 
Fred Hampton had been drugged by an F.B.I. informant and was unconscious next to his 8-month pregnant partner when police raided Hampton’s apartment, firing a hail of bullets in the apartment.
At 4:00 a.m., the Chicago Police assassination team arrived, divided into two teams, eight for the front of the building and six for the rear. At 4:45 a.m., they stormed the apartment. Police shot Mark Clark (on security duty) in the chest, killing him instantly.
Hampton's his fiancée, Deborah Johnson was forcibly removed from the room by the police officers then officers fired two shots to the head of Hampton at point blank range.
Fellow Black Panther Harold Bell said that he heard the following exchange:
"That's Fred Hampton."
"Is he dead?... Bring him out."
"He's barely alive."
"He'll make it."
*2 gun shots*
"He's good and dead now."
"That's Fred Hampton."
"Is he dead?... Bring him out."
"He's barely alive."
"He'll make it."
*2 gun shots*
"He's good and dead now."
Following Hampton’s execution, his body was left in a pool of blood. The officers then fired on the remaining Panthers, seriously wounding four others. The police then beat the survivors and dragged them into the street, arresting them on phony charges of attempted murder.
At tthe time of his death, Hampton was on the verge of creating a merger between the Black Panther Party (BPP) and a Chicago south side street gang with thousands of members, which would have doubled the size of the national BPP.
Hampton had major success in brokering peace agreements between powerful street gangs, convincing them that racial and ethnic conflict between gangs would only keep its members entrenched in poverty.
The F.B.I. under Director J. Edgar Hoover, waged a war against the Black Panthers & many other radical, anti-racism and anti-war organizations through its COINTELPRO. The FBI tapped Hampton's mother's phone & identified Hampton as a “key militant leader” in its “agitator Index”.
Hampton's funeral was attended by 5,000 people, and he was eulogized by many community leaders. The city of Chicago eventually settled a lawsuit brought by survivors and relatives of Fred Hampton for $1.85 million.
G. Flint Taylor, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, 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.
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