Rush, Montgomery: CPD was out to kill entire Panther Party leadership 

When 14 Chicago police officers, heavily armed, piled out of a People’s Gas truck at 4:30 a.m., Thursday, December 4, 1969, former Representative Bobby Rush and retired Attorney James Montgomery said they were out to kill the entire Black Panther Party leadership (BPP), thought to be inside an apartment on West Monroe.  

Ironically, that same day Rush, at the time coordinator of the Illinois Chapter and Executive Minister of Defense of the BPP, said the entire leadership had been at the apartment earlier, but he did not stay for dinner. Reportedly that meal was cooked by William O’Neal, who had infiltrated the BPP and who gave the FBI the floor plans of where Hampton and Clark would be sleeping.  

The well-executed raid was conducted during the FBI’s illegal 1960s COINTELPRO spy program that monitored the Black liberation movement and its leaders. 

Rush, and others including Montgomery, Starks, and Representative Danny K. Davis (D-7th), made his remarks during recognition of the 55th anniversary of the murders of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark during the Rainbow PUSH Coalition’s annual Founders Month. 

The 1969 raid took place at 2337 W. Monroe St., where O’Neal, an African American who had infiltrated the BPP, cooperated with the feds in exchange for receiving reduced jail time, according to Rush. On January 15, 1990, O’Neal took his own life.                                          

While O’Neal reportedly denied allegations that he had drugged Hampton before the raid went down, Rush said, “He had more Seconal in him that could kill an elephant.”  Hampton, he said, “had to have been incapacitated to be killed so the death squad wouldn’t be injured or killed.” 

At the time of the raid Hampton was asleep next to his fiancée, Akua Njeri, eight-months pregnant with their son. Clark, 22, awakened when police broke down the door grabbed for his gun; police shot him dead and injured four other Black Panthers. 

Fred Hampton, Jr. was also present at Rainbow PUSH’s recognition of the anniversary of the raid that killed his father. 

Fifty-five years later, Montgomery remains adamant about all who were involved in the BPP’s double murder, pointing an accusatory finger at the FBI and the CIA in particular. 

“They played some dirty tricks. They would pit two gangs against the Panthers to arrest them,” said Montgomery who agreed to voluntarily defend the Panthers on their gun cases. 

Asked how he felt about what happened and how the raid was conducted, Montgomery was adamant. “It was a clear assassination, and I believe the assassination of Fred, Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King, all came from the same source, the FBI and the CIA. 

“I think that this lawsuit that his daughter has filed is going to bring out some truths about how they manipulated those Black men to shoot and assassinate Malcolm X just like they manipulated Hanrahan who thought he was going to be a hero” after killing Hampton and Clark, Montgomery stated. 

Montgomery was referring to Llyasah Shabazz, one of Malcolm X’s daughters, who on behalf of her family, filed a $100 million lawsuit against the U.S. government and the New York Police Department for the wrongful death of her father and the alleged cover up of his murder. 

Montgomery believes that new evidence will prove that the New York Police Department and the FBI allegedly conspired to kill 39-year-old Malcolm X. 

He was shot 21 times by three members of the Nation of Islam on February 2, 1965, in front of his wife, Betty Shabazz, who was pregnant with twins, and his four daughters, at the Audubon Ballroom. 

Reflecting more on the murders of Chicago’s BPP leaders and the coroner’s report that concluded the Black Panther murders were “justified homicides,” Montgomery had a different conclusion. 

“I think Hanrahan thought he was going to be a hero, but it turned out he did not know that the Black community was going to slap him in the face.” 

Montgomery was referring to Hanrahan’s thinking he was heir to the Daley political throne. Instead, Black voters, according to Reverend Janette Wilson, learned how to split their vote with the help of Reverend Jesse Jackson. Hanrahan lost his re-election bid for State’s Attorney in the general election when Blacks voted for his Republican rival. 

Hanrahan unsuccessfully ran for mayor in 1975 and 1977, losing respectively to Daley and Michael Bilandic. The raid on the BPP effectually ended his political career. 

After the raid, Rush recalled how he kept running from the “death squad until he finally went to Operation PUSH where he turned himself in to Jackson who told the police, “There had better not be one scratch on his body.” Rush said, “Reverend Jackson saved my life.” 

Starks said despite the allegations of then FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who claimed the BPP was “a threat to U.S. security,” he said the 10-point social program gained them respect and support. 

Starks was referring to Newton and Seale’s social program that served breakfast to thousands of inner-city children. 

The October 15, 1966 10-point program consisted of: 1) We want freedom, 2) We want full employment for our people, 3) We want an end to the Robbery by the Capitalists of Our Black Community, 4) We want decent housing fit for the shelter of human beings, 5) We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society, 6) We want all Black men to be exempt from military service, 7) We want an immediate end to police brutality and the murder of Black people, 8) We want freedom for all Black men held in federal, state, county and city prisons and jails, 9) We want all Black people when brought to trial to be tried in court by a jury of their peer group or people from their Black communities, as defined by the Constitution of the United States and 10) We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace. 

“People should know about the BPP’s 10-point program. This is why they had so much support in the Black community,” Starks told the Chicago Crusader

Following the weekly broadcast PUSH volunteers distributed 228 bags of groceries including one bag containing poultry.  

Recent News

Scroll to Top