It’s 7:00 a.m., on December 4, 1969. I am in the Monroe Street police lockup in Chicago, interviewing Fred Hampton's fiancée. Only four hours earlier, she was lying in bed next to Hampton when the police burst into their apartment. She is still in her nightgown, describing how the police pulled her from the room as Fred lay unconscious on their bed.  “One officer said, “He's still alive." She then heard two shots. A second officer said, "He's good and dead now." She looks at me and asks, “What can you do?” 

Read the complete first chapter of
The Assassination of Fred Hampton.

The Assassination of Fred Hampton describes my coming of age in Atlanta and Fred’s early years in the working class suburbs of Chicago and how our lives converged in Chicago in the tumultuous late sixties. Beginning with the morning of Dec. 4, 1969, the book relives the legal and political journey to uncover and hold accountable those responsible for the police raid that led to the murders of Hampton and fellow Panther Mark Clark.  The saga includes the drama of an eighteen-month trial in which Flint Taylor and I confronted FBI and local police stonewalling and lies put forward by government paid lawyers with unlimited resources mandated to hide the conspiracy that led to Hampton's death.

In the course of discovery and the trial we learned the deadly raid executed by Police assigned to Edward Hanrahan, the ambitious Cook County  law and order prosecutor, was initiated by agents carrying out the FBI’s Cointelpro Program. This clandestine program’s stated goals were  to “neutralize, ” “disrupt,” and “destroy” the Black Panthers and their leaders. In fact we uncovered that it was the FBI informant William O’Neal, who provided the information that led directly to Hampton’s murder.

The trial was not the end of the legal fight, which continued through an appellate decision which has become the major precedent for civil rights cases ever since. The decision was followed by more discoveries of illicit actions by the defendants and their lawyers. It took us thirteen years to uncover and prove what is now the most well documented case of a US Government assassination in our history.

The book shows Hampton as a dynamic community leader whose dedication to his people and to truth telling inspired us as young lawyers at the People's Law Office, and solidified our lifelong commitment to fighting injustice.

Contact the Author, Jeffrey Haas to schedule a reading and talk about the book.