SHOOTOUT@41ST & CENTRAL
At dusk before the break of day on December 8, 1969, a young Panther was on watch at Panther Headquarters at 41st and Central Ave in South Central Los Angeles. Things had been tense since the murder of Chicago Chairman Fred Hampton 4 days earlier in Chicago. Hampton and another Panther, Mark Clark were ambushed when the police raided their small apartment at 4 am. Both Hampton and Clark were killed as a result of the surprise attack. It was later revealed that the apartment's floor plan had been provided to the police by FBI informant, William O'Neal, who was the Chicago Chapter's Chief of Security.
In Los Angeles, Southern California Deputy Minister of Defense, Geronimo Ji Jaga (nee pratt), a Vietnam veteran and recent transplant to the LA, resolved that LA Panthers were not going to be sleeping targets for the LAPD. Pulling from his prior military training, he instituted 8 hr watches. Panthers were stationed strategically throughout the area to signal headquarters at the first sight of police. But he didn't stop there. He also fortified the office with sandbags around the doors and windows. Geronimo was so clever that his fortifications was invisible to the casual observer from outside of the building. But inside, it was a well protected bunker.
The Panthers had also began digging an escape tunnel in the event that they were overwhelmed by the superior police firepower. The tunnels were a classic evasion tactic of guerrilla warfare. This tunnel would allow the Panthers to quickly disperse; escaping a frontal assault on their headquarters, landing them safely out into the street, behind the attackers. But there was a problem. The tunnel had not been dug far enough to allow access to the sewer which the Panthers would use to escape. Thus, it was absolutely necessary for any Panther on watch to be awake and vigilant to warn Panthers inside of the office of a surprise attack from the police.
On this night as the young Panther was making his rounds, he heard the dire alarm of a dog barking hysterically on the right side to the back of the building. He (the Panther) ascended the roof to do a cursory search for a possible security breach. He saw nothing, but the dog continuously barked at the sound of invisible footsteps in the dark. The young Panther, heeding his canine ally's warning, further investigated the source of the dog's bellicosity. However, this time, the dog began barking on the left side of the building. Was the animal demented? Or was there a real threat behind its' hysteria?
Suddenly, the young Panther heard the sound of clanging metal on the roof next door. He drew his weapon and pointed it in the direction of the noise. He then whispered down to his comrades below that there was something was not right with this scene. His heart rate increased, reflexes sharpened as he was ready to rain lead on any target emerging from the area of the disturbance. As he turned to spy the roof of the building immediately adjacent to headquarters, a swarm of police officers suddenly surrounded the premises.
Suddenly, the young Panther on the roof was surrounded by a multitude of gun barrels covering his entire body. Ready to face death, he performed what he thought would be his last act of defiance: he stomped on the roof of the building, and yelled to his comrades waiting inside of headquarters that the Panthers were under attack. Miraculously, he was not killed. But the police now waded in.
Dressed in black baseball caps, they were equipped with M-16's, sniper rifles, & machine guns. Because he had already alerted his comrades of possible danger, Panthers inside of the building opened their weapon caches and began breaking out their firearms.
The police siege was met by 11 determined Panthers-----9 men and 2 women. They were all armed. They were ready to defend themselves. They were ready to die. The police fired into the door of the building. Kicking in what remained of the door, they rushed into the building. For the LAPD, this was a day of firsts. It was the christening of the newly created Special Weapons And Tactics (S.W.A.T.) Team. But to their dismay, the LA Panthers were not concerned with the emotional sentimentality of SWAT's first trial run against black insurgency. If they believed that they were going to christen their new unit with the bodies from the LA BPP Chapter, they were grievously mistaken.
Melvin "Cotton" Smith, a police informant, caught up in the surprise raid, was forced to join arms with the very people he snitched on. Producing a Thompson Sub-machine gun, he opened fired on the police as they rushed into the building. Panther Wayne Pharr joined Smith as they poured hot lead into the front flank of the police's formation. Aided by another Panther, they drove the police back out of the door with the same ferocity by which they came in.
3 officers went down in the fire fight but were pulled from the line of fire by other officers. Peaches and Tommye Williams, two sisters, and the only two women present at the raid, quickly rushed into the Panther's Communication Center and began calling the media and National Headquarters in Oakland to apprise the world at large of the situation. Then, the panthers heard a thud on the roof. It was dynamite charges. But the roof had been reinforced and did not cave in. The Panthers settled in for a long, brutal battle with the LAPD. Using the glass from adjacent buildings, the Panthers kept close surveillance on the police to ensure that they didn't get too close to the building. Whenever they did, the Panthers threw make shift bombs which caused a hasty retreat back out into the street.
Unable to blast their way in, the police sought to gas the Panthers out. They fired tear gas canisters into the building. Using ingenious improvisational guerrilla tactics, the Panthers quickly stuffed cigarette butts into their noses to filter out the effects of the tear gas. During the firefight, Panther Roland Freeman was shot in the arm but refused to crumble under the pain of his wounds. Female Panther Tommye Williams was shot in both legs. The battle continued but the Panthers had exhausted most of their ammunition. Trapped between an enemy with an abundant arsenal and an incomplete escape tunnel, the end looked predictably bleak.
But on this day 51 years ago, the revolutionary gods sent the LA Panthers a welcomed ally: daylight. As the sun broke through the clouds, the police were now in full view of the black community that had gathered to witness the shootout. But there was also something else. Cameras! Lots and lots of cameras! The police were now going to have to justify the use of excessive force in a place where no one could even explain the necessity for their presence. It appeared that Panther Tommye Williams' phone call to the media had reduced the possibility of a pretext for the clandestine murder of party members. Her clever gamble, paid off.
In full view of the community, and in the presence of the prying eyes of the world, the Panthers surrendered to the authorities. They emerged from their besieged office; bloody, wounded, but alive. Though some would later be tortured in police custody, they were later released when all charges against them were dropped.
The preceding is the true story of 9 black men and 2 black women who stood up against the full wrath of the State and lived to tell about it. Their audacity and courage has been largely been left out of history due to the calculated ignorance of white society and the criminal negligence of the black community. Uncovered solely due to the explosive atmosphere of police killings of black men in the 21st century, it is a tale that only a select few bother to listen to, or even care to know.
This is especially poignant when the present generation scoffs at the sacrifices made during the Civil Rights Movement, while not having the stomach to suffer tragedies of those brave men and women who dared to take up arms against the might of the State for some abstract thing called freedom.
TONY MACEO is a senior blogger at the Negromanosphere.com and the Chief Blogger at Power and Strategy.com. Like and Share the articles or subscribe to the website. Become a Patron @powerofstrategies on Patreon, or Support by paypal at wayofstrategy44@gmail.com. Also check out the Chess Store. TILL NEXT TIME, I'LL HOLLA!
