Police And Panthers: Growing Paranoia

EVERY month they serve free breakfasts to some 10,000 needy black children, but they also teach the kids a song: "There is a pig upon the hill. If you don't kill him, the Panthers will." They have set up free health clinics for blacks in several cities, but the Black Panther Coloring Book shows a black man shooting a pig-faced policeman as a young black girl looks on. The caption: "Black Brothers Protect Black Children."

They carefully kept order at an Oakland rally the day Panther Defense Minister Huey Newton's trial began, even cleaning up the street after the crowd left; but they maintain alarming arsenals that include grenades and automatic weapons. Their stated aim is to give the black American full pride and dignity; yet though they claim self-defense, they are committed to organized violence. In a last month issue of The Black Panther, Information Minister Eldridge Cleaver wrote: "We call for the violent overthrow of the fascist imperialist United States Government."

Bloody Raids. These ambivalent tactics and extremist rhetoric characterize the Black Panther Party. Over the past two years, says Panther Lawyer Charles Garry, 28 Black Panthers have died in police gunfire. Newton is serving a two-to-15-year sentence for manslaughter. Cleaver, arrested after a shoot-out with police in Oakland, jumped bail a year ago and turned up last month in Algiers. Chairman Bobby Seale, one of the Chicago Eight, was sentenced to four years in jail for contempt last month by Judge Julius Hoffman. In the past two weeks, with bloody police raids on Panther centers in Chicago and Los Angeles, the war between police and Panthers has come to a climax. For the first time, these events brought cries of sympathy from moderate black leaders who once shied away from any identification with the Panthers.

The latest battle between Panthers and police erupted in Los Angeles last week. It came against a background of continuing racial enmity, worsened by last May's re-election of Mayor Sam Yorty over black Councilman Tom Bradley. At 5:30 a.m. last Monday, two Panther offices and one private home were attacked by 300 Los Angeles policemen armed with arrest warrants, search warrants, shotguns, AR-15 rifles, tear-gas grenades, satchel charges, one helicopter, 6-ft. steel battering rams, a National Guard armored personnel carrier, and a fire department "jet-ax" used to cut through the roof of burning buildings. The principal target was Panther headquarters, a two-story brown-and-white brick building at 41st Street and Central Avenue. There, the battle raged for four hours and 45 minutes.