Huey Busted As Bpp Harassment Heightens

Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, and seven Party members were arrested Tuesday July 30 by police in Oakland, California. Huey and three others have been charged with felonies and are free on $5000 bond each. Charges against the other four Panthers, including John Seale, brother to Party Chairman Bobby Seale, have been dropped.
Huey is charged with assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer, which carries a life sentence, and interfering with a police officer. Bob Heard, Huey's bodyguard, is charged with assault with a deadly weapon and carrying a concealed weapon. Two other Panthers are charged with interfering with police, resisting arrest and displaying loaded weapons.
According to witnesses, two Oakland plainclothes pólice entered Fox's Lounge and began making insulting remarks and harassing the Panthers. A fight started between the police and the Panthers present, and soon after the cops beat a hasty retreat. They returned a short time later with a large force of police including a federal agent, raided the lounge and kicked down a door to an office in the rear of the club where Huey and the others were found. Huey suffered a minor concussion during the raid.
Police say Huey was hit on the head when he dove for a gun that had been wrestled free from another Panther. But the Panthers say that Huey was pistol-whipped by a federal agent after he was under arrest. Police claim that three guns were found after the raid.
The Panthers maintain that the raid was a set-up and a clear provocation and harassment under the direction of the newly appointed Chief of Police, George Hart. Hart was named Chief after the last mayoral election race in which Bobby Seale finished second against John Reading. Chief Hart is trying to build an image of "cracking down on vice." He appears to be using the anti-vice furor he is creating to discredit, harass and provoke the Panthers in order to disrupt the Panther's organizing plan for the upcoming Oakland City Council elections.
The Panthers are working with a coalition of other progressive groups and are springing off of Bobby Seale's near victory in the last mayor's race. In the next council election it may be possible to "sweep the council" and have radical candidates win in every race, giving the radical/progressive slate control of Council. This is the real reason for the attacks on the Panthers.
No court date has been set yet, though Charles Garry, the Panthers brilliant attorney who has handled all the major Panther trials in the past, is preparing briefs seeking dismissal of these most recent charges.

-Pun Plamondon