William O'Neal (activist)

William O'Neal (1949 – January 15, 1990) was an American Black Panther Party activist, known for being the FBI informant who gave the floor plan to police in order to raid and kill Black Panther leader Fred Hampton in 1969.

William O'Neal
O'Neal in 1973
Born1949
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
DiedJanuary 15, 1990 (aged 40)
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Other namesWilliam Hart
OccupationCriminal
Known forFred Hampton assassination
Political partyBlack Panther Party

Biography

William O'Neal was a career petty criminal in Chicago, doing "everything from car theft and home invasion to kidnapping and torture."[1] In 1966, when he was about 17 years old, he was caught by FBI agent Roy Martin Mitchell, who tracked O'Neal down for stealing a car and driving it across state lines to Michigan.[2] In exchange for having his felony charges dropped, O'Neal agreed to infiltrate the Panthers as a counterintelligence operative.[3] Despite just being a teenager, O'Neal quickly became tasked with being among the heads of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton's security, and had keys to several Panther headquarters and safe houses.[1]

Eventually, Hampton was deemed a radical threat by the FBI, and they requested O'Neal give the layout of a West Side apartment used by Hampton and the Panthers as a gathering spot in order to conduct a raid. On the evening of December 3, 1969, Hampton taught a political education course at a local church, which was attended by most Panther members. Afterward, he and several Panthers went to his Monroe Street apartment, where O'Neal had prepared a dinner, which the group ate around midnight. O'Neal had slipped the barbiturate sleep agent secobarbitol into a drink that Hampton consumed, in order to sedate Hampton so he would not awaken during the subsequent raid. O'Neal left and at about 1:30 a.m., December 4, Hampton fell asleep while talking to his mother on the telephone.[4][5] At 4:00 a.m., the heavily armed police team arrived at the apartment, and at 4:45 a.m. stormed inside. Mark Clark, sitting in the front room of the apartment with a shotgun in his lap on security duty, was shot in the chest and killed instantly. The rest of the apartment was cleared out, and witnessed heard two bangs, presumably the close-range shots at the back of Hampton's head that killed him.[6] In January 1970, a coroner's jury held an inquest, and ruled the deaths of Hampton and Clark to be justifiable homicide.[7]

Later life

O'Neal's involvement in the raid was revealed in 1973, and he was relocated to California under the alias of "William Hart" via the Federal Witness Protection Program; he secretly returned to Chicago in 1984. In the early hours of January 15, 1990, O'Neal ran into traffic on Interstate 290, was hit by a car, and killed; he was 40 years old. His death was ruled a suicide, although his wife claimed it was accidental.[2] Earlier in the evening, O'Neal had been drinking and attempted to jump out a second story window, but was pulled back inside. O'Neal's uncle Ben Heard said that O'Neal had "cooperated with the FBI to reduce his own potential jail time, then got in way over his head and was forever tortured by the guilt" and that "he never thought it would come to all this."[1]

O'Neal and his betrayal of Hampton is depicted in the film Judas and the Black Messiah, where he is portrayed by Lakeith Stanfield.[8]

References
  1. Ervin, Michael (January 25, 1990). "The Last Hours of William O'Neal". Chicago Reader. Retrieved August 7, 2020.
  2. Robert Blau (January 18, 1990). "PANTHER INFORMANT DEATH RULED SUICIDE". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved August 8, 2020.
  3. Iberia HAMPTON et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Edward V. HANRAHAN et al., Defendants-Appellees, United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, September 12, 1979, page 1, paragraph 13, Law Resource
  4. Bush, Rod (2000). We Are Not What We Seem: Black Nationalism and Class Struggle in the American Century. NYU Press. p. 216. ISBN 978-0-8147-1318-1.
  5. Berger, Dan (2006). Outlaws of America: the Weather Underground and the politics of solidarity. AK Press. p. 66. ISBN 978-1-904859-41-3.
  6. "Hampton v. City Of Chicago, et al". IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS. January 4, 1978. Retrieved July 19, 2007.
  7. Thamm, Natalie (April 7, 2019). "Murder or 'Justifiable Homicide'?: The Death of the Revolutionary Fred Hampton". STMU History Media. Retrieved August 9, 2020.
  8. Cordero, Rosy (August 6, 2020). "See Daniel Kaluuya as Black Panther leader Fred Hampton in Judas and the Black Messiah trailer". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved August 8, 2020.
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