The Murder of Fred Hamptonbegan as a film portrait of Hampton and the Illinois Black Panther Party, but half way through the shoot, Hampton was murdered by Chicago policeman.
‘The Murder of Fred Hampton’ gives an unsettling slice of a bloody American history.
It recounts how over a dozen policeman burst into Fred Hampton’s apartment while its residents were sleeping, killing Hampton and fellow Panther Mark Clark and brutalizing the others, and then tried to report false statements.
Filmmakers Mike Gray and Howard Alk had arrived a few hours later to shoot film footage of the crime scene that was later used to contradict news reports and police testimony.
The film initially began as a representation of Hampton and the Illinois Black Panther Party, but half way through the shoot, Hampton was murdered; Gray recently reworked on this film and published it. In Fred Hampton’s words, “You can jail the revolutionary, but you can’t jail the revolution…You might murder a freedom fighter like Bobby Hunton, but you can’t murder freedom fighting.”
