Trials: Penning the Panthers

Huey P. Newton, the handsome, light-skinned leader of the hypermilitant Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, stood impassively as the sentence was handed down. He had been convicted of manslaughter in the shooting of an Oakland, Calif., patrolman during a wild gun battle in October 1967, which left another policeman injured and Newton grievously wounded with a bullet through his stomach. It was one of the acts of war between police and Panthers that have bloodied the streets of Oakland for almost two years. Now, as Newton's black-uniformed followers looked on in silent anger, Alameda County Judge Monroe Friedman ordered...

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