The Black Panther Plot
REDACTED: Declassified Mysteries with Luke Lamana
Wondery | Ballen Studios
4.3 • 668 Ratings
🗓️ 21 January 2025
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On a cold night in December 1969, Fred Hampton, the 21-year-old leader of the Chicago Black Panther Party, lay asleep beside his pregnant partner, Deborah Johnson. Without warning, their home was raided by the police, who shot hundreds of rounds into their building. But what at first seemed like a brutal act of violence turned out to be the culmination of a far more sinister plot by the FBI.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Redacted, declassified mysteries early and ad-free right now. |
| 0:07.0 | Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. |
| 0:12.0 | This episode contains depictions of violence and is not suitable for everyone. |
| 0:17.6 | Please be advised. |
| 0:26.7 | Thank you. everyone. Please be advised. It was the middle of the night on December 4, 1969. |
| 0:31.7 | Deborah Johnson was about nine months pregnant, in bed, sound asleep, next to the father of her unborn child. His name was Fred |
| 0:39.9 | Hampton, and he was the chairman of the Chicago Black Panther Party. Suddenly, the door swung open, |
| 0:46.9 | and one of their fellow Black Panthers barreled into their bedroom, yelling that the house was |
| 0:51.5 | surrounded by cops. Deborah turned to Fred, still fast asleep |
| 0:55.8 | next to her. She shook him and screamed his name, but he didn't move. As Deborah continued |
| 1:01.7 | shaking Fred, a dozen gunshots exploded from the street. The bedroom walls shook from the impact. |
| 1:08.9 | With a wave of panic, Deborah realized they were shooting up the building. |
| 1:13.6 | Debra heard the downstairs windows shatter. |
| 1:15.6 | She screamed and then turned back to Fred, frantic to wake him. |
| 1:19.6 | The panther who had run into the room slammed the door shut, barricading them inside. |
| 1:24.6 | Then, a bullet flew into one of the bedroom windows, and Deborah rolled over to cover |
| 1:30.0 | Fred from the glass. |
| 1:31.9 | She begged him to wake up, but he didn't so much as flutter his eyelids. |
| 1:35.8 | She worried he'd been shot, but there was no time to search for a bullet wound. |
| 1:39.8 | The panther screamed out of the window for the cops to stop shooting, that a pregnant woman |
| 1:43.7 | was inside. Then machine gun fire ripped across the out of the window for the cops to stop shooting, that a pregnant woman was inside. |
| 1:45.0 | Then machine gun fire ripped across the front of the house. |
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