CHICAGO -- Black Panthers and police fought a 15-minute gun battle Thursday when police raided a Panther stronghold to search for weapons. Two Black Panthers, including the party's Illinois chairman, were killed and four were wounded.
Two members of the state's attorney's police force were wounded neither seriously in the gunfight on Chicago's West Side.
The dead were Fred Hampton, 22, head of the party in Illinois, and Mark Clark, 22, Peoria, 111., reputed downstate leader of the black militant organization.
Three persons, one a girl said to be about eight months pregnant, were taken into custody by police at the scene an apartment on West Monroe Street about one-half block from the Black Panther headquarters.
State's Attorney Edward V. Hanrahan said police seized seven pistols and revolvers, six shotguns and one .303 caliber rifle. One of the shotguns had been stolen from a police vehicle, police, said. Hanrahan said the raid also netted about 1,000 rounds of ammunition.
Fourteen police went to the apartment shortly before 5 a.m. after receiving reports from informers that sawed-off shotguns and other illegal weapons were cached there. They were armed with a search warrant signed by Criminal Court Judge Robert Collins.
Sgt. Dan Groth, who led the raid, said he knocked on the door and received the response, "Who's there?" He said he identified himself as a police officer.
When repeated knocks brought no further response, he said, he forced open the door with his shoulder and entered the darkened apartment.
Police said a woman lying in bed in the living room opened fire on them with a shotgun and they returned the fire. Then "eight or nine individuals began firing with carbines, shotguns and handguns," police said.
Groth said he several times "asked all gunfire to stop and asked everyone to throw up their hands and lay down their ammunition." Each time a voice from the back room shouted, "Shoot it out," he said.
Finally all the Black Panthers surrendered. Hampton's body was found in a rear bedroom, a .45 caliber pistol in his hand and a shotgun by his side, police said.
Hospital attendants said two of the wounded Black Panthers Ronald Satchel, 19, Panther minister of medicine, and Blair Anderson, 18 were in serious condition. Satchel suffered four wounds, Anderson two.
