The Rise and Fall of the Panthers

Dewey Newton was put on trial for killing a police officer, John Frey, during a traffic stop in Oakland and wounding another one. He ended up beating his court case on that after a couple of years of really intense trial. But the Panthers also went looking for confrontations with the cops and did shoot it out with them. In Los Angeles, they famously, the Panther chapter there gets into a shootout with the LAPD SWAT team in 1969During this period, the mid to late 60s, that's when the police departments throughout the country pretty much react to the situation in Oakland and Los Angeles by starting to militarize.