Critical Analsysis Paper on Black Panther Party - Essay Example

Police brutality was a national issue especially among the black community in the United States in the years preceding 1966 thus leading to the formation of the party. The party sought to arm civilians thereby equipping them in order to monitor the behavior of law enforcement agencies. Police killings and arbitrary arrests became a major concern in the country. Such tendencies continued even after the formation of the party a feature that enhanced the development of the party throughout the United States.

The party’s rapid development enhanced brutality against the police a feature that compelled the Federal Bureau of Investigation to devise ways of countering its effect with the view to ending it. Under the leadership of Edgar Hoover, the FBI formulated a system that sought to use police harassment, dedicated surveillance, perjury and infiltration to overcome the party. The tactics later succeeded thereby culminating in the disbandment of the party. Police brutality against the black community heightened as the FBI waged war against the party.

Police reigned both terror and repressions against the black community with most confrontations between the African American population and the police ending up in deadly police shootouts. On April 6, 1968 for example, the police killed a 17-year-old boy, Bobby Hutton in West Oakland. The police had set Hutton’s house ablaze thus forcing the teenager to run out of the house only to run into a fire of bullets. The police shot the young boy ten times in a portrayal of the intense brutality the police employed.

Two days after the murder of the boy, the police killed Martin Luther King who was beginning to change his stance from non-violent ways of addressing oppressions to radical alternatives (Bloom and Waldo 76). On August 5, 1968, the police killed three panthers at a gas station in Los