ABOVE: SID VICIOUS WITH HIS GIRLFRIEND NANCY SPUNGEN
BELOW IS THE POLICE MUGSHOT OF SID VICIOUS AT THE TIME OF ONE OF HIS MANY ARRESTS , BACK IN 1979, IN NEW YORK , USA.
BELOW … IMAGE OF SID VICIOUS WEARING THESE BIKER BOOTS WHILST PRANCING ABOUT IN PARIS WHILST FILMING A TV DOCUMENTARY .
ABOVE AND BELOW …SID VICIOUS PERFORMING SOLO WEARING THESE LEATHER BOOTS ON WHAT WAS HIS LAST LIVE PERFORMANCE AT MAX’S KANSAS CITY , NEW YORK ON SEPTEMBER 29 1978 … LATER TO BE REPORTED IN THE NME DATED 14 OCTOBER 1978
SID VICIOUS PERFORMING SOLO WEARING THESE LEATHER BOOTS ON WHAT WAS HIS LAST LIVE PERFORMANCES AT MAX’S KANSAS CITY , NEW YORK ON SEPTEMBER 29 1978 … LATER TO BE REPORTED IN THE NME DATED 14 OCTOBER 1978
SID VICIOUS PERFORMING SOLO WEARING THESE LEATHER BOOTS ON WHAT WAS HIS LAST LIVE PERFORMANCES AT MAX’S KANSAS CITY , NEW YORK ON SEPTEMBER 29 1978 … LATER TO BE REPORTED IN THE NME DATED 14 OCTOBER 1978
NME CUTTING DATED 14 OCTOBER 1978 OF SID VICIOUS WEARING THESE BOOTS DURING HIS SOLO GIG AT MAX’S KANSAS CITY GIG … A GREAT RARE CLOSE-UP OF SID’S BOOTS AS WAS LAST WORN BY SID SHORTLY BEFORE HIS ARREST FOR THE MURDER OF HIS GIRLFRIEND NANCY SPUNGEN ON 12 OCTOBER 1978
PURCHASE RECEIPT FOR THE BOOTS … BOUGHT BY ANDY JONES FOR THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION AT FRASERS AUCTION HOUSE , LONDON, BACK IN 2000
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Above are several images of Sid Vicious most treasured leather biker boots , which he can also be seen wearing in this video of him prancing about in Paris , France . in his alleged suicide note ( many believe that this was actually written by his mother Anne Beverley ) he had requested that he be buried with his leather jacket and these leather biker boots … This was never the case as he was cremated and his ashes were secretly thrown over Nancy’s grave . His mother had subsequently kept his personal clothing last worn by him and later these boots were auctioned off in the year 2000 by Alan Parker through Frasers Auctions , London . Bought by Andy Jones of the Crime Through Time Collection and now on permanent display at Littledean Jail , Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, UK .
Original painting by Gloucestershire artist Paul Bridgman of Sid Vicious and his girlfriend Nancy Spungen on display in and amongst our Punk Rock Collection here at Littledean Jail.
ABOVE IS SID’S ( NOW WELL AGED ) BIKE CHAIN BRACELET ALONG WITH IMAGE OF HIM WEARING THIS . ALSO HERE ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL .
Sid Vicious, born John Simon Ritchie, later named John Beverley (10 May 1957 – 2 February 1979), was an English bass guitarist, drummer and vocalist, most famous as a member of the influential punk rock band the Sex Pistols, and notorious for his arrest for the murder of his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen.
Vicious joined the Sex Pistols in early 1977, to replace Glen Matlock, who had fallen out of favour with the rest of the group. Due to intravenous drug use, Vicious was hospitalized with hepatitis during the recording of the band’s only studio album Never Mind the Bollocks. Accordingly, his bass is only partially featured on one song from the album. Vicious would later appear as a lead vocalist, performing three cover songs, on the soundtrack to The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle, a largely fictionalized documentary about the Sex Pistols, produced by the group’s former manager Malcolm McLaren and directed by Julien Temple.
During the brief and chaotic ascendancy of the Sex Pistols, Vicious met eventual girlfriend and manager Nancy Spungen. Spungen and Vicious entered a destructive codependent relationship based on drug use. This culminated in Spungen’s death from an apparent stab wound while staying in New York City‘s Hotel Chelsea with Vicious. Under suspicion of having committed Spungen’s murder, Vicious was released on bail; he was later arrested again for assaulting Todd Smith, brother of Patti Smith, at a night club, and underwent drug rehabilitation on Rikers Island. In celebration of Vicious’ release from prison, his mother hosted a party for him at his girlfriend’s residence in Greenwich Village, which was attended notably by the Misfits bassist Jerry Only.
Vicious’ mother had been supplying him with drugs and paraphernalia since he was young, and assisted him in procuring heroin late that night. Vicious died in his sleep, having overdosed on the heroin his mother had procured.
Less than four weeks after Vicious’ death, the soundtrack album of The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle was released. Later that year, on 15 December, a compilation of live material recorded during his brief solo career was packaged and released as Sid Sings.
ABOVE IS AN EXCEPTIONALLY SCARCE AND RARE SIGNED BY BOTH PHOTOGRAPH OF SID AND NANCY TOGETHER .
BELOW IS THE ICONIC AND CONTROVERSIAL ALBUM COVER OF THE SEX PISTOLS …” NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS HERE’S THE SEX PISTOLS ” THIS BEING A FULLY SIGNED BY THE ORIGINAL PISTOLS LINE UP ON A RARE RUSSIAN VERSION OF THE ALBUM .
Nancy Spungen death and Sid Vicious arrest
Sid Vicious mugshot 9 December 1978
On the morning of 12 October 1978, Vicious claimed to have awoken from a drugged stupor to find Nancy Spungen dead on the bathroom floor of their room in the Hotel Chelsea in Manhattan, New York. She had suffered a single stab wound to her abdomen and appeared to have bled to death. The knife used had been bought by Vicious on 42nd Street and was identical to a “007” flip-knife given to punk rock vocalist Stiv Bators of the Dead Boys by Dee Dee Ramone. According to Dee Dee’s wife at the time, Vera King Ramone, Vicious had bought the knife after seeing Stiv’s. Vicious was arrested and charged with her murder.[He said they had fought that night but gave conflicting versions of what happened next, saying, “I stabbed her, but I never meant to kill her”, then saying that he did not remember and at one point during the argument Spungen had fallen onto the knife
On 22 October, ten days after Spungen’s death, Vicious attempted suicide by slitting his wrist with a smashed light bulb and was subsequently hospitalized at Bellevue Hospital where he also tried killing himself by jumping from a window as well as shouting “I want to be with my Nancy” or other similar words, but was pulled back by hospital staff. In an interview he gave in November 1978, he said that Nancy’s death was “meant to happen” and that “Nancy always said she’d die before she was 21.” Near the end of the interview, he was asked if he was having fun. In reply, he asked the interviewer if he was kidding, adding that he would like to be “under the ground.” It was also at Bellevue that he met his lawyer James Merberg, who did everything he could to keep Vicious out of jail.
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SID VICIOUS SUICIDE BY OVERDOSE
On the evening of February 1, 1979, a small gathering to celebrate Vicious having made bail was held at the 63 Bank Street, New York apartment of his new girlfriend, Michelle Robinson. Sid and Michelle had started dating in November after Sid was released from Bellevue Hospital the previous October. Vicious was clean, having been on a detoxification methadone program during his time at Rikers Island. At the dinner gathering, however, Sid had some heroin delivered by his friend, English photographer Peter Kodick, against the wishes of Sid’s girlfriend and some other people at the party. It was also during this party that Sid had apparently spent the hours looking towards the future; he had plans for an album he was going to record to get his life and career on track should he be off the hook. Vicious overdosed at midnight, but everyone who was there that night worked together to get him up and walking around in order to revive him. At 3:00 am, Vicious and Michelle Robinson went to bed together. Vicious died in the night and was discovered dead by Anne and Michelle early the next morning.
In his first interview, appearing in the Daily Mirror‘s June 11, 1977 issue, Vicious said “I’ll probably die by the time I reach 25. But I’ll have lived the way I wanted to.”
A few days after Vicious’ cremation, his mother allegedly found a suicide note in the pocket of his jacket:
We had a death pact, and I have to keep my half of the bargain. Please bury me next to my baby. Bury me in my leather jacket, jeans and motorcycle boots Goodbye.
Since Spungen was Jewish, she was buried in a Jewish cemetery. As Vicious was not Jewish, he could not be buried with her. According to the book Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain, Jerry Only of the Misfits drove Anne and her sister, and two of Sid’s friends to the cemetery where Nancy was buried and Anne scattered Sid’s ashes over Nancy Spungen’s grave. In the same book, it is alleged that the cemetery didn’t want to be associated with Vicious and his inherent negative reputation, and it is speculated that this was of greater importance to them than the above stated reason he and Nancy weren’t able to be buried together.
TRUE CRIME, MURDERABILIA, MAIMERABILIA AND DISMALABILIA ….IT’S ALL HERE AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL
HERE’S A BRIEF INSIGHT INTO THE LIFE AND CRIMES OF INFAMOUS 1966 COP KILLER HARRY ROBERTS . THE EXHIBITION INCLUDES PERSONAL HANDWRITTEN AND SIGNED CORRESPONDENCE FROM HIM , PERSONAL BELONGINGS AND PRISON WORN CLOTHING ….ALL OF WHICH CAN NOW BE SEEN ON PUBLIC DISPLAY AT THE JAIL IN AND AMONGST ALL THE TABLOID STORIES FROM OVER THE YEARS
ABOVE: Original painting of Harry Roberts by local Gloucestershire artist Paul Bridgman
SUNDAY PEOPLE STORY 24 APRIL 2016 ……NOT TOO SURE WHO TOOK THIS PHOTOGRAPH OR WHERE IT WAS TAKEN OF HARRY ROBERTS SIGNING PHOTOGRAPHS, OR WHO SOLD THE STORY TO THE PRESS ?? (CERTAINLY NOT US) . FOR THE RECORD , WHILST HARRY HAS PRIVATELY VISITED THE JAIL. THIS PHOTOGRAPH WAS DEFINITELY NOT TAKEN HERE , NEITHER DID HE ASK OR RECEIVE ANY PAYMENTS FOR THE PERSONAL ITEMS HE DONATED FOR PUBLIC DISPLAY ALL OF WHICH ARE FEATURED IN AND AMONGST THE TABLOID STORIES ABOUT HIM AND THE CRIMES HE COMMITTED .
ONE OF THE MANY AND CONTINUALLY UPDATED COLLAGE DISPLAYS FEATURING HARRY ROBERTS WHICH INCLUDES SENSATIONALISED TABLOID FEATURES …. ON DISPLAY HERE AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL
PLEASE NOTE THAT WE ARE A CRIME MUSEUM AND IN NO SHAPE OR FORM DO WE GLORIFY OR GLAMOURISE ALL THOSE THAT WE FEATURE HERE ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL.
FOR THE RECORD, NEITHER DO ANY OF THE ALLEGED OR CONVICTED PERSONS WHO HAVE PERSONALLY CONTRIBUTED DISPLAY ITEMS HERE ( NO MONIES OR PAYMENTS HAVE BEEN MADE BY US TO ANY OF THOSE WHO HAVE CONTRIBUTED MEMORABILIA FOR DISPLAY )
ALL CRIMES, SLEAZE, SCANDALS AND TRAGEDIES THAT WE FEATURE HERE ARE IN THE MAIN UNPLEASANT SUBJECT MATTERS TO COVER …. AND AS SUCH ARE NOT PRESENTED IN A PLEASANT WAY EITHER …
ABOVE : HANDWRITTEN AND SIGNED BY COP KILLER HARRY ROBERTS
AUTHENTIC HAND SIGNED BY HARRY ROBERTS
VICTIMS FROM LEFT PS CHRISTOPHER HEAD , DC DAVID WOMBWELL AND PC GEOFFREY FOX
Harry Maurice Roberts (born 21 July 1936) is an English career criminal who in 1966 instigated the Shepherd’s Bush murders , in which three police officers were shot dead. The killings happened after the plain-clothes officers approached the van in which Roberts and two other men were sitting in Braybrook Street, near Wormwood Scrubs prison in London. Roberts opened fire on the officers when he feared they would discover the firearms his gang were planning to use in an armed robbery. He shot dead two of the officers, while one of his accomplices fatally shot the third.
After Roberts had spent nearly 48 years in jail, in 2014 the Parole Board for England and Wales approved his release, at the age of 78. Having exceeded by far his minimum term of 30 years imprisonment, Roberts was one of the United Kingdom’s longest-serving prisoners, remaining in custody from 1966 until his 2014 release
PLEASE DO BE AWARE THAT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL DOES NOT IN ANY SHAPE OR FORM CONDONE THE HEINOUS MURDERS COMMITTED BY HARRY ROBERTS OR HIS ACCOMPLICES …..
WE ARE SIMPLY A CRIME MUSEUM AND AS SUCH TOUCH UPON AND FEATURE A VAST ARRAY OF HISTORIC AND PRESENT DAY TRUE CRIMES AND EVENTS THAT HAVE SHOOK THE WORLD IN ONE WAY OR ANOTHER ….. HENCE PROVIDING A SAD , DISTURBING AND INSIGHT INTO THESE EVIL CRIMES .
ALL IN ALL FORMING A HOPEFULLY HISTORICAL ARCHIVE FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES TOO .
SO PLEASE , PLEASE , PLEASE … IF EASILY OFFENDED , DISTURBED OR OF A SENSITIVE NATURE, DO AVOID VISITING LITTLEDEAN JAIL .
BELOW IS A GALLERY OF VARIOUS PERSONALLY SIGNED PIECES AND PRISON WORN CLOTHING FROM HARRY ROBERTS ….
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CULTURAL IMPACT
Roberts’ name has been used for many years to antagonise the police, with chants like “Harry Roberts is our friend, is our friend, is our friend. Harry Roberts is our friend, he kills coppers. Let him out to kill some more, kill some more, kill some more, let him out to kill some more, Harry Roberts” as well as “He shot three down in Shepherd’s Bush, Shepherd’s Bush, Shepherd’s Bush. He shot three down in Shepherd’s Bush, our mate Harry” (to the tune of “London Bridge Is Falling Down“) which originated with groups of young people outside Shepherd’s Bush police station after Roberts had been arrested
There have been artistic representations of Roberts. The character of Billy Porter in the 2001 novel He Kills Coppers by Jake Arnott, and the 2008 TV adaptation, is based on Harry Roberts.
BELOW: SCENE OF THE TRIPLE COP KILLING
BELOW: HARRY ROBERTS INSPIRED TV SERIES AND BOOK … “HE KILLS COPPERS”
HARRY ROBERTS , POLICE KILLER RELEASED FROM PRISON ARTICLE IN DAILY MAIL ON 11 NOVEMBER 2014, ALSO SOME VIDEO ARCHIVE FOOTAGE … SEE HERE
ABOVE: AN ORIGINAL OIL PAINTING BY OUR IN-HOUSE ARTIST DEPICTING HUEY P NEWTON , FOUNDER MEMBER OF THE INFAMOUS & NOTORIOUS BLACK PANTHER MOVEMENT IN 1966 , OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA, USA .
ABOVE: AN ORIGINAL OIL PAINTING BY OUR IN-HOUSE ARTIST, OF BOBBY SEALE, CO-FOUNDER MEMBER OF THE INFAMOUS & NOTORIOUS BLACK PANTHER MOVEMENT IN 1966 , OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA, USA .
ABOVE: A SHORT VIDEO ON THE HISTORY OF THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY
PLEASE NOTE THAT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , IT’S OWNER , OR ANY OF IT’S STAFF HERE AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL HAVE NO AFFILIATION , CONNECTION OR INVOLVEMENT WITH ANY EXTREMIST , POLITICALLY MOTIVATED OR OTHERWISE MOVEMENTS WHATSOEVER …… WE SIMPLY EXHIBIT AND TOUCH UPON A GREAT MANY POLITICALLY INCORRECT AND TABOO SUBJECT MATTERS THAT NO OTHER VISITOR ATTRACTIONS DARE COVER IN THE WAY WE CHOOSE TO DO SO HERE. …. “IT’S ALL HISTORY FOR GOODNESS SAKE”….EVEN IF ON OCCASIONS, SENSITIVE , THOUGHT PROVOKING SUBJECT MATTERS THAT INCITE STRONG DEBATE .
WE WOULD RESPECTFULLY HOPE THAT OUR OWN EXHIBITION INSIGHT IS DEEMED TO BE HISTORICALLY EDUCATIONAL AS WE DO HERE .
PLEASE DO NOTE OUR POLITE WARNINGS IN THAT THIS DARK TOURIST ATTRACTION IS NOT FAMILY FRIENDLY. IT IS NOT SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN, THOSE EASILY OFFENDED, DISTURBED OR OF A SENSITIVE NATURE
THERE IS A MASS OF GRAPHIC, EXPLICIT, NUDITY AND DISTURBING CONTENT THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE OF THE COLLECTIONS HERE ON DISPLAY ….
Above: Original oil painting of Kathleen Cleaver by Gloucestershire Artist Paul Bridgman on display at the jail
MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY AND CULTURE, WASHINGTON DC, USA
Above: Original oil painting by Gloucestershire Artist Paul Bridgman of Angela Davis here on display at Littledean Jail.
MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY AND CULTURE, WASHINGTON DC, USA
Above: An original Tommie Smith hand signed photograph of the iconic ‘ Black Power Salute’ at the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games … here on display at the jail.
MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY AND CULTURE, WASHINGTON DC, USA
Original oil painting of Malcolm X (aka Malcolm Little) by Gloucestershire Artist Paul Bridgman on display here at the jail
Above : Original oil painting of Malcolm X (aka Malcolm Little) by Gloucestershire Artist Paul Bridgman on display here at the jail
MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAM HISTORY AND CULTURE, WASHINGTON DC, USA
Above: Original oil painting of Rev, Dr Martha Luther King Jr by Gloucestershire Artist Paul Bridgman on display here at the jail
MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAM HISTORY AND CULTURE, WASHINGTON DC, USA
Above: Original oil painting of Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr by Gloucestershire Artist Paul Bridgman on display here at the jail
MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAM HISTORY AND CULTURE, WASHINGTON DC, USA
MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAM HISTORY AND CULTURE, WASHINGTON DC, USA
MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAM HISTORY AND CULTURE, WASHINGTON DC, USA
MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAM HISTORY AND CULTURE, WASHINGTON DC, USA
MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAM HISTORY AND CULTURE, WASHINGTON DC, USA
MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAM HISTORY AND CULTURE, WASHINGTON DC, USA
MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAM HISTORY AND CULTURE, WASHINGTON DC, USA
MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAM HISTORY AND CULTURE, WASHINGTON DC, USA
The Black Panthers were formed in California in 1966 and they played a short but important part in the civil rights movement. The Black Panthers believed that the non-violent campaign of Martin Luther King had failed and any promised changes to their lifestyle via the ‘traditional’ civil rights movement, would take too long to be implemented or simply not introduced.
The language of the Black Panthers was violent as was their public stance. The two founders of the Black Panther Party were Huey Percy Newton and Bobby Seale. They preached for a “revolutionary war” but though they considered themselves an African-American party, they were willing to speak out for all those who were oppressed from whatever minority group. They were willing to use violence to get what they wanted.
The Black Panther Party (BPP) had four desires : equality in education, housing, employment and civil rights.
It had a 10 Point Plan to get its desired goals.
The ten points of the party platform were:
1) “Freedom; the power to determine the destiny of the Black and oppressed communities.
2) Full Employment; give every person employment or guaranteed income.
3) End to robbery of Black communities; the overdue debt of forty acres and two mules as promised to ex-slaves during the reconstruction period following the emancipation of slavery.
4) Decent housing fit for the shelter of human beings; the land should be made into cooperatives so that the people can build.
5) Education for the people; that teaches the true history of Blacks and their role in present day society.
6) Free health care; health facilities which will develop preventive medical programs.
7) End to police brutality and murder of Black people and other people of color and oppressed people.
8) End to all wars of aggression; the various conflicts which exist stem directly from the United States ruling circle.
9) Freedom for all political prisoners; trials by juries that represent our peers.
10) Land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, peace and community control of modern industry.”
The call for a revolutionary war against authority at the time of the Vietnam War, alerted the FBI to the Black Panther’s activities. Whatever happened, the FBI was successful in destroying the Black Panther’s movement.
Those who supported the BPP claim that the FBI used dirty tactics such as forging letters to provoke conflict between the BPP’s leaders; organising the murders of BPP leaders such as John Huggins; initiating a “Black Propaganda” campaign to convince the public that the BPP was a threat to national security; using infiltrators to commit crimes that could be blamed on the BPP so that leaders could be arrested and writing threatening letters to jurors during trials so that the BPP would be blamed for attempting to pervert the course of justice. Supporters of the BPP claimed that this last tactic was used with success at the trial of the “Chicago Eight” whereby the jury, apparently angered at being intimidated by the BPP, found the eight members of the BPP guilty. None of the above tactics have ever been proved or admitted to by the FBI.
In California, the party leader of Oakland, David Hilliard, claimed that the BPP was at the top of the FBI’s most wanted list. Hilliard also claimed that the then governor of California, Ronald Reagan, constantly vilified the BPP.
“This caused a stigma to beplaced upon the Black Panther Party as Pied Pipers of cultural and social revolution characterising us as the essence of violence, chaos and evil.”
The head of the FBI, Edgar J Hoover, called the BPP “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country.” Hoover ordered field operatives of the FBI to introduce measures that would cripple the BPP. Using infiltrators (one of these, William O’Neal, became Chief of Security for the BPP), the FBI knew of all the movements etc of BPP leaders. FBI raids in BPP heartlands – Chicago and Los Angeles – that led to the arrest of regional leaders, resulted in the collapse of the movement.
To view the BPP as a purely revolutionary and violent movement is wrong. In areas of support the BPP created a Free Food Program to feed those who could not afford to do so for themselves; Free Medical Research Health Clinics to provide basic health care for those who could not afford it and an Intercommunal Youth Band to give community pride to the movement. In a book of his essays called “To Die for the People”, Huey Newton wrote that these were exactly what the African-American community wanted and that the BPP was providing its own people with something the government was not. Such community projects have survived in other guises, but after the demise of the BPP their lost their drive for a number of years.
Was there much support for the BPP? Were they ‘Public Enemy Number One’ as Hoover claimed? In 1966, a survey carried out in America showed that less than 5% of African-Americans approved of groups such as the BPP. 60% were positively hostile to such groups. But were these survey results slanted in such a manner as to tarnish the name of the Black Panthers at an early stage in its existence especially as the head of the FBI, Hoover, was known to be very against the movement? In areas such as Oakland and parts of San Francisco and South San Francisco where the BPP claimed to feed nearly 200,000 people, support would have been a lot higher.
The Black Panther Party (originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) was an African-American revolutionary leftist organization active in the United States from 1966 until 1982. The Black Panther Party achieved national and international notoriety through its involvement in the Black Powermovement and U.S. politics of the 1960s and 1970s. The group’s “provocative rhetoric, militant posture, and cultural and political flourishes permanently altered the contours of American Identity.”[1]
Founded in Oakland, California by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale on October 15, 1966, the organization initially set forth a doctrine calling primarily for the protection of African American neighborhoods from police brutality.[2] The organization’s leaders espoused socialist and communist (largely Maoist) doctrines; however, the Party’s early black nationalist reputation attracted a diverse membership.[3] The Black Panther Party’s objectives and philosophy expanded and evolved rapidly during the party’s existence, making ideological consensus within the party difficult to achieve, and causing some prominent members to openly disagree with the views of the leaders.
The organization’s official newspaper, The Black Panther, was first circulated in 1967. Also that year, the Black Panther Party marched on the California State Capitol in Sacramento in protest of a selective ban on weapons. By 1968, the party had expanded into many cities throughout the United States, among them, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Newark, New Orleans, New York City, Omaha,Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C.. Peak membership was near 10,000 by 1969, and their newspaper, under the editorial leadership of Eldridge Cleaver, had a circulation of 250,000.[4] The group created a Ten-Point Program, a document that called for “Land, Bread, Housing, Education, Clothing, Justice and Peace”, as well as exemption from conscription for African-American men, among other demands.[5] With the Ten-Point program, “What We Want, What We Believe”, the Black Panther Party expressed its economic and political grievances.[6]
Gaining national prominence, the Black Panther Party became an icon of the counterculture of the 1960s.[7] Ultimately, the Panthers condemned black nationalism as “black racism” and became more focused on socialism without racial exclusivity.[8] They instituted a variety of community social programs designed to alleviate poverty, improve health among inner city black communities, and soften the Party’s public image.[9] The Black Panther Party’s most widely known programs were its armed citizens’ patrols to evaluate behavior of police officers and its Free Breakfast for Children program. However, the group’s political goals were often overshadowed by their confrontational, militant, and violent tactics against police.[10]
Federal Bureau of Investigation Director J. Edgar Hoover called the party “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country,”[11] and he supervised an extensive program (COINTELPRO) of surveillance, infiltration, perjury, police harassment, assassination, and many other tactics designed to undermine Panther leadership, incriminate party members and drain the organization of resources and manpower. Through these tactics, Hoover hoped to diminish the Party’s threat to the general power structure of the U.S., or even maintain its influence as a strong undercurrent.[12]Angela Davis, Ward Churchill, and others have alleged that federal, state and local law enforcement officials went to great lengths to discredit and destroy the organization, including assassination.[13][14][15] Black Panther Party membership reached a peak of 10,000 by early 1969, then suffered a series of contractions due to legal troubles, incarcerations, internal splits, expulsions and defections. Popular support for the Party declined further after reports appeared detailing the group’s involvement in activities such as drug dealing and extortion schemes directed against Oakland merchants[16] By 1972 most Panther activity centered around the national headquarters and a school in Oakland, where the party continued to influence local politics. Party contractions continued throughout the 1970s; by 1980 the Black Panther Party comprised just 27 members.[17]
They worked at the North Oakland Neighborhood Anti-Poverty Center, where they also served on the advisory board. To combat police brutality, the advisory board obtained 5,000 signatures in support of the City Council’s setting up a police review board to review complaints. Newton was also taking classes at the City College and at San Francisco Law School. Both institutions were active in the North Oakland Center. Thus the pair had numerous connections with whom they talked about a new organization. Inspired by the success of the Lowndes County Freedom Organization and Stokely Carmichael‘s calls for separate black political organizations,[19] they wrote their initial platform statement, the Ten-Point Program. With the help of Huey’s brother Melvin, they decided on a uniform of blue shirts, black pants, black leather jackets, black berets, and openly displayed loaded shotguns. (In his studies, Newton had discovered a California law that allowed carrying a loaded rifle or shotgun in public, as long as it was publicly displayed and pointed at no one.)[20]
What became standard Black Panther discourse emerged from a long history of urban activism, social criticism and political struggle by African Americans. There is considerable debate about the impact that the Black Panther Party had on the greater society, or even their local environment. Author Jama Lazerow writes “As inheritors of the discipline, pride, and calm self-assurance preached by Malcolm X, the Panthers became national heroes in African American communities by infusing abstract nationalism with street toughness—by joining the rhythms of black working-class youth culture to the interracial élan and effervescence of Bay Area New Left politics…In 1966, the Panthers defined Oakland’s ghetto as a territory, the police as interlopers, and the Panther mission as the defense of community. The Panthers’ famous “policing the police” drew attention to the spatial remove that White Americans enjoyed from the state violence that had come to characterize life in black urban communities.”[12] In his book Shadow of the Panther: Huey Newton and the Price of Black Power in America journalist Hugh Pearson takes a more jaundiced view, linking Panther criminality and violence to worsening conditions in America’s black ghettos as their influence spread nationwide.[21]
Awareness of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense grew rapidly after their May 2, 1967 protest at the California State Assembly.
In May 1967, the Panthers invaded the State Assembly Chamber in Sacramento, guns in hand, in what appears to have been a publicity stunt. Still, they scared a lot of important people that day. At the time, the Panthers had almost no following. Now, (a year later) however, their leaders speak on invitation almost anywhere radicals gather, and many whites wear “Honkeys for Huey” buttons, supporting the fight to free Newton, who has been in jail since last Oct. 28 (1967) on the charge that he killed a policeman…”[22]
In October 1967, Huey Newton was arrested for the murder of Oakland Police Officer John Frey, a murder he later admitted and pointed to with pride.[23] At the time, Newton claimed that he had been falsely accused, leading to the “Free Huey” campaign. On February 17, 1968, at the “Free Huey” birthday rally in the Oakland Auditorium, several Black Panther Party leaders spoke. H. Rap Brown, Black Panther Party Minister of Justice, declared:
Huey Newton is our only living revolutionary in this country today…He has paid his dues. He has paid his dues. How many white folks did you kill today?[9]
The mostly black crowd erupted in applause. James Forman, Black Panther Party Minister of Foreign Affairs, followed with:
We must serve notice on our oppressors that we as a people are not going to be frightened by the attempted assassination of our leaders. For my assassination—and I’m the low man on the totem pole—I want 30 police stations blown up, one southern governor, two mayors, and 500 cops, dead. If they assassinate Brother Carmichael, Brother Brown…Brother Seale, this price is tripled. And if Huey is not set free and dies, the sky is the limit![24]
Referring to the 1967–68 period, black historian Curtis Austin states: “During this period of development, black nationalism became part of the party’s philosophy.”[25] During the months following the “Free Huey” birthday rallies, one in Oakland and another in Los Angeles, the Party’s violent, anti-white rhetoric attracted a huge following and Black Panther Party membership exploded.
Two days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., on April 6, 1968, seventeen-year-old Bobby Hutton joined Eldridge Cleaver, Black Panther Party Minister of Information, in what Cleaver later admitted was “an ambush” of the Oakland police.[26] Two officers were wounded, and Bobby Hutton became another martyr when officers opened fire, killing Hutton and wounding Cleaver.[27]
After Hutton’s death, Black Panther Party Chairman Bobby Seale and Kathleen Cleaver (Eldridge’s wife) held a rally in New York City at the Fillmore East in support of Hutton and Cleaver. PlaywrightLeRoi Jones (later Amiri Baraka) joined them on stage before a mixed crowd of 2,000:
We want to become masters of our own destiny…we want to build a black nation to benefit black people…The white people who killed Bobby Hutton are the same white people sitting here.[28]
The crowd, including many whites, gave LeRoi Jones a standing ovation.
In 1968, the group shortened its name to the Black Panther Party and sought to focus directly on political action. Members were encouraged to carry guns and to defend themselves against violence. An influx of college students joined the group, which had consisted chiefly of “brothers off the block.” This created some tension in the group. Some members were more interested in supporting the Panthers social programs, while others wanted to maintain their “street mentality”. For many Panthers, the group was little more than a type of gang.[29]
Curtis Austin states that by late 1968, Black Panther Party ideology had evolved to the point where they began to reject black nationalism and became more a “revolutionary internationalist movement”:
(The Party) dropped its wholesale attacks against whites and began to emphasize more of a class analysis of society. Its emphasis on Marxist-Leninist doctrine and its repeated espousal of Maoist statements signaled the group’s transition from a revolutionary nationalist to a revolutionary internationalist movement. Every Party member had to study Mao Tse-tung’s “Little Red Book” to advance his or her knowledge of peoples’ struggle and the revolutionary process.[30]
Panther slogans and iconography spread. At the 1968 Summer Olympics, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, two American medalists, gave the black power salute during the playing of the American national anthem. The International Olympic Committee banned them from the Olympic Games for life. Hollywood celebrity Jane Fonda publicly supported Huey Newton and the Black Panthers during the early 1970s. She and other Hollywood celebrities became involved in the Panthers’ leftist programs. The Panthers attracted a wide variety of left-wing revolutionaries and political activists, including writer Jean Genet, former Ramparts magazine editor David Horowitz (who later became a major critic of what he describes as Panther criminality)[31] and left-wing lawyer Charles R. Garry, who acted as counsel in the Panthers’ many legal battles.
Survival committees and coalitions were organized with several groups across the United States. Chief among these was the Rainbow Coalition formed by Fred Hampton and the Chicago Black Panthers. The Rainbow Coalition included the Young Lords, a Latino youth gang turned political under the leadership of Jose Cha Cha Jimenez.[32] It also included the Young Patriots, which was organized to support young, white migrants from the Appalachia region.[33]
The Black Panther Party had a list of 26 rules that dictated their daily party work. They regulated their participant’s use of drugs, alcohol, and their actions while they were working. Almost all of the rules had to do with only the actions of members while they were in an event or a meeting of the Black Panthers. The rules also said that members had to follow the Ten Point Program, and had to know it by heart. The final section of rules had to do with more of the leader’s responsibilities, such as providing a first aid center for members of the Black Panthers.[34][35][36]
The original “Ten Point Program” from October, 1966 was as follows [37][38]:
1. We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our black Community.
We believe that black people will not be free until we are able to determine our destiny.
2. We want full employment for our people.
We believe that the federal government is responsible and obligated to give every man employment or a guaranteed income. We believe that if the white American businessmen will not give full employment, then the means of production should be taken from the businessmen and placed in the community so that the people of the community can organize and employ all of its people and give a high standard of living.
3. We want an end to the robbery by the white man of our black Community.
We believe that this racist government has robbed us and now we are demanding the overdue debt of forty acres and two mules. Forty acres and two mules was promised 100 years ago as restitution for slave labor and mass murder of black people. We will accept the payment as currency which will be distributed to our many communities. The Germans are now aiding the Jews in Israel for the genocide of the Jewish people. The Germans murdered six million Jews. The American racist has taken part in the slaughter of over 50 million black people; therefore, we feel that this is a modest demand that we make.
4. We want decent housing, fit for shelter of human beings.
We believe that if the white landlords will not give decent housing to our black community, then the housing and the land should be made into cooperatives so that our community, with government aid, can build and make decent housing for its people.
5. We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present-day society.
We believe in an educational system that will give to our people a knowledge of self. If a man does not have knowledge of himself and his position in society and the world, then he has little chance to relate to anything else.
6. We want all black men to be exempt from military service.
We believe that black people should not be forced to fight in the military service to defend a racist government that does not protect us. We will not fight and kill other people of color in the world who, like black people, are being victimized by the white racist government of America. We will protect ourselves from the force and violence of the racist police and the racist military, by whatever means necessary.
7. We want an immediate end to POLICE BRUTALITY and MURDER of black people.
We believe we can end police brutality in our black community by organizing black self-defense groups that are dedicated to defending our black community from racist police oppression and brutality. The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States gives a right to bear arms. We therefore believe that all black people should arm themselves for self defense.
8. We want freedom for all black men held in federal, state, county and city prisons and jails.
We believe that all black people should be released from the many jails and prisons because they have not received a fair and impartial trial.
9. We want all black people when brought to trial to be tried in court by a jury of their peer group or people from their black communities, as defined by the Constitution of the United States.
We believe that the courts should follow the United States Constitution so that black people will receive fair trials. The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution gives a man a right to be tried by his peer group. A peer is a person from a similar economic, social, religious, geographical, environmental, historical and racial background. To do this the court will be forced to select a jury from the black community from which the black defendant came. We have been, and are being tried by all-white juries that have no understanding of the “average reasoning man” of the black community.
10. We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace. And as our major political objective, a United Nations-supervised plebiscite to be held throughout the black colony in which only black colonial subjects will be allowed to participate for the purpose of determining the will of black people as to their national destiny.
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly, all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariable the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.
1970 BPP pamphlet combining an anti-drug message with revolutionary politics
“This country is a nation of thieves. It stole everything it has, beginning with black people. The U.S. cannot justify its existence as the policeman of the world any longer. I do not want to be a part of the American pie. The American pie means raping South Africa, beating Vietnam, beating South America, raping the Philippines, raping every country you’ve been in. I don’t want any of your blood money. I don’t want to be part of that system. We must question whether or not we want this country to continue being the wealthiest country in the world at the price of raping everybody else.”
Inspired by Mao Zedong‘s advice to revolutionaries in The Little Red Book, Newton called on the Panthers to “serve the people” and to make “survival programs” a priority within its branches. The most famous of their programs was the Free Breakfast for Children Program, initially run out of an Oaklandchurch.
The BPP also founded the “Intercommunal Youth Institute” in January 1971,[41] with the intent of demonstrating how black youth ought to be educated. Ericka Huggins was the director of the school and Regina Davis was an administrator.[42] The school was unique in that it didn’t have grade levels but instead had different skill levels so an 11 year old could be in second-level English and fifth-level science.[42] Elaine Brown taught reading and writing to a group of 10 to 11 year olds deemed “uneducable” by the system.[43] As the school children were given free busing; breakfast, lunch, and dinner; books and school supplies; children were taken to have medical checkups; and many children were given free clothes.[44]
The Party briefly merged with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, headed by Stokely Carmichael (later Kwame Ture). In 1967, the party organized a march on the California state capitol to protest the state’s attempt to outlaw carrying loaded weapons in public after the Panthers had begun exercising that right. Participants in the march carried rifles. In 1968, BPP Minister of InformationEldridge Cleaver ran for Presidential office on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket. They were a big influence on the White Panther Party, that was tied to the Detroit/Ann Arbor band MC5 and their manager John Sinclair, author of the book Guitar Army that also promulgated a ten-point program.
Black Panther Party members standing in the street, armed with a Colt .45 and a shotgun
One of the central aims of the BPP was to stop abuse by local police departments. When the party was founded in 1966, only 16 of Oakland’s 661 police officers were African American.[45] Accordingly, many members questioned the Department’s objectivity and impartiality. This situation was not unique to Oakland, as most police departments in major cities did not have proportional membership by African Americans. Throughout the 1960s, race riots and civil unrest broke out in impoverished African-American communities subject to policing by disproportionately white police departments. The work and writings ofRobert F. Williams, Monroe, North CarolinaNAACP chapter president and author of Negroes with Guns, also influenced the BPP’s tactics.
The BPP sought to oppose police brutality through neighborhood patrols (an approach since adopted by groups such as Copwatch). Police officers were often followed by armed Black Panthers who sought at times to aid African-Americans who were victims of police brutality and racial prejudice. Both Panthers and police died as a result of violent confrontations. By 1970, 34 Panthers had died as a result of police raids, shoot-outs and internal conflict.[46] Various police organizations claim the Black Panthers were responsible for the deaths of at least 15 law enforcement officers and the injuries of dozens more. During those years, juries found several BPP members guilty of violent crimes.[47]
On October 17, 1967, Oakland police officer John Frey was shot to death in an altercation with Huey P. Newton during a traffic stop. In the stop, Newton and backup officer Herbert Heanes also suffered gunshot wounds. Newton was arrested and charged with murder, which sparked a “free Huey” campaign, organized by Eldridge Cleaver to help Newton’s legal defense. Newton was convicted of voluntary manslaughter, though after three years in prison he was released when his conviction was reversed on appeal. During later years Newton would boast to friend and sociobiologist Robert Trivers (one of the few whites who became a Party member during its waning years) that he had in fact murdered officer John Frey and never regretted it.[23]
In April 1968, the party was involved in a gun battle, in which Panther Bobby Hutton was killed. Cleaver, who was wounded, later said that he had led the Panther group on a deliberate ambush of the police officers, thus provoking the shoot-out.[26] In Chicago, on 4 Dec 1969, two Panthers were killed when the Chicago Police raided the home of Panther leader Fred Hampton. The raid had been orchestrated by the police in conjunction with the FBI; during this era the FBI was complicit in many local police actions. Hampton was shot and killed, as was Panther guard Mark Clark. Cook County State’s Attorney Edward Hanrahan, his assistant and eight Chicago police officers were indicted by a federal grand jury over the raid, but the charges were later dismissed.[48][4]
Prominent Black Panther member H. Rap Brown is serving life imprisonment for the 2000 murder of Ricky Leon Kinchen, a Fulton County, Georgia sheriff’s deputy, and the wounding of another officer in a gunbattle. Both officers were black.[49]
From 1966 to 1972, when the party was most active, several departments hired significantly more African-American police officers. During this time period, many African American police officers started to form organizations of their own to become more protective of the African American citizenry and to increase black representation on police forces.[50]
COINTELPRO document outlining the FBI’s plans to ‘neutralize’ Jean Seberg for her support for the Black Panther Party, by attempting to publicly “cause her embarassment” and “tarnish her image”
In August 1967, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) instructed its program “COINTELPRO” to “neutralize” what the FBI called “black nationalist hate groups” and other dissident groups. In September 1968, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover described the Black Panthers as “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country.”[51] By 1969, the Black Panthers and their allies had become primary COINTELPRO targets, singled out in 233 of the 295 authorized “Black Nationalist” COINTELPRO actions. The goals of the program were to prevent the unification of militant black nationalist groups and to weaken the power of their leaders, as well as to discredit the groups to reduce their support and growth. The initial targets included the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Revolutionary Action Movement and the Nation of Islam. Leaders who were targeted included the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, Maxwell Stanford and Elijah Muhammad.
Part of the FBI COINTELPRO actions were directed at creating and exploiting existing rivalries between black nationalist factions. One such attempt was to “intensify the degree of animosity” between the Black Panthers and the Blackstone Rangers, a Chicago street gang. They sent an anonymous letter to the Ranger’s gang leader claiming that the Panthers were threatening his life, a letter whose intent was to induce “reprisals” against Panther leadership. InSouthern California similar actions were taken to exacerbate a “gang war” between the Black Panther Party and a group called the US Organization. Violent conflict between these two groups, including shootings and beatings, led to the deaths of at least four Black Panther Party members. FBI agents claimed credit for instigating some of the violence between the two groups.[52]
On January 17, 1969, Los Angeles Panther Captain Bunchy Carter and Deputy Minister John Huggins were killed in Campbell Hall on the UCLA campus, in a gun battle with members of US Organization stemming from a dispute over who would control UCLA’s black studies program. Another shootout between the two groups on March 17 led to further injuries. It was alleged that the FBI had sent a provocative letter to US Organization in an attempt to create antagonism between US and the Panthers.[53]
From the beginning the Black Panther Party’s focus on militancy came with a reputation for violence. They employed a California law which permitted carrying a loaded rifle or shotgun as long as it was publicly displayed and pointed at no one.[54] Carrying weapons openly and making threats against police officers, for example, chants like “The Revolution has co-ome, it’s time to pick up the gu-un. Off the pigs!”,[55] helped create the Panthers’ reputation as a violent organization.
On May 2, 1967, the California State Assembly Committee on Criminal Procedure was scheduled to convene to discuss what was known as the “Mulford Act“, which would ban public displays of loaded firearms. Cleaver and Newton put together a plan to send a group of about 30 Panthers led by Seale from Oakland to Sacramento to protest the bill. The group entered the assembly carrying their weapons, an incident which was widely publicized, and which prompted police to arrest Seale and five others. The group pled guilty to misdemeanor charges of disrupting a legislative session.[56]
On October 17, 1967, Oakland police officer John Frey was shot to death in an altercation with Huey P. Newton during a traffic stop. In the stop, Newton and backup officer Herbert Heanes also suffered gunshot wounds. Newton was convicted of voluntary manslaughter at trial. This incident gained the party even wider recognition by the radical American left, and a “Free Huey” campaign ensued.[57]Newton was released after three years, when his conviction was reversed on appeal. During later years Newton would boast to sociobiologist Robert Trivers (one of the few whites who became a Party member during its waning years) that he had in fact murdered officer John Frey.[23]
On April 7, 1968, Panther Bobby Hutton was killed, and Cleaver was wounded in a shootout with the Oakland police. Two police officers were also shot. Although at the time Cleaver claimed that the police had ambushed them, Cleaver later admitted that he had led the Panther group on a deliberate ambush of the police officers, thus provoking the shoot-out.[26][27]
From the fall of 1967 through the end of 1970, nine police officers were killed and 56 were wounded, and ten Panther deaths and an unknown number of injuries resulted from confrontations. In 1969 alone, 348 Panthers were arrested for a variety of crimes.[58] On February 18, 1970 Albert Wayne Williams was shot by the Portland Police Bureau outside the Black Panther party headquarters inPortland, Oregon. Though his wounds put him in a critical condition, he made a full recovery.[59]
In May 1969, Black Panther Party members tortured and murdered Alex Rackley, a 19-year-old member of the New York chapter, because they suspected him of being a police informant. Three party officers — Warren Kimbro, George Sams, Jr., and Lonnie McLucas — later admitted taking part. Sams, who gave the order to shoot Rackley at the murder scene, turned state’s evidence and testified that he had received orders personally from Bobby Seale to carry out the execution. After this betrayal, party supporters alleged that Sams was himself the informant and an agent provocateuremployed by the FBI.[60] The case resulted in the New Haven, Connecticut Black Panther trials of 1970, memorialized in the courtroom sketches of Robert Templeton. The trial ended with a hung jury, and the prosecution chose not to seek another trial.
Black Panther bookkeeper Betty van Patter was murdered in 1974, and although this crime was never solved, the Panthers, according to the magazine Mother Jones, were “almost universally believed to be responsible”.[61]David Horowitz became certain that Black Panther members were responsible and denounced the Panthers. When Huey Newton was shot dead 15 years later, Horowitz characterized Newton as a killer.[62] When Art Goldberg, a former colleague at Ramparts, alleged that Horowitz himself was responsible for the death of van Patter by recommending her for the position of Black Panther accountant, Horowitz counter-alleged that “the Panthers had killed more than a dozen people in the course of conducting extortion, prostitution and drug rackets in the Oaklandghetto.” He said further that the organization was committed “to doctrines that are false and to causes that are demonstrably wrongheaded and even evil.”[63] Former chairperson Elaine Brown also questioned Horowitz’s motives in recommending van Patter to the Panthers; she suspected espionage.[64] Horowitz later became known for his conservative viewpoints and opposition to leftistthought.[65]
While part of the organization was already participating in local government and social services, another group was in constant conflict with the police. For some of the Party’s supporters, the separation between political action, criminal activity, social services, access to power, and grass-roots identity became confusing and contradictory as the Panthers’ political momentum was bogged down in thecriminal justice system. Disagreements among the Party’s leaders over how to confront these challenges led to a significant split in the Party. Some Panther leaders, such as Huey Newton and David Hilliard, favored a focus on community service coupled with self-defense; others, such as Eldridge Cleaver, embraced a more confrontational strategy. Eldridge Cleaver deepened the schism in the party when he publicly criticized the Party for adopting a “reformist” rather than “revolutionary” agenda and called for Hilliard’s removal. Cleaver was expelled from the Central Committee but went on to lead a splinter group, the Black Liberation Army, which had previously existed as an underground paramilitary wing of the Party.[66]
The Party eventually fell apart due to rising legal costs and internal disputes. In 1974, Huey Newton appointed Elaine Brown as the first Chairwoman of the Party. Under Brown’s leadership, the Party became involved in organizing for more radical electoral campaigns, including Brown’s 1975 unsuccessful run for Oakland City Council and Lionel Wilson‘s successful election as the first black mayor of Oakland.[67]
In addition to changing the Party’s direction towards more involvement in the electoral arena, Brown also increased the influence of women Panthers by placing them in more visible roles within the male-dominated organization. Brown claims this attempt to battle previously pervasive sexism within the Party was very stressful for her and led to her dependence on Thorazine as a way to escape the pressures of leading the Party.[68]
In 1977, after Newton returned from Cuba and ordered the beating of a female Panther who organized many of the Party’s social programs, Brown left the Party.[69]
Although many scholars and activists date the Party’s downfall to the period before Brown became the leader, an increasingly smaller cadre of Panthers continued to exist through the 1970s. By 1980, Panther membership had dwindled to 27, and the Panther-sponsored school finally closed in 1982 after it had become known that Newton was embezzling funds from the school to pay for his drug addiction.[67][70]
Some critics have written that the Panthers’ “romance with the gun” and their promotion of “gang mentality” was likely associated with the enormous increase in both black-on-black and black-on-white crime observed during later decades.[21][71] This increase occurred in the Panthers’ home town, Oakland California, and in cities nationwide.[72][73][74][75][76] Interviewed after he left the Black Panther Party, former Minister of Information Eldridge Cleaver lamented that the legacy of the Panthers was at least partly one of disrespect for the law and indiscriminate violence. He acknowledged that, had his promotion of violent black militantism prevailed, it would have resulted in “a total bloodbath.” Cleaver also lamented the abandonment of poor blacks by the black bourgeoisie and felt that black youth had been left without appropriate role models who could teach them to properly channel their militant spirit and their desire for justice.[77][78][79][80][81]
In October 2006, the Black Panther Party held a 40-year reunion in Oakland.[82]
In January 2007, a joint California state and Federal task force charged eight men with the August 29, 1971 murder of California police officer Sgt. John Young.[83] The defendants have been identified as former members of the Black Liberation Army. Two have been linked to the Black Panthers.[84] In 1975 a similar case was dismissed when a judge ruled that police gathered evidence through the use of torture.[85] On June 29, 2009 Herman Bell pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in the death of Sgt. Young. In July 2009, charges were dropped against four of the accused: Ray Boudreaux, Henry W. Jones, Richard Brown and Harold Taylor. Also that month Jalil Muntaquim pleaded no contest to conspiracy to commit voluntary manslaughter becoming the second person to be convicted in this case.[86]
Since the 1990s, former Panther chief of staff David Hilliard has offered tours of sites in Oakland historically significant to the Black Panther Party.[87]
The Anti-Defamation League and The Southern Poverty Law Center consider the New Black Panthers as a hate group.[88] Members of the original Black Panther Party have insisted that this New Black Panther Party is illegitimate and have strongly objected that there “is no new Black Panther Party”.[89]
The National Alliance of Black Panthers was formed on July 31, 2004. It was inspired by the grassroots activism of the original organization but not otherwise related. Its chairwoman is Shazza Nzingha.[90]
ABOVE … A BRIEF INSIGHT INTO THE FIRST SERVING GLOUCESTERSHIRE POLICEMAN TO BE KILLED IN THE LINE OF DUTY IN 1861. SERGEANT SAMUEL BEARD WAS , AT THE TIME STATIONED HERE AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL FOR SOME 16 YEARS . THE GLOUCESTERSHIRE POLICE FORCE WAS FORMED IN 1839, MAKING IT THE SECOND OLDEST COUNTY POLICE FORCE IN THE UK .
INCIDENTALLY , THE FIRST RECORDED DEATH OF A SERVING PARISH CONSTABLE (FORERUNNERS TO THE POLICE FORCE ) IN THE FOREST OF DEAN WAS HENRY THOMPSON IN THE PARISH OF RUARDEAN , 14 MAY 1817 , AGED 31 .
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION ON THE HISTORY OF THE GLOUCESTERSHIRE POLICE FORCE PLEASE CLICK ON THE TWO LINKSHERE OR HERE
BELOW …. A BRIEF LOOK AT THE ENTRANCE TO THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL, FEATURING VARIOUS POLICE MANNEQUINS AND OTHER POLICE MEMORABILIA DISPLAYS .
HERE’S JUST A BRIEF PICTORIAL INSIGHT INTO SOME OF THE BRITISH POLICE MEMORABILIA AND EPHEMERA ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL WHICH COVERS THE HISTORY OF THE POLICE THROUGH THE AGES .
THIS COLLECTION IS BELIEVED TO BE ONE OF THE LARGEST PRIVATE COLLECTIONS OF POLICE MEMORABILIA IN THE UK . WE HAVE HUNDREDS OF VINTAGE HAND PAINTED TRUNCHEONS , RESTRAINTS , HELMETS, BADGES, UNIFORMS AND MUCH MORE .
SEE BELOW FOR PICTORIAL SLIDESHOW OF A FEW EXHIBITS ON DISPLAY
SEE BELOW VIDEO FOR EDUCATIONAL INSIGHT INTO THE HISTORY OF THE BRITISH POLICE
A SUPERB PIECE OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE POLICE CRIME SCENE MEMORABILIA ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL
JUST ONE OF A GREAT MANY BRITISH POLICE MEMORABILIA ITEMS THROUGH THE AGES ON DISPLAY IN ONE OF THE UK’S LARGEST PRIVATE COLLECTIONS OF LAW AND ORDER MATERIAL .
BELOW IS AN IMAGE OF WHAT IS BELIEVED TO BE ONE OF THE VERY FEW SURVIVING VINTAGE GLOUCESTERSHIRE CONSTABULARY’S FINGERPRINT KITS (CIRCA 1940’S) . COMPLETE WITH IT’S ORIGINAL BOX, INKS, ROLLER, POWDERS AND BRUSHES ETC .ALSO VARIOUS APPROPRIATE DOCUMENTATION FOR FINGERPRINT EVIDENCE PURPOSES . FOR MORE INFORMATION AND PICTURES RELATING TO THIS ITEM CLICK HERE
Picture By: Jules Annan Picture Shows:GLOUCESTERSHIRE POLICE FINGERPRINT KIT CIRCA 1940’S Date 25TH September 2011 Ref: *World Rights Only* *Unbylined uses will incur an additional discretionary fee!*
A short history of British Police focusing on truncheon and armour – Arms in Action
ORIGINAL PAINTING BY GLOUCESTERSHIRE ARTIST PAUL BRIDGMAN DEPICTING WPC YVONNE FLETCHER, WHO WAS FATALLY SHOT OUTSIDE THE LIBYAN EMBASSY , ST JAMES SQUARE, LONDON IN 1984 . THIS PAINTING IS ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL.
PC DAVID RATHBAND WHO WAS SHOT AND BLINDED BY RAOUL MOAT PERSONAL SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE BRITISH POLICE
The word “Police” means, generally, the arrangements made in all civilised countries to ensure that the inhabitants keep the peace and obey the law. The word also denotes the force of peace officers (or police) employed for this purpose.
In 1829 Sir Richard Mayne wrote:
“The primary object of an efficient police is the prevention of crime: the next that of detection and punishment of offenders if crime is committed. To these ends all the efforts of police must be directed. The protection of life and property, the preservation of public tranquillity, and the absence of crime, will alone prove whether those efforts have been successful and whether the objects for which the police were appointed have been attained.”
In attaining these objects, much depends on the approval and co-operation of the public, and these have always been determined by the degree of esteem and respect in which the police are held. One of the key principles of modern policing in Britain is that the police seek to work with the community and as part of the community.
Origins of policing
The origin of the British police lies in early tribal history and is based on customs for securing order through the medium of appointed representatives. In effect, the people were the police. The Saxons brought this system to England and improved and developed the organisation. This entailed the division of the people into groups of ten, called “tythings”, with a tything-man as representative of each; and into larger groups, each of ten tythings, under a “hundred-man” who was responsible to the Shire-reeve, or Sheriff, of the County.
The tything-man system, after contact with Norman feudalism, changed considerably but was not wholly destroyed. In time the tything-man became the parish constable and the Shire-reeve the Justice of the Peace, to whom the parish constable was responsible. This system, which became widely established in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, comprised, generally, one unarmed able-bodied citizen in each parish, who was appointed or elected annually to serve for a year unpaid, as parish constable. He worked in co-operation with the local Justices in securing observance of laws and maintaining order. In addition, in the towns, responsibility for the maintenance of order was conferred on the guilds and, later, on other specified groups of citizens, and these supplied bodies of paid men, known as “The Watch”, for guarding the gates and patrolling the streets at night.
In the eighteenth century came the beginnings of immense social and economic changes and the consequent movement of the population to the towns. The parish constable and “Watch” systems failed completely and the impotence of the law-enforcement machinery was a serious menace. Conditions became intolerable and led to the formation of the “New Police”.
The Metropolitan Police
In 1829, when Sir Robert Peel was Home Secretary, the first Metropolitan Police Act was passed and the Metropolitan Police Force was established. This new force superseded the local Watch in the London area but the City of London was not covered. Even within the Metropolitan Police District there still remained certain police establishments, organised during the eighteenth century, outside the control of the Metropolitan Police Office, viz:-
The Bow Street Patrols, mounted and foot, the latter commonly called the “Bow Street runners”.
Police Office constables attached to the offices of, and under the control of, the Magistrates.
The Marine or River Police.
By 1839 all these establishments had been absorbed by the Metropolitan Police Force. The City of London Police, which was set up in 1839, remains an independent force to this day.
HISTORY OF THE METROPOLITAN POLICE
Time Line 1829 – 1849
Until 1829, law enforcement had been lacking in organisation. As London expanded during the 18th and 19th centuries the whole question of maintaining law and order had become a matter of public concern. In 1812, 1818 and 1822, Parliamentary committees were appointed to investigate the subject of crime and policing. But it was not until 1828 when Sir Robert Peel set up his committee that the findings paved the way for his police Bill, which led to the setting up of an organised police service in London.
1829
The formation of the Metropolitan Police Force on 29 September 1829 by Sir Robert Peel.
Sir Charles Rowan and Richard Mayne are appointed as Justices of the Peace in charge of the Force.1830PC Joseph Grantham becomes first officer to be killed on duty, at Somers Town, Euston. The Metropolitan Police ranks were increased considerably to 3,300 men.1831Further riots. A crowd attacks Apsley House, home of the Duke of Wellington, and break all the windows. The police eventually restore order.1832Richard Mayne, the Commissioner, tries to clarify the roles of the Magistrates and the Commissioners as the Bow Street Runners continue their existance.1833Coldbath Fields Riot (Grays Inn Road). A major crowd disturbance was dealt with by the Metropolitan Police with controversial use of force.
PC Robert Culley was killed at this event, and the jury returned a verdict of Justifiable Homicide.
1834The Select Committee designated with the task of inquiring into the state of the Police of the Metropolis reported ‘that the Metropolitan Police Force, as respects its influence in repressing crime and the security it has given to persons and property, is one of the most valuable modern institutions’
1835In October a fire breaks out at the Millbank Penitentiary and 400 Metropolitan Police officers and a detachment of the Guards are called to restore order. This prompted the press to call for the police to be put in command at all large fires.
1836The Metropolitan Police absorb the Bow Street Horse Patrol into its control.
1837Select Committee appointed to look into the affairs of the police offices. They also propose that the City of London be placed under the control of the Metropolitan Police.
1838Select Committee finally reports and recommends incorporating of Marine Police and Bow Street Runners into the Metropolitan Police and the disbandment of the Bow Street Office and other Offices. These were all agreed and put into effect.
1839The two Justices of the Peace, Rowan and Mayne are termed Commissioners by the Metropolitan Police Act 1839. Enlargement of the Metropolitan Police District by the same Act
.1840Gould Interrogation case in which Police Sergeant Otway attempts induced self-incrimination in the accused, which is immediately discountenanced by the Courts and Commissioner Richard Mayne.
1841Formation of Dockyard divisions of the Metropolitan police
.1842Formation of the Detective Department
.1843The Woolwich Arsenal became part of the area to be patrolled by the Metropolitan Police
.1844Richard Mayne, Commissioner, called to give evidence to the Select Committee on Dogs. He stated that in the Metropolis there were a rising number of lost or stolen dogs. In the preceding year over 600 dogs were lost and 60 stolen. He declared the law to be in a very unsatisfactory state as people paid money for restoration of dogs. ‘People pay monies to parties whom they have reason to believe have either stolen or enticed them away in order to get the reward…’ Mayne believed it to be organised crime.
1845The Commissioners, in returns to the Home Office, states that the aim of the Force was to have one Policeman to 450 head of population.
1846Plain clothes officers were frequently used at this time, but a June order made clear that two officers per division would be employed on detective duties, but that police in plain clothes must make themselves known if interfered with in their duty.
1847Statistics for the year were; 14,091 robberies; 62,181 people taken in charge, 24,689 of these were summarily dealt with; 5,920 stood trial and 4,551 were convicted and sentenced; 31,572 people were discharged by the magistrates.
The Metropolitan Police were still, despite their good record on crime prevention, facing discipline problems amongst their officers on the 18 divisions, with 238 men being dismissed in the year.
1848Large scale enrolement of Special constables to assist the Metropolitan Police in controlling the Chartist Demonstrations
.1849Authorised strength 5,493. In reality 5,288 were available for duty. The population at this time in London was 2,473,758.
Time Line 1850 – 1869
1850
Retirement of Sir Charles Rowan as joint Commissioner. Captain William Hay is appointed in his place.
1851
The Great Exhibition with its special crowd problems forces the police to temporarily form a new police division. The total manpower of the force at this time was 5,551, covering 688 square miles.
1852
Sir Charles Rowan, first joint Commissioner, dies. In his obituary note of 24 May The Times wrote: “No individual of any rank or station could be more highly esteemed or loved when living, or more regretted in death.”
1853
Lord Dudley Stuart, MP for Marylebone and a persistent critic of the police, suggests in Parliament that the police are not worth the money they cost. He recommends that they be reduced in numbers, and a higher class of officers be recruited to control the constables.
1854
Out of 5,700 in the Metropolitan Force, 2.5% were Scottish, 6.5% Irish. The Commissioner was not happy about employing these officers in areas of high Scottish or Irish ethnic concentrations.
1855
Death of Captain William Hay. Sir Richard Mayne becomes sole Commissioner.
1856
Detective Force increased to 10 men, with an extra Inspector and Sergeant.
1857
The Commissioner Richard Mayne is paid a salary of £1,883, and his two Assistant Commissioners are paid salaries of £800 each.
1858
First acquisition of Police van for conveying prisoners. These were horse drawn, and known as‘Black Marias’.
1859
Police orders of 6 January state “It is a great gratification to the Commissioner that the number of police guilty of the offence of drunkenness during the late Christmas holidays has been much lower than last year… In A, F and R Division only one man was reported in each, and in H Division not one man was reported in the present or last year..”
1860
Police begin the occasional use of hand ambulances for injured, sick or drunk people. Accommodation or ‘ambulance sheds’ are later provided for these in police station yards.
1861
Police orders on the 25 January made allowance for one third of Metropolitan Police officers in Dockyards “to be relieved each Sunday, to give them an opportunity of attending Divine Service…”
The Metropolitan Police act as firemen at the British Museum. The Superintendent in charge said of them “From their manner of doing the work, I should be inclined to place considerable confidence in these men in an emergency.”
1862Further expansion in the Metropolitan Police with the formations of the X and W Divisions in the west, and Y Division in the north
1863Drunkenness is still a problem in the force, and in this year 215 officers were dismissed for this reason
.1864Execution of 5 pirates of the ship ‘Flowery Land’ at Newgate. The Metropolitan Police supply nearly 800 officers to keep the peace.
1865Further extensions of the Metropolitan Police District in terms of the area patrolled in north east London.
1866 3,200 police under the command of Commissioner Richard Mayne were used to control a serious riot in Hyde Park. 28 police were permanently disabled, and Mayne was hit by a stone which cut his head open. He was forced to call in the Military to restore order
.1867The Metropolitan Police are severely criticised after Commissioner Richard Mayne ignores a warning about the Clerkenwell bombing by the Fenians. Mayne offers his resignation, but it is refused.1868Death of Commissioner Sir Richard Mayne. Lieutenant Colonel Douglas Labalmondiere acts as Commissioner.
The standard height for Metropolitan Police officers is raised to 5ft 8ins, except for Thames Division, where it is 5ft 7ins.
1871
As a result of frequent larcenies of linen, the Commissioner Edmund Henderson said, on the 21 April, “Constables are to call at the houses of all persons on their beats having wet linen in their gardens, and caution them of the risk they run in having them stolen…”
1872
Police strike for the first time. Various men are disciplined or dismissed, although these latter are later allowed back in to the Force.
1873
The Metropolitan Police acquire 9 new stations : North Woolwich, Rodney Road (Lock’s Fields), Chislehurst, Finchley, Isleworth, Putney, South Norwood, Harrow and Enfield Town.
1874
A survey of recruiting over a 2 year period showed that of those who had joined the force; 31% came from land jobs, 12% from military services, and 5% from other police jobs. The remainder came mostly from manual jobs. The majority of recruits and serving officers came from outside of London.
1875
New police offices at Great Scotland Yard are taken possession of on 4 October 1875 by the Detective and Public Carriage Departments.
1876
8 January the following order was released : “Relief from duty during severe weather – dufing the present severe weather as much indulgence as possible is to be given to the men on night duty, due regard being had to public safety..”
1877
Trial of the Detectives or Turf Fraud Scandal exposes corruption within the Force.
1878
Charles Vincent was appointed Director of Criminal Investigations, the reformed Detective Branch which became known as C.I.D.
1879
Initial rules for dealing with Murder cases, released on 7 June, stated “the body must not be moved, nor anything about it or in the room or place interfered with, and the public must be excluded..”
1880
Formation of the Convict Supervision Office for the assistance and control of convicts discharged upon license.
1881
Possibly London’s most famous police station, Bow Street, was rebuilt in this year.
1882
The growth of London and the area needing policing is illustrated in Tottenham, (Y Division) when 8 miles of new streets are formed in a year with nearly 4,000 houses on them.
The Metropolitan Police at Devonport Dockyard illustrate the diversity of the role of the force as the Police Fire Brigade has its busiest year since formation with 6 major fires
.1883Special Irish Branch formed
.1884A bomb explodes at Scotland Yard planted by the Fenians. The Special Irish Branch are hit.
1885The strength of the force at this time was 13,319, but statistics show that only 1,383 officers were available for beat duty in the day. The population of London at this time was 5,255,069.Public outrage at the explosions at the Tower of London and Houses of Parliament. Two men are sentenced to penal servitude for life as a result.
1886Trafalgar Square riot forces resignation of the Commissioner Sir Edmund Henderson.
1887Major riot in Trafalgar Square, known as ‘Bloody Sunday’, the first test for the new Commissioner Sir Charles Warren, appointed the previous year.
1888Sir Charles Warren resigns after a dispute with the Home Office, and James Monro is appointed Commissioner in his place.
Jack the Ripper murders in the Whitechapel area.1889The last of the so called “Whitechapel” murders is discovered with the death in Castle Alley on 17 July of Alice McKenzie.
Time Line 1890 – 1909
1890
Opening of the new headquarters at the Norman Shaw Building on the Embankment known as New Scotland Yard.
Police strike at Bow Street Police Station.
Sir Edward Bradford is appointed Commissioner after the resignation of James Monro.
1891The Public Carriage and Lost Property Offices move from Great Scotland Yard to the new offices at New Scotland Yard on the 21 March.
1892Dismissals and rank and pay reductions were common at this point, and the case of Pc379A Best whose resignation on 21 July illustrates how the Metropolitan Police attempted to keep its men in order. He was “in possession of a tea-can, the property of another constable, obliterating the owners number, substituting his own name and number, telling a deliberate falsehood in connection therewith; and considered unfit for the police force
”1893PC George Cooke, a serving officer, is convicted for murder and hanged.
1894The Alphonse Bertillon system of identification comes into operation.1895To join the Metropolitan Police the following qualifications were necessary:
to be over 21 and under 27 years of age
to stand clear 5ft 9ins without shoes or stockings
to be able to read well, write legibly and have a fair knowledge of spelling
to be generally intelligent
to be free from any bodily complaint
The bodily complaints for which candidates were rejected included; flat foot, stiffness of joints, narrow chest and deformities of the face.
1896Public Carriage Office and Lost Property Offices amalgamate under the designation ‘Public Carriage Branch’.
1897Metropolitan Police Officers granted a boot allowance instead of being supplied with boots. Police boots at this time were loathed, only Sir Edward Bradford, the Commissioner, believing them suitable.
1898After a series of assaults and the murder of PC Baldwin in the vicinity of the Kingsland Road, there are calls for the Metropolitan Police to be armed with revolvers.
1899High rate of suicides amongst officers. This is blamed by certain commentators on harsh discipline and insensitive handling of the men.
As the century draws to a close it is worth noting that the Metropolitan Police on formation in 1829 had a force of about 3,000 men, and by 1899 16,000. The population of London had grown from 1,500,000 to 7 million.
1900Construction of a new floating police station at Waterloo Pier.Lord Belper Committee inquire into the best system of identification of possible criminals
.1901The Fingerprint Bureau commences operation after the findings of the Belper Report. Anthropometric measurements under the Bertillon system are still used, but begin to decline in importance.
1902The coronation of King Edward VII makes major demands on the police, resulting in 512 police pensioners being recalled for duty. Extra pay, leave and a medal were granted to all serving officers.
1903Sir Edward Bradford retires as Commissioner to be replaced by Edward Henry.
19046 new stations buildt at East Ham, Hackney, John Street, Muswell Hill, North Woolwich and Tower Bridge. 1 is near completion and 2 other started. Major works take place on 23 other stations.
1905An article in Police Review mentions that Pc William Hallett of Y Division, who had retired after 26 years as a mounted officer, had ridden 144,000 miles or more than 5 times around the world in the course of his duty.
1906The Metropolitan Police at this stage in their history are on duty for 13 days a fortnight and have an additional leave of 10 days.
1907Clash between the Metropolitan Police and 800 Suffragettes outside the House of Commons on 13 February. Mounted and Foot officers are used to disperse them, and allegations of brutality are made.
1908Police Review reports “the authorities at Scotland Yard have been seriously discussing the use of dogs as the constable companion and help, and Sir Edward Henry (Commissioner), who regards the innovation sympathetically, considers the only crucial objection to be the sentimental prejudices of the public.”
1909The Tottenham Outrage occurs, in the course of which PC William Tyler and a 10 year old boy are shot dead by anarchists.
Time Line 1910 – 1929
1910
Radio Telegraphy used for the first time, resulting in the capture of Doctor Crippen.
The miners strike in South Wales results in many Metropolitan Police officers assisting to maintain law and order.
1911The Siege of Sidney Street results in armed Metropolitan Police officers taking to the streets with the military to deal with armed anarchist criminals.
1912Assassination attempt on the life of the Commissioner, Sir Edward Henry.
Establishment of the Metropolitan Police Special Constabulary on a permanent basis.
1913The Commissioner calls for legislation to be introduced to restrict the trade in pistols following the assassination attempt on his own life.
1914With the outbreak of war, 24,000 Special Constables are sworn in, and by the end of the year there are 31,000. Annual leave is suspended for the first year of the war.
1915London Ambulance Service commences operation, taking over some of the duties originally performed by the Metropolitan Police. However, police in this year convey over 11,000 people to hospital.
1916The Commissioner Sir Edward Henry signs a Police Order in November stating that any member of the Metropolitan Police renders himself liable to dismissal by joining a union.
1917At this point in WW1, some 2,300 members of the Metropolitan Police were serving in the armed services.
1918Major strike of Metropolitan Police in search of better pay and conditions, and union recognition. Sir Edward Henry resigns as Commissioner, and is replaced by Sir Nevil Macready.
1920Sir Nevil Macready retires as Commissioner, and is replaced by Brigadier-General Sir William Horwood.
1921The Police Pensions Act comes into force, fixing an age limit for each rank at which retirement shall be compulsory.
Z Division formed on the South side of the River Thames.
1922Commissioner Horwood admits that many of the men taken into the force in 1919 to replace strikers and those in the armed forces have given trouble due to neglecting their beats and drunkenness.
The Commissioner also comments on the growth in consumption of methylated spirits, with 80 convictions this year.
Women Constables reduced to an establishment of 20.
1923First Cup Final at Wembley leads to major crowd problems, controlled by the Mounted Branch. Billy, the White Horse of Wembley, and his rider Pc George Scorey become a legend.
1924The Commissioner explains in his Annual Report how the social status of a Metropolitan policeman has been raised due to his conditions of employment.
1925The Metropolitan Police begin to withdraw from policing dockyards (including Rosyth, Pembroke, Deptford Dockyards) and War Department Stations.
Sir James Olive retires from his position as an Assistant Commissioner after 53 years service.
1926Attempt to assasinate Commissioner Horwood with poisoned chocolates
1927Public Carriage Office transfered to Lambeth
1928Retirement of Brigadier-General Sir William Horwood. Viscount Byng of Vimy appointed new Commissioner.
1929Centenery of Metropolitan Police celebrated with a parade in Hyde Park and inspection by HRH the Prince of Wales.
The Police Box system commences on an experimental basis in Richmond and Wood Green.
Time Line 1930 – 1949
1930
Large number of men posted to Motor Patrol work: 4 subdivisional Inspectors, 31 Sergeants, and 324 Constables.
1931
Commissioner Byng retires. Lord Trenchard appointed.
1932
Lord Trenchard abolishes the timed Beat System and sets out his thoughts about the Metropolitan Police Personnel recruitment and promotion system.
1933
Trenchard begins his programme for the improvement of Section Houses.
1934
The Metropolitan Police College opens at Hendon.
Metropolitan Police withdraw from Devonport Dockyard, bringing to a close its presence in HM Dockyards.
Lord Trenchard retires as Commissioner, and Sir Philip Game is appointed in his place.
1936The Battle of Cable Street involves the Metropolitan Police in street battles with opposing political factions.
1937The 999 system is introduced.
1938Civil Defence starts with the formation of two Reserves in the event of war. The first are retired officers, the second Special Constables.
1939I.R.A. activity results in 59 explosions in the Metropolitan Police District. 55 people are convicted for these offences.
194098 Metropolitan Police officers killed during air raids.
Click here to read about the MPS officer murdered in Hyde Park during the war
1941Air raid bombings continue, and Holloway police station is destroyed. Somers Town, Sydenham and Brixton stations are too badly damaged to be used.
1942Police officers allowed to volunteer for the Armed Forces.
1943In an attempt to curb housebreaking, the Commissioner Sir Philip Game asks people not to keep furs, saying “they are no doubt warmer, and look nicer than a tweed coat, but a live dog is better than a dead lion.
”1944Looting reaches an all time record.
1945Sir Philip Game retires and is replaced as Commissioner by Harold Scott
.1946The Metropolitan and City Police Company Fraud Department is formed.
1947Metropolitan Police face a deficiency of 4,730 men as a result of the war.
1948Indictable crime rate falls to 126,000 crimes, but this is still 40% higher than before the war.
1949Lord Oakseys committee reports on police pay, recommending small increases and London weighting.
Time Line 1950 – 1969
1950
The Metropolitan Police Roll of Honour is unveiled at Westminster Abbey by the Queen, displaying the names of officers killed in the 1914-1918 and 1939-1945 wars.
1951
Commissioner Harold Scott introduces training of cadets aged 16 – 18 to become police officers.
1952
The Dixon Report advocates many changes in the Metropolitan Police, including greater civilianisation.
1953
Sir Harold Scott retires, and is replaced as Commissioner by Sir John Nott-Bower.
1954
Serious understaffing problems, with the force consisting of only 16,000 and needing an estimated 4,000 men, mainly Police Constables.
1955
Formation of the Central Traffic Squad, consisting of 100 men.
1956
Flying Squad makes over 1,000 arrests, a record since its formation.
1957
New Information Room opens at New Scotland Yard.
1958
Sir John Nott-Bower retires as Commissioner. He is replaced by Joseph Simpson.
1959
Indictable offences reach over 160,000, the highest recorded to date.
1960
Traffic Wardens introduced.
Criminal Intelligence Section and Stolen Motor Vehicle Investigation branches established.
1961The Receivers Office moved from Scotland House to new premises at Tintagel House.
The Minicab arrives on the London scene, and the Metropolitan Police obtain 24 convictions for illegal plying for hire.
1962The rate of indictable crimes for this year reaches an all time high – 214,120.
The series ‘Police 5′, designed to prevent crime, begins on BBC.
1963The Commissioner, Joseph Simpson, stresses the need for the Beat system to reduce motorised patrols and deter incidents of crime.
The first computer to be used by the Met (an ICT 1301) was set up in the office of the Receiver for use on pay and crime statistics.
1964The worst year so far this century for crime, with over a quarter of a million indictable crimes.
Regional Crime Squads formed.
Police face major criticism and complaints as a result of the Challenor Case, in which a policeman was diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic and made infamous for planting evidence
.1965Special Patrol Group formed consisting of 100 officers. It arrested 396 people in its first 9 months of operation.
1966The Commissioner’s Office and the Receiver’s Office are combined.
3 Metropolitan Police officers murdered at Shepherds Bush.
1967The headquarters is moved from the Norman Shaw Building to a new building in Broadway, just off Victoria Street. The name of New Scotland Yard is retained.
Norwell Roberts joins the Met as the first black police officer. He retired after 30 years service with the rank of Detective Sergeant and received the QPM in 1996.1968Sir Joseph Simpson dies in service, and is replaced as Commissioner b
1969MPS officers sent to offer assistance in the Anguilla crisis.
Serious Crime Squad becomes permanent.
Time Line 1970 – 1989
1970
Clear up rate on indictable crimes reaches 28%, the best since 1957.
1971
The Commissioner (John Waldron) in his annual report said “With deep and lasting traditions the Metropolitan Police is an impressive institution by every standard and in any company in the world.”
1972
Sir John Waldron is succeeded as Commissioner by Robert Mark.
1973
Robert Mark works to restore the integrity of the Metropolitan Police, and 90 officers leave as a result.
Mark establishes better relations with the media by setting out a policy of openness.
Women police are integrated directly into the force.
.1975Robert Mark makes an appeal on television for ethnic recruits.
Balcombe Street and Spaghetti House sieges were both brought to successful conclusions by the Met.
1976Major riot at Notting Hill Carnival, in which more than 400 officers and civilian staff were injured.
1977David McNee becomes Commissioner after the retirement of Sir Robert Mark.
1978An inquiry into police pay by Lord Edmund-Davies results in higher allowances and better pay to officers.
1979The Metropolitan Police celebrates its 150th Anniversary.
A new Force Inspectorate is formed, to provide a close and continuing assessment of the efficiency of all units of the force.
1980Iranian Embassy siege brought to a successful conclusion after co-operation between the Met and the Special Air Service Regiment.
Formation of Metropolitan Air Support Unit with its own Bell 222 helicopter.
1981Brixton Riots involve the Metropolitan Police in the largest civil disturbance this century.
1982Sir David McNee retires as Commissioner to be replaced by Sir Kenneth Newman.
1983With the aid of the MPS Policy Committee Sir Kenneth Newman devises a new statement of the Principles of Policing, and in doing so changes the emphasis from the primary objectives of policing established by Richard Mayne and Sir Charles Rowan in 1829.
1984PC Jon Gordon lost both legs and part of a hand in the IRA bomb attack on Harrods in 1983. On 10 December 1984 he resumed duty by walking unaided up the steps to his new office.
Whilst policing a demonstration in St James’s Square, WPC Yvonne Fletcher was shot in the back and mortally wounded by shots fired from the Libyan People’s Bureau. WPC Fletcher’s murder led to the creation of the Police Memorial Trust, an organisation dedicated to placing memorials at the locations of fallen officers
1985Tottenham Riots (also known as ‘Broadwater Farm’ riot) result in the murder of PC Keith Blakelock.
1986Identification Parade screens introduced at Clapham police station.
The Police and Criminal Evidence Act comes into force in January.
Mounted Branch celebrates its 150th anniversary.
1987Sir Kenneth Newman retires, and is replaced as Commissioner by Peter Imbert.
1988The Commissioner stresses the need for close community liaison between the Police and Consultative Groups to foster the police / public partnership.
1989‘Plus Programme’ launched to improve the corporate image and quality of the service of the Metropolitan Police. It significantly altered attitudes within the MPS, and included the Statement of Common Purpose and Values.
Sector Policing introduced, involving a team of officers with a continuing responsibility for the same small community area or sector.
1992
First 5 year Corporate Strategy published in February.
1993
Sir Peter Imbert retires, and is replaced as Commissioner by Sir Paul Condon.
Operation Bumblebee introduced on the 1 June and has a considerable impact on burglary in the capital.
The Charter is launched in September, defining the role of the Police and public expectation
1994Metropolitan Police Service key objectives established for the first time by the Government, plus key performance indicators.
1995Metropolitan Police Committee formed on 1 April.
Crime Report Information System (CRIS) introduced. It revolutionises the means of recording crimes.
1996‘The London Beat’ published.
The MPS launches its Website at www.met.police.uk. Click here to find out more about this website.
1997Installation of N.A.F.I.S. the National Automated Fingerprint Identification System.
1998The Metropolitan Police launch the Policing Diversity Strategy in response to the majority of issues raised into the Inquiry into the death of Stephen Lawrence. The aim is to provide better protection to ethnic communities from racial and violent crime and demonstrate fairness in every aspect of policing.
1999The handling of the Greek Embassy siege demonstrates the professionalism of the Metropolitan Police Service.
Time Line 2000-2009
2000
Sir Paul Condon retires and is replaced as Commissioner by Sir John Stevens.
Sir John issues his Policing Pledge for Londoners.
ABOVE: ORIGINAL OIL PAINTING BY IN- HOUSE GLOUCESTERSHIRE ARTIST PAUL BRIDGMAN HERE ON DISPLAY AT THE JAIL WITHIN OUR ” DARK TOURIST ART GALLERY ”
ABOVE : ORIGINAL OIL PAINTING BY OUR IN-HOUSE GLOUCESTERSHIRE ARTIST PAUL BRIDGMAN DEPICTING THE FAILED ATTEMPT TO HANG JOHN “BABBARCOMBE” LEE IN EXETER PRISON.
THIS PAINTING NOW BEING HERE ON DISPLAY AT THE JAIL.
FIRSTLY, AND FOR THE RECORD
A FORMAL STATEMENT FROM ANDY JONES, OWNER & CURATOR OF THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION HERE AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL ……
IT HAD BEEN BROUGHT TO OUR ATTENTION THAT THE HIT CHANNEL 4 TV SERIES – FOUR ROOMS, FIRST BROADCAST AT THE END OF MAY 2011, FEATURED FELLOW CRIME MEMORABILIA COLLECTOR STEWART P EVANS, AUTHOR OF THE 2004 PUBLICATION OF THE BOOK ENTITLED “EXECUTIONER- THE CHRONICLES OF JAMES BERRY VICTORIAN HANGMAN” . HE TOOK ONTO THE SHOW A SO-SAY JAMES BERRY HANGMAN’S NOOSE CLAIMING IT TO HAVE BEEN THE ORIGINAL ONE USED ON BERRY’S FAILED EXECUTION OF JOHN ” BABBACOMBE ” LEE ON JULY 23RD 1885 AT EXETER JAIL .
WE WISH TO MAKE IT ABUNDANTLY CLEAR THAT THIS WAS NOT THE NOOSE USED, AND THAT THE ORIGINAL HANGMAN’S NOOSE , ALONG WITH A PERSONALLY HANDWRITTEN AND SIGNED LETTER FROM JAMES BERRY TO THIS EFFECT,DATED 3 JULY 1897(WRITEN DURING HIS RETIREMENT YEARS ) ARE HERE AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL ON PUBLIC DISPLAY . (SEE ORIGINAL NOOSE AND LETTER PICTURES HERE ABOVE & BELOW FOR REFERENCE )
THESE EXHIBIT ITEMS WERE PURCHASED AT AUCTION BY THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION BACK IN THE YEAR 2000. STEWART HAD ALSO ATTENDED THE AUCTION WITH A VIEW TO PURCHASE BUT WAS SUBSEQUENTLY OUTBID BY OURSELVES .
THE PROPOSED SALE OF THE OTHER NOOSE OWNED BY STEWART P EVANS FAILED TO SELL ON THE CHANNEL 4 TV SERIES “FOUR ROOMS” . THIS WAS PROBABLY DUE TO KNOWLEDGE THAT THE ORIGINAL NOOSE AND LETTER OF PROVENANCE FROM THE EXECUTIONER -JAMES BERRY WERE KNOWN TO BE HERE ON PERMANENT DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL, UK .
ON A PERSONAL LEVEL ANDY JONES WISHES TO ADD IT WAS DISAPPOINTING TO NOTE THAT WITH FELLOW CRIME MEMORABILIA COLLECTOR AND FORMER POLICE OFFICER STEWART EVANS HAVING KNOWINGLY BEEN AWARE OF THESE FACTS, HE STILL SADLY TRIED TO DECEIVE TV SHOW PRODUCERS , THE VIEWING PUBLIC , AND OTHER FELLOW COLLECTORS OF CRIME MEMORABILIA .
REF: ORIGINAL JAMES BERRY CALLING/BUSINESS CARD
FURTHERMORE & FOR THE RECORD WE WOULD WISH TO ALSO ADD THAT WE HAVE HERE ON DIPLAY AN ORIGINAL JAMES BERRY PUBLIC EXECUTIONER CALLING/BUSINESS CARD . ( SEE BELOW)
AS AUTHOR STEWART P EVANS WILL ALSO AGREE AND ACCEPT ANDY JONES OF THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION HAD ORIGINALLY INTRODUCED HIM TO THE FORMER OWNER OF THIS CALLING CARD – JOE MAWSON ( NOW DECEASED FORMER CRIME MEMORABILIA COLLECTOR ) .
JOE HAD, AS RECOMMENDED BY ANDY JONES ,SUBSEQUENTLY PROVIDED WITHOUT CHARGE TO STEWART, AN IMAGE OF THIS CARD FOR HIS BOOK, AS ACKNOWLEDGED WITHIN THE CREDITS OF HIS BOOK. #
HOPEFULLY THIS WILL RESPECTFULLY PUT THE RECORD STRAIGHT ON THESE SAID FRONTS.
ABOVE: An original oil painting by Gloucestershire artist Paul Bridgman of James Berry , here on display at The Crime Through Time Collection , Littledean jail .
Above & below: The original James Berry personally handwritten and signed letter that had been originally acquired alongside his noose, for which Berry clearly states the provenance of this noose as being both the one he had used in his first execution and thereafter the historic failed attempted execution on John “Babbacombe” Lee.
ABOVE & BELOW: AN ORIGINAL JAMES BERRY EXECUTIONER CALLING/BUSINESS CARD AND ORIGINAL LETTER FROM SCOTLAND YARDS BLACK MUSEUM CURATOR BILL WADDELL AKNOWLEDGING SIGHT OF THIS EXTREMELY RARE EXHIBIT PIECE .
THIS CALLING CARD HAVING BEEN PARY OF THE JOE MAWSON ( DECEASED) CRIME MEMORABILIA COLLECTION, LATER ACCQUIRED BY THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION. THIS ITEM ALONG WITH THE OTHERS FEATURED HERE ARE NOW ON PUBLIC DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL .
Below: A rare and unseen personal photograph of fellow crime memorabilia and ephemera collector Joe Mawson who was the previous owner of the exceptionally rare James Berry Executioner calling/business card.
This calling card having been previously featured in the book below and now on permanent display here at the jail.
ABOVE & BELOW: THE BOOK WRITTEN BY STEWART P EVANS ALONG WITH A PERSONAL DEDICATION AND THANK-YOU NOTE TO PREVIOUS OWNER OF THE JAMES BERRY CALLING CARD JOE MAWSON .
A COPY OF ORIGINAL SIGNED PHOTO OF JAMES BERRY – EXECUTIONER AND HANGMAN
NEWSPAPER ARTICLE BACK ON 05TH OCTOBER 2000 RELATING TO THE UPCOMING AUCTION SALE OF THE NOOSE AND HANGMAN’S LETTER …….SUBSEQUENTLY BOUGHT BY THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION, NOW ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL
ABOVE: TRUE CRIME MAGAZINE FEATURE ON LITTLEDEAN JAIL INCLUDING A REFERENCE TOO THE ORIGINAL NOOSE USED BY JAMES BERRY ON THE FAILED EXECUTION ON THE MAN THEY COULD NOT HANG ….JOHN ” BABBACOMBE ” LEE. ACQUIRED FROM AUCTION IN THE YEAR 2000 ALONG WITH FIRM LETTER OF PROVENANCE FROM JAMES BERRY STATING THAT NOT ONLY HAD IT BEEN USED ON LEE , THAT IT HAD ALSO BEEN USED FOR HIS FIRST EXECUTION IN 1884 . TO ALL OTHERS THAT CLAIM THEY HAVE THE ORIGINAL NOOSE USED ON LEE ……. SORRY BUT ITS HERE ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL ALONG WITH THE HANDWRITTEN AND SIGNED LETTER OF 03RD JULY 1897 FROM JAMES BERRY ‘ ON HIS HOME ADDRESSED LETTER HEADED PAPER
NEWSPAPER ARTICLE FEATURING THE HANGMAN’S NOOSE USED BY JAMES BERRY ON THE FAILED ATTEMPT TO EXECUTE JOHN ” BABBACOMBE” LEE FEATURED IN THE WESTERN DAILY PRESS ON NOVEMBER 21ST 2002
ABOVE: Certificate of inspection of failed trap door
Above: Certificate of John Lee’s prison release
John Henry George Lee (1864 – c. 19 March 1945), better known as John “Babbacombe” Lee or “The Man They Couldn’t Hang”, was an Englishman famous for surviving three attempts to hang him for murder. Born in Abbotskerswell, Devon, Lee served in the Royal Navy, and was a known thief. In 1885, he was convicted of the brutal murder of his employer, Emma Keyse, at her home at Babbacombe Bay near Torquay on 15 November 1884. The evidence was weak and circumstantial, amounting to little more than Lee having been the only male in the house at the time of the murder, his previous criminal record, and being found with an unexplained cut on his arm. Despite this and his claim of innocence, he was sentenced to hang.
Execution attempts and aftermath
On 23 February 1885, three attempts were made to carry out his execution at Exeter Prison. All ended in failure, as the trapdoor of the scaffold failed to open despite being carefully tested by the executioner, James Berry, beforehand. As a result, Home Secretary Sir William Harcourt commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. Lee continued to petition successive Home Secretaries and was finally released in 1907. The only other man in history known to have survived three hanging attempts was Joseph Samuel.
Many theories have been advanced as to the cause of the failure, but Home Office papers show that the official report stated that incorrect assembly of the gallows mechanism allowed the trapdoor hinges to rest upon an eighth of an inch of drawbar, preventing them from opening when the doors were weighted. This incident helped lead to a standard gallows design to prevent a recurrence.
Later years and identifications
After his release, Lee seems to have exploited his notoriety, supporting himself through lecturing on his life, even becoming the subject of a silent film. Accounts of his whereabouts after 1916 are somewhat confused, and one researcher even speculated that in later years, there was more than one man claiming to be Lee. It was suspected that he died in the Tavistockworkhouseduring the Second World War. However, one recent piece of research concludes that he died in the United States under the name of “James Lee” in 1945. According to the book The Man They Could Not Hang by Mike Holgate and Ian David Waugh, Lee’s gravestone was found at Forest Home Cemetery, Milwaukee.
ABOVE : Iconic English Folk Rock Band Fairport Convention’ s 1971 album cover entitled “Babbacombe Lee”
Below: The Hanging Song performed by Fairport Convention .
Above & below : One of several handwritten and signed James Berry letters to include close-up image here on display at Littledean Jail
AN EXCEPTIONALLY RARE AND MOST CERTAINALY HISTORICALLY UNIQUE ENGRAVED 1861 HALF PENNY COIN PRESENTED BY JAMES BERRY PUBLIC EXECUTIONER TO J.BREEZE, 25 JULY 1886
ABOVE , Sadly unsure as to the origins and historical significance of this equally historically rare and unique 1861 half penny coin, which is intricately engraved,
” Presented by J. Berry Public Executioner to J Breeze, 25th July 1886″.
This was presented some 17 months after the failed execution by James Berry of John “Babbacombe” Lee on February 23, 1885 .
( If anyone can shed any light on the significance of this coin and whom J Breeze was, please let us know.)
ABOVE AND BELOW: Pictured here are both sides of this rare coin, giving an indication of the actual size.
