Inadmissible Evidence

Ever since 14 plainclothesmen shot their way into a Chicago Black Panther apartment last December and killed Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, there have been serious doubts about the authorities' contention that the Panthers opened fire first and put up major resistance. Reporters found evidence that the gun battle was largely one-sided; Panthers claimed that the cops had staged the raid to murder black leaders. Last week further shadows were cast on the police story when the state abruptly dropped all charges, including that of attempted murder, against the seven Panthers who survived.

Edward V. Hanrahan, the Cook County state's attorney whose men had staged the foray, still insisted that the police version was true. He was forced to abandon the case, he explained, because new evidence showed that important information supplied by the Chicago police laboratory had been faulty. Also, some of the evidence would have been inadmissible because of the method by which it was obtained. But Hanrahan's explanation, like the entire police account of the incident, was clouded by elisions and puzzling inconsistencies. Bobby Rush, Illinois Panther chief, seized on the statement to charge that the incident was not "a shootout, it was a shoot-in."

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