3/17/2023 0 Comments Fred hampton informant![]() ![]() It’s true that Mitchell welcomed O’Neal into his life and introduced him to his family, and a strong emotional bond was formed in that time. And so I was pretty proud.” Contrary to the accelerated plot of the film, almost half a year went by before Mitchell actually asked O’Neal to join the Black Panthers. He always said, ‘You're working for me,’ and I associated him as the FBI I felt like I was working undercover for the FBI doing something good for the finest police organisation in America. That being so, it maybe explains why O’Neal gravitated towards FBI agent Mitchell so easily. “I think I grew up wanting to be a policeman, admiring and respecting policemen, although I always thought it was outside of my reach,” he told Eyes on the Prize in another unaired segment. As an informant, O’Neal received $300 a month plus substantial bonuses.ĭespite his early crimes, O’Neal admitted that he once harboured ambitions of protecting the law. “They were trying to get him to do something." According to The Chicago Tribune, O’Neal was actually arrested for flashing a fake FBI badge several months after the FBI agent had first been in touch. "He said they had someone tied up and they were pouring hot water over his head,” Heard revealed. In the years before his death, O’Neal revealed to his uncle, Ben Heard, that he had been involved in home invasion, kidnap and even torture in his youth. I know you did it, but it's no big thing I'm sure we can work it out.’"īy this time, the teenager already had a pretty heavy criminal record dangling over him. According to O’Neal, “He said something like, ‘Well, you know, there's no need in you trying to bullshit me. Unluckily for him, he had signed over his personal details at a nearby pool hall prior to the mysterious incident, and that’s how FBI agent Roy Mitchell got a hold of him months later. It’s a neat way of establishing O’Neal’s talent for deception and adds a weighty charge to his rap-sheet (“five years for impersonating a federal officer”) that goes some way to explaining why he agreed to work for the government as an informant.īy O’Neal’s own admission, he stole a car with his friend and drove it across state lines to Michigan, where he “had an accident” from which he fled (he was 17 at the time). He confronts a group of Black gang members wearing green berets, brandishes a hooky FBI badge, and begins shaking them down before failing to make off with one of their cars. The movie begins with William O’Neal walking into a South Side pool hall dressed like a G-man in a Stetson fedora. The film paints a suitably slippery picture of the spy, played by LaKeith Stanfield – but how much of it is grounded in truth? Scenes from the show, both real and recreated, bookend Judas the Black Messiah, director Shaka King’s new film that delves into the duplicitous relationship that O’Neal forged with Hampton at the behest of the FBI. Nine months after conducting the explosive interview, in the early morning of 15 January, 1990, the 40-year-old committed suicide by running out onto the westbound lanes of Chicago’s Eisenhower Expressway. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |