Skip to content
KILLING OF BOBBY HUTTON
Killing of Bobby Hutton

Bobby Hutton, known as "Lil' Bobby," was the Black Panther Party's first recruit and its teenage treasurer. On April 6, 1968 — two days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. — Hutton, Eldridge Cleaver, and other Panthers were involved in a shootout with Oakland police that ended with the group cornered in a basement.

Hutton surrendered, stripped to the waist to show he was unarmed, and was shot more than a dozen times by police as he walked out with his hands up. He was seventeen years old. His killing became an early martyrdom for the party; thousands attended his funeral, and his death became a lasting symbol of police violence against the Panthers.