Bobby Hutton

Bobby Hutton
Hutton outside the Oakland Police Department Jail
Born	Bobby Joe Hutton (1950-04-21)April 21, 1950 Jefferson County, Arkansas
Died	April 6, 1968(1968-04-06) (aged 17) West Oakland, Oakland, California
Occupation	political activist, Treasurer of Black Panther Party
Organization	Black Panther Party (1966-1968)
Movement	Black Power Movement, Black Liberation Movement

Robert James Hutton, or "Lil' Bobby" (April 21, 1950 – April 6, 1968) was the treasurer and first recruit to join the Black Panther Party.

Bobby Hutton was one of three children, born in Jefferson County, Arkansas, to John D. Hutton and Dolly Mae Mitchner-Hutton. When he was three years old, his family moved to Oakland, California, after they were visited by nightriders intimidating and threatening blacks in the area.

Hutton met Black Panther Party founders Huey Newton and Bobby Seale at the North Oakland Neighborhood Anti-Poverty Center, a "government-funded agency that employed local youth to work on community service projects." In October 1966, the 16-year-old Hutton became the first member and the first treasurer of the Black Panther Party. In May 1967, Hutton was one of thirty Panthers who traveled to the California state capitol in Sacramento to demonstrate against the Mulford Act, a bill that would prohibit carrying loaded firearms in public. The group walked into the state assembly armed; Hutton and four other Panthers were arrested.

On the night of April 6, 1968, Bobby was killed by Oakland Police officers after Eldridge Cleaver led him and twelve other Panthers in an ambush of the Oakland Police, during which two officers were seriously wounded by multiple gunshot wounds. The impetus for the police ambush was the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4. The ambush, which Cleaver admitted he led, turned into a shoot-out between the Panthers and the Oakland police at a house in West Oakland. About 90 minutes later Hutton and Cleaver surrendered after the police tear-gassed the building.

Eldridge Cleaver stated that police shot Bobby more than twelve times after he had surrendered and had him stripped down to his underwear to verify that he was unarmed. The police maintained that Hutton attempted to run away and ignored orders to stop. According to Eldridge Cleaver, one Oakland police officer who witnessed the shoot-out later told him: "What they did was first degree murder." Cleaver and two police officers were also wounded.