Also, I was living in the Panther environment, I was living in a Panther house, which they called a crib, I was eating with them and sleeping with them, and I was with them 24 hours a day, so I had very little need for money, so I was always assured that my money was being held in trust, and that I could draw from it, draw down on it any time I got ready, or any time I had a legitimate need that wouldn’t compromise my security. “But the payments were very infrequent, I mean, Mitchell determined, even Mitchell determined very early on in the game that spending money was the quickest way to blow your cover. If I requested a specific amount, I knew that I could get it,” O’Neal said in a 1989 interview. “Generally, I was paid, paid in cash, and normal amounts would have ranged from three to five hundred dollars depending on my needs. ”If you ask me if I`m a happy man-I`m not happy no, I`m not even content.” I say, if I had never met Mitchell I would probably be in jail or dead. ”If you ask me if the gains outweigh the loses, I think so.” His undercover role did leave him “restless, but without remorse,” he said. O’Neal hardly spoke of his undercover years but in a 1984 interview with the Tribune, one of his last public interviews, he mentioned that he “thrived” on his work with law enforcement though in the end, he realized he had been ”just a pawn in a very big game.” When news about O’Neal’s work with the FBI spread, he entered the federal witness protection program before later assuming the alias William Hart. He thought the FBI was only going to raid the house,” Ben Heard, O’Neal’s uncle, said in 1990. “I think he was sorry he did what he did.
He eventually provided the floor plan of Hampton’s west-side apartment that was used to plan the raid that killed Hampton and his fellow Panther. Unbeknownst to Panther leaders, O’Neal was at the same time serving as an informant for the FBI, feeding it with information. Reports said he even became in charge of security for Hampton and had keys to Panther headquarters and safe houses. O’Neal agreed to infiltrate the party and when he got accepted, he served as the group’s chief of security. The Panther Party had then become infamous for brandishing guns, challenging the authority of police officers, and embracing violence as a necessary by-product of revolution. Then in his teens, Mitchell told him he would forget about the stolen car charge if he agreed to work for the FBI and infiltrate the Panthers. His journey to becoming an FBI informant began in 1966 when he was tracked by FBI Agent Roy Martin Mitchell after stealing a car and driving it across state lines to Michigan. His death was ruled a suicide.īut before his death, the mysterious O’Neal, who could play all the roles the FBI needed, seemed to say he had no choice but to take up such roles. O’Neal apparently walked in front of a speeding car which struck and killed him.
And many believe that his guilt over his role as an FBI informant led to his death in 1990. And he did just that when he infiltrated the party and provided the FBI with a floor plan of the Chicago apartment where Hampton was assassinated in 1969.įor the rest of his life, O’Neal was hated by some and commended by others as his role in the 1969 raid that killed Hampton and another Black Panther leader became known. Then a petty criminal, O’Neal was coerced by the FBI into helping them silence Hampton and the Black Panther Party.
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