William O'Neal Interview, FBI informant who betrayed Fred Hampton and the Black Panther Party (1989)

William O'Neal (April 9, 1949 – January 15, 1990) was an American FBI informant in Chicago, Illinois, where he infiltrated the local Black Panther Party (BPP). He is known for being the catalyst of the 1969 police/FBI assassination of Fred Hampton, head of the Illinois BPP. After his role was revealed in 1973, O'Neal was relocated to California under the Federal Witness Protection Program and given a new identity. In 1984, he secretly returned to Chicago. He was interviewed in 1989 about his informancy, for the second part of the documentary series Eyes on the Prize. The night the first episode aired, January 15, 1990, O'Neal committed suicide. His own episode was broadcast on February 19, 1990. By his own words after O’Neal infiltrates the Illinois Black Panthers only to find that his suspicions of violence and street crime were unfounded. “I expected that there would be weapons, and we would be out there doing turf battles with the local gangs, but they weren't about that at all,” he revealed. “They were into the political scene: the war in Vietnam, Richard Nixon, and specifically freeing Huey [P Newton, the Black Panthers co-founder who was convicted for his role in the death of a police officer]. That was their thing.”