50 years ago, LAPD raided the Black Panthers. SWAT teams have been targeting black communities ever since

In the early morning hours of Dec. 8, 1969, Bernard Arafat awoke to explosions rocking the library of the Black Panthers’ 41st and Central Avenue headquarters in Los Angeles. Above him, footsteps stomped across the roof. Then gunfire erupted.

Arafat wasn’t a seasoned Panther. He was a 17-year-old runaway from juvenile hall whose parents had both died when he was 13. After years of committing small-time crimes, Arafat was taken in by the Panthers and gained a sense of purpose. He helped with the organization’s breakfast program, feeding hungry kids on their way to school.

Arafat had never fired a gun. But as he listened to the sound of bullets and heard the screams of his fellow Panthers, he made a decision.

“I found an automatic shotgun and defended myself.”

Arafat didn’t know it then, but he was part of an experiment in policing. On that morning 50 years ago, the Panthers became the targets of the world’s first major raid by a Special Weapons and Tactics, or SWAT, team. More than 350 officers took on 13 Panthers, ostensibly to execute arrest warrants. The group they battled included three women and five teenagers.

Before the day was over, police would detonate explosives on the Panthers’ roof and call in a tank for reinforcements. Six Panthers were wounded, as were four SWAT officers, before the men and women in the house surrendered. Combined, the two sides exchanged more than 5,000 rounds of ammunition.