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screaming, "Please! Please! Don't shoot! The cops are goin' to kill all of us! They're going to kill all of us! Please! Please!" Huey P. shouted for him to shut up his sissy-ass mouth, but it was too late. His cry-baby bleating had startled the cops back into their bully-boy attitude, and they began to come on cocky once again, trying to take command of the situation by ordering the Black Panthers not to move or wave their weapons. But Huey P. didn't go for any of their shit and he replied back to them with a bit of his own advice, "Don't any of you go for your guns!"

Everything became shattery at his response and seemed about to burst into a shoot-out, but the Panthers began backing off, having successfully made their point several times over: that cops aren't so quick to push people around when they aren't the only ones armed. The Panthers stepped carefully backvvards, easing their way through the traffic and moving across the street where they quickly got into their cars and split, to the amazement of all onlookers. When they had driven away, the cops broke into a flurry, scurrying all over the place to their squad cars. The sirens all began blaring, as they tried to bull through the jammed traffic--all the while radioing into headquarters about the two "carloads of niggers driving around the fucking city with loaded guns!" It really got them crazy.

Emmett had also been sincerely impressed and he walked over to one of the staff writers who was now standing on the front steps of the Ramparts building with a group of his coworkers and asked him what it was all about. He was told that the Black Panthers were accompanying the widow of Malcolm X, Betty Shabazz, as her bodyguards, while she was in the city for a speaking engagement and an interview with the magazine. Emmett also discovered that Warren Hinckle III and the other editors were all too busy enjoying their vicarious experience to want to diminish "their" few precious moments by talking about the particulars of the "Hippie" cover story. Through the office's plate-glass window, Emmett could see them swilling from paper cups, laughing and slapping one another on the back at having been participants in the memorable put-down of the cops, and he decided to let it go for a while and split back to the Haight for something to eat.

Emmett first heard about the Black Panther organization back in October '66 around the same time ~ree Food started. Bobby Seale had been a stand-up comedian and ~uey P. Newton a tough, street blood, when the two of them met as students at Merritt College, where they both became student leaders. It was after they dropped [end page 308]