This book examines the information reported by the media regarding the interaction between the Black Panther Party and government agents in the Bay Area of California (1967 1973).

Christian Davenport is a Professor of Peace Studies & Political Science in the Kroc Institute of International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame as well as Director of the Radical Information Project (RIP) and Stop Our States (SOS). He is the author of State Repression and the Promise of Democratic Peace (Cambridge, 2007) and the editor of Repression and Mobilization (with Carol Mueller and Hank Johnston, 2004), and Paths to State Repression: Human Rights Violations and Contentious Politics (2000). His articles have appeared in journals including the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, the Journal of Conflict Resolution, Political Research Quarterly, Comparative Political Studies, and the Monthly Review .

Introduction; Part I. Conceptualization: 1. Objectivity and subjectivity in event catalogs; 2. The Rashomon effect, observation and data generation; 3. Understanding state repressive behavior; Part II. Cases: 4. The Black Panther Party vs. the United States, 1967-73: background; 5. An event catalog of dissent and repression: the BPP in the Bay Area; 6. A mosaic of coercion: five cases of anti-Panther repressive behavior; Part III. Conclusion: 7. Conclusion: conflict, events and catalogs; Appendix 1: The Black Panther-U.S. Government event catalogs.