According to Yohuro Williams, a historian, the arrest and shooting of Black Panther leader Huey Newton was not part of an organized conspiracy on the part of the Oakland police department to "get Huey Newton." Rather, Williams writes, the incident was the result of a "permissive climate that rarely investigated law enforcement abuses of the civil rights of political activists." In "In the Name of the Law: The 1967 Shooting of Huey Newton and Law Enforcement's Permissive Environment," published in the April 1998 edition of the Negro History Bulletin, Williams argued that the 1967 incident, in which Newton was shot and arrested for the murder of a police officer, is best understood in the larger context of a nationwide approach to Black political activists on the part of law enforcement.

COINTELPRO, the program of surveillance, infiltration, and harassment of civil rights organizations deemed radical or dangerous, was certainly part of the climate described by Williams. However, he points out that the Oakland Police Department's approach to Black civil rights leaders actually preceded COINTELPRO. Bobby Seale and Newton advocated revolutionary politics, but they also promoted education, food banks, and other social welfare initiatives in their communities. Williams points out that the Oakland police were alarmed by the armed self-defense approach taken by the Panthers, who regularly faced down police officers in the streets. Police, as well as law enforcement officials up to the federal level, endorsed violence against the Black Panthers. This helped create an environment in which a police officer, John Frey, was killed, and Newton was wounded. Ultimately, the actions of COINTELPRO proved highly disruptive to organizations like the Black Panther Party.