Seeing the treatment of "blacks on TV" Hauser says he was "radicalized real young" and joined the Black Panther Party when he was 15. He says the story of "our side" was not documented, so he appreciated the Party's handling of the media. "We got tired of the lumberyard," referring to where he says the police took African Americans they had arrested to beat them before taking them to jail. Hauser was shot following the efforts of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to disperse or "neutralize" Party members. He was shot a second time in 1980. Although he drew his weapon the Panther rule was never to shoot first, and he dropped it. Shot several times, he says he "died." While recovering in jail, he was beaten on "a daily basis" by police while he still had an intravenous drip. "We believed that things could get better," but it "wasn't happening fast enough." "At the end is when everything got crazy" from the FBI's work to fracture the Party. Eventually he became a Christian and a pastor. He doesn't believe things will change. These interviews were inspired by the 50th anniversary celebrations of the Black Panther Party in 2016.
