{{short description|American politician (1921–2009)}} {{Infobox officeholder | name = Edward Hanrahan | battles = World War II | children = 4 | president2 = Lyndon B. Johnson | successor2 = Tom Foran | predecessor2 = Frank E. McDonald | term_end2 = 1968 | term_start2 = 1964 | office2 = United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois | alma_mater = University of Notre Dame (BS)<br>Harvard University (LLB) | branch = {{Flag|United States Army}} | party = Democratic | birth_date = March 11, 1921 | successor = Bernard Carey | predecessor = John J. Stamos | term_end = 1972 | term_start = 1968 | office = Cook County State's Attorney | death_place = River Forest, Illinois, U.S. | birth_place = Coconut Grove, Florida, U.S. | death_date = June 9, 2009 (aged 88) | birth_name = Edward Vincent Hanrahan }}
'''Edward Vincent Hanrahan''' (March 11, 1921 – June 9, 2009) was an American attorney and politician who served as Cook County State's Attorney from 1968 to 1972. Hanrahan had been a prospective successor to Mayor of Chicago Richard J. Daley. His career was effectively ended after Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton and member Mark Clark were assassinated in a raid by police coordinated by his office in 1969.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Morris |first=Rose |title=Chronicle of the Seventh Son Black Panther Mark Clark |publisher=Rose Morris |year=2019 |isbn=978-1733581714 |location=United States |pages=183–191 |language=English}}</ref>
== Early life and education == Hanrahan was born in Coconut Grove, Florida, and moved as a child to Chicago with his family. He earned a degree in accounting from the University of Notre Dame. During World War II, he served in an intelligence role in the United States Army Signal Corps.<ref name="NYTObit">Napolitano, Jo. [https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/12/us/12hanrahan.html "Edward Hanrahan, Prosecutor Tied to '69 Panthers Raid, Dies at 88"], ''The New York Times'', June 11, 2009. Accessed June 13, 2009.</ref> After completing his military service, he attended Harvard Law School and earned his law degree in 1948.<ref name="WashPostObit">Sullivan, Patricia. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/11/AR2009061103996.html "Prosecutor Oversaw Fatal 1969 Raid of Black Panthers in Chicago"], ''The Washington Post'', June 12, 2009. Accessed June 13, 2009.</ref>
== Career == Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley supported his successful bid for an appointment as United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois in 1964.<ref>{{Cite web|title=EDWARD V. HANRAHAN: 1921-2009|url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2009-06-10-0906090589-story.html|last=REPORTER|first=Trevor Jensen, TRIBUNE|website=chicagotribune.com|language=en-US|access-date=2020-05-24}}</ref> Hanrahan got the post after Daley told President of the United States Lyndon B. Johnson "Let me say, Mr. President, with great pride and honor, he's a precinct captain."<ref name="WashPostObit" /> Running as a Democrat, he won a landslide election in 1968 for Cook County State's Attorney, winning support from White and African American voters.<ref name="NYTObit" /><ref>via ''Associated Press''. [http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-il-obit-hanrahan,0,4665830.story "Former Cook County prosecutor Edward Hanrahan dies"], ''Chicago Tribune'', June 10, 2009.</ref>
Acting on the basis of a tip from an FBI informant (William O'Neal), 14 police officers assigned to Hanrahan's office staged a pre-dawn raid on December 4, 1969, to search for illegal weapons in the West Side apartment of Fred Hampton, a leader of the Black Panther Party. Dozens of shots were fired and Hampton and Black Panther Mark Clark were both killed. Despite guns found on the premises and police assertions that the Panthers had fired first, bullet hole markings presented by police in support of their claim turned out to be nail heads.<ref name=NYTObit/> An investigation found that the police had fired between 82 and 99 shots during the raid, and the Panthers had fired at least one shot.<ref name=WashPostObit/> Hanrahan was indicted by a grand jury for obstructing justice and conspiracy to present false evidence, but was later acquitted.<ref name=NYTObit/> A civil suit concluded in 1982 ruled that there was a government conspiracy to deprive the Black Panthers of their civil rights and awarded nearly $2 million to the survivors of the raid and the families of those killed.<ref name=WashPostObit/> The events leading up to the incident and the deaths of Hampton and Clark were the subject of the 1971 documentary ''The Murder of Fred Hampton'', and the material filmed by director Howard Alk in the immediate aftermath of the incident was used as evidence in the civil suit.<ref>Henderson, Harold. [http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/ourtown/060929/reels/ "Reels From the Revolution: Slices of radical Chicago caught on film"]{{Dead link|date=February 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}, ''Chicago Reader'', September 29, 2006. Accessed June 13, 2009.</ref>
The Cook County Democratic Party declined to endorse Hanrahan in his bid for reelection as State's Attorney in 1972, but Democratic voters renominated him anyway. The combined votes of Republicans and African American Democrats sufficed to elect his Republican opponent in the general election.<ref name=NYTObit/>
==Post-State's Attorney== He ran for Mayor of Chicago in the Democratic primaries of 1975 and of 1977, losing respectively to Daley and Michael Bilandic; Hanrahan placed fourth each time. In the 1974 congressional election for Illinois's 6th congressional district, Hanrahan lost to Henry Hyde.<ref>{{cite web|last=Armstrong|first=Anne L.|title=Illinois Political Briefing|date=September 20, 1974|access-date=October 13, 2022|publisher=Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library|url=https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/document/0018/81556776.pdf}}</ref> In the 1980 special election to represent the 36th ward on the Chicago City Council, Hanrahan finished third of four candidates, losing to incumbent appointee Louis Farina.<ref>{{cite book|last=Fremon|first=David K.|title=Chicago Politics: Ward by Ward|date=October 22, 1988|location=Bloomington, Indiana|publisher=Indiana University Press|isbn=0-253-31344-9|url=https://archive.org/details/chicagopoliticsw0000frem|url-access=registration|access-date=October 13, 2022}}</ref>
== Personal life == Hanrahan and his wife were married for 55 years and had four children. Hanrahan died at age 88 on June 9, 2009, at his home in River Forest, Illinois, due to complications from leukemia.<ref name="WashPostObit" />
==References== {{Reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Hanrahan, Edward}} Category:1921 births Category:2009 deaths Category:Cook County state's attorneys Category:United States attorneys for the Northern District of Illinois Category:Lawyers from Chicago Category:Harvard Law School alumni Category:University of Notre Dame alumni Category:Deaths from leukemia in Illinois Category:People from River Forest, Illinois Category:Lawyers from Miami Category:Military personnel from Illinois Category:20th-century American lawyers Category:United States Army personnel of World War II Category:20th-century Illinois politicians