Ex Black Panther pleads guilty to '69  shooting

updated 12:55 p.m. ET Feb. 23, 2008

CHICAGO - A former Black Panther Party member has been sentenced to 30 days in jail and two years' probation for the 1969 shooting of a Chicago police officer.

Joseph Pannell spent years living in Canada, working as a researcher and raising a family under the name Gary Freeman.

In 1969 as a 19-year-old member of the militant group, Pannell shot Terrence Knox three times in the right arm, wounding him. Pannell was arrested after the shooting but he ran after being released on bail in the early 1970s. He spent years fighting his extradition until voluntarily returning to Chicago this month and pleading guilty to an aggravated battery charge.

Knox said sitting in the courtroom with Pannell was "very hard," but that his capture and sentencing have brought him a sense of closure.

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