Biography
Romaine Fitzgerald was a Compton-born Black Panther who joined the Southern California Chapter of the BPP in early 1969 as a teenager after release from the California Youth Authority. Arrested in September 1969 in connection with a police shoot-out and tried for assault on police and the murder of a security guard. One of the longest-held former Black Panther political prisoners; originally sentenced to death.
Romaine “Chip” Fitzgerald was a member of the Black Panther Party in early 1969 as a teenager who had just been released from the California Youth Authority. He is currently serving 2 life sentences for the frame up of the murder of a security guard and attempted murder of a CHP officer.
The Black Panther published a tribute and an identified portrait of imprisoned Black Panther Romaine “Chip” Fitzgerald at San Quentin. This January 1971 material documents contemporary support and incarceration, without providing a new individual custody endpoint. The Black Panther, January 9, 1971, original PDF page 8. Source: https://washingtonareaspark.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/1971-01-09-black-panther-vol-4-no-28.pdf#page=8
A 1972 publisher’s advertisement for White Justice identified Romaine “Chip” Fitzgerald as a San Quentin death-row prisoner prosecuted for murder in Los Angeles. Its caption described court-appointed representation and a five-day trial, including jury selection, followed by a death sentence.
The report describes Fitzgerald’s work as a Southern California section leader organizing the children’s breakfast program and collecting community-control petition signatures before his imprisonment. It distinguishes the highway-patrol assault allegation from the supermarket security-guard murder accusation and prints his jail correspondence. The existing overlapping case records are not duplicated.
