January 19, 2024 • 56 mins
Before converting to Islam, Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin was a Black Power activist named H. Rap Brown. Like Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael, he was targeted by COINTELPRO, the FBI’s counter intelligence program. In 2000, he was convicted of shooting two sheriff’s deputies — one fatally — outside a mosque in Atlanta’s West End. Tonight, Ben and Matt join journalist Mosi Secret to learn more about his new podcast Radical.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of Iheartrading.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt Our.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Colleague Nola's on Adventures will be returning soon. They call
b Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer,
Paull Michigan Control Decant. Most importantly, you are you, You
are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. On March sixteenth, two thousand, two
police officers were shot in Atlanta's West End. This is
(00:50):
one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city with many
stories behind it. One of these officers passed away as
a result of this interaction, and the other claimed the
shooter was one Emm Jamil Abdullah al Amin, the leader
of a local mosque and in other times. This man
was formerly known as h Rap Brown, leader of the
(01:13):
Black Power movement, an honorary officer of the Black Panther Party.
He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. But
was he guilty or was this conviction somehow retribution for
his activism. The new podcast Radical Investigates interrogates these questions
and events in a deep dive never experienced before, with
(01:36):
the investigative journalist Mosey Secret, who dives through exclusive interviews,
government records, countless sources to get to the bottom of
the questions inherent in this case. And we are immensely
fortunate to be joined with him today to learn more
about this story. Mister Secret, thank you so much for
(01:58):
coming onto the show.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
You're welcome.
Speaker 5 (02:01):
Please call me mostly, I do it watch sorry, mostly,
It's really good to see you.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
Man.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Just for everyone's knowledge, I serve as an executive producer
on this show Radical. It's made with Tenderfoot TV. As
many of you know, I make shows with that team,
and I'm just really proud of the work that's already
gone into the show. We are coming up right now
on the final episode. Episode eight is coming out very soon,
(02:33):
and we just couldn't wait to pick your brain on
a lot of the stuff that you've found. I think
maybe a good way into this is mostly how did
you come across this story? Initially?
Speaker 4 (02:45):
Well, there are kind of two answers to that question,
you know. So I'm from Atlanta and I grew up
fairly close to the Muslim community. My family converted to
Islam when I was a kid. So because he's a
community of African American Wislims to Atlanta isn't that large.
I was familiar with a man, Jamie Alamine, in his community,
(03:09):
and I was also familiar with this case when it happened.
But as you said, you know, that was twenty years ago,
and it's not something that has really occupied my mind
in the kind of intervening years between the shooting and
the production of this podcast. A year or two ago,
I was quite randomly introduced to a podcast producer who
(03:33):
had already started looking into this case. Again. He had
done extensive his name's Johnny Kaufman. He had done extensive
public records requests, pulled court documents, and was really kind
of pointing to some questions in this case. And you know,
when he told me about this, you know, all these
(03:53):
things kind of came back to me from my childhood
and I thought, well, you know, I would love to
this with you. And it just so happened that he
was looking for a host and a reporter. And then
you know, like when I left Atlanta, I went off
to be a reporter, So it just kind of felt
like it was one of these stories that was made
for me.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Man. And just if you do live in the Atlanta area,
you probably know Johnny's voice from his work with WABE.
If you ever listened to the NPR stations in town.
That's that's how I recognized his voice. From the first time.
I was like, well, I know this guy.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
And what synchronicity there must be in that moment, because
you know, hearing, as you said, quite randomly hear this
story and you, as any member of that community during
your childhood, you will automatically know the people that are
being referenced here. There's something that really sticks out in
(04:50):
in part of this exploration. Could you tell us a
little bit about this summer camp you attended in childhood
and how that I just think that's such a fantastic
way in to the a mom in this community.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
Yeah, So, my family converted to Islam from kind of
different evangelical faiths actually when I was twelve or thirteen
years old, and a Mam Jamil Elamin's community is one
of the first that they came into contact with, and
I think that there was a period, you know, when
(05:30):
they were still kind of finding their footing, trying to
figure out how to you know, get their children to
understand this new faith or whatever. And somehow my parents
learned about this week long camp that a Ma'am Jamil
convened in the North Georgia Woods. And so, you know,
(05:54):
just to kind of give you a sense of what
kind of kid I was, I was, like, you know,
this would have been when I was twelve or thirty teen.
I think that I was like, you know, kind of
chubby into books, you know, like uh, riding my back
around the neighborhood, hadn't really been anywhere without my parents.
Let's just say that I was sheltered. And so this
(06:17):
camp for me was was quite intense. You know. It
was from this kind of being taken from this kind
of sheltered, you know, middle class existence into a fairly
kind of intense Black revolutionary ideology and setting. And also
and also you know religious, you know, like extremely religious settings.
(06:39):
And so there was you know a lot of emphasis
emphasis on making the five prayers a day, which at
that time I probably didn't even really know how to make,
or I was learning, and there was you know, physical
fitness and self defense, and I was kind of thrust
into this environment with these kids from the West End,
that man Jamil's neighborhood, who I didn't really know. And
(07:00):
these were kids who were they were pretty, they were
like rough around the edges. They were into stuff I
wasn't into. They were they liked to fight, you know,
they liked to cuss, they liked to you know, it
was just like a It was an immersion into a
world that I wasn't quite familiar with. And you know,
as I became older, I began to connect a lot
of what I experienced in just that one week with
(07:20):
what that community was. You know, a man Jamil attracted
people who were down on their luck, who were returning
home from prison, who were anti establishment for one reason
or another, and gave them reason to believe in themselves
(07:43):
and gave them, you know, a cause that they could
organize their lives around. And so that meant that a
lot of the people were, you know, like I said,
kind of rough around the edges, but they placed so
much faith in him as a leader and to kind
of organize and redeem their lives, you know, including sending
(08:03):
their children away to be to be groomed by him.
So it is a nice little kind of encapsulation of
what he represented for folks.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
What I'm hearing is that he was he held a
tremendous amount of influence in that community at the time
with is that correct?
Speaker 4 (08:19):
Definitely, I mean influence over even the intimate details of
family life. You know, he would help them arbitrate internal disputes.
So it was, it was he was considered a leader,
both a spiritual leader, but also you know, kind of
helped help them, help them organize their lives.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
And he had a bit of a He also had
a secular community building area too with the with the
grocery store, right which as you you paint the scene
so beautifully, right, it's just across from the what's what's
the correct Arabic word for mossul masjed. Yeah. So it's
(09:00):
seems that this this community leader becomes in some ways
an answer for people who are who are searching for,
you know, community stability in a way that might not
have been available previously in this As we know, this
(09:20):
is something that happens often in the United States in
one degree or another, because law enforcement so often fails
right and and commits horrific acts. With with this background,
we see already a bit of like whitman esque multitudes
(09:42):
in one man, because he is he is the he
is the leader, He is a beacon for people in
the Western community. Yet it seems that the local law,
the APD, and and other other authorities don't see him
in that way. Could you tell us a little bit
(10:02):
about how authorities had regarded the amount before he even
arrived in Atlanta.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
Yeah, so, ma'am. Jimil arrived in Atlanta in the late seventies.
Prior to that, he had been a nationally known figure
in the Black Car movement named a Trapp Brown. A
trap Brown grew up in Louisiana and Baton Rouge, Louisiana
(10:32):
and there suffered, you know, racial violent and oppression under
Jim Crow. As a young man, he kind of gravitates
towards the movement and towards organizing, and eventually he ends
up in the Black Belt of Alabama helping citizens there
(10:55):
organized to register it to vote, and also just helping
them to develop their own leaders and push back against
the oppression that they were feeling there. He becomes known
as someone who is courageous and fearless and rash, so,
you know, like he was doing this work with the
(11:17):
Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee, which was the one of
the main activist organizations at the time, and they were
organized around principles of nonviolence. But when you were with
these folks out in the countryside, who were, you know,
miles away from any help and often could suffer the
(11:37):
whims of any type of local sheriff. They often had
rifles whatever by their door side to protect themselves because
it was going to be a long time before law
enforcement came to help them. And so h Rep. Brown
goes into these communities and there is this non violent
ideology that he's working with, but there was also this
He's also telling people to defend themselves. He's also telling people,
(12:00):
you know, this is how you use your gun, this
is how you take these people on. And so he
people who have been really beaten down he started to
build back up, and it was around this rhetoric of
self defense. Now you imagine a person like that becomes
(12:20):
a bad guy in the eye of law, in the
eyes of law enforcement, and he refused to back down
in any confrontation with law enforcement. And so he develops
this reputation over a period of years as someone who
was against the police, and he did hate the police,
and so this, you know, this relationship basically became worse
(12:40):
and worse, and you know, by the time he was
in his late twenties, he seemed on the FBI Most
Warned List for some charges that were trumped up in
various ways. But this but he developed this reputation as
someone who really hated law enforcement and was willing to
defend themselves, defend themselves with weapons against law horsemen and
you know, like that that breaks down this kind of
(13:04):
veneer that the cops have is you know, unassailable, and
so he was a scary person for them.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Mostly. Did you come across the Rabble Rouser Index from
the FBI?
Speaker 4 (13:16):
No, I haven't heard of that.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Okay, So this is something that is available right now
anybody listening. You can go to the National Archives and
you can find the FBI's quote Rabble Rouser Index. It's
also known they use the term subversive control in association
with this. And there's like two hundred and fifty five
documents like PDF documents that have been scanned in stunning reads.
(13:41):
Well it's it's amazing. A lot of it's redacted, but
I don't want to read too much of this, but
just a little bit of this, because it's a memo
from FBI Director j Edgar Hoover, who has played a
role in so many stories, including the MLK tapes show
that we made last year, and this is just in
saying to see this, I'm gonna read it effective immediately.
(14:04):
In view of the widespread racial unrest, the Bureau will
maintain a rabble Rouser Index. The index will consist of names,
identifying data, and background information of individuals who are known
rabble rousers and have demonstrated by their actions and speeches
they have a propensity for fomenting racial disorder. And Stokely Carmichael,
(14:27):
the person who preceded h Rat Brown as the SNCC chairman.
He is like at the top of the list. Stokely
Carmichael is like enemy number one when it comes to
how the FBI views anyone in this realm.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Right.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
It includes a ton of Black Power leaders. It also
includes KKK members and Nazi Party leaders, which is really interesting,
but it's just I guess it's just to show that
the FBI viewed h. Rat Brown as an enemy, a
true an enemy in almost a or uh. And I
guess I'm sorry, I need to ask a question mostly,
(15:05):
but it's just like, what what did you find when
it came to how the FBI was either monitoring or
what were they watching him in the same way that
they were watching Stokely Carmichael.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
Definitely. I mean when Quintelpro was was first organized, there
were I don't want to get too specific because I
might say something that's wrong, but there were a list
of names that were included as people who could be
considered a black messiah, someone who could one of these
rabbel rousers, who could who the black public could could
(15:38):
convene around and could ultimately kind of undermine the integrity
of the United States. And h Rap Brown was one
of those was one of the people whose name was
on that list. And so you know, like we get
into there, we we came across some of these documents
in our in our reporting and our research, and you
begin to see kind of like in close detail how
(15:58):
these operations worked and how they could undermine someone's ability
to be effective as a leader. And with with h
Rap Brown, what they did was they yes, there was surveillance,
but what ultimately slowed him down was kind of like
a barrage of charges that were not true, and so
(16:22):
they pulled him into the court system in a way
where he suddenly had court dates. He certainly had, you know,
was in jail for violating bond. He sorta he suddenly
couldn't move around because of the terms of his release
and uh, and these charges just accumulated to the to
the point where he had to step down as the
leader of the student Non Violent Coordinating Committee. And then
(16:45):
you know, like so that happens, and in the public's
mind those charges perhaps could be true. We don't really know,
but if you look at the long kind of arc
of time, all those charges are are are thrown out
for various kindsitutional reasons, and so the question becomes why
were they brought and there was there some intention or
(17:08):
purpose behind that, and in this case, it's quite clear
the answer is yes. And so he's forced underground. This
all this kind of like legal assault is a strong word,
but this, all these legal actions eventually culminated in this
in this car bomb explosion outside of a court court
hearing where he was supposed to be in attendance. And
(17:31):
it's pretty widely assumed that that car bomb was an
assassination attempt against him. Many believed by the FBI, And
so at that point he has to go underground just
to protect his life, and his days as an organizer
are under are pretty much over, or at least they're
(17:51):
undercover at that point.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
Yeah, it's like eighteen months, Yes, that disappears, so more
than a year something, he's off the grid, underground. And
this also what I really appreciate your pointing out here
is that in the case of co Intel's approach, it's
pretty clear that they were not under the auspices of
(18:17):
this program. They were not saying, let's find someone who
has committed a crime. They were saying, let's find some
let's find a crime to fit on someone because we
find them dangerous. So we could make a very clear
argument is an active series of conspiracies not conspiracy theories.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Well, it's nuts. If you look at that index, it
is all of the field offices, all the FBI field
offices across the contiguous United States, that are keeping tabs
on anybody that ends up on that list, so like
any anywhere they go, who they meet with, Like, it's
it's nuts to see that level of it is surveillance.
(18:57):
But again, as you're saying, once you get into the
American prison system through the justice system. You are now
in that system, and it's so much easier to have
someone get back in it and stuck in it. And
I think that's just such a good point, and that
is where a mom Jamil Alimine finds himself.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Now we're going to pause here for a word from
our sponsor and we'll be right back and we've returned.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
I want to talk about this word violence, if you
don't mind you you have a great exploration in episode
five on the word violence, how we use it the way,
like what we apply it to, and how it's actually
a much more robust word that can apply to other things,
and how how would you apply it to, let's say,
the prison system and specifically Alimane's experience.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
Yeah, so this exploration started really with this phrase that
Jamil Elamine is famous for uttering are actually you know,
he said it when he was still a trap Brown
and one of his thump speeches, he said violence is
as American as cherry pie. And what he meant by
(20:10):
that was that America attained its greatness. America attained its
position largely through force against human beings, by forcing people
into labor, by battling people for their land, et cetera.
Like we know these things, and so as as a
(20:35):
member of a group of people that was oppressed, he said, okay,
let us let us also take violence into our hands
as a means of power. And so that was that's
kind of one of the things that we're interrogating in
the show, and that's kind of what led to this
exploration of the word violence. And so, you know, I
think at some point I just turned to the Oxford
(20:57):
English Dictionary and one of the things we came across
was this you know, old definition of doctor of of
violence that that had that contained more meaning than it
does today, and it included, you know, acts against people
committed by the state, harm committed by the state, against
(21:18):
the poppy, against the public. And you know, we explored
that in this episode Cherry Pie and looking at the
terms of Jamille Ellen means imprisonment, how he was held,
the degree that they went to take away aspects of
(21:38):
his humanity, and whether, you know, like to what extent
the public is comfortable with the government committing these types
of acts on our behalf, no matter what anyone has
been convicted of, do we believe that our public representatives
should inflict that much harm on other people. That's what
(21:59):
this what this episode asks, and this episode asks are
we to what degree are we allowing the government to
commit this type of violence on our behalf?
Speaker 3 (22:11):
And to what degree does the public consider itself accountable
right in that regard? And I believe it is what
during incarceration in Attica that that a trap Brown does
convert to Islam, and what we learn about this conversion
(22:33):
in the course of Radical and after he after he
is gone from Attica where he relocates to Atlanta, Georgia. Now,
I think one very crucial fact here is that he
is a person who is speaking from firsthand experience on
(22:54):
multiple levels about things. Maybe kids in the West End
and have like no growing up and now they're able
to speak with someone who is a community leader who
was saying, yes, this is real. These conspiracies and problems exist,
there are solutions, and I can help navigate. I can
(23:17):
help provide those solutions. We have in Radical extensive interviews
with members of the community during this time, and a
lot of those interviews, or a lot of the substance
of those conversations has never made it to the air before,
so I'd love to ask, when you are speaking with
(23:41):
folks who have first experience with the.
Speaker 6 (23:44):
Mom who have grown up in these times, was there
anything people said, or any commonality or even just any
singular statement that really stood out to you and stuck
with you.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
And why I think it was? It wasn't was an
idea of you could call it brotherhood or sisterhood or
whatever word contains contains both of those things. There were
people community, There were people who felt that they could
lean on each other and that they loved each other
(24:21):
and that they would be there for each other to
kind of navigate the difficulties of the world. And they
and it was really kind of this, this this nice
thing where they said, Okay, the world may not be
organized to to lift us up, but we're going to
lift each other up. And and people remember that time
(24:42):
quite fondly. The people who I spoke to, uh, you know,
and in doing this they were doing they were they
had a lot of moories that were that we could
not consider normal and that I you know, they wouldn't
that I wouldn't want to engage in. But there they
were doing this luntarily, you know, like the the managermil
had a lot of control over that neighborhood. You know,
(25:06):
they were essentially living under his very close leadership. It
wasn't like everybody would want to live under those circumstances.
So you did have to give up some type You
have to give up a little bit of personal liberty
to be in this little utopia. And so I can't
say that that's for everybody. And also over the course
of time that sheen, that good feeling did start to diminish.
(25:32):
Like you know, things are always changing, and they changed
in ways that weren't necessarily for the best. And we
explore that in the show.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
I'm thinking about Rodney and as you're like driving around
with Rodney and just exploring the neighborhood again, and he's
telling you all these stories of the violence that he
experienced on just a regular basis. And I'm Alosto imagining
a perimeter around the mage the or like the area
right there was more more or less controlled by the Imam.
(26:03):
I'd like that it felt like there was such violence
that existed right outside the door. And speaking of just
I'm thinking back when you were when you attended uh
that summer camp, right, I have a very limited experience,
but I've been to a lot of churches, most of
them suburban, middle class churches. I've never been to a
church that has a security detail, and it makes me
(26:26):
think about, you know, what was going on there. What
did you learn about like the security detail.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
Yeah, there's a there's a backstory to it. The West
End was a pretty dangerous place before Ama Jamil got there.
It was known as there are a lot of drug
corners where people were buying and selling and using. And
those drug corners were pretty lucrative, and so they were
defended with violence. And so Jamil Elamine and the people
(26:54):
around him come in and start to turn that around.
They established this this mass jid, which is actually in
a house in the neighborhood, which is you know, you know,
like a grid of criss crossing streets, and so people
and he establishes five prayers there, and so people are
walking from their homes to this mass jed or house
(27:18):
in the neighborhood to pray. And on those walks people
wanted to feel safe. Some of you know, the five prayers,
the first prayer is right before sunset, the last prayer
is after sunset, So some of those prayers are in
the dark, and people wanted to feel safe, and so
what they established was this security patrol that would make
(27:41):
sure that people walking back and forth the mass Jid
would not be harmed. The people on this team were
armed and there were It was understood in the neighborhood
that if you violated the the safety of anybody who
was who was going to pray that they're consequences.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
You know.
Speaker 4 (28:02):
There there are emerged questions over the years about the
extent of those consequences, and we explore that in the show.
It's unquestionable. You can't question that some people lost their
lives and around the West End who were drug dealers.
You can't really quibble with a life that's lost. It's
if someone's gone, they're gone. And so you know how
those people came to lose their lives is something that
(28:26):
we explore on the show. Is part of the legacy
of this neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
And this again may feel somewhat familiar to a lot
of us tuning in today who have lived in communities
where where someone makes this argument that says, look, the
people who are quote unquote supposed to be providing safety
are in fact not doing that. Therefore, we will we
(28:55):
will together lift ourselves up and provide that sort of
safety without all the you know, the due process, the
red tape and so on. At least is how it's
put theoretically. And for folks who have never been involved
in that sort of interaction in a community, that may
sound that may sound strange, right, that may sound anomalous,
(29:19):
But I believe it is important for people to remember
this high this situation can occur.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
It is not a.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
It's not a one off thing in the American discourse.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Well, I guess the question is, was the that security
force that was there that existed, It feels to me
like a defensive posture, a means of protection, right. I
wonder did you find anything where maybe potentially that security
force was used more as an offensive thing, or maybe
(29:54):
there's a sect within it that was was was that
saw itself as a way to crack down on some
of the drug dealing and people that they viewed as undesirable.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Perhaps proactively.
Speaker 4 (30:08):
Uh, yes, definitely, And uh, you know we're getting we're
getting the spoiler material here. But here's the thing that
I learned in looking at this story.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
If you have a.
Speaker 4 (30:23):
Particular approach, let's say, your approach to dealing with the
trouble in neighborhood is to arm a bunch of guys
and and uh, you know, give them relatively free reign
to keep things safe.
Speaker 7 (30:40):
That can work for a little while, maybe for a
long time, but it becomes difficult to control as people
get a taste for that type of power and and uh.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
It just becomes difficult to control.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
And so.
Speaker 4 (30:59):
It tastes for that to power and also that type
of money in some cases now and I say that
because of this, they were protecting their community from drug dealers.
And one of the things that that we hear is
it in the beginning, they would they would sometimes you know,
come across these guys and they would confiscate their their
drugs or whatever, or or maybe they would take the
(31:20):
they would confiscate this money. And then at some point,
and in the beginning they were flushing the drugs down
the toilet, they were getting rid of the drugs. At
some point it becomes well, this is actually money they
were flushing down the toilet. What do we do this?
And then and then the kind of slow corruption process
starts of of of you know, kind of becoming something
that is different than your initial ideals. And that definitely
(31:43):
definitely happened in the West End, like no question.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
But no spoilers. Do you listen to episode seven and
eight though, if you're interested in this line?
Speaker 3 (31:55):
Uh yes. By the way, we also knew that for
everybody to need and as we are recording, the final
episode has yet to release, so I can't speak for everybody,
but I am. I am on the ride as well.
I don't I don't know how the how we conclude yet, but.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
When you hear this episode eight will be will be
available on Tenderfoot Plus Early. You'll have to wait another
week until it comes on.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
Hey and full disclosure, I also uh subscribed for early
access to make sure that I could be as up
to date as possible.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
And with that, let's take a quick break here word
from the sponsor and return with most secret and we're back.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
There's another turn here, and this is not I would
argue this is not a spoiler because this is sort
of our our next a culmination of some of these
factors right of this growing stuff describing the idea of
agency leading to Mission Creep, the idea of self empowerment
(33:15):
becoming an opportunity in some ways for other behaviors we
know that during during his time in Atlanta as a
community leader, the mom was was in situations with law enforcement.
(33:36):
I'm thinking of I'm thinking of nineteen ninety nine when
it was pulled over in Marrietta, Georgia, Right, that that
was one of those It was one of those situations
where I think he ultimately gets charged with impersonating a
police officer even though he has an honorary badge and
the literal mayorrit is like, yeah, I gave it to him.
(34:00):
So we see, what we could argue with a lot
of sand is a series of persecution, right, a series
of actions that are persecuting this person, the storied activist,
at the same time that he is building this powerful
community in the West End. Could you could you walk
(34:23):
us through, just in broad strokes, what the official narrative
is of the March sixteenth, two thousand incident that ultimately
led to his arresting conviction.
Speaker 4 (34:37):
Yeah, I can walk you through, and we can, and
we can start with this with this arrest and cop counting. So,
as you mentioned, he was he was pulled over and
arrested by some by some cops up there, and you know,
he eventually was charged as a result of that stop
(34:58):
with driving a stolen car and impersonating a police officer
and then person being a police officer. Part is because
when the cops stopped him, he a ma'am Jamil showed
this guy a badge and we don't really know what
the conversation was, but it seemed there was some type
of We think that it's because he wanted to let
(35:19):
this officer know that he was like a legit person
in the and who didn't kind of deserve any mistreatment.
But whatever. He was charged with impersonating a police officer
and driving a stolen vehicle. The car was stolen, and
so that initiates some some court hearings for various reasons.
A man Jamil did not show up for those court
hearings and a warrant was issued for his arrest. This
(35:44):
is months before the shooting. So there are sheriff's deputies
in Fulton Counties who are Fulton County who were trying
to serve this warrant over a period of time. They're
trying to arrest him and bring him in for this
charge out in the suburbs, and that's what was happening
the night of March sixteen, two thousand two Sheriff's deputies
were going around the spots in the West End that
(36:07):
a man Jimial was known to frequent trying to serve
this bench warrant for failure to appear in this court case.
The cops come to the neighborhood looking for a mammal.
They don't find them and they leave. They're in a
in a marked car, a Crown Victoria, and they're driving away.
There's like a small street there that goes away from
(36:27):
Weston Park. They're driving away. In their rear view mirror,
they see a car pull up in front of a
man Jamil store. So they turn the car around, turn
around their squad car to see what who was in
this car that pulled up. So the squad car comes
back down the street and the and the car pulled
(36:48):
up in front of the store is parked on the street.
It's a black Mercedes. So eventually the squad car in
the black Mercedes are nose to nose and there's like
a you know, you see that, you see the you
see a confrontation ing here. So the cops get out
of the car, you know, one on each side of
the car, and and the man in the Mercedes gets
out of the car. Uh. The cops notice that they
(37:11):
cannot see the man's hands, the man who's gotten out
of the Mercedes, and they ask him to show his hands.
The cops say that the person uh says something that's
the effect of of hey, and then pulls a long
rifle out of some type of long garment and starts
(37:33):
shooting at them. Both cops are hit. One of them
runs to a field near the mass did and and
UH waits there. Another one of them is killed right
there in front of the car. And so this is
the this is the the shooting and the crime that
eventually leads investigators eventually UH charge a man Jimmial with
(37:59):
you know, after that shooting, he did, he fled. He
fled to Alabama to the very location where he had
been organizing as as an activist in his young life.
A federal law enforcement eventually found him there and the Mercedes,
which was riddled with bullet holes, and he was charged
(38:21):
and convicted of this crime.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
Just knowing that the Mercedes was there at his location
where he fled and it did have bullet holes in
it is one of those things that you just you
hear that and you think, oh, Okay, well, then that's
obviously what happened. But it's so much more complicated than that, right,
I mean, and especially as you continue exploring the story,
you continue, you know, you kind of look, you take
a really hard look at the witness statements from the
(38:46):
surviving deputy. There's some really there's a really interesting piece
in here about the man's eyes. I can't remember which
episode that is, but just specifically this officer who was
shot who says, I looked directly into the man's eyes
you shot me, and like gets if it is allaman's eyes.
The eye colors.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
Wrong, so you're gray eyes.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
Yeah. There's so many inconsistencies like that that make you,
again as a listeners, you're as you're going through this,
make you question things. Was there any point where you
begin to really question the story and feel like you
didn't have a grasp on what occurred, especially when you
encounter somebody like Otis Jackson who has a completely different
(39:30):
version of the story.
Speaker 4 (39:32):
I mean, there were many points where I thought I
didn't have a grasp of the story. We're dealing with
events that happened twenty plus years ago, in addition to
dealing with a lot of secrets, you know, both FBI
secrets and secrets from the Muslims in the West End,
and so these types of things you kind of wonder
(39:55):
in the beginning if you're going to even get to
the to the bottom of them. And there were many
moments when I thought that I that I that I
could never really figure out what happened. Like you just
kind of come to a point where you know, someone
says one thing, someone else says another thing, and you
you don't really have the means at your disposal to
figure out which is which. But we do draw conclusion
(40:18):
in the show, and uh, you know, to my surprise
actually and to my satisfaction, I think I know what happened,
But I don't know if that's going to beat everyone
else's satisfaction. We'll have to see. But yeah, eventually things
(40:39):
kind of came into focus in a way that that
made sense for me.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
Mm well, And just to be clear, this person that
we're speaking of, Otis Jackson, had a whole other story
where he was, in fact the one who you know
shot the sheriff's deputies on that night in two thousand
and you can Yeah, it's.
Speaker 3 (40:57):
Just really Otis.
Speaker 4 (40:58):
You asked me about Otis. So, yeah, so Otis is
someone who confessed to this crime pretty soon after it happened.
He was a known person around the time of the
trial in two thousand and two, prosecution and defense and
who over the years has maintained that he's the one
who did it. And so you hear something like that
(41:19):
and uh, and you he was not coerced in at
least it doesn't appear coercon to him making this confession,
and so you have to take it seriously, and we did,
and we talked to him. Johnny talked to him, My
producer talked to him. And you get any of these things,
and you realize that even something like a confession that
(41:41):
was not coerced can be actually quite complicated. And that's
what we find, you know, in conversation with Otis, And
it does what we thought was kind of be a
clear kind of direction towards the truth actually was a misdirection.
And it was definitely one of those moments where where
(42:04):
I thought I didn't know which way, I didn't know
which way was right, you know, like in the in
my early days of reporting on the story, I remember
the first time I read some of the stuff from Otis.
I was like, whoa, this guy definitely did it. And
then other points I was like, well, this guy is
lying so and it and it and it. Uh yeah,
(42:27):
we go. You have to see which way we landed
on that on that one, but it was complicated mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (42:34):
And and I do want to I do want to
point out to one thing that, uh, I find quite
impressive is that in this investigation, there is there's this beautiful,
like Jedi like objectivity to uh to asking the people
with the conflicting narratives. You know, let's let's talk to
(42:57):
prosecutors involved in this, let's talk to you know, let's
talk to Otis Jackson, Let's learn all sides of this story.
And I just want to say I mentally appreciate that
point of sort of way leading on to waigh. You know,
because we want to build our we want to build
our bricks of logic, right are if thens need to
(43:18):
be solid? And it seems like several times we as
the audience listening to this are experiencing the same thing.
We're like, well, this is definitely oh but wait oh wait,
but then what does that also mean? Which I find compelling.
I find also it is it brings us to it
(43:40):
brings us to the fact that this is not an
historical case and historical footnote by any means. We know
the mom is. I believe the mom is currently incarcerated
and has I think, gosh, just a few years ago,
(44:00):
had an appeal that made it all the way to
the Supreme Court. Is that correct?
Speaker 4 (44:06):
I don't think that they got certification on the case.
Speaker 3 (44:09):
Oh okay, but they went the Supreme Court did decline
it is.
Speaker 4 (44:15):
I'm pretty sure the Supreme Court declined it.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
Yeah, okay. Well, how for people listening now in the
case of in the case of this current incarceration, could
you tell us a little bit about how the West
End community is thinking through this, how they are experiencing,
(44:37):
how they are experiencing the case, and is there any
active movement to perhaps have him released from incarceration.
Speaker 4 (44:48):
So the folks in the West End, there are people
who are still organizing, you know, who are still making
a campaign to have him released. They are at this point,
all of the almost all of the legal options for
a man Jamil have been exhausted. All the appeals have
(45:10):
been exhausted, all the habeas petitions have been exhausted. His
last remaining hope is a division of the Fulton County
DA's office called the Conviction Integrity Unit, which reviews possible
instances of wrongful conviction. And so the people in the
community are essentially mounting a public campaign to get certain
(45:35):
evidence considered by this unit of the DA's office. And
so there are people there who are still very much
behind a Maam Jamil. But you know, in this podcast,
we don't explore their feelings that much because they didn't
want to talk. A man Jamil and his one of
(45:56):
his sons still have pretty strong degree of control about
control over how this community behaves, and we you know,
we weren't allowed to talk to them on the record.
So the stuff that I know about, you know, how
things are playing in the community, that that's kind of
(46:17):
like secondhand in scull Butt, you know, so we weren't
able to get anything from them directly. We do have
a guy in the show. His name is Balal Suni Ali.
He is he is a Mam gmials. I forgot the
exact term that he used, but he is essentially the
person who was leading up on the non legal side,
(46:41):
who's not a lawyer, the person who's leading up the
campaign for mam Gmial's freedom, and he did talk to us,
but kind of like beyond him, we don't really have
that much of a sense of how things are playing
other than you know, like things that are posted on
social media.
Speaker 2 (46:54):
It makes me think about the influence and maybe loyalty. Yeah,
the influence that Alamine had had and has within the community,
the perhaps a loyalty to him that some people feel.
And it again takes me. It's weird, man, I keep
going back to that security detail. I think it's because
I'm fresh off listening to episode seven, but it's I
(47:19):
want to talk about this person, Shaheed, but I don't
want to give too many spoilers. There's an individual that
you find, I think via I don't know exactly how
you come across him. But there's another document at play
here called the Synopsis of West End Homicides that just
looks at specific individuals who were killed in the West
(47:42):
End neighborhood over a certain period of time there and
in a lot of those individual murders, there are people
who are suspected to maybe have played a part, but
often it's like there's no evidence linked to this individual
murder case. So this homicide, right and just I don't
(48:02):
want to say the police are not investigating each one
of those individual cases, you know, with full veracity, because
I'm sure they are. It's just it does seem like
not a lot of attention gets paid to the drug
dealers that got shot on the corner versus the deputies
that were shot right by their car, And I just
(48:26):
I just wonder if it makes you wonder about the
big picture of this show, and like if are there
have you found any big picture answers in your exploration
to something like a big question like how do I,
as an individual or a leader enact change within an
(48:47):
oppressive system that views me as an enemy? Do you
think there's any at least partial answers to that question
that you found?
Speaker 3 (48:55):
Or why can people take from the show?
Speaker 4 (48:57):
Yeah, you know, I found those answers for my self,
and I give those answers for myself in the show,
but I hesitate to tell other people what the answer
should be for them, and that's how I frame it.
One of the themes in the show is kind of
(49:18):
this man. Jimil was this person who was very hard
to define because he meant different things to different people.
He to federal law enforcement, he was this villain who
they pursued, but a lot of the things that they
based this assessment of him on were either imagined or
(49:42):
not necessarily true, or someone was spinning them, or like
various types of things. Other people gave him this kind
of like heroic sheene. But when you kind of break
that down, he was doing stuff in the community that
is questionable, and he was leading them in ways that
were questionable. The story that was around him still has
(50:03):
this He's still held up in this way that is
impactful in people's lives. And you know, what we were
dealing with. Essentially, we determined were stories and the power
of stories on both sides, and the power of stories
(50:26):
for people who are trying to shift narratives about their
communities and shift narratives about what their governments and their
leaders are capable of. And as a storyteller and working
with this kind of like shifty material, that's kind of
(50:47):
what I decided to play with in the end, and
that's what that's what the what we do in episode eight.
Speaker 3 (50:54):
And as as we noted, as you are hearing this today, folks,
the almost the entirety of Radical is out now. Do
check it out please. As as we said, we have
a mense appreciation not just as just as residents of Atlanta,
(51:15):
but as as fans of investigative journalism. We have a
mense appreciation for your work here. And one one of
the big questions that I never want us to miss
when we talk with journalists of your caliber is where
people can find more of your work, not just related
(51:36):
to radical but your your work with pro Publica and
et cetera and so on times the time. Oh also,
I've got we've got to give the flowers here. I
didn't mention at the beginning, but everyone mostly is an
award winning journalist. By the way. Didn't want to embarrass
you on that one.
Speaker 4 (51:55):
Yes, okay, I will take this opportunity to say that
I was working with a great journalist on this, Johnny Kaufman,
who I always want to you know, highlight, because this
was as much Johnny as it was me. As you
guys know, we have a producer, you know how these
things work, like, we were doing this thing as a team,
(52:18):
and my work is on my website Mostsecret dot com,
which I need to update and refresh. If you have
a website, you know how that goes broils on this stuff.
Is still there, so that's a good place. And uh yeah,
you know, my name is kind of weird, so if
you google my name, a lot of stuff will come up.
Speaker 3 (52:37):
To Again, we cannot thank you enough for your time
here today. Thank you, bitch. As for our filow conspiracy realists,
please do tune in the show available today wherever you
find your favorite podcast. What a fantastic show, you know, Matt,
we were so lucky to have Mossey on for this conversation.
(52:59):
I've got say, I'm sure you felt the same way
as longtime residents of Atlanta. A lot of this was
was quite familiar.
Speaker 2 (53:08):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, very very familiar. One of the
most interesting things you can listen to is a bonus
episode where Mossy and Johnny Kaufman, the two producers and
writers of the show, get together and just talk about
finding documents, you know, doing those freedom of information requests
and just sifting through the stuff, just so many things.
(53:32):
Because you're talking about a person h Trap Brown that
goes back to the nineteen sixties right where there are
real FBI files. We're not joking about these FBI files,
so many on this individual, and just holding that in
your mind and applying that person that they're the way
(53:53):
that government sees that person applying it to this person
who's now in em maam in Atlanta, and like, how
does that influence everything that's getting thrown at him.
Speaker 3 (54:04):
Yeah, we didn't get to the Cambridge riots. We didn't.
There's so much stuff we didn't get to, but Moussey
and his team get to a lot of it. If
you'd like to learn more about Cohen Tulpro, please check
out our earlier existing episodes on proven Conspiracies on the
part of the Alphabet.
Speaker 2 (54:22):
Dude, and I'm not kidding, go back and listen to
the MLK tapes show as well, because there's some weird
parallels there with the same individuals in charge, like in
the FBI and just in the mechanisms that are applied
to both of these stories. Really fascinating stuff.
Speaker 3 (54:40):
And thank you as always for tuning in. Fellow conspiracy realist.
We would love to hear your take on this exploration.
We'd also love to hear your thoughts on other cases
that may have have triggered some similarities for you when
you hear this, because as I had mentioned earlier, the
thing that might escape a lot of people is that
(55:02):
these are not necessarily one offs. These are not necessarily
things that exist in a vacuum. So let us know.
Please get THEE to thy favorite method of communication, whether
that's Instagram, YouTube, or Twitter FK or x fk twitter.
We're all over all of those. Or you can give
(55:24):
us a phone call directly.
Speaker 2 (55:25):
Yes, our number is one eight three three st d WYTK.
It's a voicemail system. When you call in, you've got
three minutes. Give yourself a cool nickname, and let us
know if we can use your message on the air.
It's that simple. If you want to send us links
or attachments or a longer story, why not instead shoot
us an email.
Speaker 3 (55:45):
We are the folks who read every single email we
get conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (56:09):
Stuff they don't want you to know. Is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of Iheartrading.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt Our.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Colleague Nola's on Adventures will be returning soon. They call
b Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer,
Paull Michigan Control Decant. Most importantly, you are you, You
are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. On March sixteenth, two thousand, two
police officers were shot in Atlanta's West End. This is
(00:50):
one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city with many
stories behind it. One of these officers passed away as
a result of this interaction, and the other claimed the
shooter was one Emm Jamil Abdullah al Amin, the leader
of a local mosque and in other times. This man
was formerly known as h Rap Brown, leader of the
(01:13):
Black Power movement, an honorary officer of the Black Panther Party.
He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. But
was he guilty or was this conviction somehow retribution for
his activism. The new podcast Radical Investigates interrogates these questions
and events in a deep dive never experienced before, with
(01:36):
the investigative journalist Mosey Secret, who dives through exclusive interviews,
government records, countless sources to get to the bottom of
the questions inherent in this case. And we are immensely
fortunate to be joined with him today to learn more
about this story. Mister Secret, thank you so much for
(01:58):
coming onto the show.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
You're welcome.
Speaker 5 (02:01):
Please call me mostly, I do it watch sorry, mostly,
It's really good to see you.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
Man.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Just for everyone's knowledge, I serve as an executive producer
on this show Radical. It's made with Tenderfoot TV. As
many of you know, I make shows with that team,
and I'm just really proud of the work that's already
gone into the show. We are coming up right now
on the final episode. Episode eight is coming out very soon,
(02:33):
and we just couldn't wait to pick your brain on
a lot of the stuff that you've found. I think
maybe a good way into this is mostly how did
you come across this story? Initially?
Speaker 4 (02:45):
Well, there are kind of two answers to that question,
you know. So I'm from Atlanta and I grew up
fairly close to the Muslim community. My family converted to
Islam when I was a kid. So because he's a
community of African American Wislims to Atlanta isn't that large.
I was familiar with a man, Jamie Alamine, in his community,
(03:09):
and I was also familiar with this case when it happened.
But as you said, you know, that was twenty years ago,
and it's not something that has really occupied my mind
in the kind of intervening years between the shooting and
the production of this podcast. A year or two ago,
I was quite randomly introduced to a podcast producer who
(03:33):
had already started looking into this case. Again. He had
done extensive his name's Johnny Kaufman. He had done extensive
public records requests, pulled court documents, and was really kind
of pointing to some questions in this case. And you know,
when he told me about this, you know, all these
(03:53):
things kind of came back to me from my childhood
and I thought, well, you know, I would love to
this with you. And it just so happened that he
was looking for a host and a reporter. And then
you know, like when I left Atlanta, I went off
to be a reporter, So it just kind of felt
like it was one of these stories that was made
for me.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Man. And just if you do live in the Atlanta area,
you probably know Johnny's voice from his work with WABE.
If you ever listened to the NPR stations in town.
That's that's how I recognized his voice. From the first time.
I was like, well, I know this guy.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
And what synchronicity there must be in that moment, because
you know, hearing, as you said, quite randomly hear this
story and you, as any member of that community during
your childhood, you will automatically know the people that are
being referenced here. There's something that really sticks out in
(04:50):
in part of this exploration. Could you tell us a
little bit about this summer camp you attended in childhood
and how that I just think that's such a fantastic
way in to the a mom in this community.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
Yeah, So, my family converted to Islam from kind of
different evangelical faiths actually when I was twelve or thirteen
years old, and a Mam Jamil Elamin's community is one
of the first that they came into contact with, and
I think that there was a period, you know, when
(05:30):
they were still kind of finding their footing, trying to
figure out how to you know, get their children to
understand this new faith or whatever. And somehow my parents
learned about this week long camp that a Ma'am Jamil
convened in the North Georgia Woods. And so, you know,
(05:54):
just to kind of give you a sense of what
kind of kid I was, I was, like, you know,
this would have been when I was twelve or thirty teen.
I think that I was like, you know, kind of
chubby into books, you know, like uh, riding my back
around the neighborhood, hadn't really been anywhere without my parents.
Let's just say that I was sheltered. And so this
(06:17):
camp for me was was quite intense. You know. It
was from this kind of being taken from this kind
of sheltered, you know, middle class existence into a fairly
kind of intense Black revolutionary ideology and setting. And also
and also you know religious, you know, like extremely religious settings.
(06:39):
And so there was you know a lot of emphasis
emphasis on making the five prayers a day, which at
that time I probably didn't even really know how to make,
or I was learning, and there was you know, physical
fitness and self defense, and I was kind of thrust
into this environment with these kids from the West End,
that man Jamil's neighborhood, who I didn't really know. And
(07:00):
these were kids who were they were pretty, they were
like rough around the edges. They were into stuff I
wasn't into. They were they liked to fight, you know,
they liked to cuss, they liked to you know, it
was just like a It was an immersion into a
world that I wasn't quite familiar with. And you know,
as I became older, I began to connect a lot
of what I experienced in just that one week with
(07:20):
what that community was. You know, a man Jamil attracted
people who were down on their luck, who were returning
home from prison, who were anti establishment for one reason
or another, and gave them reason to believe in themselves
(07:43):
and gave them, you know, a cause that they could
organize their lives around. And so that meant that a
lot of the people were, you know, like I said,
kind of rough around the edges, but they placed so
much faith in him as a leader and to kind
of organize and redeem their lives, you know, including sending
(08:03):
their children away to be to be groomed by him.
So it is a nice little kind of encapsulation of
what he represented for folks.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
What I'm hearing is that he was he held a
tremendous amount of influence in that community at the time
with is that correct?
Speaker 4 (08:19):
Definitely, I mean influence over even the intimate details of
family life. You know, he would help them arbitrate internal disputes.
So it was, it was he was considered a leader,
both a spiritual leader, but also you know, kind of
helped help them, help them organize their lives.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
And he had a bit of a He also had
a secular community building area too with the with the
grocery store, right which as you you paint the scene
so beautifully, right, it's just across from the what's what's
the correct Arabic word for mossul masjed. Yeah. So it's
(09:00):
seems that this this community leader becomes in some ways
an answer for people who are who are searching for,
you know, community stability in a way that might not
have been available previously in this As we know, this
(09:20):
is something that happens often in the United States in
one degree or another, because law enforcement so often fails
right and and commits horrific acts. With with this background,
we see already a bit of like whitman esque multitudes
(09:42):
in one man, because he is he is the he
is the leader, He is a beacon for people in
the Western community. Yet it seems that the local law,
the APD, and and other other authorities don't see him
in that way. Could you tell us a little bit
(10:02):
about how authorities had regarded the amount before he even
arrived in Atlanta.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
Yeah, so, ma'am. Jimil arrived in Atlanta in the late seventies.
Prior to that, he had been a nationally known figure
in the Black Car movement named a Trapp Brown. A
trap Brown grew up in Louisiana and Baton Rouge, Louisiana
(10:32):
and there suffered, you know, racial violent and oppression under
Jim Crow. As a young man, he kind of gravitates
towards the movement and towards organizing, and eventually he ends
up in the Black Belt of Alabama helping citizens there
(10:55):
organized to register it to vote, and also just helping
them to develop their own leaders and push back against
the oppression that they were feeling there. He becomes known
as someone who is courageous and fearless and rash, so,
you know, like he was doing this work with the
(11:17):
Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee, which was the one of
the main activist organizations at the time, and they were
organized around principles of nonviolence. But when you were with
these folks out in the countryside, who were, you know,
miles away from any help and often could suffer the
(11:37):
whims of any type of local sheriff. They often had
rifles whatever by their door side to protect themselves because
it was going to be a long time before law
enforcement came to help them. And so h Rep. Brown
goes into these communities and there is this non violent
ideology that he's working with, but there was also this
He's also telling people to defend themselves. He's also telling people,
(12:00):
you know, this is how you use your gun, this
is how you take these people on. And so he
people who have been really beaten down he started to
build back up, and it was around this rhetoric of
self defense. Now you imagine a person like that becomes
(12:20):
a bad guy in the eye of law, in the
eyes of law enforcement, and he refused to back down
in any confrontation with law enforcement. And so he develops
this reputation over a period of years as someone who
was against the police, and he did hate the police,
and so this, you know, this relationship basically became worse
(12:40):
and worse, and you know, by the time he was
in his late twenties, he seemed on the FBI Most
Warned List for some charges that were trumped up in
various ways. But this but he developed this reputation as
someone who really hated law enforcement and was willing to
defend themselves, defend themselves with weapons against law horsemen and
you know, like that that breaks down this kind of
(13:04):
veneer that the cops have is you know, unassailable, and
so he was a scary person for them.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Mostly. Did you come across the Rabble Rouser Index from
the FBI?
Speaker 4 (13:16):
No, I haven't heard of that.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Okay, So this is something that is available right now
anybody listening. You can go to the National Archives and
you can find the FBI's quote Rabble Rouser Index. It's
also known they use the term subversive control in association
with this. And there's like two hundred and fifty five
documents like PDF documents that have been scanned in stunning reads.
(13:41):
Well it's it's amazing. A lot of it's redacted, but
I don't want to read too much of this, but
just a little bit of this, because it's a memo
from FBI Director j Edgar Hoover, who has played a
role in so many stories, including the MLK tapes show
that we made last year, and this is just in
saying to see this, I'm gonna read it effective immediately.
(14:04):
In view of the widespread racial unrest, the Bureau will
maintain a rabble Rouser Index. The index will consist of names,
identifying data, and background information of individuals who are known
rabble rousers and have demonstrated by their actions and speeches
they have a propensity for fomenting racial disorder. And Stokely Carmichael,
(14:27):
the person who preceded h Rat Brown as the SNCC chairman.
He is like at the top of the list. Stokely
Carmichael is like enemy number one when it comes to
how the FBI views anyone in this realm.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Right.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
It includes a ton of Black Power leaders. It also
includes KKK members and Nazi Party leaders, which is really interesting,
but it's just I guess it's just to show that
the FBI viewed h. Rat Brown as an enemy, a
true an enemy in almost a or uh. And I
guess I'm sorry, I need to ask a question mostly,
(15:05):
but it's just like, what what did you find when
it came to how the FBI was either monitoring or
what were they watching him in the same way that
they were watching Stokely Carmichael.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
Definitely. I mean when Quintelpro was was first organized, there
were I don't want to get too specific because I
might say something that's wrong, but there were a list
of names that were included as people who could be
considered a black messiah, someone who could one of these
rabbel rousers, who could who the black public could could
(15:38):
convene around and could ultimately kind of undermine the integrity
of the United States. And h Rap Brown was one
of those was one of the people whose name was
on that list. And so you know, like we get
into there, we we came across some of these documents
in our in our reporting and our research, and you
begin to see kind of like in close detail how
(15:58):
these operations worked and how they could undermine someone's ability
to be effective as a leader. And with with h
Rap Brown, what they did was they yes, there was surveillance,
but what ultimately slowed him down was kind of like
a barrage of charges that were not true, and so
(16:22):
they pulled him into the court system in a way
where he suddenly had court dates. He certainly had, you know,
was in jail for violating bond. He sorta he suddenly
couldn't move around because of the terms of his release
and uh, and these charges just accumulated to the to
the point where he had to step down as the
leader of the student Non Violent Coordinating Committee. And then
(16:45):
you know, like so that happens, and in the public's
mind those charges perhaps could be true. We don't really know,
but if you look at the long kind of arc
of time, all those charges are are are thrown out
for various kindsitutional reasons, and so the question becomes why
were they brought and there was there some intention or
(17:08):
purpose behind that, and in this case, it's quite clear
the answer is yes. And so he's forced underground. This
all this kind of like legal assault is a strong word,
but this, all these legal actions eventually culminated in this
in this car bomb explosion outside of a court court
hearing where he was supposed to be in attendance. And
(17:31):
it's pretty widely assumed that that car bomb was an
assassination attempt against him. Many believed by the FBI, And
so at that point he has to go underground just
to protect his life, and his days as an organizer
are under are pretty much over, or at least they're
(17:51):
undercover at that point.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
Yeah, it's like eighteen months, Yes, that disappears, so more
than a year something, he's off the grid, underground. And
this also what I really appreciate your pointing out here
is that in the case of co Intel's approach, it's
pretty clear that they were not under the auspices of
(18:17):
this program. They were not saying, let's find someone who
has committed a crime. They were saying, let's find some
let's find a crime to fit on someone because we
find them dangerous. So we could make a very clear
argument is an active series of conspiracies not conspiracy theories.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Well, it's nuts. If you look at that index, it
is all of the field offices, all the FBI field
offices across the contiguous United States, that are keeping tabs
on anybody that ends up on that list, so like
any anywhere they go, who they meet with, Like, it's
it's nuts to see that level of it is surveillance.
(18:57):
But again, as you're saying, once you get into the
American prison system through the justice system. You are now
in that system, and it's so much easier to have
someone get back in it and stuck in it. And
I think that's just such a good point, and that
is where a mom Jamil Alimine finds himself.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Now we're going to pause here for a word from
our sponsor and we'll be right back and we've returned.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
I want to talk about this word violence, if you
don't mind you you have a great exploration in episode
five on the word violence, how we use it the way,
like what we apply it to, and how it's actually
a much more robust word that can apply to other things,
and how how would you apply it to, let's say,
the prison system and specifically Alimane's experience.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
Yeah, so this exploration started really with this phrase that
Jamil Elamine is famous for uttering are actually you know,
he said it when he was still a trap Brown
and one of his thump speeches, he said violence is
as American as cherry pie. And what he meant by
(20:10):
that was that America attained its greatness. America attained its
position largely through force against human beings, by forcing people
into labor, by battling people for their land, et cetera.
Like we know these things, and so as as a
(20:35):
member of a group of people that was oppressed, he said, okay,
let us let us also take violence into our hands
as a means of power. And so that was that's
kind of one of the things that we're interrogating in
the show, and that's kind of what led to this
exploration of the word violence. And so, you know, I
think at some point I just turned to the Oxford
(20:57):
English Dictionary and one of the things we came across
was this you know, old definition of doctor of of
violence that that had that contained more meaning than it
does today, and it included, you know, acts against people
committed by the state, harm committed by the state, against
(21:18):
the poppy, against the public. And you know, we explored
that in this episode Cherry Pie and looking at the
terms of Jamille Ellen means imprisonment, how he was held,
the degree that they went to take away aspects of
(21:38):
his humanity, and whether, you know, like to what extent
the public is comfortable with the government committing these types
of acts on our behalf, no matter what anyone has
been convicted of, do we believe that our public representatives
should inflict that much harm on other people. That's what
(21:59):
this what this episode asks, and this episode asks are
we to what degree are we allowing the government to
commit this type of violence on our behalf?
Speaker 3 (22:11):
And to what degree does the public consider itself accountable
right in that regard? And I believe it is what
during incarceration in Attica that that a trap Brown does
convert to Islam, and what we learn about this conversion
(22:33):
in the course of Radical and after he after he
is gone from Attica where he relocates to Atlanta, Georgia. Now,
I think one very crucial fact here is that he
is a person who is speaking from firsthand experience on
(22:54):
multiple levels about things. Maybe kids in the West End
and have like no growing up and now they're able
to speak with someone who is a community leader who
was saying, yes, this is real. These conspiracies and problems exist,
there are solutions, and I can help navigate. I can
(23:17):
help provide those solutions. We have in Radical extensive interviews
with members of the community during this time, and a
lot of those interviews, or a lot of the substance
of those conversations has never made it to the air before,
so I'd love to ask, when you are speaking with
(23:41):
folks who have first experience with the.
Speaker 6 (23:44):
Mom who have grown up in these times, was there
anything people said, or any commonality or even just any
singular statement that really stood out to you and stuck
with you.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
And why I think it was? It wasn't was an
idea of you could call it brotherhood or sisterhood or
whatever word contains contains both of those things. There were
people community, There were people who felt that they could
lean on each other and that they loved each other
(24:21):
and that they would be there for each other to
kind of navigate the difficulties of the world. And they
and it was really kind of this, this this nice
thing where they said, Okay, the world may not be
organized to to lift us up, but we're going to
lift each other up. And and people remember that time
(24:42):
quite fondly. The people who I spoke to, uh, you know,
and in doing this they were doing they were they
had a lot of moories that were that we could
not consider normal and that I you know, they wouldn't
that I wouldn't want to engage in. But there they
were doing this luntarily, you know, like the the managermil
had a lot of control over that neighborhood. You know,
(25:06):
they were essentially living under his very close leadership. It
wasn't like everybody would want to live under those circumstances.
So you did have to give up some type You
have to give up a little bit of personal liberty
to be in this little utopia. And so I can't
say that that's for everybody. And also over the course
of time that sheen, that good feeling did start to diminish.
(25:32):
Like you know, things are always changing, and they changed
in ways that weren't necessarily for the best. And we
explore that in the show.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
I'm thinking about Rodney and as you're like driving around
with Rodney and just exploring the neighborhood again, and he's
telling you all these stories of the violence that he
experienced on just a regular basis. And I'm Alosto imagining
a perimeter around the mage the or like the area
right there was more more or less controlled by the Imam.
(26:03):
I'd like that it felt like there was such violence
that existed right outside the door. And speaking of just
I'm thinking back when you were when you attended uh
that summer camp, right, I have a very limited experience,
but I've been to a lot of churches, most of
them suburban, middle class churches. I've never been to a
church that has a security detail, and it makes me
(26:26):
think about, you know, what was going on there. What
did you learn about like the security detail.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
Yeah, there's a there's a backstory to it. The West
End was a pretty dangerous place before Ama Jamil got there.
It was known as there are a lot of drug
corners where people were buying and selling and using. And
those drug corners were pretty lucrative, and so they were
defended with violence. And so Jamil Elamine and the people
(26:54):
around him come in and start to turn that around.
They established this this mass jid, which is actually in
a house in the neighborhood, which is you know, you know,
like a grid of criss crossing streets, and so people
and he establishes five prayers there, and so people are
walking from their homes to this mass jed or house
(27:18):
in the neighborhood to pray. And on those walks people
wanted to feel safe. Some of you know, the five prayers,
the first prayer is right before sunset, the last prayer
is after sunset, So some of those prayers are in
the dark, and people wanted to feel safe, and so
what they established was this security patrol that would make
(27:41):
sure that people walking back and forth the mass Jid
would not be harmed. The people on this team were
armed and there were It was understood in the neighborhood
that if you violated the the safety of anybody who
was who was going to pray that they're consequences.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
You know.
Speaker 4 (28:02):
There there are emerged questions over the years about the
extent of those consequences, and we explore that in the show.
It's unquestionable. You can't question that some people lost their
lives and around the West End who were drug dealers.
You can't really quibble with a life that's lost. It's
if someone's gone, they're gone. And so you know how
those people came to lose their lives is something that
(28:26):
we explore on the show. Is part of the legacy
of this neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
And this again may feel somewhat familiar to a lot
of us tuning in today who have lived in communities
where where someone makes this argument that says, look, the
people who are quote unquote supposed to be providing safety
are in fact not doing that. Therefore, we will we
(28:55):
will together lift ourselves up and provide that sort of
safety without all the you know, the due process, the
red tape and so on. At least is how it's
put theoretically. And for folks who have never been involved
in that sort of interaction in a community, that may
sound that may sound strange, right, that may sound anomalous,
(29:19):
But I believe it is important for people to remember
this high this situation can occur.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
It is not a.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
It's not a one off thing in the American discourse.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Well, I guess the question is, was the that security
force that was there that existed, It feels to me
like a defensive posture, a means of protection, right. I
wonder did you find anything where maybe potentially that security
force was used more as an offensive thing, or maybe
(29:54):
there's a sect within it that was was was that
saw itself as a way to crack down on some
of the drug dealing and people that they viewed as undesirable.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Perhaps proactively.
Speaker 4 (30:08):
Uh, yes, definitely, And uh, you know we're getting we're
getting the spoiler material here. But here's the thing that
I learned in looking at this story.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
If you have a.
Speaker 4 (30:23):
Particular approach, let's say, your approach to dealing with the
trouble in neighborhood is to arm a bunch of guys
and and uh, you know, give them relatively free reign
to keep things safe.
Speaker 7 (30:40):
That can work for a little while, maybe for a
long time, but it becomes difficult to control as people
get a taste for that type of power and and uh.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
It just becomes difficult to control.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
And so.
Speaker 4 (30:59):
It tastes for that to power and also that type
of money in some cases now and I say that
because of this, they were protecting their community from drug dealers.
And one of the things that that we hear is
it in the beginning, they would they would sometimes you know,
come across these guys and they would confiscate their their
drugs or whatever, or or maybe they would take the
(31:20):
they would confiscate this money. And then at some point,
and in the beginning they were flushing the drugs down
the toilet, they were getting rid of the drugs. At
some point it becomes well, this is actually money they
were flushing down the toilet. What do we do this?
And then and then the kind of slow corruption process
starts of of of you know, kind of becoming something
that is different than your initial ideals. And that definitely
(31:43):
definitely happened in the West End, like no question.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
But no spoilers. Do you listen to episode seven and
eight though, if you're interested in this line?
Speaker 3 (31:55):
Uh yes. By the way, we also knew that for
everybody to need and as we are recording, the final
episode has yet to release, so I can't speak for everybody,
but I am. I am on the ride as well.
I don't I don't know how the how we conclude yet, but.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
When you hear this episode eight will be will be
available on Tenderfoot Plus Early. You'll have to wait another
week until it comes on.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
Hey and full disclosure, I also uh subscribed for early
access to make sure that I could be as up
to date as possible.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
And with that, let's take a quick break here word
from the sponsor and return with most secret and we're back.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
There's another turn here, and this is not I would
argue this is not a spoiler because this is sort
of our our next a culmination of some of these
factors right of this growing stuff describing the idea of
agency leading to Mission Creep, the idea of self empowerment
(33:15):
becoming an opportunity in some ways for other behaviors we
know that during during his time in Atlanta as a
community leader, the mom was was in situations with law enforcement.
(33:36):
I'm thinking of I'm thinking of nineteen ninety nine when
it was pulled over in Marrietta, Georgia, Right, that that
was one of those It was one of those situations
where I think he ultimately gets charged with impersonating a
police officer even though he has an honorary badge and
the literal mayorrit is like, yeah, I gave it to him.
(34:00):
So we see, what we could argue with a lot
of sand is a series of persecution, right, a series
of actions that are persecuting this person, the storied activist,
at the same time that he is building this powerful
community in the West End. Could you could you walk
(34:23):
us through, just in broad strokes, what the official narrative
is of the March sixteenth, two thousand incident that ultimately
led to his arresting conviction.
Speaker 4 (34:37):
Yeah, I can walk you through, and we can, and
we can start with this with this arrest and cop counting. So,
as you mentioned, he was he was pulled over and
arrested by some by some cops up there, and you know,
he eventually was charged as a result of that stop
(34:58):
with driving a stolen car and impersonating a police officer
and then person being a police officer. Part is because
when the cops stopped him, he a ma'am Jamil showed
this guy a badge and we don't really know what
the conversation was, but it seemed there was some type
of We think that it's because he wanted to let
(35:19):
this officer know that he was like a legit person
in the and who didn't kind of deserve any mistreatment.
But whatever. He was charged with impersonating a police officer
and driving a stolen vehicle. The car was stolen, and
so that initiates some some court hearings for various reasons.
A man Jamil did not show up for those court
hearings and a warrant was issued for his arrest. This
(35:44):
is months before the shooting. So there are sheriff's deputies
in Fulton Counties who are Fulton County who were trying
to serve this warrant over a period of time. They're
trying to arrest him and bring him in for this
charge out in the suburbs, and that's what was happening
the night of March sixteen, two thousand two Sheriff's deputies
were going around the spots in the West End that
(36:07):
a man Jimial was known to frequent trying to serve
this bench warrant for failure to appear in this court case.
The cops come to the neighborhood looking for a mammal.
They don't find them and they leave. They're in a
in a marked car, a Crown Victoria, and they're driving away.
There's like a small street there that goes away from
(36:27):
Weston Park. They're driving away. In their rear view mirror,
they see a car pull up in front of a
man Jamil store. So they turn the car around, turn
around their squad car to see what who was in
this car that pulled up. So the squad car comes
back down the street and the and the car pulled
(36:48):
up in front of the store is parked on the street.
It's a black Mercedes. So eventually the squad car in
the black Mercedes are nose to nose and there's like
a you know, you see that, you see the you
see a confrontation ing here. So the cops get out
of the car, you know, one on each side of
the car, and and the man in the Mercedes gets
out of the car. Uh. The cops notice that they
(37:11):
cannot see the man's hands, the man who's gotten out
of the Mercedes, and they ask him to show his hands.
The cops say that the person uh says something that's
the effect of of hey, and then pulls a long
rifle out of some type of long garment and starts
(37:33):
shooting at them. Both cops are hit. One of them
runs to a field near the mass did and and
UH waits there. Another one of them is killed right
there in front of the car. And so this is
the this is the the shooting and the crime that
eventually leads investigators eventually UH charge a man Jimmial with
(37:59):
you know, after that shooting, he did, he fled. He
fled to Alabama to the very location where he had
been organizing as as an activist in his young life.
A federal law enforcement eventually found him there and the Mercedes,
which was riddled with bullet holes, and he was charged
(38:21):
and convicted of this crime.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
Just knowing that the Mercedes was there at his location
where he fled and it did have bullet holes in
it is one of those things that you just you
hear that and you think, oh, Okay, well, then that's
obviously what happened. But it's so much more complicated than that, right,
I mean, and especially as you continue exploring the story,
you continue, you know, you kind of look, you take
a really hard look at the witness statements from the
(38:46):
surviving deputy. There's some really there's a really interesting piece
in here about the man's eyes. I can't remember which
episode that is, but just specifically this officer who was
shot who says, I looked directly into the man's eyes
you shot me, and like gets if it is allaman's eyes.
The eye colors.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
Wrong, so you're gray eyes.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
Yeah. There's so many inconsistencies like that that make you,
again as a listeners, you're as you're going through this,
make you question things. Was there any point where you
begin to really question the story and feel like you
didn't have a grasp on what occurred, especially when you
encounter somebody like Otis Jackson who has a completely different
(39:30):
version of the story.
Speaker 4 (39:32):
I mean, there were many points where I thought I
didn't have a grasp of the story. We're dealing with
events that happened twenty plus years ago, in addition to
dealing with a lot of secrets, you know, both FBI
secrets and secrets from the Muslims in the West End,
and so these types of things you kind of wonder
(39:55):
in the beginning if you're going to even get to
the to the bottom of them. And there were many
moments when I thought that I that I that I
could never really figure out what happened. Like you just
kind of come to a point where you know, someone
says one thing, someone else says another thing, and you
you don't really have the means at your disposal to
figure out which is which. But we do draw conclusion
(40:18):
in the show, and uh, you know, to my surprise
actually and to my satisfaction, I think I know what happened,
But I don't know if that's going to beat everyone
else's satisfaction. We'll have to see. But yeah, eventually things
(40:39):
kind of came into focus in a way that that
made sense for me.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
Mm well, And just to be clear, this person that
we're speaking of, Otis Jackson, had a whole other story
where he was, in fact the one who you know
shot the sheriff's deputies on that night in two thousand
and you can Yeah, it's.
Speaker 3 (40:57):
Just really Otis.
Speaker 4 (40:58):
You asked me about Otis. So, yeah, so Otis is
someone who confessed to this crime pretty soon after it happened.
He was a known person around the time of the
trial in two thousand and two, prosecution and defense and
who over the years has maintained that he's the one
who did it. And so you hear something like that
(41:19):
and uh, and you he was not coerced in at
least it doesn't appear coercon to him making this confession,
and so you have to take it seriously, and we did,
and we talked to him. Johnny talked to him, My
producer talked to him. And you get any of these things,
and you realize that even something like a confession that
(41:41):
was not coerced can be actually quite complicated. And that's
what we find, you know, in conversation with Otis, And
it does what we thought was kind of be a
clear kind of direction towards the truth actually was a misdirection.
And it was definitely one of those moments where where
(42:04):
I thought I didn't know which way, I didn't know
which way was right, you know, like in the in
my early days of reporting on the story, I remember
the first time I read some of the stuff from Otis.
I was like, whoa, this guy definitely did it. And
then other points I was like, well, this guy is
lying so and it and it and it. Uh yeah,
(42:27):
we go. You have to see which way we landed
on that on that one, but it was complicated mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (42:34):
And and I do want to I do want to
point out to one thing that, uh, I find quite
impressive is that in this investigation, there is there's this beautiful,
like Jedi like objectivity to uh to asking the people
with the conflicting narratives. You know, let's let's talk to
(42:57):
prosecutors involved in this, let's talk to you know, let's
talk to Otis Jackson, Let's learn all sides of this story.
And I just want to say I mentally appreciate that
point of sort of way leading on to waigh. You know,
because we want to build our we want to build
our bricks of logic, right are if thens need to
(43:18):
be solid? And it seems like several times we as
the audience listening to this are experiencing the same thing.
We're like, well, this is definitely oh but wait oh wait,
but then what does that also mean? Which I find compelling.
I find also it is it brings us to it
(43:40):
brings us to the fact that this is not an
historical case and historical footnote by any means. We know
the mom is. I believe the mom is currently incarcerated
and has I think, gosh, just a few years ago,
(44:00):
had an appeal that made it all the way to
the Supreme Court. Is that correct?
Speaker 4 (44:06):
I don't think that they got certification on the case.
Speaker 3 (44:09):
Oh okay, but they went the Supreme Court did decline
it is.
Speaker 4 (44:15):
I'm pretty sure the Supreme Court declined it.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
Yeah, okay. Well, how for people listening now in the
case of in the case of this current incarceration, could
you tell us a little bit about how the West
End community is thinking through this, how they are experiencing,
(44:37):
how they are experiencing the case, and is there any
active movement to perhaps have him released from incarceration.
Speaker 4 (44:48):
So the folks in the West End, there are people
who are still organizing, you know, who are still making
a campaign to have him released. They are at this point,
all of the almost all of the legal options for
a man Jamil have been exhausted. All the appeals have
(45:10):
been exhausted, all the habeas petitions have been exhausted. His
last remaining hope is a division of the Fulton County
DA's office called the Conviction Integrity Unit, which reviews possible
instances of wrongful conviction. And so the people in the
community are essentially mounting a public campaign to get certain
(45:35):
evidence considered by this unit of the DA's office. And
so there are people there who are still very much
behind a Maam Jamil. But you know, in this podcast,
we don't explore their feelings that much because they didn't
want to talk. A man Jamil and his one of
(45:56):
his sons still have pretty strong degree of control about
control over how this community behaves, and we you know,
we weren't allowed to talk to them on the record.
So the stuff that I know about, you know, how
things are playing in the community, that that's kind of
(46:17):
like secondhand in scull Butt, you know, so we weren't
able to get anything from them directly. We do have
a guy in the show. His name is Balal Suni Ali.
He is he is a Mam gmials. I forgot the
exact term that he used, but he is essentially the
person who was leading up on the non legal side,
(46:41):
who's not a lawyer, the person who's leading up the
campaign for mam Gmial's freedom, and he did talk to us,
but kind of like beyond him, we don't really have
that much of a sense of how things are playing
other than you know, like things that are posted on
social media.
Speaker 2 (46:54):
It makes me think about the influence and maybe loyalty. Yeah,
the influence that Alamine had had and has within the community,
the perhaps a loyalty to him that some people feel.
And it again takes me. It's weird, man, I keep
going back to that security detail. I think it's because
I'm fresh off listening to episode seven, but it's I
(47:19):
want to talk about this person, Shaheed, but I don't
want to give too many spoilers. There's an individual that
you find, I think via I don't know exactly how
you come across him. But there's another document at play
here called the Synopsis of West End Homicides that just
looks at specific individuals who were killed in the West
(47:42):
End neighborhood over a certain period of time there and
in a lot of those individual murders, there are people
who are suspected to maybe have played a part, but
often it's like there's no evidence linked to this individual
murder case. So this homicide, right and just I don't
(48:02):
want to say the police are not investigating each one
of those individual cases, you know, with full veracity, because
I'm sure they are. It's just it does seem like
not a lot of attention gets paid to the drug
dealers that got shot on the corner versus the deputies
that were shot right by their car, And I just
(48:26):
I just wonder if it makes you wonder about the
big picture of this show, and like if are there
have you found any big picture answers in your exploration
to something like a big question like how do I,
as an individual or a leader enact change within an
(48:47):
oppressive system that views me as an enemy? Do you
think there's any at least partial answers to that question
that you found?
Speaker 3 (48:55):
Or why can people take from the show?
Speaker 4 (48:57):
Yeah, you know, I found those answers for my self,
and I give those answers for myself in the show,
but I hesitate to tell other people what the answer
should be for them, and that's how I frame it.
One of the themes in the show is kind of
(49:18):
this man. Jimil was this person who was very hard
to define because he meant different things to different people.
He to federal law enforcement, he was this villain who
they pursued, but a lot of the things that they
based this assessment of him on were either imagined or
(49:42):
not necessarily true, or someone was spinning them, or like
various types of things. Other people gave him this kind
of like heroic sheene. But when you kind of break
that down, he was doing stuff in the community that
is questionable, and he was leading them in ways that
were questionable. The story that was around him still has
(50:03):
this He's still held up in this way that is
impactful in people's lives. And you know, what we were
dealing with. Essentially, we determined were stories and the power
of stories on both sides, and the power of stories
(50:26):
for people who are trying to shift narratives about their
communities and shift narratives about what their governments and their
leaders are capable of. And as a storyteller and working
with this kind of like shifty material, that's kind of
(50:47):
what I decided to play with in the end, and
that's what that's what the what we do in episode eight.
Speaker 3 (50:54):
And as as we noted, as you are hearing this today, folks,
the almost the entirety of Radical is out now. Do
check it out please. As as we said, we have
a mense appreciation not just as just as residents of Atlanta,
(51:15):
but as as fans of investigative journalism. We have a
mense appreciation for your work here. And one one of
the big questions that I never want us to miss
when we talk with journalists of your caliber is where
people can find more of your work, not just related
(51:36):
to radical but your your work with pro Publica and
et cetera and so on times the time. Oh also,
I've got we've got to give the flowers here. I
didn't mention at the beginning, but everyone mostly is an
award winning journalist. By the way. Didn't want to embarrass
you on that one.
Speaker 4 (51:55):
Yes, okay, I will take this opportunity to say that
I was working with a great journalist on this, Johnny Kaufman,
who I always want to you know, highlight, because this
was as much Johnny as it was me. As you
guys know, we have a producer, you know how these
things work, like, we were doing this thing as a team,
(52:18):
and my work is on my website Mostsecret dot com,
which I need to update and refresh. If you have
a website, you know how that goes broils on this stuff.
Is still there, so that's a good place. And uh yeah,
you know, my name is kind of weird, so if
you google my name, a lot of stuff will come up.
Speaker 3 (52:37):
To Again, we cannot thank you enough for your time
here today. Thank you, bitch. As for our filow conspiracy realists,
please do tune in the show available today wherever you
find your favorite podcast. What a fantastic show, you know, Matt,
we were so lucky to have Mossey on for this conversation.
(52:59):
I've got say, I'm sure you felt the same way
as longtime residents of Atlanta. A lot of this was
was quite familiar.
Speaker 2 (53:08):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, very very familiar. One of the
most interesting things you can listen to is a bonus
episode where Mossy and Johnny Kaufman, the two producers and
writers of the show, get together and just talk about
finding documents, you know, doing those freedom of information requests
and just sifting through the stuff, just so many things.
(53:32):
Because you're talking about a person h Trap Brown that
goes back to the nineteen sixties right where there are
real FBI files. We're not joking about these FBI files,
so many on this individual, and just holding that in
your mind and applying that person that they're the way
(53:53):
that government sees that person applying it to this person
who's now in em maam in Atlanta, and like, how
does that influence everything that's getting thrown at him.
Speaker 3 (54:04):
Yeah, we didn't get to the Cambridge riots. We didn't.
There's so much stuff we didn't get to, but Moussey
and his team get to a lot of it. If
you'd like to learn more about Cohen Tulpro, please check
out our earlier existing episodes on proven Conspiracies on the
part of the Alphabet.
Speaker 2 (54:22):
Dude, and I'm not kidding, go back and listen to
the MLK tapes show as well, because there's some weird
parallels there with the same individuals in charge, like in
the FBI and just in the mechanisms that are applied
to both of these stories. Really fascinating stuff.
Speaker 3 (54:40):
And thank you as always for tuning in. Fellow conspiracy realist.
We would love to hear your take on this exploration.
We'd also love to hear your thoughts on other cases
that may have have triggered some similarities for you when
you hear this, because as I had mentioned earlier, the
thing that might escape a lot of people is that
(55:02):
these are not necessarily one offs. These are not necessarily
things that exist in a vacuum. So let us know.
Please get THEE to thy favorite method of communication, whether
that's Instagram, YouTube, or Twitter FK or x fk twitter.
We're all over all of those. Or you can give
(55:24):
us a phone call directly.
Speaker 2 (55:25):
Yes, our number is one eight three three st d WYTK.
It's a voicemail system. When you call in, you've got
three minutes. Give yourself a cool nickname, and let us
know if we can use your message on the air.
It's that simple. If you want to send us links
or attachments or a longer story, why not instead shoot
us an email.
Speaker 3 (55:45):
We are the folks who read every single email we
get conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (56:09):
Stuff they don't want you to know. Is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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