December 5, 2023 • 40 mins
Local and federal law enforcement act fast to capture the man they suspect harmed two of their own. They chase Imam Jamil to Alabama, where a violent history flares up once again.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely
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This podcast also contains subject matter which may not be
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Speaker 2 (00:17):
Listening to. Discretion is advised. Radical is released every Tuesday
and brought to you absolutely free, but if you want
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subscribe to tenderfoot Plus. For more information, check out tenderfootplus
dot com. Enjoy the episode Gamsite Media. On the night
(00:47):
of the shooting in the West End March sixteenth, two thousand,
Atlanta Police detective Brett Zimbrick was working in his cubicle.
It was a Thursday, and Brett's shift ran from three
pm to eleven pm.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Thursday nights were Fridays for most of us. We had
either Friday and Saturday off or at Sunday and Monday off,
So Thursday night was a Friday night for me.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
So that you're kind of like winding down, getting ready
for the weekend, right.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
And a weekly tradition is to go to the local
drinking establishment and all the cops that are off on
Friday would show up and you know, have a beer
or two and start the weekend that way.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Brett was about to head out and get a beer
with his buddies when one of the Fulton County Sheriff's
deputies on duty in the West End, Algernon English, made
a distress call on his radio. He and his partner
and Rickie Kinchin were taking fire and Kenchin was down.
(02:03):
English said he and Kinchin were at an address on
Oak Street. Brett grabbed his keys and rushed toward the
West End because it was a cop who had been shot.
He told me everyone was responding, bolting from their desks
for their cars. Brent knew that when he arrived he
would be in charge of the crime scene. On the
drive across the city, he was listening to his police radio.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
It's chaotic.
Speaker 5 (02:27):
It's a zoo for real.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
I mean, you have no idea that they had no
idea where the shooter was, or if it was somebody
that was getting high ground on them or whatever. But
their priority at that point was to get medical assistance
to the officers that were down.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
And having worked so many homicides by that point, is
this a heightened level of emotion and chaos.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Because it's an officer who was involved, right, Because back
in two thousand, unlike today, you know, it was a
big deal to shoot the cops. Now not so much,
but back then it was a big deal. If the
cops were shot, then this was somebody that was really
desperate or you know, angry, whatever, but there was, you know,
(03:12):
some passion behind the event of shooting law enforcement.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
It's still a big deal to shoot a police officer.
But I think I get what Brett is saying. The
uprisings of the past few years have brought the police
as an institution. The police has this unimpeachable arm of
law and order down to a much more human size.
Respect for the position isn't what it used to be,
and that has to sting. By the time Brett arrived
(03:40):
at the scene in the West End, the two deputies
who were shot, English and Kenchin, they were already in
ambulances on their way to the hospital.
Speaker 5 (03:55):
Brett was a methodical.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Cop, not the running gun type, the trim white guy
in his late thirties who prided himself on being smarter
than the next guy. His eyes were immediately drawn to
all the evidence the police would need to collect and organize.
Cops fanned out in the neighborhood to canvas for even
more evidence and knock on doors asking if anyone had
seen or.
Speaker 5 (04:15):
Heard what happened.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
But most of the Muslims who lived nearby, the members
of the mass died, they weren't talking.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
There wasn't a whole lot of onlookers for this event,
which was rare.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
Did the lack of onlookers mean anything to.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
You, Well, it wasn't a shock. I don't think it
was the West End. It was the corner store there
at West End Place. So it was one of those
neighborhoods where there wasn't a whole lot of late night
you know, shenanigans.
Speaker 5 (04:48):
I see.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
So it's kind of representative of the folks there are
not really out in the street at.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
That hour, right, Yeah, the West End is kind of
you know, controlled, Right, It was a different neighborhood, right.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Brett focused on the physical evidence at the scene, dozens
of shell casings and bullets lit up by the street
lights and lying in the grass. There was a small
stack of paper, four pages or so stapled together. Only
the top sheet was initially visible white paper with black
type and an image of a sheriff's batch. The page
(05:24):
was covered with splotches of blood, and there was a
bullet hole right through the center. It was a warrant,
please arrest this subject. The first paragraph said the deputies
had been out looking for someone. There is perhaps no
greater emblem of the promise of the American criminal legal
(05:46):
system than the warrant. A document that grants officers of
the law the power to jail people, to search them,
to take their property after a judge approves. That's the
bedrock of our legal system. What our constitution and court's
promise police power with constraint, with judicial oversight and the
interest of public safety. Cops aren't supposed to just break
(06:08):
down doors, or search cars, or detain people whenever they please.
This is an idea that goes back to the Bill
of Rights. It's also an idea that hasn't worked in
everyone's favor. And that night in the West End, someone
deemed it all worthy of destruction. Maybe they thought they
(06:28):
were exempt, or that police and the legal system were
only out to get them. In any case, they shot
it all up. All of the criminal procedure wrapped up
in that document, bloodied it. If this were a piece
of fiction. Maybe you'd find the symbolism too heavy handed,
too literal, maybe even melodramatic, like something out of an
old Western. A warrant shot through the center, along with
(06:51):
the deputies who carried it. But this is in fact
what happened. Someone shot up the system and then got
the hell out of dodge. Printed on that bloody to
rest warrant was the name Jamil Abdellah Alamin. The warrant
(07:12):
was for man Jamil. There was a physical description black
mail six feet five inches tall, one hundred and eighty
seven pounds, with gray eyes and brown hair, and a
note of caution the subject could be armed. From Campside Media,
Tenderfoot TV, and iHeart podcasts, This is Radical, I'm Mosty's Secret,
(07:46):
episode two, Heroes and Villains. About a year before the shootout,
(08:10):
AmAm Jamil was driving a green Ford Explorer in Cobb County,
a suburban county just north of Atlanta. The suv had
a dealer license played on it, and a local police
officer spotted the vehicle, turned on his patrol lights and
pulled a Mamjamil over. The officer said in court that
when he asked for license and registration, a Maam Jamil's
(08:33):
hands were shaking. The paperwork didn't check out. The explorer
had been reported stolen, so the officer took him to jail,
where he stayed a few hours until he posted bond.
I should note here that years later the traffic stop
was ruled unconstitutional. There was no probable cause for the stop,
and a Mam Demial was never convicted of anything related
(08:54):
to it.
Speaker 5 (08:57):
Anyway.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
In January of two thousand, he had a court dat
in the case, but there was an ice storm and
the judge delayed the proceedings by two hours. A Mam
Jamial never showed up, and the judge issued a warrant
for his arrest. That was the warrant that the deputies
had with them on the night of the shootout. It
was why they were in the West End. When Atlanta
(09:19):
Police Detective Brett Ziembrick saw that warrant, now bloodied and
with a boat hole in it, he logically concluded that
a Ma'am Jamil was his main suspect. After Brett got
up the next morning, he learned that Deputy Algernon English
was awake and ready to talk. English and Deputy Ricky
Kinchin had both been through surgery. Kenchin was hit at
(09:41):
least six times, English at least three times. Brett went
to English's room at the hospital to interview him.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
He's remarkably alert.
Speaker 5 (09:53):
I was shocked that he was.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
I mean, not upbeat, but his attitude was, you know,
me and my partner got shot. We got to get
the bad guy. I need to tell you my side
of the story. You know, he wasn't like TV guy
and lighten in the hospital with you know, hoses coming
out of his nose and mouth and all that stuff.
He was, you know, surprisingly alert and upbeat for what
(10:20):
had happened to him.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Zimbert began to interview English on March sixteenth, two thousand.
English's workday began at around two thirty in the afternoon.
He went to the Sheriff's office in downtown Atlanta for
a roll call, where he was assigned to ride with
Deputy Kenchin. They were given fifteen warrants to execute for
their shift that ended at midnight, and they'd consider themselves
(10:42):
lucky if they were able to find even one person
and arrest them. That was the nature of the work.
Kenchin and English had worked together before. They made something
of a balanced pair Kenchin, a thirty five year old
black deputy with a thin mustache who was known for
his charm. He was the more senior of the two
had worked in the department for at least seven years. English,
(11:05):
who was also black, had been there for just three
years before that, he was in the Marine Corps. After
Kinchin and English had been out for about three hours,
they ate dinner at a wingspot in Atlanta called JR.
Speaker 5 (11:16):
Crickets.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
After the meal, Kinchin called his wife to check in
and the two deputies drove their marked carr a Crown
Victoria to the West End.
Speaker 6 (11:26):
So he had them eating lunch. We approached the location
from Oak Street.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
This is a recording of English while he was still
in the hospital. English said that he and Kenchin pulled
up in front of the address that was on the warrant,
the corner store in the West End run by a
man Jamil.
Speaker 6 (11:45):
We noticed that there was no life running in the store.
In the back on the deck, there was no life
indicating someone was there.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
English and Kensin drove off. Kenchin was behind the wheel,
and then in the rear view mirror he saw black
Mercedes pull up next to the store. A man stepped
out of the vehicle and onto the sidewalk. He was
wearing a trench coat and a skull cap of some kind,
and he looked like he was taller than six feet,
which fit the description.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
On the warrant.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Kenchin turned their car around and drove back. The deputies
pulled up in front of the other car, so the
Sheriff's crowned Vic and the Mercedes were facing each other,
their headlights on. English told Kenchin, Okay.
Speaker 5 (12:28):
We're going to count to three.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
They opened their doors and got out, and I.
Speaker 6 (12:33):
Needed to notice the gentlemen. I couldn't see his right hand,
so I said, sir, I need to see.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Your right hand, Kenchin. At the driver's side of the
crown Vic. He was sort of diagonal to the man,
but English was facing him straight on.
Speaker 6 (12:51):
My mom always told me look a man in his eye,
always looking man.
Speaker 5 (12:55):
Is so.
Speaker 6 (13:00):
Because I was looking at him in his eyes and
I remember him gray eyes, so I couldn't man, I
remember that face, that face, that cold face, so I
couldn't forget that. That's when he frowned at me and
he noted me with yeah him all and me aggressive
metal like yeah, and introduced the black O fault rifle
(13:22):
and start firing at me.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
The first round hit English in the hip nearest holster.
It's stung and burned.
Speaker 6 (13:29):
I realized, Oh, this is this real life. It's not
really a dream.
Speaker 7 (13:35):
It's happened.
Speaker 6 (13:35):
It was happening so fast because he didn't give him
a chance of doing anything else.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
At some point, the pepper spray cannisterer on English's hip
had been hit and the chemical was in his eyes.
He drew his pistol, a forty caliber glock, and fired back.
Speaker 5 (13:51):
He said he hit the man.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
In these moments, the way English tells it, the situation
brought him right back to was training in the Marine Corps.
He he determined he was facing a terrorist attack because
terrorists are trained to kill, and they know that cops
wear bulletproof vests, so they shoot at the waist and
the hips of their targets. English also figured it was
(14:14):
an ambush and he was outgunned, facing a rifle with
a pistol. He was inside what he was trained to
call the kill zone. The only way to survive was
to get out of there, and to do that he
had to run through it. So he dashed between the
cars and I.
Speaker 6 (14:31):
Was running and I was screaming and yelling and firing
back at him and trying to get out of the
kill zone.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
He ended up across the street, lying in the grass
next to the mast shit. He could feel that he'd
been shot in the arm too.
Speaker 5 (14:47):
English called out for Kenchin.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Then he heard more assault rifle fire and shots from
a smaller gun. When it stopped, English thought the man
was walking towards him, coming over to finish him off.
Speaker 6 (15:00):
I was screaming, yelling, please don't shoot me, no more.
Don't shoot me no more, don't shoot me no more.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
But there was no more gunfire. English was lying in
the grass, curled in the fetal position. He couldn't feel
his legs. His radio mic was still attached to his
shoulder and he turned his head to speak into it.
Speaker 6 (15:22):
It was like America just came over. He just came
to the fence, and I said, my God said talking tall,
just talk to everybody. Can let the whole one know
what's going on.
Speaker 5 (15:39):
So I just I.
Speaker 6 (15:40):
Just pressed the mic and just start talking and give
him the rest.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
The location where we were, English heard a car start
and drive off. Other law enforcement arrived moments later. They
found Keenchin lying in the middle of the street and
English in the grass next to the mast. The morning
after the shootout at the hospital, Brett Zimbrick the detective,
(16:07):
he had a photo lineup of six men, one of
them a man Jamial. He wanted to see if English
could id the man he said he looked in the
eye the man who shot him in Keinchin. According to
his report, Brett didn't ask English if he'd seen anyone
else with a gun before Brett showed English the lineup.
He wanted to make sure that English would make a
(16:28):
choice based solely on his memory from that night, So
Brett asked English some questions.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
Had you seen TV? No, has anybody told you who
you were going after?
Speaker 7 (16:37):
No?
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Has anybody told you who shot you?
Speaker 7 (16:39):
No?
Speaker 5 (16:40):
Do you know who you were going after?
Speaker 3 (16:41):
And that, to me was important because if he would
have said that, then there would have been some question
on the lineup. He never mentioned it. He didn't have
any idea who this man was, so the lineup was
a pure lineup.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Brett concluded that English didn't know of a man Jamil
before that night, that he hadn't seen him on TV,
that he didn't remember h Rap Brown from some history
class that he didn't know about the rotten relationship between
Rapp and the police, so Brett showed him the lineup.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
He looks at the lineup and immediately goes to alamine
and says, that's the guy. I said, that's the guy.
What he says, that's the guy that shot me and
my partner.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Actually, he said, that's the motherfucker who shot me and
my partner. By that afternoon, Brett went to a judge
for warrance to arrest a Maam Jamil on charges of
aggravated assault for shooting Kensin and English, but he had
to go back later that day to get the warrant updated.
(17:42):
English survived, but Kenchin had died in the hospital. Now
Ma'am Jamil was wanted for murder. English's account is not
without detractors, and rightfully so. There are inconsistencies, some that
even suggest that a Maam Jamial wasn't the person who
shot the day, but law enforcement tends to trust an
(18:03):
injured officer their account can generate appointed and powerful energy
to catch the alleged criminal at almost any cost. For
most of the twenty years I've been a journalist, I've
covered the criminal court system in America. We have an
adversarial system prosecutors and police officers against alleged criminals and
(18:26):
their lawyers, And I'm starting to think that's at the
root of something I keep bumping into while reporting this story.
And us versus them, mentality, good guys versus bad guys,
even some cosmic battle between righteousness and evil are countless
TV crime dramas, only reinforced and heighten the stakes when
(18:47):
people enter this territory. In their thinking, something is lost
about how they see the human beings on the other side.
Something beautiful that I believe, which is that nearly all
of us have a heroic impulse to do what we
think is good. Sure some people are thwarted and get
it really really twisted.
Speaker 5 (19:04):
Still we all have it.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
But law enforcement, I wonder how much they see that.
What I most often heard from them and working on
the story was some version of the good versus evil philosophy.
Maybe if your whole job is looking for people you're
told or bad guys, you're going to believe they're inherently bad.
Some people definitely do awful things to others, don't get
me wrong, but losing sight of human goodness, staying entrenched
(19:31):
in that adversarial system. It limits any chance of finding
common cause justice and that deeper sense the US versus
them mentality. It fosters camaraderie and loyalty.
Speaker 5 (19:48):
On each side.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
In the hours after the shootout in the West End,
Brett Zimbrick was feeling some of the pressure that comes
with that pressure to look out for his fellow cops.
It took Brett less than twenty four hours to get
an arrest warrant for a Ma'am Jamil for shooting the
two deputies.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Some investigations, you know, bad guys there on the scene
gets taken into custody. Others, you know, it takes days, weeks, months,
sometimes years for it to be law enforcement that was shot.
It was probably pretty important for morale and confidence in
(20:27):
the police department that we got warrants quick. I'm sure
cops appreciate the fact that we work quick and efficiently
and diligently to get the bad guys off the street.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
So it wasn't just law enforcement in Atlanta that was
paying special attention to the case. It would have been
law enforcement around the country at all levels. That's because
a Ma'am Jamil had a reputation with law enforcement that
began to develop when he was still a trap Brown.
I want to go back to a story about how
that reputation crystallized, how cops came to view him something
(21:01):
like an enemy. It helps explain some of the ways
law enforcement acted in the days after the shootout as
they chased down a man Jamil. In nineteen seventy one,
during a period when Rap was in hiding in on
the FBI's most wanted list, he and three other men,
also Black Power activists, carried gans into a club in Manhattan.
(21:23):
Most if not all, the customers at the bar were black.
The four men held them up, hit them for cash
and jewelry. When police arrived, Rap fled and the chase
led police to the roof of a nearby apartment building.
An officer shot and wounded Rap and carried him bleeding
down thirteen flights of stairs to the street, not knowing
who he was. There was gambling happening at the club,
(21:48):
and at the trial, Rap's defense tried to introduce evidence
that the police were on the take and covering up
a legal activity. It was never proven, but stealing from
a corrupt syndicate might have been motive for Rap and
the other men. The whole episode, including a blow by
blow account of the chase and the shooting, was chronicled
in a New York magazine story written by a retired
(22:10):
police commissioner. It celebrated the officer who shot Rap is
a hero. Decades later, in two thousand, bred Zimberg got
a call from that same officer.
Speaker 5 (22:25):
What did he say?
Speaker 3 (22:26):
He was just checking on the officers. He was just like, hey, man,
I'm the one that you know was involved in that shootout,
shot him, arrested him. He said he was, you know,
you know, the old cop thing. He tried to be
a badass. You know, like if I'd have known then
what I know now, I'd have shot him more or something,
you know whatever, something like that.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
That New York cop and maybe others in law enforcement,
they seem to think Rap was a violent criminal out
to get them.
Speaker 5 (22:53):
Specifically, I'd have shot him more, the officer told Brett.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
A homicide. To prevent a homicide, a bad guy dies,
so a good guy lives. It's a pernicious way of
thinking that can spin out of control. It does remind
me of how one of a man Jamil supporters, Belal
Sunni Ali said the deputy killed in the West End
deserved what he got coming into their neighborhood like that
saw him as a cop and nothing more. To me,
(23:20):
it's the same kind of essentialism. Deputy English didn't want
to be interviewed for this story. A friend of his
passed on the message to me that English has moved
on and also that he forgave that guy a long
time ago, referring to a man Jamil. We wrote to
Kinchin's family, but we couldn't reach them. Still, I want
(23:42):
to take a moment to acknowledge a life that was lost.
We were able to talk to a union leader for
the Fulton County Sheriff's Office who worked with Kenchin in
the county jail. He said that Kenchin was a jokester,
that he could burn you and you until you wanted
to punch him, and then he would back off and
(24:03):
have everyone laughing, including you the target of the jokes.
The killing of Keensin it had ripple effects. He had
a wife and two daughters. We know from court documents
that he left his family angry and depressed. I can
only hope that they are finding peace. So back to
(24:27):
the aftermath of the shooting in the west End. Brett
had gotten the warrants for Ma'am Jamil's arrest. His job
was mostly done, but Ma'am Jamil was still missing. Enter
James Ergus, a US Marshal at the time. James had
made a life's work of being a good guy chasing
bad guys. Before James joined the Marshals, he was in
(24:47):
the US Special Forces, deployed in the Middle East and Somalia,
jumping out of planes and flying in a dangerous places
and helicopters, that kind of thing.
Speaker 7 (24:56):
I really joined the military because I just thought I
didn't know whether I was a coward or not. And
all I can tell you to this day is not yet.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
James said, he's good with a rifle. He's short and muscled,
built like a running back, like someone who was good
at chasing people. And that's what he did when he
joined the Marshals. A big part of their job is
arresting fugitives. It makes James tierry to think about it.
Speaker 7 (25:22):
The Marshal Service and the guys and gals that work
with the Marshal Service have the single best job that
you can have in enforcement. They get to go hunt
people that harm their community. They get to go give
(25:43):
that person to someone else, and then they get to
hunt another person that harms someone in their community, and
it's all good work. You can't want to do something
more than stop people from hurting people, and you get
to be in a position to do that. That's the
best thing ever.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
It is this idea of hunting people. I'm troubled by it.
I have to say, I'm a writer. Words matter to me.
I'm going to assume that James isn't out there looking
for a kill. But for me, a hunt is something
that ends in a loss of life, So I'm not
going to use that word anyway.
Speaker 5 (26:19):
That's James.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
After the shooting in the West End, he got an
early morning call there was going to be a meeting
of federal, state, and local law enforcement. James said that
since he knew it was about two deputies who were shot,
two people working in law enforcement, he would have tried
to get into that meeting even if he wasn't invited.
He just wanted to be involved.
Speaker 7 (26:40):
Every agency and representatives from every single agency in Metro
Atlanta or at the meeting. Everything was really a blur.
All this information was coming in. Everybodys trying to figure
it out. And they pretty much called out Alaman as
being the target. Investigation right away.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
James and the Marshall's got a manage meals records and
the phone records of some people close to him. Then
he worked the phones himself. He called colleagues to access databases,
and he fielded calls from other law enforcement.
Speaker 7 (27:11):
We would burn through phone batteries, like we all had
multiple cell phones, and we had them because you'd be
on one so much that the battery would die on
it and you'd have to charge it and couldn't stay
You'd be talking on it and it's plugged in and
it wouldn't stay charged.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
On March seventeenth, less than twenty four hours after the shootout,
an alert went out to law enforcement around the country.
It said be on the lookout for Jamil Abdullah el Amine.
Other notices warned he was armed and dangerous. News outlets
were reporting he was a suspect in the shooting, a
man Jamil must have known he was being pursued. I
(27:47):
don't know much about what AmAm Jamil was doing, but
the FBI listened in on calls from at least to
one of his phones, and we were able to get
some recordings. Yeah, the calls were very short and they're vague.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
I mean that that leads to the huhl, that leads
to the back back.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Then it's hard to understand what's going on, but everyone
on the phone seemed tense.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
Picked the other brother up first, and then make sure
man better, make sure ain't.
Speaker 6 (28:18):
Nobody behind him?
Speaker 4 (28:19):
Okay.
Speaker 7 (28:20):
So like what time you come uh bottom of awl?
Speaker 4 (28:24):
Yeah, picked the.
Speaker 7 (28:25):
Other brother and makes you ain't no better behind you man, Okay.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
I wonder if ma'am Jamil felt like he was really
going to get away, like there were enough people out
there on his side to spirit him to safety. I
don't know exactly how the FEDS eventually figured out the
general area where he was. My best theory is that
it was a combination of human informants and surveillance of
his phone. They zeroed in on a rural area in
Alabama where ma'am Jamil had helped set up a mass
(28:53):
j it. It was the same place that in the
sixties a man Jamil rap at the time helped inspire
people to stand up to the white establishment. In the
local sheriff James and the Marshalls, and dozens of FBI agents.
They were going to get a ma'am genial in the
black belt in Lowndes County. So in March two thousand,
(29:25):
just a few days after the shootout, a bunch of
men with guns descended on the flatlands and pine forests
of Lowndes County, Alabama. The officers had explicit orders from
the government find Jamil Alamine within Lowndes County. James, Ergus,
the US Marshall, and the other federal agents. They were
(29:45):
focused on the tiny city of Whitehall, population just a
few thousand. It was where Ma'am Jamil was hoping to
grow and lead another Muslim community. Back in the sixties,
Whitehall had been a center of Snick's voter registration campaigns
in Lowndes County, but black people never took over the
reins of power there. It led a local activist to
incorporate Whitehall. If they couldn't control the county, at least
(30:07):
black people could control their own city. It was community
self determination and black power and practice not unlike a
Ma'am Jamial's West End. To help them find a Mam Jmial,
James and his Marshall colleagues were using a surveillance technology
called a cell site simulator. The Marshals and FBI they
(30:30):
had a mam Jamal's number. If he turned on his phone,
the cell site simulator could give them a general sense
of where he was, but when he made a call,
they could get a more precise location based on the
strength of the signal and which direction it was coming from.
James and most of the FEDS were stationed outside of Whitehall,
so when a mam jamial made a call, they would
rush toward the signal, but when he hung up, the
(30:52):
signal would drop out and they'd have to start over.
Speaker 7 (30:59):
So we would get over there, and by the time
that you'd get over there, the hit wouldn't be there
and you couldn't figure out exactly where it was. So
we would drive back, and I think that day it happened
a couple of times and we all looked at each
other and we're We're like, we're not doing that anymore.
We can't.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
We can't be here with all the agents and vehicles around.
James figured a mam jamil must have known the Feds
were there, and the more time passed, the more likely
it was that someone would come pick him up and
take him across the country or out of the country,
so James and his two Marshall colleagues drove to Whitehall.
They backed their black Chevy Tahoe into the edge of
(31:38):
a thicket and waited. Late in the day on March twentieth,
they picked up another call from a.
Speaker 5 (31:45):
Man Jamial's phone.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
It was a strong, clear signal and it showed that
the phone was close.
Speaker 5 (31:54):
The Marshals drove out of the woods.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
They radioed the FBI to let them know what was happening.
Speaker 7 (31:59):
They were like, can you It was like we could
lose a signal again, and we lose a signal again.
We're right back where we were before. We don't know
if he's not moving, We don't know, you know what
I mean, We don't know.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
After the Marshalls drove onto the road, they realized they
were headed in the wrong direction and they made a
U turn. A mam Demial was still on the phone
and the signal kept getting stronger, and all of.
Speaker 7 (32:17):
Sudden we see him and we all see him at
the same time. He's standing right at the edge of
a little shed at the edge of the woodline.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
James remembers seeing a Mam Demial out of the right
side of the suv standing next to a ship, which
was near a small, one story white house. A little
further back was a wooded area. James said, a mam
Jamial was wearing a hat, probably a Koofi, and a
light colored thoat.
Speaker 7 (32:42):
So we drove right toward the shed and that's exactly
where it was, and he he looked exactly like every
picture that you'd ever seen him. I mean, there was
instantaneous recognition, and that I can't say that that's always
the case.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
As they pulled up, a man Demial began to head
towards the woods nearby. The marshals guy out of the
suv yelled, they wear police, and almost immediately James said
he heard about three to five gunshots from a rifle.
He and the other marshals found cover and they watched
a man Jamil disappear.
Speaker 5 (33:15):
Into the woods.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
People living in Whitehall witness this confrontation. One of them
said he saw the fed shooting. When my colleague, producer
Johnny Kaufman, contacted him, he confirmed his account but never
agreed to a recorded interview. James is clear that a
man Jamil shot at him and the other marshals. Three
shellcasings were found at the scene and linked to a
(33:38):
man Jamial. But at this point I've accepted that I'll
never know for sure what happened during this confrontation. Anyway,
after the gunfire and after a mam Jamial went into
the woods, James and the Marshals stopped their pursuit. They
didn't follow him. The FBI agent had already arrived at
the scene, many more would be there soon, and they
(34:00):
began to surround the woods. They called in a dog
tracking team that was based about an hour away at
an Alabama state prison.
Speaker 7 (34:08):
We knew he was in the woods. We knew he
didn't have anybody else with him. He doesn't have a car.
There's nowhere for him to go. We've got the area contained. Basically,
we don't want to run in there after him, because
you're going to mess up the track for the dog.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
The FBI searched the shed in the White House next
to it, the small Muslim community in Whitehall that a
mam Jamil had established. At some point, they had been
using the house as a mass hit. Inside, the FBI
found water jugs, a pizza hut box, toilet paper, and
a mattress. It seemed like a mam Jamial had been
hiding out there. I'm often wondering what a Mam Demial
(34:45):
must have been thinking at different moments like this one,
when he was on the run in Whitehall and now
in the woods, surrounded by the Feds. He must have
been scared. But what's scared a most being killed, being
locked up and sort of losing to law enforcement. I
don't know. And I also don't know if he expected
(35:06):
someone to come pick him up on the edge of
the woods. James was worried about that and the possibility
that he might have to track down a Maneamial somewhere else.
Speaker 7 (35:16):
The guys are going to the woods if they can
get away from law enforcement, they'll call somebody and they'll
have them come pick them up. The run out the woods,
jumping the car and they'll drive off.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
It was dark out when the dog team arrived, two
handlers and their beagles. A few hours had passed since
James first spotted a man Jamial. The most detailed acount
of what happened in the woods probably comes from a
document we have. It's an affidavit signed by Ron Campbell,
an FBI agent based in Atlanta. Campbell and two other
agents went into the woods with a dog team to
(35:47):
protect them. Overhead was a helicopter with the big.
Speaker 5 (35:51):
Light on the bottom.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
The men went from the woods across the road and
into a waste deep swamp. Campbell fell and he got
separated from the dogs and the other agents. It was
a black deputy with the Loundes County Sheriff's Office who
ultimately spotted a Maam Jamial. He was from the same
office that h. Rapp Brown and his fellow snake activists
had been so focused on back in the sixties. The
(36:14):
deputy saw him walking across the road back near the
city of Whitehall. He pulled his gun out and told
a Mam Jmial to lay on the ground, and he did.
Most of the other agents showed up and surrounded a
Mam Jmial. He was on the ground, handcuffed. James Ergas said,
he looked tired and worn out.
Speaker 7 (36:35):
He was very quiet at least when I got to him,
and I probably got it to him within a I
would say, within a minute or two of him coming
out of the woods. He wasn't combato or anything.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Then two things happen within minutes that have inspired claims
that a Maam Jamial was framed. They're part of the
reason I decided to look into the case. First, a
medic checked a Mam Demial for injuries. Remember that Deputy
English said he shot his assailant in the West End. Well,
the medic didn't find any wounds on a Mam Jamial,
(37:08):
he hadn't been shot, and moments later, as a Mam
Jamil was still on the ground defenseless, Campbell, the FBI
agent who fell behind, he showed up. He kicked a
Ma'am Jamil and said this is what we do to
cop killers. Then Campbell spit at him and cursed him out.
(37:30):
Campbell had a history. Earlier in his career, he shot
an African American Muslim in the back of the head
and killed him. It was a man law enforcement had
been after for assaulting two officers. Campbell's story was that
he fired because the man had a gun, and a
gun was recovered after the shooting, but it didn't have
any fingerprints on it, and witnesses.
Speaker 5 (37:52):
Alleged it had been placed.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
An internal investigation cleared Campbell and he was never charged
for anything related to the incident. The same night of
Ma'am Jamil was arrested after Campbell had kicked him. One
of the dog handlers found the pistol along Campbell's path
through the woods, and the next day law enforcement found
a semi automatic rifle. Both weapons were linked to the
(38:15):
shootout in the West End, but as far as I
can tell, there were no fingerprints on either of them.
We contacted both dog handlers and Campbell, but they didn't
agree to interviews. For Defenders of a Man Jamil, it
was easy to imagine all kinds of devious scenarios about
what Campbell might have done in those moments he was
alone in the woods, especially because the FBI had targeted
(38:40):
rap at least once before.
Speaker 7 (38:42):
The bomb was so bad that it totally eviscerated the car,
and most people argue that and Brown was the target.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Why wouldn't people imagine they'd do it again that In
the next episode of Radical. Radical is a production of
(39:19):
Campside Media, Tenderfoot TV, and iHeart Podcasts. Radical was reported
and written by Johnny Kaufman and me Mossey's Secret Johnny
Coaufman is our senior producer.
Speaker 5 (39:30):
Sheba Joseph is our associate producer.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
Editing by Eric Benson, Johnny Coffin, Emily Martinez.
Speaker 5 (39:36):
And Matt Cher.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
Fact checking by Sophie Hurwitz, Kaylin Lynch and Layla Dos.
Original music by Kyle Murdoch and by Ray Murray of
Organized Noise. Sound design and mixing by Kevin Seaman. Recording
by Ewan Leed trem Ewen.
Speaker 5 (39:51):
And Sheba Joseph.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Campside Media's operations team is Doug Slaywan, Ashley Warren, Eliah Papes,
Destiny Dingle, and Sabina Mera.
Speaker 5 (40:02):
The executive producers at.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Campside Media are Josh Dean, Vanessa, Gregoriatis, Adam Hoff, and
Matt Cheer. For Tenderfoot TV, executive producers are Donald Albright
and Payne Lindsay. The executive producers at iHeart Podcasts are
Matt Frederick and Alex Williams, with additional support from Trevor Young,
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely
those of the podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast,
and do not represent those of iHeartRadio or their employees.
This podcast also contains subject matter which may not be
suitable for everyone.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Listening to. Discretion is advised. Radical is released every Tuesday
and brought to you absolutely free, but if you want
ad free listening and early access to next week's episode,
subscribe to tenderfoot Plus. For more information, check out tenderfootplus
dot com. Enjoy the episode Gamsite Media. On the night
(00:47):
of the shooting in the West End March sixteenth, two thousand,
Atlanta Police detective Brett Zimbrick was working in his cubicle.
It was a Thursday, and Brett's shift ran from three
pm to eleven pm.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Thursday nights were Fridays for most of us. We had
either Friday and Saturday off or at Sunday and Monday off,
So Thursday night was a Friday night for me.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
So that you're kind of like winding down, getting ready
for the weekend, right.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
And a weekly tradition is to go to the local
drinking establishment and all the cops that are off on
Friday would show up and you know, have a beer
or two and start the weekend that way.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Brett was about to head out and get a beer
with his buddies when one of the Fulton County Sheriff's
deputies on duty in the West End, Algernon English, made
a distress call on his radio. He and his partner
and Rickie Kinchin were taking fire and Kenchin was down.
(02:03):
English said he and Kinchin were at an address on
Oak Street. Brett grabbed his keys and rushed toward the
West End because it was a cop who had been shot.
He told me everyone was responding, bolting from their desks
for their cars. Brent knew that when he arrived he
would be in charge of the crime scene. On the
drive across the city, he was listening to his police radio.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
It's chaotic.
Speaker 5 (02:27):
It's a zoo for real.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
I mean, you have no idea that they had no
idea where the shooter was, or if it was somebody
that was getting high ground on them or whatever. But
their priority at that point was to get medical assistance
to the officers that were down.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
And having worked so many homicides by that point, is
this a heightened level of emotion and chaos.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Because it's an officer who was involved, right, Because back
in two thousand, unlike today, you know, it was a
big deal to shoot the cops. Now not so much,
but back then it was a big deal. If the
cops were shot, then this was somebody that was really
desperate or you know, angry, whatever, but there was, you know,
(03:12):
some passion behind the event of shooting law enforcement.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
It's still a big deal to shoot a police officer.
But I think I get what Brett is saying. The
uprisings of the past few years have brought the police
as an institution. The police has this unimpeachable arm of
law and order down to a much more human size.
Respect for the position isn't what it used to be,
and that has to sting. By the time Brett arrived
(03:40):
at the scene in the West End, the two deputies
who were shot, English and Kenchin, they were already in
ambulances on their way to the hospital.
Speaker 5 (03:55):
Brett was a methodical.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Cop, not the running gun type, the trim white guy
in his late thirties who prided himself on being smarter
than the next guy. His eyes were immediately drawn to
all the evidence the police would need to collect and organize.
Cops fanned out in the neighborhood to canvas for even
more evidence and knock on doors asking if anyone had
seen or.
Speaker 5 (04:15):
Heard what happened.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
But most of the Muslims who lived nearby, the members
of the mass died, they weren't talking.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
There wasn't a whole lot of onlookers for this event,
which was rare.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
Did the lack of onlookers mean anything to.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
You, Well, it wasn't a shock. I don't think it
was the West End. It was the corner store there
at West End Place. So it was one of those
neighborhoods where there wasn't a whole lot of late night
you know, shenanigans.
Speaker 5 (04:48):
I see.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
So it's kind of representative of the folks there are
not really out in the street at.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
That hour, right, Yeah, the West End is kind of
you know, controlled, Right, It was a different neighborhood, right.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Brett focused on the physical evidence at the scene, dozens
of shell casings and bullets lit up by the street
lights and lying in the grass. There was a small
stack of paper, four pages or so stapled together. Only
the top sheet was initially visible white paper with black
type and an image of a sheriff's batch. The page
(05:24):
was covered with splotches of blood, and there was a
bullet hole right through the center. It was a warrant,
please arrest this subject. The first paragraph said the deputies
had been out looking for someone. There is perhaps no
greater emblem of the promise of the American criminal legal
(05:46):
system than the warrant. A document that grants officers of
the law the power to jail people, to search them,
to take their property after a judge approves. That's the
bedrock of our legal system. What our constitution and court's
promise police power with constraint, with judicial oversight and the
interest of public safety. Cops aren't supposed to just break
(06:08):
down doors, or search cars, or detain people whenever they please.
This is an idea that goes back to the Bill
of Rights. It's also an idea that hasn't worked in
everyone's favor. And that night in the West End, someone
deemed it all worthy of destruction. Maybe they thought they
(06:28):
were exempt, or that police and the legal system were
only out to get them. In any case, they shot
it all up. All of the criminal procedure wrapped up
in that document, bloodied it. If this were a piece
of fiction. Maybe you'd find the symbolism too heavy handed,
too literal, maybe even melodramatic, like something out of an
old Western. A warrant shot through the center, along with
(06:51):
the deputies who carried it. But this is in fact
what happened. Someone shot up the system and then got
the hell out of dodge. Printed on that bloody to
rest warrant was the name Jamil Abdellah Alamin. The warrant
(07:12):
was for man Jamil. There was a physical description black
mail six feet five inches tall, one hundred and eighty
seven pounds, with gray eyes and brown hair, and a
note of caution the subject could be armed. From Campside Media,
Tenderfoot TV, and iHeart podcasts, This is Radical, I'm Mosty's Secret,
(07:46):
episode two, Heroes and Villains. About a year before the shootout,
(08:10):
AmAm Jamil was driving a green Ford Explorer in Cobb County,
a suburban county just north of Atlanta. The suv had
a dealer license played on it, and a local police
officer spotted the vehicle, turned on his patrol lights and
pulled a Mamjamil over. The officer said in court that
when he asked for license and registration, a Maam Jamil's
(08:33):
hands were shaking. The paperwork didn't check out. The explorer
had been reported stolen, so the officer took him to jail,
where he stayed a few hours until he posted bond.
I should note here that years later the traffic stop
was ruled unconstitutional. There was no probable cause for the stop,
and a Mam Demial was never convicted of anything related
(08:54):
to it.
Speaker 5 (08:57):
Anyway.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
In January of two thousand, he had a court dat
in the case, but there was an ice storm and
the judge delayed the proceedings by two hours. A Mam
Jamial never showed up, and the judge issued a warrant
for his arrest. That was the warrant that the deputies
had with them on the night of the shootout. It
was why they were in the West End. When Atlanta
(09:19):
Police Detective Brett Ziembrick saw that warrant, now bloodied and
with a boat hole in it, he logically concluded that
a Ma'am Jamil was his main suspect. After Brett got
up the next morning, he learned that Deputy Algernon English
was awake and ready to talk. English and Deputy Ricky
Kinchin had both been through surgery. Kenchin was hit at
(09:41):
least six times, English at least three times. Brett went
to English's room at the hospital to interview him.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
He's remarkably alert.
Speaker 5 (09:53):
I was shocked that he was.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
I mean, not upbeat, but his attitude was, you know,
me and my partner got shot. We got to get
the bad guy. I need to tell you my side
of the story. You know, he wasn't like TV guy
and lighten in the hospital with you know, hoses coming
out of his nose and mouth and all that stuff.
He was, you know, surprisingly alert and upbeat for what
(10:20):
had happened to him.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Zimbert began to interview English on March sixteenth, two thousand.
English's workday began at around two thirty in the afternoon.
He went to the Sheriff's office in downtown Atlanta for
a roll call, where he was assigned to ride with
Deputy Kenchin. They were given fifteen warrants to execute for
their shift that ended at midnight, and they'd consider themselves
(10:42):
lucky if they were able to find even one person
and arrest them. That was the nature of the work.
Kenchin and English had worked together before. They made something
of a balanced pair Kenchin, a thirty five year old
black deputy with a thin mustache who was known for
his charm. He was the more senior of the two
had worked in the department for at least seven years. English,
(11:05):
who was also black, had been there for just three
years before that, he was in the Marine Corps. After
Kinchin and English had been out for about three hours,
they ate dinner at a wingspot in Atlanta called JR.
Speaker 5 (11:16):
Crickets.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
After the meal, Kinchin called his wife to check in
and the two deputies drove their marked carr a Crown
Victoria to the West End.
Speaker 6 (11:26):
So he had them eating lunch. We approached the location
from Oak Street.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
This is a recording of English while he was still
in the hospital. English said that he and Kenchin pulled
up in front of the address that was on the warrant,
the corner store in the West End run by a
man Jamil.
Speaker 6 (11:45):
We noticed that there was no life running in the store.
In the back on the deck, there was no life
indicating someone was there.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
English and Kensin drove off. Kenchin was behind the wheel,
and then in the rear view mirror he saw black
Mercedes pull up next to the store. A man stepped
out of the vehicle and onto the sidewalk. He was
wearing a trench coat and a skull cap of some kind,
and he looked like he was taller than six feet,
which fit the description.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
On the warrant.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Kenchin turned their car around and drove back. The deputies
pulled up in front of the other car, so the
Sheriff's crowned Vic and the Mercedes were facing each other,
their headlights on. English told Kenchin, Okay.
Speaker 5 (12:28):
We're going to count to three.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
They opened their doors and got out, and I.
Speaker 6 (12:33):
Needed to notice the gentlemen. I couldn't see his right hand,
so I said, sir, I need to see.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Your right hand, Kenchin. At the driver's side of the
crown Vic. He was sort of diagonal to the man,
but English was facing him straight on.
Speaker 6 (12:51):
My mom always told me look a man in his eye,
always looking man.
Speaker 5 (12:55):
Is so.
Speaker 6 (13:00):
Because I was looking at him in his eyes and
I remember him gray eyes, so I couldn't man, I
remember that face, that face, that cold face, so I
couldn't forget that. That's when he frowned at me and
he noted me with yeah him all and me aggressive
metal like yeah, and introduced the black O fault rifle
(13:22):
and start firing at me.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
The first round hit English in the hip nearest holster.
It's stung and burned.
Speaker 6 (13:29):
I realized, Oh, this is this real life. It's not
really a dream.
Speaker 7 (13:35):
It's happened.
Speaker 6 (13:35):
It was happening so fast because he didn't give him
a chance of doing anything else.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
At some point, the pepper spray cannisterer on English's hip
had been hit and the chemical was in his eyes.
He drew his pistol, a forty caliber glock, and fired back.
Speaker 5 (13:51):
He said he hit the man.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
In these moments, the way English tells it, the situation
brought him right back to was training in the Marine Corps.
He he determined he was facing a terrorist attack because
terrorists are trained to kill, and they know that cops
wear bulletproof vests, so they shoot at the waist and
the hips of their targets. English also figured it was
(14:14):
an ambush and he was outgunned, facing a rifle with
a pistol. He was inside what he was trained to
call the kill zone. The only way to survive was
to get out of there, and to do that he
had to run through it. So he dashed between the
cars and I.
Speaker 6 (14:31):
Was running and I was screaming and yelling and firing
back at him and trying to get out of the
kill zone.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
He ended up across the street, lying in the grass
next to the mast shit. He could feel that he'd
been shot in the arm too.
Speaker 5 (14:47):
English called out for Kenchin.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Then he heard more assault rifle fire and shots from
a smaller gun. When it stopped, English thought the man
was walking towards him, coming over to finish him off.
Speaker 6 (15:00):
I was screaming, yelling, please don't shoot me, no more.
Don't shoot me no more, don't shoot me no more.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
But there was no more gunfire. English was lying in
the grass, curled in the fetal position. He couldn't feel
his legs. His radio mic was still attached to his
shoulder and he turned his head to speak into it.
Speaker 6 (15:22):
It was like America just came over. He just came
to the fence, and I said, my God said talking tall,
just talk to everybody. Can let the whole one know
what's going on.
Speaker 5 (15:39):
So I just I.
Speaker 6 (15:40):
Just pressed the mic and just start talking and give
him the rest.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
The location where we were, English heard a car start
and drive off. Other law enforcement arrived moments later. They
found Keenchin lying in the middle of the street and
English in the grass next to the mast. The morning
after the shootout at the hospital, Brett Zimbrick the detective,
(16:07):
he had a photo lineup of six men, one of
them a man Jamial. He wanted to see if English
could id the man he said he looked in the
eye the man who shot him in Keinchin. According to
his report, Brett didn't ask English if he'd seen anyone
else with a gun before Brett showed English the lineup.
He wanted to make sure that English would make a
(16:28):
choice based solely on his memory from that night, So
Brett asked English some questions.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
Had you seen TV? No, has anybody told you who
you were going after?
Speaker 7 (16:37):
No?
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Has anybody told you who shot you?
Speaker 7 (16:39):
No?
Speaker 5 (16:40):
Do you know who you were going after?
Speaker 3 (16:41):
And that, to me was important because if he would
have said that, then there would have been some question
on the lineup. He never mentioned it. He didn't have
any idea who this man was, so the lineup was
a pure lineup.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Brett concluded that English didn't know of a man Jamil
before that night, that he hadn't seen him on TV,
that he didn't remember h Rap Brown from some history
class that he didn't know about the rotten relationship between
Rapp and the police, so Brett showed him the lineup.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
He looks at the lineup and immediately goes to alamine
and says, that's the guy. I said, that's the guy.
What he says, that's the guy that shot me and
my partner.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Actually, he said, that's the motherfucker who shot me and
my partner. By that afternoon, Brett went to a judge
for warrance to arrest a Maam Jamil on charges of
aggravated assault for shooting Kensin and English, but he had
to go back later that day to get the warrant updated.
(17:42):
English survived, but Kenchin had died in the hospital. Now
Ma'am Jamil was wanted for murder. English's account is not
without detractors, and rightfully so. There are inconsistencies, some that
even suggest that a Maam Jamial wasn't the person who
shot the day, but law enforcement tends to trust an
(18:03):
injured officer their account can generate appointed and powerful energy
to catch the alleged criminal at almost any cost. For
most of the twenty years I've been a journalist, I've
covered the criminal court system in America. We have an
adversarial system prosecutors and police officers against alleged criminals and
(18:26):
their lawyers, And I'm starting to think that's at the
root of something I keep bumping into while reporting this story.
And us versus them, mentality, good guys versus bad guys,
even some cosmic battle between righteousness and evil are countless
TV crime dramas, only reinforced and heighten the stakes when
(18:47):
people enter this territory. In their thinking, something is lost
about how they see the human beings on the other side.
Something beautiful that I believe, which is that nearly all
of us have a heroic impulse to do what we
think is good. Sure some people are thwarted and get
it really really twisted.
Speaker 5 (19:04):
Still we all have it.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
But law enforcement, I wonder how much they see that.
What I most often heard from them and working on
the story was some version of the good versus evil philosophy.
Maybe if your whole job is looking for people you're
told or bad guys, you're going to believe they're inherently bad.
Some people definitely do awful things to others, don't get
me wrong, but losing sight of human goodness, staying entrenched
(19:31):
in that adversarial system. It limits any chance of finding
common cause justice and that deeper sense the US versus
them mentality. It fosters camaraderie and loyalty.
Speaker 5 (19:48):
On each side.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
In the hours after the shootout in the West End,
Brett Zimbrick was feeling some of the pressure that comes
with that pressure to look out for his fellow cops.
It took Brett less than twenty four hours to get
an arrest warrant for a Ma'am Jamil for shooting the
two deputies.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Some investigations, you know, bad guys there on the scene
gets taken into custody. Others, you know, it takes days, weeks, months,
sometimes years for it to be law enforcement that was shot.
It was probably pretty important for morale and confidence in
(20:27):
the police department that we got warrants quick. I'm sure
cops appreciate the fact that we work quick and efficiently
and diligently to get the bad guys off the street.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
So it wasn't just law enforcement in Atlanta that was
paying special attention to the case. It would have been
law enforcement around the country at all levels. That's because
a Ma'am Jamil had a reputation with law enforcement that
began to develop when he was still a trap Brown.
I want to go back to a story about how
that reputation crystallized, how cops came to view him something
(21:01):
like an enemy. It helps explain some of the ways
law enforcement acted in the days after the shootout as
they chased down a man Jamil. In nineteen seventy one,
during a period when Rap was in hiding in on
the FBI's most wanted list, he and three other men,
also Black Power activists, carried gans into a club in Manhattan.
(21:23):
Most if not all, the customers at the bar were black.
The four men held them up, hit them for cash
and jewelry. When police arrived, Rap fled and the chase
led police to the roof of a nearby apartment building.
An officer shot and wounded Rap and carried him bleeding
down thirteen flights of stairs to the street, not knowing
who he was. There was gambling happening at the club,
(21:48):
and at the trial, Rap's defense tried to introduce evidence
that the police were on the take and covering up
a legal activity. It was never proven, but stealing from
a corrupt syndicate might have been motive for Rap and
the other men. The whole episode, including a blow by
blow account of the chase and the shooting, was chronicled
in a New York magazine story written by a retired
(22:10):
police commissioner. It celebrated the officer who shot Rap is
a hero. Decades later, in two thousand, bred Zimberg got
a call from that same officer.
Speaker 5 (22:25):
What did he say?
Speaker 3 (22:26):
He was just checking on the officers. He was just like, hey, man,
I'm the one that you know was involved in that shootout,
shot him, arrested him. He said he was, you know,
you know, the old cop thing. He tried to be
a badass. You know, like if I'd have known then
what I know now, I'd have shot him more or something,
you know whatever, something like that.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
That New York cop and maybe others in law enforcement,
they seem to think Rap was a violent criminal out
to get them.
Speaker 5 (22:53):
Specifically, I'd have shot him more, the officer told Brett.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
A homicide. To prevent a homicide, a bad guy dies,
so a good guy lives. It's a pernicious way of
thinking that can spin out of control. It does remind
me of how one of a man Jamil supporters, Belal
Sunni Ali said the deputy killed in the West End
deserved what he got coming into their neighborhood like that
saw him as a cop and nothing more. To me,
(23:20):
it's the same kind of essentialism. Deputy English didn't want
to be interviewed for this story. A friend of his
passed on the message to me that English has moved
on and also that he forgave that guy a long
time ago, referring to a man Jamil. We wrote to
Kinchin's family, but we couldn't reach them. Still, I want
(23:42):
to take a moment to acknowledge a life that was lost.
We were able to talk to a union leader for
the Fulton County Sheriff's Office who worked with Kenchin in
the county jail. He said that Kenchin was a jokester,
that he could burn you and you until you wanted
to punch him, and then he would back off and
(24:03):
have everyone laughing, including you the target of the jokes.
The killing of Keensin it had ripple effects. He had
a wife and two daughters. We know from court documents
that he left his family angry and depressed. I can
only hope that they are finding peace. So back to
(24:27):
the aftermath of the shooting in the west End. Brett
had gotten the warrants for Ma'am Jamil's arrest. His job
was mostly done, but Ma'am Jamil was still missing. Enter
James Ergus, a US Marshal at the time. James had
made a life's work of being a good guy chasing
bad guys. Before James joined the Marshals, he was in
(24:47):
the US Special Forces, deployed in the Middle East and Somalia,
jumping out of planes and flying in a dangerous places
and helicopters, that kind of thing.
Speaker 7 (24:56):
I really joined the military because I just thought I
didn't know whether I was a coward or not. And
all I can tell you to this day is not yet.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
James said, he's good with a rifle. He's short and muscled,
built like a running back, like someone who was good
at chasing people. And that's what he did when he
joined the Marshals. A big part of their job is
arresting fugitives. It makes James tierry to think about it.
Speaker 7 (25:22):
The Marshal Service and the guys and gals that work
with the Marshal Service have the single best job that
you can have in enforcement. They get to go hunt
people that harm their community. They get to go give
(25:43):
that person to someone else, and then they get to
hunt another person that harms someone in their community, and
it's all good work. You can't want to do something
more than stop people from hurting people, and you get
to be in a position to do that. That's the
best thing ever.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
It is this idea of hunting people. I'm troubled by it.
I have to say, I'm a writer. Words matter to me.
I'm going to assume that James isn't out there looking
for a kill. But for me, a hunt is something
that ends in a loss of life, So I'm not
going to use that word anyway.
Speaker 5 (26:19):
That's James.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
After the shooting in the West End, he got an
early morning call there was going to be a meeting
of federal, state, and local law enforcement. James said that
since he knew it was about two deputies who were shot,
two people working in law enforcement, he would have tried
to get into that meeting even if he wasn't invited.
He just wanted to be involved.
Speaker 7 (26:40):
Every agency and representatives from every single agency in Metro
Atlanta or at the meeting. Everything was really a blur.
All this information was coming in. Everybodys trying to figure
it out. And they pretty much called out Alaman as
being the target. Investigation right away.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
James and the Marshall's got a manage meals records and
the phone records of some people close to him. Then
he worked the phones himself. He called colleagues to access databases,
and he fielded calls from other law enforcement.
Speaker 7 (27:11):
We would burn through phone batteries, like we all had
multiple cell phones, and we had them because you'd be
on one so much that the battery would die on
it and you'd have to charge it and couldn't stay
You'd be talking on it and it's plugged in and
it wouldn't stay charged.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
On March seventeenth, less than twenty four hours after the shootout,
an alert went out to law enforcement around the country.
It said be on the lookout for Jamil Abdullah el Amine.
Other notices warned he was armed and dangerous. News outlets
were reporting he was a suspect in the shooting, a
man Jamil must have known he was being pursued. I
(27:47):
don't know much about what AmAm Jamil was doing, but
the FBI listened in on calls from at least to
one of his phones, and we were able to get
some recordings. Yeah, the calls were very short and they're vague.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
I mean that that leads to the huhl, that leads
to the back back.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Then it's hard to understand what's going on, but everyone
on the phone seemed tense.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
Picked the other brother up first, and then make sure
man better, make sure ain't.
Speaker 6 (28:18):
Nobody behind him?
Speaker 4 (28:19):
Okay.
Speaker 7 (28:20):
So like what time you come uh bottom of awl?
Speaker 4 (28:24):
Yeah, picked the.
Speaker 7 (28:25):
Other brother and makes you ain't no better behind you man, Okay.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
I wonder if ma'am Jamil felt like he was really
going to get away, like there were enough people out
there on his side to spirit him to safety. I
don't know exactly how the FEDS eventually figured out the
general area where he was. My best theory is that
it was a combination of human informants and surveillance of
his phone. They zeroed in on a rural area in
Alabama where ma'am Jamil had helped set up a mass
(28:53):
j it. It was the same place that in the
sixties a man Jamil rap at the time helped inspire
people to stand up to the white establishment. In the
local sheriff James and the Marshalls, and dozens of FBI agents.
They were going to get a ma'am genial in the
black belt in Lowndes County. So in March two thousand,
(29:25):
just a few days after the shootout, a bunch of
men with guns descended on the flatlands and pine forests
of Lowndes County, Alabama. The officers had explicit orders from
the government find Jamil Alamine within Lowndes County. James, Ergus,
the US Marshall, and the other federal agents. They were
(29:45):
focused on the tiny city of Whitehall, population just a
few thousand. It was where Ma'am Jamil was hoping to
grow and lead another Muslim community. Back in the sixties,
Whitehall had been a center of Snick's voter registration campaigns
in Lowndes County, but black people never took over the
reins of power there. It led a local activist to
incorporate Whitehall. If they couldn't control the county, at least
(30:07):
black people could control their own city. It was community
self determination and black power and practice not unlike a
Ma'am Jamial's West End. To help them find a Mam Jmial,
James and his Marshall colleagues were using a surveillance technology
called a cell site simulator. The Marshals and FBI they
(30:30):
had a mam Jamal's number. If he turned on his phone,
the cell site simulator could give them a general sense
of where he was, but when he made a call,
they could get a more precise location based on the
strength of the signal and which direction it was coming from.
James and most of the FEDS were stationed outside of Whitehall,
so when a mam jamial made a call, they would
rush toward the signal, but when he hung up, the
(30:52):
signal would drop out and they'd have to start over.
Speaker 7 (30:59):
So we would get over there, and by the time
that you'd get over there, the hit wouldn't be there
and you couldn't figure out exactly where it was. So
we would drive back, and I think that day it happened
a couple of times and we all looked at each
other and we're We're like, we're not doing that anymore.
We can't.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
We can't be here with all the agents and vehicles around.
James figured a mam jamil must have known the Feds
were there, and the more time passed, the more likely
it was that someone would come pick him up and
take him across the country or out of the country,
so James and his two Marshall colleagues drove to Whitehall.
They backed their black Chevy Tahoe into the edge of
(31:38):
a thicket and waited. Late in the day on March twentieth,
they picked up another call from a.
Speaker 5 (31:45):
Man Jamial's phone.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
It was a strong, clear signal and it showed that
the phone was close.
Speaker 5 (31:54):
The Marshals drove out of the woods.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
They radioed the FBI to let them know what was happening.
Speaker 7 (31:59):
They were like, can you It was like we could
lose a signal again, and we lose a signal again.
We're right back where we were before. We don't know
if he's not moving, We don't know, you know what
I mean, We don't know.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
After the Marshalls drove onto the road, they realized they
were headed in the wrong direction and they made a
U turn. A mam Demial was still on the phone
and the signal kept getting stronger, and all of.
Speaker 7 (32:17):
Sudden we see him and we all see him at
the same time. He's standing right at the edge of
a little shed at the edge of the woodline.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
James remembers seeing a Mam Demial out of the right
side of the suv standing next to a ship, which
was near a small, one story white house. A little
further back was a wooded area. James said, a mam
Jamial was wearing a hat, probably a Koofi, and a
light colored thoat.
Speaker 7 (32:42):
So we drove right toward the shed and that's exactly
where it was, and he he looked exactly like every
picture that you'd ever seen him. I mean, there was
instantaneous recognition, and that I can't say that that's always
the case.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
As they pulled up, a man Demial began to head
towards the woods nearby. The marshals guy out of the
suv yelled, they wear police, and almost immediately James said
he heard about three to five gunshots from a rifle.
He and the other marshals found cover and they watched
a man Jamil disappear.
Speaker 5 (33:15):
Into the woods.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
People living in Whitehall witness this confrontation. One of them
said he saw the fed shooting. When my colleague, producer
Johnny Kaufman, contacted him, he confirmed his account but never
agreed to a recorded interview. James is clear that a
man Jamil shot at him and the other marshals. Three
shellcasings were found at the scene and linked to a
(33:38):
man Jamial. But at this point I've accepted that I'll
never know for sure what happened during this confrontation. Anyway,
after the gunfire and after a mam Jamial went into
the woods, James and the Marshals stopped their pursuit. They
didn't follow him. The FBI agent had already arrived at
the scene, many more would be there soon, and they
(34:00):
began to surround the woods. They called in a dog
tracking team that was based about an hour away at
an Alabama state prison.
Speaker 7 (34:08):
We knew he was in the woods. We knew he
didn't have anybody else with him. He doesn't have a car.
There's nowhere for him to go. We've got the area contained. Basically,
we don't want to run in there after him, because
you're going to mess up the track for the dog.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
The FBI searched the shed in the White House next
to it, the small Muslim community in Whitehall that a
mam Jamil had established. At some point, they had been
using the house as a mass hit. Inside, the FBI
found water jugs, a pizza hut box, toilet paper, and
a mattress. It seemed like a mam Jamial had been
hiding out there. I'm often wondering what a Mam Demial
(34:45):
must have been thinking at different moments like this one,
when he was on the run in Whitehall and now
in the woods, surrounded by the Feds. He must have
been scared. But what's scared a most being killed, being
locked up and sort of losing to law enforcement. I
don't know. And I also don't know if he expected
(35:06):
someone to come pick him up on the edge of
the woods. James was worried about that and the possibility
that he might have to track down a Maneamial somewhere else.
Speaker 7 (35:16):
The guys are going to the woods if they can
get away from law enforcement, they'll call somebody and they'll
have them come pick them up. The run out the woods,
jumping the car and they'll drive off.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
It was dark out when the dog team arrived, two
handlers and their beagles. A few hours had passed since
James first spotted a man Jamial. The most detailed acount
of what happened in the woods probably comes from a
document we have. It's an affidavit signed by Ron Campbell,
an FBI agent based in Atlanta. Campbell and two other
agents went into the woods with a dog team to
(35:47):
protect them. Overhead was a helicopter with the big.
Speaker 5 (35:51):
Light on the bottom.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
The men went from the woods across the road and
into a waste deep swamp. Campbell fell and he got
separated from the dogs and the other agents. It was
a black deputy with the Loundes County Sheriff's Office who
ultimately spotted a Maam Jamial. He was from the same
office that h. Rapp Brown and his fellow snake activists
had been so focused on back in the sixties. The
(36:14):
deputy saw him walking across the road back near the
city of Whitehall. He pulled his gun out and told
a Mam Jmial to lay on the ground, and he did.
Most of the other agents showed up and surrounded a
Mam Jmial. He was on the ground, handcuffed. James Ergas said,
he looked tired and worn out.
Speaker 7 (36:35):
He was very quiet at least when I got to him,
and I probably got it to him within a I
would say, within a minute or two of him coming
out of the woods. He wasn't combato or anything.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Then two things happen within minutes that have inspired claims
that a Maam Jamial was framed. They're part of the
reason I decided to look into the case. First, a
medic checked a Mam Demial for injuries. Remember that Deputy
English said he shot his assailant in the West End. Well,
the medic didn't find any wounds on a Mam Jamial,
(37:08):
he hadn't been shot, and moments later, as a Mam
Jamil was still on the ground defenseless, Campbell, the FBI
agent who fell behind, he showed up. He kicked a
Ma'am Jamil and said this is what we do to
cop killers. Then Campbell spit at him and cursed him out.
(37:30):
Campbell had a history. Earlier in his career, he shot
an African American Muslim in the back of the head
and killed him. It was a man law enforcement had
been after for assaulting two officers. Campbell's story was that
he fired because the man had a gun, and a
gun was recovered after the shooting, but it didn't have
any fingerprints on it, and witnesses.
Speaker 5 (37:52):
Alleged it had been placed.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
An internal investigation cleared Campbell and he was never charged
for anything related to the incident. The same night of
Ma'am Jamil was arrested after Campbell had kicked him. One
of the dog handlers found the pistol along Campbell's path
through the woods, and the next day law enforcement found
a semi automatic rifle. Both weapons were linked to the
(38:15):
shootout in the West End, but as far as I
can tell, there were no fingerprints on either of them.
We contacted both dog handlers and Campbell, but they didn't
agree to interviews. For Defenders of a Man Jamil, it
was easy to imagine all kinds of devious scenarios about
what Campbell might have done in those moments he was
alone in the woods, especially because the FBI had targeted
(38:40):
rap at least once before.
Speaker 7 (38:42):
The bomb was so bad that it totally eviscerated the car,
and most people argue that and Brown was the target.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Why wouldn't people imagine they'd do it again that In
the next episode of Radical. Radical is a production of
(39:19):
Campside Media, Tenderfoot TV, and iHeart Podcasts. Radical was reported
and written by Johnny Kaufman and me Mossey's Secret Johnny
Coaufman is our senior producer.
Speaker 5 (39:30):
Sheba Joseph is our associate producer.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
Editing by Eric Benson, Johnny Coffin, Emily Martinez.
Speaker 5 (39:36):
And Matt Cher.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
Fact checking by Sophie Hurwitz, Kaylin Lynch and Layla Dos.
Original music by Kyle Murdoch and by Ray Murray of
Organized Noise. Sound design and mixing by Kevin Seaman. Recording
by Ewan Leed trem Ewen.
Speaker 5 (39:51):
And Sheba Joseph.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Campside Media's operations team is Doug Slaywan, Ashley Warren, Eliah Papes,
Destiny Dingle, and Sabina Mera.
Speaker 5 (40:02):
The executive producers at.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Campside Media are Josh Dean, Vanessa, Gregoriatis, Adam Hoff, and
Matt Cheer. For Tenderfoot TV, executive producers are Donald Albright
and Payne Lindsay. The executive producers at iHeart Podcasts are
Matt Frederick and Alex Williams, with additional support from Trevor Young,
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