November 11, 2024 • 40 mins
A look at the small, violent revolutionary group called Tribal Thumb.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Rip Current is a production of iHeart Podcasts. The views
and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect thirds of the host,
producers or parent company. Listener discretion is it fines.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
This is a rip Current bonus episode.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
You don't need to listen to follow the rip Current storyline,
but it provides more information, context, and analysis to enhance
the main podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Enjoy.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
I want to start with a note about sources for
this bonus episode. Tribal Thumb was one of a number
of very small revolutionary groups in northern California in the
nineteen seventies. For the most part, they flew under the radar.
Because of this, there are not a lot of newspaper
or other media stories about Tribal Thumb or its leader,
(00:52):
Earl Satcher. There are some, though, chief among these is
a four part series.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Written by A.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
Mili Cabral and Bill Wallace.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
For the Berkeley Barb.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
I was unable to track down either of the authors.
In that series, they raised the suspicion that Earl Satcher,
either knowingly or unknowingly, was aiding in co intel prose
campaign to disrupt revolutionary groups across the US and the
radical movement in general. I'll talk about those suspicions when
they come.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Up in the story.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
One more note, I think, because some of these articles
were written well after the events they cover, there are
some contradictions and dates and even years in which things happened.
I've tried to work out the timeline from the totality
of the information available. Tribal Thumb was all but unknown
outside of revolutionary circles until they became the focus of
(01:46):
the investigation into the murder of Popeye Jackson. This incident
is covered in episodes nine to ten of Rip Current.
This murder began a period of activity that would end
roughly eighteen months later with Earl Satcher's death during a
shootout on a San Francisco street. Earl Satcher was born
in nineteen forty two. He apparently lived mostly in Long Beach, California,
(02:11):
where he began to accumulate a criminal record for auto
theft and armed robbery beginning when he was eighteen. By
the mid nineteen sixties, he'd become active in the Long
Beach Black Panthers and eventually rose to the rank of captain.
In nineteen sixty eight, Satcher was arrested for assaulting his
sister's boyfriend with a pistol. He was found guilty of
(02:34):
illegally possessing a firearm and spent three months in the
county jail before being released in January of sixty nine.
By October, according to an FBI letter, he was being
watched by law enforcement. Also in sixty nine, Sacher met
and joined forces with a white man named Benny Sargus. Sargus,
(02:57):
who was in his forties, was the physical opposite of
the powerful, imposing Satcher. Sargus was short and stocky, had
greasy hair and a scraggly beard and mustache. He claimed
to have been born into the mafia. The men hit
it off. They both liked guns, neither had qualms with
using violence. Satcher was back in prison in nineteen seventy
(03:21):
for parole violations. During this stint, he asserted himself as
a black militant leader within a prison group called the
Alternative Group. He also corresponded with staff members of a
radical magazine called Vocations for Social Change. On March fifth,
nineteen seventy one, the Los Angeles Free Press published a
(03:43):
number of letters from inmates at San Quentin, including two
from Earl Satcher. Before and after a confrontation with a
white supremacist inmate that had been set up by guards
with the apparent intention of killing Sacher. Today, the fourteenth
of September, and tomorrow the fifteenth, I will be released
(04:04):
into the exercise tier with an inmate who just three
days ago was hurling human feces and urine at me
and other brothers here on max Row. I am to
proceed to the tier with this said prisoner, even though
I'm with the knowledge that officials have armed the said
inmate in an effort to perpetrate my death. I have
(04:26):
faith in my ability to defend myself, and I shall
do so fully. Four days later, he wrote another letter,
a summation of what happened on the exercise tier. At
approximately eight fifteen, Officer Horton, the day Officer on max Row,
approached my cell, unlocked it and ordered me to prepare
(04:49):
to come onto the tier to work as a porter
with inmate A, a racist Neo American Nazi. In an
attempt to integrate max Row, Officer Horton opened both cell doors,
and after a brief wait, Inmate A left his cell.
Inmate A then proceeded up the tier towards me at
(05:09):
a distance of about three feet, he stopped and pulled
from his pocket a makeshift knife. At this display, I
settled into a Kung fu defensive stance and waited for
the said inmate to launch his attack. Inmate A was
apparently thrown off by this posture and tried to bait
Sacher with a shower of dehumanizing names common to the
(05:32):
racist mentality. Sacher stayed where he was, as in his
telling eight to ten officials watch from behind a locked gate.
According to Sacher's letter, this standoff lasted for about ten
minutes before officials realized that inmate A had lost his
enthusiasm for the fight and moved in.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Sacher was parolled.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
In May of nineteen seventy two. The first public announcement
using the Tribal Thumb was in a notice for a
workshop to be held on August eighth, nineteen seventy three,
in Long Beach.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
The event was.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
Sponsored by the Tribal Thumb Community and the Peace and
Freedom Party, which was a communist political party. The announcement read,
in part, we are the Tribal Thumb community and about
creating progressive change in this society. Work, struggle and knowledge
together with living in unity is what we know to
(06:29):
be the foundation leading to a socio political victory over oppression. Clearly,
because governments and societies are made up of people, people
are made up of biological and social character structures, change
the character structure of people, and people will in turn
change the structure of societies and governments. A nineteen seventy
(06:52):
two parole report on Satcher mentions finding a full garden
of nine millimeters rounds and another garden with eight missing
shells in Sacher's car. It states that the holster and
revolutionary literature were found in his apartment. According to the
Berkeley barb despite the parole violations involving firearms, the FBI
(07:14):
asked the San Bernardino Sheriff's office not to use the
evidence to revoke Sacher's parole. They said they were investigating
Satcher and planned to charge him, but he was not
arrested or charged. The bar points to this as an
initial sign that he may have been working with the
FBI in some capacity. Either that or he could be
(07:36):
manipulated to the point where he might as well be
working for the FBI. In late nineteen seventy three, Satcher
and Sargeist moved Tribal thumbed north to the Bay Area.
There were rumors about Satcher's activities during nineteen seventy three,
that he was involved in running guns from Canada to
the US, that he formed links to Vince Ramos group
(08:00):
based in Palo Alto. In these early days up north,
Tribal Thumb acquired guns and focused on revolutionary rhetoric and
training for guerrilla warfare. One of the only contemporaneous insider
accounts of life in Tribal Thumb comes from a woman
named Hetty Sarney, the daughter of Romanian survivors of the Holocaust.
(08:23):
Her story came to light after she was arrested for
her part in a disastrous nineteen seventy three bank robbery.
She lived alone on Channing Street in Berkeley. The street was,
in her words, like a self contained community, like a
commune in many ways. She attended Grove Street College, a
(08:45):
radical school attended by, among others, future SLA members Joe
Ramiro and Patricia Missmoon Sultizic. Sarny came to know Saltiesk
along with Camilla Hall, another soon to be SLA member,
so she was already a member of one part of
the radical community. She met Earl Satcher at a bar
(09:07):
on October nineteenth, nineteen seventy three. Satcher invited her to
visit the Tribal Thumb home, which was a camper parked
in the driveway of a house they hoped to eventually buy.
Sarny was painting her apartment at the time, and Sacher
offered to help. While they worked, Sacher talked about the
eccentric doctor and psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich more on him later.
(09:32):
By October twenty third, just four days after Sacher met
Hetty Sarney, Tribal Thumb members had moved into her apartment
and she was essentially a prisoner. They worked on indoctrinating
her into their revolutionary ideology. Sarny had grown up in
communists Romania, though, and was not inclined towards the political
(09:53):
side of revolutionary groups. Her ambition was to go to
medical school and open medical clinic in Mexico and Guatemala.
She became increasingly concerned the next day. According to her
deposition given for an appeal to her bank robbery conviction,
she stated then he said that they were going to
(10:14):
rob a bank in order to buy a house for
their commune.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
In Berkeley.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
I was stunned and didn't know what to say. The
next day was Tuesday, and I got up to go
to school. Earl stopped me. He said that school was
a waste of time and that I would learn what
I needed to know from them. I spent the whole
day walking around in a daze. They never left me
alone for a minute.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
I felt like I was in prison.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
Satcher was upset with Sarny's resistance to joining their revolutionary cause.
He called her a reactionary and began to beat her.
He called a tribal Thumb member named Joe Monico and
told him to come over and bring a gun. The
two men talked about killing Sarny, who knew too much.
They considered stabbing her to death and dumping her on
(11:03):
the street. There was a spade of murders committed by
someone known as the machete Man at the time, and
they figured her death would be added to his tally.
Then they thought she should write a suicide note, which
she refused to do.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
They put a knife to.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
Her throat, but she still refused. Then they wrapped her
in a blanket and set the blanket on fire. Again
from her deposition I was too frightened to move or
say a word. But they must have thought I was
very brave, because they put the fire out. A Tribal
Thumb member named Janet Hashemi embraced her and called her
(11:41):
a comrade. Sacher said he would stay with her, but
that at the end of the month, if she wanted
to leave, she could. Sarny from her deposition. On Friday,
November ninth, we robbed the Bank of America. The Tribal
Thumb considered themselves a well drilled guerrilla unit. The bank
(12:04):
robbery should have put an end to that. It was
a fiasco. The robbery took place at the Bank of
America in Berkeley, near the University of California campus. Several
members of Tribal Thumb entered the bank armed. Sarny was
with them unarmed. Her job was to get behind the
bank counter and fill bags with cash. Satra was driving
(12:28):
a getaway van. The robbers emerged from the bank with
sixteen thousand dollars worth of bills stuffed into bags, only
to find that the van was not there. They dispersed,
fleeing the scene and eventually finding the van blocks away
from the bank.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
From Sarney's deposition.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
After leaving the bank, I went back to the van
undressed and got under the covers. A few minutes later,
the police entered the van and arrested us. In all,
six Tribal Thumb members were rested, including Sacher. This was
the same day that the SLA sent its communica about
the murder of Oakland Schools Superintendent Marcus Foster. That moment,
(13:11):
when Earl Satcher, Hetty Sarney, and four others were in
jail in the wake of their failed bank robbery, became
very important in Tribal Thumb's trajectory because Benny Sargus contacted
the United Prisoners Union or UPU, the organization run by
Popeye Jackson, to see about getting help to fund Sacher's defense.
(13:34):
The funding didn't come through, but this was the critical
beginning of Tribal Thumb's relationship with the UPU. Sacher's defense
didn't require funding because of what may have been ludicrous
in competence by the FBI or further indication of Sacher
being an FBI asset. To put it succinctly, the FBI
(13:56):
lost most of the evidence before trial, including the bank,
while the other five were sentenced to some jail time. Satcher,
the leader, walked free soon after. In nineteen seventy four,
Tribal Thumb members began to attend UPU meetings, events and
Saturday study sessions. Among those attending were Benny Sargus and
(14:20):
a small time burglar and drug offender named Richard London
who went by Ricardo London. Tribal Thumb enjoyed good relations
with UPU during the People in Need.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Effort or PIN.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
Remember, this was Randolph Hurst's attempt to respond to the
Symbionese Liberation Army's demands to feed the poor of California
as a requirement for Patty Hurst's release. It was around
this time that Sarah Jane Moore also became involved in
PIN and UPU. After People in Need ended, tension developed
(14:56):
between UPU and Tribal Thumb members. D Sargists had collected
money at some UPU benefits and was suspected of keeping
some of the proceeds. Popeye Jackson confronted Sargist about this
and things became heated. After that, Tribal Thumb no longer
associated with UPO. Sarah Jane Moore left it around the
(15:19):
same time and began associating to an unknown degree with
Tribal Thumb. Even in the context of radical and revolutionary groups,
Tribal Thumb had some strange beliefs and tenets. First among
them was their adherence to the teachings of Austrian doctor
and psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich. SATR focused primarily on Reich's ideas
(15:44):
around orgone energy. Orgone was a word coined by Reich
that was a combination of organism and orgasm. He theorized
that orgone was an omnipresent and essential substance, and that
a lack of organ in the body could cause problems
ranging from neuroses to cancer. Sex was apparently the remedy
(16:07):
for this, and was encouraged and at times forced among
Tribal Thumb members. Monogamy was bourgeois. Tribal Thumb owned a
property called the Honeydew Ranch north of San Francisco in
Mendocino County, where they raised Arabian horses. Here, the activities
(16:27):
veered between the colt like and revolutionary. Like many radical groups,
Tribal Thumb performed a type of brutal group therapy that
could include browbeating, interrogation, isolation, sleep, deprivation, violence, and other
techniques often used by colts to instill competence in revolutionary action.
(16:49):
A Tribal Thumb member named Walter Hunsacker trained the group
in the use of firearms and allegedly arranged for the
purchase of guns as well. He taught techniques to make
guns untraceable. Huntsacker pushed the group towards action. He talked
about revolutionary subjects, and in January of nineteen seventy five,
(17:11):
was present when Benny Sargis told Ricardo London that Popeye
Jackson was a snitch and that they had to lean
on him. But Huntsacker was not a true believer. He
was an infiltrator working for the FBI, a provocateur, and
there are questions about whether he was the driving force
(17:32):
behind violent actions that would have fallen under the aims
of the FBI's co intel pro initiative, actions such as
the murder of Popeye Jackson. Sacher's strange political and philosophical
teachings alienated some followers, and Tribal Thumb evolved into a
small group dedicated to Sacher. The consequences for leaving the
(17:56):
group or not adhering to Sacher's beliefs were in Benny
Sargus's weird mafia speak to take their air. Here's an
example of Satri's bizarre activities. He brought several Tribal Thumb
members to an isolated house in Pacific Grove, a town
on the Monterey Peninsula south of San Francisco. The house
(18:19):
was owned by a single woman, and SATR thought it
could serve as a headquarters. Sacher apparently wanted to show
her how completely he controlled his followers. To do this,
he had a child dive off a table toward a
stone floor, making no attempt to break his own fall.
Sacher grabbed him just before he landed. There's no account
(18:42):
of the woman's reaction, but the group left when Sacher
saw just how many people regularly visited the house. It
didn't have the privacy that he'd anticipated. We cover the
Popeye Jackson assassination in the main podcast, so I won't
go into it again here other than to mention that
the Berkeley barb found plenty of reason to believe that
(19:04):
the FBI was at best indifferent to Popeye's murder. They
pointed to the fact that the only witness to the
crime described two people involved in the murder, but the
investigation essentially stopped with the arrest of a single person,
Ricardo London. Allegedly, thirty eight caliber bullets were found at
(19:24):
the assassination scene, in addition to the bullets from the
nine millimeter handgun used by Ricardo London. This was never explained,
and despite his dominant control over Tribal Thumb, Sacher was
only questioned once in association with Popeye's murder. The FBI
had not only placed Walter Huntsacker in Tribal Thumb, but
(19:46):
had another informant, Gary Johnson, in the group. Both were
in position to know about the plans to assassinate Popeye,
but they didn't try to stop it. Ricardo London gave
Huntsacker the nine millimeter pistol he used, minus the barrel
on July second, nineteen seventy five, less than a month
after the June seventh assassination. San Francisco police detective Frank
(20:11):
Falzan had found the gun's barrel on June eighth. Clearly,
the evidence that Huntsacker possessed the barrelless gun and his
knowledge from inside Tribal Thumb, could have led to an
early resolution of the investigation, but Falzon did not even
get that part of the gun until March of seventy six,
nine months later. Finally, Popeye's murder was in keeping with
(20:36):
the methods of co intel Pro, which had been officially
ended in nineteen seventy one, but whose tactics continued on
informally provoking. The murder of one revolutionary figure by a
separate revolutionary group was exactly the type of operation that
would have fallen under.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Co intel Pro.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
This was, not, however, the only Tribal Thumb action that
appeared to the Berkeley Bar to be consistent with co
intel Pro methods. After the break, the next chapter in
the Tribal Thumb story involved moving into the food business.
(21:15):
This played out in two ways, one of which ended
up in disaster. The move that was not disastrous was
the takeover in August of nineteen seventy six of a
vegetarian restaurant called The Communion. The Communion was a unique place.
Conversation was forbidden, no music was played, the walls were bare.
(21:38):
The idea was that the food was the sole focus
of diners. Then Tribal Thumb arrived. According to the owner
at the time, he was promised lots of sex from
the women members of Tribal Thumb if he let the
group move in. He would later assert in Small Claims
Court that this abundant sex was not provided, but Tribal
(21:59):
Thumb had already moved in, changing the name of the
restaurant and eventually their group to the Well Springs Communion,
they made the building their headquarters. Among other changes, the
restaurant began to hold jazz concerts, including saxophone duets with Satcher,
who is considered a very accomplished saxophonist, and Sunny Stitt,
(22:22):
considered one of the great jazz saxophonists of his generation.
A restaurant review in nineteen seventy nine stead of Well
Springs Communion. It regards the restaurant as a service to
the community wholesome fare at bedrock cost, but it is
also a source of income for the group, whose primary
effort is to provide alternative patterns of work and life
(22:45):
for its members. The review is not great, emphasizing that
the food, usually curried, was generally cold. It concludes, given
hot food, I'm sure more would attend. It's not entirely
clear when Tribal Thumb began calling themselves the Well Springs Communion,
but I'll continue to refer to the group as Tribal
(23:07):
Thumb to keep things from getting confusing. The second move
they made was to infiltrate what was called the People's
Food System. This was a loose network of Bay Area
food co ops, households, and communes that banded together to
provide an alternative to the large grocery store chains. They
(23:28):
would pool money to purchase large amounts of organic foods
and then meet to divvy.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Up the supplies.
Speaker 4 (23:34):
These meetings themselves became social and political events. The system
comprised a mix of ideologies. Among the system's members was
a Berkeley food co op called Ma Revolutions, which employed
a number of black activists, including a man named Willie Tait,
who was a close friend of George Jackson's and one
(23:55):
of the san Quentins six. Another system member was an
organic food distributor called the Veritable Vegetable. Two Tribal Thumb
members worked at the Veritable Vegetable. Benny Sargis, second only
to Sacher in the Tribal Thumb hierarchy, and a former
San quentin inmate known as Red, who may or may
(24:16):
not have been a member of the Aryan Brotherhood. It
was Tribal Thumb's association with the Veritable Vegetable that would
eventually lead.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
To Earl Sacher's death.
Speaker 4 (24:27):
There was a sense among some people, particularly those involved
with Ma revolutions, that Tribal Thumb was trying to take
over the people's food system. It does make some sense
from Tribal Thumb's perspective. It would provide a legitimate power
base for the group, having control over the distribution of
the communally purchased food. It would also be a place
(24:49):
where they could employ associates, especially ex cons who might
have trouble securing employment elsewhere, and it would supply a
stream of money for a group that was poor and
were incompetent bank robbers. In the spring of nineteen seventy seven,
suspicions arose that Sargus and Red were diverting goods from
(25:10):
the Veritable Vegetable to the Well.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Springs Communion restaurant. This crisis led.
Speaker 4 (25:15):
To a meeting on April seventeenth with the aim of
discussing principles of unity for the network. The Veritable Vegetable
sent several observers, including Sacher. Sacher brought chaos he demanded
to be allowed to participate in the meeting. The chair
refused him twice, but Sacher forced his.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Way into the proceedings.
Speaker 4 (25:38):
When it was brought to a vote, the overwhelming majority
of workers present voted to expel the Veritable Vegetable Contingent
from the system meeting. An argument broke out between Sacher
and his group and the opposition, who had voted them out.
One worker, believing that Sacher and company were actually police
plants whose purpose was to disrupt the system's functioning, took photos.
(26:02):
Sacher confronted him, telling the photographer that he'd pay.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Him for the film.
Speaker 4 (26:07):
The man refused and was surrounded by Sacher's contingent. He
made a move toward the door, and a fight broke
out between Tribal Thumb and the system workers at the meeting.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
As Sacher tried.
Speaker 4 (26:18):
To get the camera, The photographer passed the camera to
a female worker who tried to run away but was
tackled by Red. Red pulled the film from the camera
and yelled to Earl that he had it. Upon hearing this,
both sides stopped fighting, and the Veritable Vegetable Contingent left.
Four days later, on April twenty first, a vote of
(26:41):
the People's Food System suspended Benny Sargus. The Veritable Vegetable
initially supported the decision, but then refused to cooperate with
the investigation. Five days later, on April twenty sixth, a
special representative body met at the People's Food System warehouse
one fifty five Barnevelt Street in San Francisco. The meeting
(27:04):
was to determine whether, in the wake of their refusal
to cooperate with the Benny Sargents investigation, the Veritable Vegetable
would be expelled from the People's Food System. Earl Sacher
arrived uninvited with two leashed Dobermans. He wasn't allowed into
the meeting, but waited downstairs instead. Upstairs, the Veritable Vegetable
(27:26):
contingent tried to disrupt the proceedings, refusing to recognize the
chair and generally making a formal meeting impossible. Eventually, a
break was called to give the Veritable Vegetable group a
chance to caucus and figure out their next steps.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
The Veritable Vegetable.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Group went downstairs to consult with Satcher. At this point,
a Volkswagen Rabbit pulled up near the warehouse door. Willie
Tait and two other MA Revolutions workers, along with a
fourth person, approached the door. According to an account in
the Berkeley barb Satcher, seeing Tate, said what's happening, pulled
(28:06):
a gun and started shooting at Tate. Tate, unarmed, fell
to the ground critically wounded. Satcher and an unidentified partner
continued to fire. Shots came back at them from unknown shooters,
and there was briefly chaos. A witness named Frank Vlahovich
said that there were a couple of initial shots and
(28:28):
then they took a break, then another barrage. They were
just out to waste each other when the shooting stopped.
Tate was badly but not fatally injured. Sacher was dead.
His body was found between two cars. His twenty two
lay nearby, along with six spent shells. The unidentified partner
(28:50):
had fled with the shootout over A new kind of
chaos ensued. Benny Sargis attacked a system employee. Other Tribal
Thumb member ran upstairs to the meeting room waving a
gun in each hand. The outnumbered, Veritable Vegetable and Tribal
Thumb contingent were forced out of the building, and that
(29:11):
essentially was the end of the night and the beginning
of the end for the people's food system. In the
wake of the shootout, workers at Mob Revolutions issued a
statement that said, in part that Sacher and his people
had been known in the past to use violence and
intimidation against innocent people for personal and political gain. The
(29:33):
Black Guerrilla Family, who had earlier been asked to weigh
in on the murder of Popeye Jackson, also issued a
statement co signed by the Black Liberation Army, another underground
prison group. It began its analysis by stating that no
organization could use the threat of violence to force other
organizations to reject group decisions. It went on Earl Satcher did,
(30:00):
in fact violate these principles by threatening Willie Tait and
others a week before the fatal incident. Tribal Thumb did
in fact arrive at the meeting armed and with the
intention of a physical assault. It noted that Tribal Thumb
had threatened the lives of the people had identified as
being responsible for Sature's death. It then said, if you
(30:23):
think the co intel pro era has ended, look around you.
It concluded any attempted acts of revenge on the part
of Tribal Thumb for Sacher's death will be an unprincipled,
unpolitical act which will not be tolerated by the movement period.
And then the movement, in his attempt to unite around
(30:46):
a common strategy, is watching Tribal Thumb and his organizational affiliates.
Do you bury your vengeance and adhere to and respect
the principles of democratic centralism, or do you aid the
counterinsurgency machinery by unleashing forces which you cannot control. Willie
Tait recovered, but the People's Food System didn't. After the shootout,
(31:11):
law enforcement cracked down on the system. They hassled workers
and cited system members for health code violations. In just
a few months, Mob Revolutions was shuddered, the system diminished significantly.
Tribal Thumb two.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Struggled in the aftermath.
Speaker 4 (31:29):
Benny Sargus went back to jail for parole violations. Without
Satcher to galvanize the group, some members drifted away.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
From this point.
Speaker 4 (31:39):
Tribal Thumb or Well Springs Communion only occasionally rises to
the notice of the media. One occasion was the story
of a man named Ardie Ray Baker, who had murdered
an elderly couple in their home when he was eighteen
sentenced to life in prison. He briefly escaped once and
then escaped the second time, remaining at.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Large for almost two years.
Speaker 4 (32:04):
During this time, he and his wife were reportedly active
in Tribal Thumb. He was recaptured after killing a US
Customs officer when he was stopped at a border station
in northern Washington State. At Baker's trial, the prosecutor claimed
that Tribal Thumb supported themselves financially through burglaries and car thefts.
(32:25):
He claimed that Baker was recruited to provide weapons training
to members and had become a hitman for the group.
In October nineteen seventy nine, while Baker was being held
in the King County Jail in Seattle in connection with
the custom agent killing, Tribal Thumb provided support for yet
another escape. This was a bloody affair involving seven escapees
(32:47):
and no fewer than four separate shootouts. One escapee was
killed and three escapees and.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
One officer wounded.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
One of the escapees, a murderer named William desat Done,
gave his name as William Crest, and while the authorities
knew this wasn't his real name. They were unable to
identify him using fingerprints for several days because his hands
had been badly mangled by a police dog during his arrest.
(33:17):
The last major incident to be covered by the media
concerning Tribal Thumb, now known as Well Springs Communion, was
the murder of a former member named Roseanne Goston. Goston
and another woman had recently left the Honeydew Ranch commune,
and on June second, nineteen eighty had returned to collect
property that they considered theirs. Two women were sent to
(33:39):
the ranch to stop them. These events took place decades ago,
and the two women involved have established lives separate from
these actions. Because of this, I won't use their real names.
I'll call them Tracy and Brenda.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
According to the.
Speaker 4 (33:54):
Police filing, what followed was an ambush. Goston's companion fled
in and then returned with a male friend. A witness,
Goston's companion most likely claimed to see Tracy hold Goston
pin to the ground and Brenda shooter in the head
with a thirty two caliber automatic pistol. Later, during Brenda's trial,
(34:16):
the presiding judge had a different view.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Of the event.
Speaker 4 (34:19):
He believed that there was a struggle during which the
gun went off, killing Goston. This killing, in his judgment,
was more or less an accident. Regardless, Tracy and Brenda
went underground. On June sixth, four days after the murder,
police conducted a raid on a two story wood framed
house at eleven to twenty five Fulsome Street in San Francisco.
(34:43):
They received a tip that Tracy and Brenda were there,
but that turned out not to be the case. They
arrested five people at the house and released one after questioning.
The police described the house as a fortress. The front
door had a quarter inch steel plating on the front
and eye iron bars on the back. They found weapons,
a printing press, Marxist literature, and a trapdoor in the basement.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
That led to the city sewer system.
Speaker 4 (35:10):
Police fired tear gas grenades into the tunnel because they
believed that someone might be hiding down there, but when
the tear gas cleared, the tunnel was empty. Tracy and
Brenda remained at large for about two years. Brenda was
arrested first in North Carolina. She'd used an alias in
a written request for a birth certificate in the name
(35:31):
of a girl who had died in infancy. This was
likely the first step in obtaining a fake ID. Tracy
was arrested in New Orleans while walking with her ten
month old daughter. When she was picked up, she was
carrying a fake ID and a list of four armored
car companies along with their pickup schedule. Both women were
(35:52):
charged with first degree murder with special circumstances. Lying in wait,
their charge would have brought the death penalty or life
in prison without the possibility of parole. They were allowed
to plead the voluntary manslaughter. When the county prosecutor, a
man named Barry Brown, determined that witnesses had lied or
were unwilling to give testimony that evidence had been destroyed,
(36:16):
they were each sentenced to three years in prison. In
a New York Times article about the case, the Well
Springs Communion seems a much different organization than in the
early days of tribal thumb. The Times article ends with
the following sentence describing the commune, which drew members from
a variety of groups, including the Black Gorilla Family, the
(36:38):
Black Panthers, and the Charles Manson family. Barry Brown says
there were a few who were very politically aware and
were true revolutionaries, but the organization was inundated with people
whose motives were not politically directed. I asked Rick Riley,
who was a former member of Tribal Thumb, to tell
(36:58):
me what he wanted people to know about the group
and the people in it.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
This is what he said.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
These people were intelligent people. There were not a bunch
of dummies. They were intelligent. Most of the women that
were involved came from good families. Even the guys pretty
much came from decent, good American families. But they wanted change.
They believe a change was necessary. And the people who
manipulated that got in at the top and manipulated their
(37:28):
desire for change, which is what leaders do. We manipulate.
They were intelligent, good people, they just got used. And
those who of us who believed that we could make
a change, we couldn't. In the end, we realized all
we could do is cause anarchy, and out of anarchy
gained power because we knew that it was what the
(37:50):
elite did. Out of chaos is power. So I liked
it role, I really did. He could be deadly, yes,
but he could be kind to you know. He was
just very charismatic man. I don't follow just anybody, you know.
I mean, he had my loyalty right from the start.
(38:11):
I loved him as a brother, and he was a
good man. He actually believed in what he was doing.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
He really did.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
He believed that he could cause a change. And what
we realized was that maybe we can't change the world,
but we could cause a change for hours. And what
ours was is what consisted of our group. You know,
whatever our group is, we could make it better for us,
and we could be ready for what was coming. We
could train, we could be ready for the war that
(38:40):
was coming, you know, the civil war that was going
to be coming eventually in America that we thought was
going to be coming.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
The revolution. He believed it, He actually did. He believed
in what he.
Speaker 3 (38:52):
Was doing with tribal thumb and wellspring communion lasting is
us those of us who went through that, Where was
lasting of it? Wellspring communion is over? Did we accomplish anything?
I don't regret my pard in any of it, other
(39:14):
than that Roseanne would end up being killed. Other than that,
because Roseanne was my friend. You know, nothing lasting out
of that came out of that other than us us,
those of us who survived it.
Speaker 4 (39:31):
Thank you to Rick sundown Riley, author of Thief on
the Cross, I'm Toby Ball. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Or wherever you listen to your favorite show.
Speaker 4 (39:49):
For more information on Rip Current, visit the show website
at ripcurrentpod dot com.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Two
Rip Current is a production of iHeart Podcasts. The views
and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect thirds of the host,
producers or parent company. Listener discretion is it fines.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
This is a rip Current bonus episode.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
You don't need to listen to follow the rip Current storyline,
but it provides more information, context, and analysis to enhance
the main podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Enjoy.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
I want to start with a note about sources for
this bonus episode. Tribal Thumb was one of a number
of very small revolutionary groups in northern California in the
nineteen seventies. For the most part, they flew under the radar.
Because of this, there are not a lot of newspaper
or other media stories about Tribal Thumb or its leader,
(00:52):
Earl Satcher. There are some, though, chief among these is
a four part series.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Written by A.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
Mili Cabral and Bill Wallace.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
For the Berkeley Barb.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
I was unable to track down either of the authors.
In that series, they raised the suspicion that Earl Satcher,
either knowingly or unknowingly, was aiding in co intel prose
campaign to disrupt revolutionary groups across the US and the
radical movement in general. I'll talk about those suspicions when
they come.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Up in the story.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
One more note, I think, because some of these articles
were written well after the events they cover, there are
some contradictions and dates and even years in which things happened.
I've tried to work out the timeline from the totality
of the information available. Tribal Thumb was all but unknown
outside of revolutionary circles until they became the focus of
(01:46):
the investigation into the murder of Popeye Jackson. This incident
is covered in episodes nine to ten of Rip Current.
This murder began a period of activity that would end
roughly eighteen months later with Earl Satcher's death during a
shootout on a San Francisco street. Earl Satcher was born
in nineteen forty two. He apparently lived mostly in Long Beach, California,
(02:11):
where he began to accumulate a criminal record for auto
theft and armed robbery beginning when he was eighteen. By
the mid nineteen sixties, he'd become active in the Long
Beach Black Panthers and eventually rose to the rank of captain.
In nineteen sixty eight, Satcher was arrested for assaulting his
sister's boyfriend with a pistol. He was found guilty of
(02:34):
illegally possessing a firearm and spent three months in the
county jail before being released in January of sixty nine.
By October, according to an FBI letter, he was being
watched by law enforcement. Also in sixty nine, Sacher met
and joined forces with a white man named Benny Sargus. Sargus,
(02:57):
who was in his forties, was the physical opposite of
the powerful, imposing Satcher. Sargus was short and stocky, had
greasy hair and a scraggly beard and mustache. He claimed
to have been born into the mafia. The men hit
it off. They both liked guns, neither had qualms with
using violence. Satcher was back in prison in nineteen seventy
(03:21):
for parole violations. During this stint, he asserted himself as
a black militant leader within a prison group called the
Alternative Group. He also corresponded with staff members of a
radical magazine called Vocations for Social Change. On March fifth,
nineteen seventy one, the Los Angeles Free Press published a
(03:43):
number of letters from inmates at San Quentin, including two
from Earl Satcher. Before and after a confrontation with a
white supremacist inmate that had been set up by guards
with the apparent intention of killing Sacher. Today, the fourteenth
of September, and tomorrow the fifteenth, I will be released
(04:04):
into the exercise tier with an inmate who just three
days ago was hurling human feces and urine at me
and other brothers here on max Row. I am to
proceed to the tier with this said prisoner, even though
I'm with the knowledge that officials have armed the said
inmate in an effort to perpetrate my death. I have
(04:26):
faith in my ability to defend myself, and I shall
do so fully. Four days later, he wrote another letter,
a summation of what happened on the exercise tier. At
approximately eight fifteen, Officer Horton, the day Officer on max Row,
approached my cell, unlocked it and ordered me to prepare
(04:49):
to come onto the tier to work as a porter
with inmate A, a racist Neo American Nazi. In an
attempt to integrate max Row, Officer Horton opened both cell doors,
and after a brief wait, Inmate A left his cell.
Inmate A then proceeded up the tier towards me at
(05:09):
a distance of about three feet, he stopped and pulled
from his pocket a makeshift knife. At this display, I
settled into a Kung fu defensive stance and waited for
the said inmate to launch his attack. Inmate A was
apparently thrown off by this posture and tried to bait
Sacher with a shower of dehumanizing names common to the
(05:32):
racist mentality. Sacher stayed where he was, as in his
telling eight to ten officials watch from behind a locked gate.
According to Sacher's letter, this standoff lasted for about ten
minutes before officials realized that inmate A had lost his
enthusiasm for the fight and moved in.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Sacher was parolled.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
In May of nineteen seventy two. The first public announcement
using the Tribal Thumb was in a notice for a
workshop to be held on August eighth, nineteen seventy three,
in Long Beach.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
The event was.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
Sponsored by the Tribal Thumb Community and the Peace and
Freedom Party, which was a communist political party. The announcement read,
in part, we are the Tribal Thumb community and about
creating progressive change in this society. Work, struggle and knowledge
together with living in unity is what we know to
(06:29):
be the foundation leading to a socio political victory over oppression. Clearly,
because governments and societies are made up of people, people
are made up of biological and social character structures, change
the character structure of people, and people will in turn
change the structure of societies and governments. A nineteen seventy
(06:52):
two parole report on Satcher mentions finding a full garden
of nine millimeters rounds and another garden with eight missing
shells in Sacher's car. It states that the holster and
revolutionary literature were found in his apartment. According to the
Berkeley barb despite the parole violations involving firearms, the FBI
(07:14):
asked the San Bernardino Sheriff's office not to use the
evidence to revoke Sacher's parole. They said they were investigating
Satcher and planned to charge him, but he was not
arrested or charged. The bar points to this as an
initial sign that he may have been working with the
FBI in some capacity. Either that or he could be
(07:36):
manipulated to the point where he might as well be
working for the FBI. In late nineteen seventy three, Satcher
and Sargeist moved Tribal thumbed north to the Bay Area.
There were rumors about Satcher's activities during nineteen seventy three,
that he was involved in running guns from Canada to
the US, that he formed links to Vince Ramos group
(08:00):
based in Palo Alto. In these early days up north,
Tribal Thumb acquired guns and focused on revolutionary rhetoric and
training for guerrilla warfare. One of the only contemporaneous insider
accounts of life in Tribal Thumb comes from a woman
named Hetty Sarney, the daughter of Romanian survivors of the Holocaust.
(08:23):
Her story came to light after she was arrested for
her part in a disastrous nineteen seventy three bank robbery.
She lived alone on Channing Street in Berkeley. The street was,
in her words, like a self contained community, like a
commune in many ways. She attended Grove Street College, a
(08:45):
radical school attended by, among others, future SLA members Joe
Ramiro and Patricia Missmoon Sultizic. Sarny came to know Saltiesk
along with Camilla Hall, another soon to be SLA member,
so she was already a member of one part of
the radical community. She met Earl Satcher at a bar
(09:07):
on October nineteenth, nineteen seventy three. Satcher invited her to
visit the Tribal Thumb home, which was a camper parked
in the driveway of a house they hoped to eventually buy.
Sarny was painting her apartment at the time, and Sacher
offered to help. While they worked, Sacher talked about the
eccentric doctor and psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich more on him later.
(09:32):
By October twenty third, just four days after Sacher met
Hetty Sarney, Tribal Thumb members had moved into her apartment
and she was essentially a prisoner. They worked on indoctrinating
her into their revolutionary ideology. Sarny had grown up in
communists Romania, though, and was not inclined towards the political
(09:53):
side of revolutionary groups. Her ambition was to go to
medical school and open medical clinic in Mexico and Guatemala.
She became increasingly concerned the next day. According to her
deposition given for an appeal to her bank robbery conviction,
she stated then he said that they were going to
(10:14):
rob a bank in order to buy a house for
their commune.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
In Berkeley.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
I was stunned and didn't know what to say. The
next day was Tuesday, and I got up to go
to school. Earl stopped me. He said that school was
a waste of time and that I would learn what
I needed to know from them. I spent the whole
day walking around in a daze. They never left me
alone for a minute.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
I felt like I was in prison.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
Satcher was upset with Sarny's resistance to joining their revolutionary cause.
He called her a reactionary and began to beat her.
He called a tribal Thumb member named Joe Monico and
told him to come over and bring a gun. The
two men talked about killing Sarny, who knew too much.
They considered stabbing her to death and dumping her on
(11:03):
the street. There was a spade of murders committed by
someone known as the machete Man at the time, and
they figured her death would be added to his tally.
Then they thought she should write a suicide note, which
she refused to do.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
They put a knife to.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
Her throat, but she still refused. Then they wrapped her
in a blanket and set the blanket on fire. Again
from her deposition I was too frightened to move or
say a word. But they must have thought I was
very brave, because they put the fire out. A Tribal
Thumb member named Janet Hashemi embraced her and called her
(11:41):
a comrade. Sacher said he would stay with her, but
that at the end of the month, if she wanted
to leave, she could. Sarny from her deposition. On Friday,
November ninth, we robbed the Bank of America. The Tribal
Thumb considered themselves a well drilled guerrilla unit. The bank
(12:04):
robbery should have put an end to that. It was
a fiasco. The robbery took place at the Bank of
America in Berkeley, near the University of California campus. Several
members of Tribal Thumb entered the bank armed. Sarny was
with them unarmed. Her job was to get behind the
bank counter and fill bags with cash. Satra was driving
(12:28):
a getaway van. The robbers emerged from the bank with
sixteen thousand dollars worth of bills stuffed into bags, only
to find that the van was not there. They dispersed,
fleeing the scene and eventually finding the van blocks away
from the bank.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
From Sarney's deposition.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
After leaving the bank, I went back to the van
undressed and got under the covers. A few minutes later,
the police entered the van and arrested us. In all,
six Tribal Thumb members were rested, including Sacher. This was
the same day that the SLA sent its communica about
the murder of Oakland Schools Superintendent Marcus Foster. That moment,
(13:11):
when Earl Satcher, Hetty Sarney, and four others were in
jail in the wake of their failed bank robbery, became
very important in Tribal Thumb's trajectory because Benny Sargus contacted
the United Prisoners Union or UPU, the organization run by
Popeye Jackson, to see about getting help to fund Sacher's defense.
(13:34):
The funding didn't come through, but this was the critical
beginning of Tribal Thumb's relationship with the UPU. Sacher's defense
didn't require funding because of what may have been ludicrous
in competence by the FBI or further indication of Sacher
being an FBI asset. To put it succinctly, the FBI
(13:56):
lost most of the evidence before trial, including the bank,
while the other five were sentenced to some jail time. Satcher,
the leader, walked free soon after. In nineteen seventy four,
Tribal Thumb members began to attend UPU meetings, events and
Saturday study sessions. Among those attending were Benny Sargus and
(14:20):
a small time burglar and drug offender named Richard London
who went by Ricardo London. Tribal Thumb enjoyed good relations
with UPU during the People in Need.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Effort or PIN.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
Remember, this was Randolph Hurst's attempt to respond to the
Symbionese Liberation Army's demands to feed the poor of California
as a requirement for Patty Hurst's release. It was around
this time that Sarah Jane Moore also became involved in
PIN and UPU. After People in Need ended, tension developed
(14:56):
between UPU and Tribal Thumb members. D Sargists had collected
money at some UPU benefits and was suspected of keeping
some of the proceeds. Popeye Jackson confronted Sargist about this
and things became heated. After that, Tribal Thumb no longer
associated with UPO. Sarah Jane Moore left it around the
(15:19):
same time and began associating to an unknown degree with
Tribal Thumb. Even in the context of radical and revolutionary groups,
Tribal Thumb had some strange beliefs and tenets. First among
them was their adherence to the teachings of Austrian doctor
and psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich. SATR focused primarily on Reich's ideas
(15:44):
around orgone energy. Orgone was a word coined by Reich
that was a combination of organism and orgasm. He theorized
that orgone was an omnipresent and essential substance, and that
a lack of organ in the body could cause problems
ranging from neuroses to cancer. Sex was apparently the remedy
(16:07):
for this, and was encouraged and at times forced among
Tribal Thumb members. Monogamy was bourgeois. Tribal Thumb owned a
property called the Honeydew Ranch north of San Francisco in
Mendocino County, where they raised Arabian horses. Here, the activities
(16:27):
veered between the colt like and revolutionary. Like many radical groups,
Tribal Thumb performed a type of brutal group therapy that
could include browbeating, interrogation, isolation, sleep, deprivation, violence, and other
techniques often used by colts to instill competence in revolutionary action.
(16:49):
A Tribal Thumb member named Walter Hunsacker trained the group
in the use of firearms and allegedly arranged for the
purchase of guns as well. He taught techniques to make
guns untraceable. Huntsacker pushed the group towards action. He talked
about revolutionary subjects, and in January of nineteen seventy five,
(17:11):
was present when Benny Sargis told Ricardo London that Popeye
Jackson was a snitch and that they had to lean
on him. But Huntsacker was not a true believer. He
was an infiltrator working for the FBI, a provocateur, and
there are questions about whether he was the driving force
(17:32):
behind violent actions that would have fallen under the aims
of the FBI's co intel pro initiative, actions such as
the murder of Popeye Jackson. Sacher's strange political and philosophical
teachings alienated some followers, and Tribal Thumb evolved into a
small group dedicated to Sacher. The consequences for leaving the
(17:56):
group or not adhering to Sacher's beliefs were in Benny
Sargus's weird mafia speak to take their air. Here's an
example of Satri's bizarre activities. He brought several Tribal Thumb
members to an isolated house in Pacific Grove, a town
on the Monterey Peninsula south of San Francisco. The house
(18:19):
was owned by a single woman, and SATR thought it
could serve as a headquarters. Sacher apparently wanted to show
her how completely he controlled his followers. To do this,
he had a child dive off a table toward a
stone floor, making no attempt to break his own fall.
Sacher grabbed him just before he landed. There's no account
(18:42):
of the woman's reaction, but the group left when Sacher
saw just how many people regularly visited the house. It
didn't have the privacy that he'd anticipated. We cover the
Popeye Jackson assassination in the main podcast, so I won't
go into it again here other than to mention that
the Berkeley barb found plenty of reason to believe that
(19:04):
the FBI was at best indifferent to Popeye's murder. They
pointed to the fact that the only witness to the
crime described two people involved in the murder, but the
investigation essentially stopped with the arrest of a single person,
Ricardo London. Allegedly, thirty eight caliber bullets were found at
(19:24):
the assassination scene, in addition to the bullets from the
nine millimeter handgun used by Ricardo London. This was never explained,
and despite his dominant control over Tribal Thumb, Sacher was
only questioned once in association with Popeye's murder. The FBI
had not only placed Walter Huntsacker in Tribal Thumb, but
(19:46):
had another informant, Gary Johnson, in the group. Both were
in position to know about the plans to assassinate Popeye,
but they didn't try to stop it. Ricardo London gave
Huntsacker the nine millimeter pistol he used, minus the barrel
on July second, nineteen seventy five, less than a month
after the June seventh assassination. San Francisco police detective Frank
(20:11):
Falzan had found the gun's barrel on June eighth. Clearly,
the evidence that Huntsacker possessed the barrelless gun and his
knowledge from inside Tribal Thumb, could have led to an
early resolution of the investigation, but Falzon did not even
get that part of the gun until March of seventy six,
nine months later. Finally, Popeye's murder was in keeping with
(20:36):
the methods of co intel Pro, which had been officially
ended in nineteen seventy one, but whose tactics continued on
informally provoking. The murder of one revolutionary figure by a
separate revolutionary group was exactly the type of operation that
would have fallen under.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Co intel Pro.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
This was, not, however, the only Tribal Thumb action that
appeared to the Berkeley Bar to be consistent with co
intel Pro methods. After the break, the next chapter in
the Tribal Thumb story involved moving into the food business.
(21:15):
This played out in two ways, one of which ended
up in disaster. The move that was not disastrous was
the takeover in August of nineteen seventy six of a
vegetarian restaurant called The Communion. The Communion was a unique place.
Conversation was forbidden, no music was played, the walls were bare.
(21:38):
The idea was that the food was the sole focus
of diners. Then Tribal Thumb arrived. According to the owner
at the time, he was promised lots of sex from
the women members of Tribal Thumb if he let the
group move in. He would later assert in Small Claims
Court that this abundant sex was not provided, but Tribal
(21:59):
Thumb had already moved in, changing the name of the
restaurant and eventually their group to the Well Springs Communion,
they made the building their headquarters. Among other changes, the
restaurant began to hold jazz concerts, including saxophone duets with Satcher,
who is considered a very accomplished saxophonist, and Sunny Stitt,
(22:22):
considered one of the great jazz saxophonists of his generation.
A restaurant review in nineteen seventy nine stead of Well
Springs Communion. It regards the restaurant as a service to
the community wholesome fare at bedrock cost, but it is
also a source of income for the group, whose primary
effort is to provide alternative patterns of work and life
(22:45):
for its members. The review is not great, emphasizing that
the food, usually curried, was generally cold. It concludes, given
hot food, I'm sure more would attend. It's not entirely
clear when Tribal Thumb began calling themselves the Well Springs Communion,
but I'll continue to refer to the group as Tribal
(23:07):
Thumb to keep things from getting confusing. The second move
they made was to infiltrate what was called the People's
Food System. This was a loose network of Bay Area
food co ops, households, and communes that banded together to
provide an alternative to the large grocery store chains. They
(23:28):
would pool money to purchase large amounts of organic foods
and then meet to divvy.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Up the supplies.
Speaker 4 (23:34):
These meetings themselves became social and political events. The system
comprised a mix of ideologies. Among the system's members was
a Berkeley food co op called Ma Revolutions, which employed
a number of black activists, including a man named Willie Tait,
who was a close friend of George Jackson's and one
(23:55):
of the san Quentins six. Another system member was an
organic food distributor called the Veritable Vegetable. Two Tribal Thumb
members worked at the Veritable Vegetable. Benny Sargis, second only
to Sacher in the Tribal Thumb hierarchy, and a former
San quentin inmate known as Red, who may or may
(24:16):
not have been a member of the Aryan Brotherhood. It
was Tribal Thumb's association with the Veritable Vegetable that would
eventually lead.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
To Earl Sacher's death.
Speaker 4 (24:27):
There was a sense among some people, particularly those involved
with Ma revolutions, that Tribal Thumb was trying to take
over the people's food system. It does make some sense
from Tribal Thumb's perspective. It would provide a legitimate power
base for the group, having control over the distribution of
the communally purchased food. It would also be a place
(24:49):
where they could employ associates, especially ex cons who might
have trouble securing employment elsewhere, and it would supply a
stream of money for a group that was poor and
were incompetent bank robbers. In the spring of nineteen seventy seven,
suspicions arose that Sargus and Red were diverting goods from
(25:10):
the Veritable Vegetable to the Well.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Springs Communion restaurant. This crisis led.
Speaker 4 (25:15):
To a meeting on April seventeenth with the aim of
discussing principles of unity for the network. The Veritable Vegetable
sent several observers, including Sacher. Sacher brought chaos he demanded
to be allowed to participate in the meeting. The chair
refused him twice, but Sacher forced his.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Way into the proceedings.
Speaker 4 (25:38):
When it was brought to a vote, the overwhelming majority
of workers present voted to expel the Veritable Vegetable Contingent
from the system meeting. An argument broke out between Sacher
and his group and the opposition, who had voted them out.
One worker, believing that Sacher and company were actually police
plants whose purpose was to disrupt the system's functioning, took photos.
(26:02):
Sacher confronted him, telling the photographer that he'd pay.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Him for the film.
Speaker 4 (26:07):
The man refused and was surrounded by Sacher's contingent. He
made a move toward the door, and a fight broke
out between Tribal Thumb and the system workers at the meeting.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
As Sacher tried.
Speaker 4 (26:18):
To get the camera, The photographer passed the camera to
a female worker who tried to run away but was
tackled by Red. Red pulled the film from the camera
and yelled to Earl that he had it. Upon hearing this,
both sides stopped fighting, and the Veritable Vegetable Contingent left.
Four days later, on April twenty first, a vote of
(26:41):
the People's Food System suspended Benny Sargus. The Veritable Vegetable
initially supported the decision, but then refused to cooperate with
the investigation. Five days later, on April twenty sixth, a
special representative body met at the People's Food System warehouse
one fifty five Barnevelt Street in San Francisco. The meeting
(27:04):
was to determine whether, in the wake of their refusal
to cooperate with the Benny Sargents investigation, the Veritable Vegetable
would be expelled from the People's Food System. Earl Sacher
arrived uninvited with two leashed Dobermans. He wasn't allowed into
the meeting, but waited downstairs instead. Upstairs, the Veritable Vegetable
(27:26):
contingent tried to disrupt the proceedings, refusing to recognize the
chair and generally making a formal meeting impossible. Eventually, a
break was called to give the Veritable Vegetable group a
chance to caucus and figure out their next steps.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
The Veritable Vegetable.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Group went downstairs to consult with Satcher. At this point,
a Volkswagen Rabbit pulled up near the warehouse door. Willie
Tait and two other MA Revolutions workers, along with a
fourth person, approached the door. According to an account in
the Berkeley barb Satcher, seeing Tate, said what's happening, pulled
(28:06):
a gun and started shooting at Tate. Tate, unarmed, fell
to the ground critically wounded. Satcher and an unidentified partner
continued to fire. Shots came back at them from unknown shooters,
and there was briefly chaos. A witness named Frank Vlahovich
said that there were a couple of initial shots and
(28:28):
then they took a break, then another barrage. They were
just out to waste each other when the shooting stopped.
Tate was badly but not fatally injured. Sacher was dead.
His body was found between two cars. His twenty two
lay nearby, along with six spent shells. The unidentified partner
(28:50):
had fled with the shootout over A new kind of
chaos ensued. Benny Sargis attacked a system employee. Other Tribal
Thumb member ran upstairs to the meeting room waving a
gun in each hand. The outnumbered, Veritable Vegetable and Tribal
Thumb contingent were forced out of the building, and that
(29:11):
essentially was the end of the night and the beginning
of the end for the people's food system. In the
wake of the shootout, workers at Mob Revolutions issued a
statement that said, in part that Sacher and his people
had been known in the past to use violence and
intimidation against innocent people for personal and political gain. The
(29:33):
Black Guerrilla Family, who had earlier been asked to weigh
in on the murder of Popeye Jackson, also issued a
statement co signed by the Black Liberation Army, another underground
prison group. It began its analysis by stating that no
organization could use the threat of violence to force other
organizations to reject group decisions. It went on Earl Satcher did,
(30:00):
in fact violate these principles by threatening Willie Tait and
others a week before the fatal incident. Tribal Thumb did
in fact arrive at the meeting armed and with the
intention of a physical assault. It noted that Tribal Thumb
had threatened the lives of the people had identified as
being responsible for Sature's death. It then said, if you
(30:23):
think the co intel pro era has ended, look around you.
It concluded any attempted acts of revenge on the part
of Tribal Thumb for Sacher's death will be an unprincipled,
unpolitical act which will not be tolerated by the movement period.
And then the movement, in his attempt to unite around
(30:46):
a common strategy, is watching Tribal Thumb and his organizational affiliates.
Do you bury your vengeance and adhere to and respect
the principles of democratic centralism, or do you aid the
counterinsurgency machinery by unleashing forces which you cannot control. Willie
Tait recovered, but the People's Food System didn't. After the shootout,
(31:11):
law enforcement cracked down on the system. They hassled workers
and cited system members for health code violations. In just
a few months, Mob Revolutions was shuddered, the system diminished significantly.
Tribal Thumb two.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Struggled in the aftermath.
Speaker 4 (31:29):
Benny Sargus went back to jail for parole violations. Without
Satcher to galvanize the group, some members drifted away.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
From this point.
Speaker 4 (31:39):
Tribal Thumb or Well Springs Communion only occasionally rises to
the notice of the media. One occasion was the story
of a man named Ardie Ray Baker, who had murdered
an elderly couple in their home when he was eighteen
sentenced to life in prison. He briefly escaped once and
then escaped the second time, remaining at.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Large for almost two years.
Speaker 4 (32:04):
During this time, he and his wife were reportedly active
in Tribal Thumb. He was recaptured after killing a US
Customs officer when he was stopped at a border station
in northern Washington State. At Baker's trial, the prosecutor claimed
that Tribal Thumb supported themselves financially through burglaries and car thefts.
(32:25):
He claimed that Baker was recruited to provide weapons training
to members and had become a hitman for the group.
In October nineteen seventy nine, while Baker was being held
in the King County Jail in Seattle in connection with
the custom agent killing, Tribal Thumb provided support for yet
another escape. This was a bloody affair involving seven escapees
(32:47):
and no fewer than four separate shootouts. One escapee was
killed and three escapees and.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
One officer wounded.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
One of the escapees, a murderer named William desat Done,
gave his name as William Crest, and while the authorities
knew this wasn't his real name. They were unable to
identify him using fingerprints for several days because his hands
had been badly mangled by a police dog during his arrest.
(33:17):
The last major incident to be covered by the media
concerning Tribal Thumb, now known as Well Springs Communion, was
the murder of a former member named Roseanne Goston. Goston
and another woman had recently left the Honeydew Ranch commune,
and on June second, nineteen eighty had returned to collect
property that they considered theirs. Two women were sent to
(33:39):
the ranch to stop them. These events took place decades ago,
and the two women involved have established lives separate from
these actions. Because of this, I won't use their real names.
I'll call them Tracy and Brenda.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
According to the.
Speaker 4 (33:54):
Police filing, what followed was an ambush. Goston's companion fled
in and then returned with a male friend. A witness,
Goston's companion most likely claimed to see Tracy hold Goston
pin to the ground and Brenda shooter in the head
with a thirty two caliber automatic pistol. Later, during Brenda's trial,
(34:16):
the presiding judge had a different view.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Of the event.
Speaker 4 (34:19):
He believed that there was a struggle during which the
gun went off, killing Goston. This killing, in his judgment,
was more or less an accident. Regardless, Tracy and Brenda
went underground. On June sixth, four days after the murder,
police conducted a raid on a two story wood framed
house at eleven to twenty five Fulsome Street in San Francisco.
(34:43):
They received a tip that Tracy and Brenda were there,
but that turned out not to be the case. They
arrested five people at the house and released one after questioning.
The police described the house as a fortress. The front
door had a quarter inch steel plating on the front
and eye iron bars on the back. They found weapons,
a printing press, Marxist literature, and a trapdoor in the basement.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
That led to the city sewer system.
Speaker 4 (35:10):
Police fired tear gas grenades into the tunnel because they
believed that someone might be hiding down there, but when
the tear gas cleared, the tunnel was empty. Tracy and
Brenda remained at large for about two years. Brenda was
arrested first in North Carolina. She'd used an alias in
a written request for a birth certificate in the name
(35:31):
of a girl who had died in infancy. This was
likely the first step in obtaining a fake ID. Tracy
was arrested in New Orleans while walking with her ten
month old daughter. When she was picked up, she was
carrying a fake ID and a list of four armored
car companies along with their pickup schedule. Both women were
(35:52):
charged with first degree murder with special circumstances. Lying in wait,
their charge would have brought the death penalty or life
in prison without the possibility of parole. They were allowed
to plead the voluntary manslaughter. When the county prosecutor, a
man named Barry Brown, determined that witnesses had lied or
were unwilling to give testimony that evidence had been destroyed,
(36:16):
they were each sentenced to three years in prison. In
a New York Times article about the case, the Well
Springs Communion seems a much different organization than in the
early days of tribal thumb. The Times article ends with
the following sentence describing the commune, which drew members from
a variety of groups, including the Black Gorilla Family, the
(36:38):
Black Panthers, and the Charles Manson family. Barry Brown says
there were a few who were very politically aware and
were true revolutionaries, but the organization was inundated with people
whose motives were not politically directed. I asked Rick Riley,
who was a former member of Tribal Thumb, to tell
(36:58):
me what he wanted people to know about the group
and the people in it.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
This is what he said.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
These people were intelligent people. There were not a bunch
of dummies. They were intelligent. Most of the women that
were involved came from good families. Even the guys pretty
much came from decent, good American families. But they wanted change.
They believe a change was necessary. And the people who
manipulated that got in at the top and manipulated their
(37:28):
desire for change, which is what leaders do. We manipulate.
They were intelligent, good people, they just got used. And
those who of us who believed that we could make
a change, we couldn't. In the end, we realized all
we could do is cause anarchy, and out of anarchy
gained power because we knew that it was what the
(37:50):
elite did. Out of chaos is power. So I liked
it role, I really did. He could be deadly, yes,
but he could be kind to you know. He was
just very charismatic man. I don't follow just anybody, you know.
I mean, he had my loyalty right from the start.
(38:11):
I loved him as a brother, and he was a
good man. He actually believed in what he was doing.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
He really did.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
He believed that he could cause a change. And what
we realized was that maybe we can't change the world,
but we could cause a change for hours. And what
ours was is what consisted of our group. You know,
whatever our group is, we could make it better for us,
and we could be ready for what was coming. We
could train, we could be ready for the war that
(38:40):
was coming, you know, the civil war that was going
to be coming eventually in America that we thought was
going to be coming.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
The revolution. He believed it, He actually did. He believed
in what he.
Speaker 3 (38:52):
Was doing with tribal thumb and wellspring communion lasting is
us those of us who went through that, Where was
lasting of it? Wellspring communion is over? Did we accomplish anything?
I don't regret my pard in any of it, other
(39:14):
than that Roseanne would end up being killed. Other than that,
because Roseanne was my friend. You know, nothing lasting out
of that came out of that other than us us,
those of us who survived it.
Speaker 4 (39:31):
Thank you to Rick sundown Riley, author of Thief on
the Cross, I'm Toby Ball. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Or wherever you listen to your favorite show.
Speaker 4 (39:49):
For more information on Rip Current, visit the show website
at ripcurrentpod dot com.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Two
Host
Toby Ball
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