WEBVTT - Bonus: Tribal Thumb 0:00:01.840 --> 0:00:05.040 Rip Current is a production of iHeart Podcasts. The views 0:00:05.040 --> 0:00:08.600 and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect thirds of the host, 0:00:08.640 --> 0:00:12.360 producers or parent company. Listener discretion is it fines. 0:00:15.320 --> 0:00:17.400 This is a rip Current bonus episode. 0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:20.040 You don't need to listen to follow the rip Current storyline, 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:24.040 but it provides more information, context, and analysis to enhance 0:00:24.079 --> 0:00:24.919 the main podcast. 0:00:25.600 --> 0:00:26.000 Enjoy. 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:32.680 I want to start with a note about sources for 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:36.760 this bonus episode. Tribal Thumb was one of a number 0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:40.920 of very small revolutionary groups in northern California in the 0:00:41.040 --> 0:00:45.120 nineteen seventies. For the most part, they flew under the radar. 0:00:45.880 --> 0:00:48.800 Because of this, there are not a lot of newspaper 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:52.479 or other media stories about Tribal Thumb or its leader, 0:00:52.720 --> 0:00:57.520 Earl Satcher. There are some, though, chief among these is 0:00:57.560 --> 0:00:59.360 a four part series. 0:00:59.000 --> 0:00:59.640 Written by A. 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:02.520 Mili Cabral and Bill Wallace. 0:01:02.160 --> 0:01:03.200 For the Berkeley Barb. 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:06.479 I was unable to track down either of the authors. 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:11.000 In that series, they raised the suspicion that Earl Satcher, 0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:15.360 either knowingly or unknowingly, was aiding in co intel prose 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:19.720 campaign to disrupt revolutionary groups across the US and the 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:23.440 radical movement in general. I'll talk about those suspicions when 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:23.839 they come. 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:24.560 Up in the story. 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:28.160 One more note, I think, because some of these articles 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:31.200 were written well after the events they cover, there are 0:01:31.240 --> 0:01:35.280 some contradictions and dates and even years in which things happened. 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:38.560 I've tried to work out the timeline from the totality 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:42.720 of the information available. Tribal Thumb was all but unknown 0:01:42.800 --> 0:01:46.800 outside of revolutionary circles until they became the focus of 0:01:46.840 --> 0:01:51.640 the investigation into the murder of Popeye Jackson. This incident 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:54.760 is covered in episodes nine to ten of Rip Current. 0:01:55.680 --> 0:01:58.480 This murder began a period of activity that would end 0:01:58.560 --> 0:02:02.400 roughly eighteen months later with Earl Satcher's death during a 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:06.600 shootout on a San Francisco street. Earl Satcher was born 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:11.440 in nineteen forty two. He apparently lived mostly in Long Beach, California, 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:14.880 where he began to accumulate a criminal record for auto 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:18.960 theft and armed robbery beginning when he was eighteen. By 0:02:18.960 --> 0:02:22.240 the mid nineteen sixties, he'd become active in the Long 0:02:22.280 --> 0:02:25.880 Beach Black Panthers and eventually rose to the rank of captain. 0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:30.320 In nineteen sixty eight, Satcher was arrested for assaulting his 0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:34.920 sister's boyfriend with a pistol. He was found guilty of 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:38.400 illegally possessing a firearm and spent three months in the 0:02:38.440 --> 0:02:42.360 county jail before being released in January of sixty nine. 0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:46.920 By October, according to an FBI letter, he was being 0:02:47.000 --> 0:02:52.000 watched by law enforcement. Also in sixty nine, Sacher met 0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:57.240 and joined forces with a white man named Benny Sargus. Sargus, 0:02:57.440 --> 0:03:00.680 who was in his forties, was the physical opposite of 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:06.160 the powerful, imposing Satcher. Sargus was short and stocky, had 0:03:06.200 --> 0:03:10.079 greasy hair and a scraggly beard and mustache. He claimed 0:03:10.120 --> 0:03:12.720 to have been born into the mafia. The men hit 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:17.000 it off. They both liked guns, neither had qualms with 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:21.560 using violence. Satcher was back in prison in nineteen seventy 0:03:21.639 --> 0:03:26.160 for parole violations. During this stint, he asserted himself as 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:29.160 a black militant leader within a prison group called the 0:03:29.240 --> 0:03:33.600 Alternative Group. He also corresponded with staff members of a 0:03:33.680 --> 0:03:39.640 radical magazine called Vocations for Social Change. On March fifth, 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:43.680 nineteen seventy one, the Los Angeles Free Press published a 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:47.400 number of letters from inmates at San Quentin, including two 0:03:47.600 --> 0:03:52.000 from Earl Satcher. Before and after a confrontation with a 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:55.560 white supremacist inmate that had been set up by guards 0:03:55.600 --> 0:04:00.640 with the apparent intention of killing Sacher. Today, the fourteenth 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:04.840 of September, and tomorrow the fifteenth, I will be released 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:08.320 into the exercise tier with an inmate who just three 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:11.640 days ago was hurling human feces and urine at me 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:15.560 and other brothers here on max Row. I am to 0:04:15.600 --> 0:04:19.120 proceed to the tier with this said prisoner, even though 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:22.120 I'm with the knowledge that officials have armed the said 0:04:22.200 --> 0:04:26.120 inmate in an effort to perpetrate my death. I have 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:29.640 faith in my ability to defend myself, and I shall 0:04:29.680 --> 0:04:34.279 do so fully. Four days later, he wrote another letter, 0:04:34.839 --> 0:04:39.200 a summation of what happened on the exercise tier. At 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:44.360 approximately eight fifteen, Officer Horton, the day Officer on max Row, 0:04:45.000 --> 0:04:49.000 approached my cell, unlocked it and ordered me to prepare 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:51.400 to come onto the tier to work as a porter 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:56.360 with inmate A, a racist Neo American Nazi. In an 0:04:56.400 --> 0:05:01.400 attempt to integrate max Row, Officer Horton opened both cell doors, 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:06.160 and after a brief wait, Inmate A left his cell. 0:05:06.360 --> 0:05:09.920 Inmate A then proceeded up the tier towards me at 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:13.159 a distance of about three feet, he stopped and pulled 0:05:13.160 --> 0:05:16.839 from his pocket a makeshift knife. At this display, I 0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:20.479 settled into a Kung fu defensive stance and waited for 0:05:20.520 --> 0:05:24.479 the said inmate to launch his attack. Inmate A was 0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:27.840 apparently thrown off by this posture and tried to bait 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:32.320 Sacher with a shower of dehumanizing names common to the 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:37.000 racist mentality. Sacher stayed where he was, as in his 0:05:37.160 --> 0:05:40.919 telling eight to ten officials watch from behind a locked gate. 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:45.320 According to Sacher's letter, this standoff lasted for about ten 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:48.760 minutes before officials realized that inmate A had lost his 0:05:48.920 --> 0:05:51.479 enthusiasm for the fight and moved in. 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:54.160 Sacher was parolled. 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:59.360 In May of nineteen seventy two. The first public announcement 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:02.640 using the Tribal Thumb was in a notice for a 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:06.080 workshop to be held on August eighth, nineteen seventy three, 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:07.159 in Long Beach. 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:08.560 The event was. 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:11.920 Sponsored by the Tribal Thumb Community and the Peace and 0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:16.679 Freedom Party, which was a communist political party. The announcement read, 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:21.279 in part, we are the Tribal Thumb community and about 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:26.240 creating progressive change in this society. Work, struggle and knowledge 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:29.640 together with living in unity is what we know to 0:06:29.640 --> 0:06:34.960 be the foundation leading to a socio political victory over oppression. Clearly, 0:06:35.000 --> 0:06:39.200 because governments and societies are made up of people, people 0:06:39.200 --> 0:06:43.480 are made up of biological and social character structures, change 0:06:43.520 --> 0:06:46.839 the character structure of people, and people will in turn 0:06:47.279 --> 0:06:52.400 change the structure of societies and governments. A nineteen seventy 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:56.279 two parole report on Satcher mentions finding a full garden 0:06:56.480 --> 0:07:00.320 of nine millimeters rounds and another garden with eight missing 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:04.120 shells in Sacher's car. It states that the holster and 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:08.919 revolutionary literature were found in his apartment. According to the 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:14.320 Berkeley barb despite the parole violations involving firearms, the FBI 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:17.960 asked the San Bernardino Sheriff's office not to use the 0:07:18.000 --> 0:07:22.400 evidence to revoke Sacher's parole. They said they were investigating 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:25.600 Satcher and planned to charge him, but he was not 0:07:25.800 --> 0:07:30.000 arrested or charged. The bar points to this as an 0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:32.480 initial sign that he may have been working with the 0:07:32.560 --> 0:07:36.280 FBI in some capacity. Either that or he could be 0:07:36.360 --> 0:07:39.000 manipulated to the point where he might as well be 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:43.880 working for the FBI. In late nineteen seventy three, Satcher 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:47.480 and Sargeist moved Tribal thumbed north to the Bay Area. 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:52.840 There were rumors about Satcher's activities during nineteen seventy three, 0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:55.760 that he was involved in running guns from Canada to 0:07:55.800 --> 0:08:00.520 the US, that he formed links to Vince Ramos group 0:08:00.600 --> 0:08:04.080 based in Palo Alto. In these early days up north, 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:09.080 Tribal Thumb acquired guns and focused on revolutionary rhetoric and 0:08:09.160 --> 0:08:14.600 training for guerrilla warfare. One of the only contemporaneous insider 0:08:14.640 --> 0:08:18.040 accounts of life in Tribal Thumb comes from a woman 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:22.800 named Hetty Sarney, the daughter of Romanian survivors of the Holocaust. 0:08:23.560 --> 0:08:26.280 Her story came to light after she was arrested for 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:31.120 her part in a disastrous nineteen seventy three bank robbery. 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:35.720 She lived alone on Channing Street in Berkeley. The street was, 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:40.440 in her words, like a self contained community, like a 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:45.040 commune in many ways. She attended Grove Street College, a 0:08:45.120 --> 0:08:50.439 radical school attended by, among others, future SLA members Joe 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:56.400 Ramiro and Patricia Missmoon Sultizic. Sarny came to know Saltiesk 0:08:56.559 --> 0:09:00.000 along with Camilla Hall, another soon to be SLA member, 0:09:00.920 --> 0:09:03.320 so she was already a member of one part of 0:09:03.360 --> 0:09:07.200 the radical community. She met Earl Satcher at a bar 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:12.200 on October nineteenth, nineteen seventy three. Satcher invited her to 0:09:12.280 --> 0:09:15.720 visit the Tribal Thumb home, which was a camper parked 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:19.480 in the driveway of a house they hoped to eventually buy. 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:22.840 Sarny was painting her apartment at the time, and Sacher 0:09:22.920 --> 0:09:26.520 offered to help. While they worked, Sacher talked about the 0:09:26.559 --> 0:09:31.760 eccentric doctor and psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich more on him later. 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:36.440 By October twenty third, just four days after Sacher met 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:40.400 Hetty Sarney, Tribal Thumb members had moved into her apartment 0:09:40.760 --> 0:09:45.000 and she was essentially a prisoner. They worked on indoctrinating 0:09:45.040 --> 0:09:49.240 her into their revolutionary ideology. Sarny had grown up in 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:53.199 communists Romania, though, and was not inclined towards the political 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:57.600 side of revolutionary groups. Her ambition was to go to 0:09:57.679 --> 0:10:02.320 medical school and open medical clinic in Mexico and Guatemala. 0:10:02.840 --> 0:10:07.560 She became increasingly concerned the next day. According to her 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:11.160 deposition given for an appeal to her bank robbery conviction, 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:14.600 she stated then he said that they were going to 0:10:14.679 --> 0:10:17.000 rob a bank in order to buy a house for 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:17.720 their commune. 0:10:17.720 --> 0:10:18.280 In Berkeley. 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:22.440 I was stunned and didn't know what to say. The 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:24.800 next day was Tuesday, and I got up to go 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:28.839 to school. Earl stopped me. He said that school was 0:10:28.880 --> 0:10:31.200 a waste of time and that I would learn what 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:34.200 I needed to know from them. I spent the whole 0:10:34.240 --> 0:10:37.080 day walking around in a daze. They never left me 0:10:37.120 --> 0:10:38.199 alone for a minute. 0:10:38.400 --> 0:10:39.720 I felt like I was in prison. 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:45.160 Satcher was upset with Sarny's resistance to joining their revolutionary cause. 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:49.120 He called her a reactionary and began to beat her. 0:10:50.160 --> 0:10:53.800 He called a tribal Thumb member named Joe Monico and 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:56.800 told him to come over and bring a gun. The 0:10:56.840 --> 0:10:59.800 two men talked about killing Sarny, who knew too much. 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:03.480 They considered stabbing her to death and dumping her on 0:11:03.559 --> 0:11:07.120 the street. There was a spade of murders committed by 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:10.040 someone known as the machete Man at the time, and 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:12.600 they figured her death would be added to his tally. 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:16.440 Then they thought she should write a suicide note, which 0:11:16.480 --> 0:11:17.360 she refused to do. 0:11:18.280 --> 0:11:19.160 They put a knife to. 0:11:19.120 --> 0:11:22.600 Her throat, but she still refused. Then they wrapped her 0:11:22.600 --> 0:11:26.520 in a blanket and set the blanket on fire. Again 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:30.720 from her deposition I was too frightened to move or 0:11:30.760 --> 0:11:33.120 say a word. But they must have thought I was 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:37.480 very brave, because they put the fire out. A Tribal 0:11:37.520 --> 0:11:41.720 Thumb member named Janet Hashemi embraced her and called her 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:45.800 a comrade. Sacher said he would stay with her, but 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:48.160 that at the end of the month, if she wanted 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:54.600 to leave, she could. Sarny from her deposition. On Friday, 0:11:54.760 --> 0:12:00.400 November ninth, we robbed the Bank of America. The Tribal 0:12:00.440 --> 0:12:04.560 Thumb considered themselves a well drilled guerrilla unit. The bank 0:12:04.640 --> 0:12:07.160 robbery should have put an end to that. It was 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:11.000 a fiasco. The robbery took place at the Bank of 0:12:11.040 --> 0:12:16.320 America in Berkeley, near the University of California campus. Several 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:20.320 members of Tribal Thumb entered the bank armed. Sarny was 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:23.760 with them unarmed. Her job was to get behind the 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:28.199 bank counter and fill bags with cash. Satra was driving 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:31.680 a getaway van. The robbers emerged from the bank with 0:12:31.800 --> 0:12:35.760 sixteen thousand dollars worth of bills stuffed into bags, only 0:12:35.800 --> 0:12:39.280 to find that the van was not there. They dispersed, 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:42.959 fleeing the scene and eventually finding the van blocks away 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:43.679 from the bank. 0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:45.760 From Sarney's deposition. 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:49.240 After leaving the bank, I went back to the van 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:53.400 undressed and got under the covers. A few minutes later, 0:12:53.600 --> 0:12:58.160 the police entered the van and arrested us. In all, 0:12:58.440 --> 0:13:03.240 six Tribal Thumb members were rested, including Sacher. This was 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:06.160 the same day that the SLA sent its communica about 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:11.560 the murder of Oakland Schools Superintendent Marcus Foster. That moment, 0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:15.280 when Earl Satcher, Hetty Sarney, and four others were in 0:13:15.400 --> 0:13:18.760 jail in the wake of their failed bank robbery, became 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:24.280 very important in Tribal Thumb's trajectory because Benny Sargus contacted 0:13:24.320 --> 0:13:28.880 the United Prisoners Union or UPU, the organization run by 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:33.400 Popeye Jackson, to see about getting help to fund Sacher's defense. 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:37.920 The funding didn't come through, but this was the critical 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:43.400 beginning of Tribal Thumb's relationship with the UPU. Sacher's defense 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:47.040 didn't require funding because of what may have been ludicrous 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:51.160 in competence by the FBI or further indication of Sacher 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:56.120 being an FBI asset. To put it succinctly, the FBI 0:13:56.240 --> 0:13:59.840 lost most of the evidence before trial, including the bank, 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:05.000 while the other five were sentenced to some jail time. Satcher, 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:10.160 the leader, walked free soon after. In nineteen seventy four, 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:15.280 Tribal Thumb members began to attend UPU meetings, events and 0:14:15.360 --> 0:14:20.600 Saturday study sessions. Among those attending were Benny Sargus and 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:24.640 a small time burglar and drug offender named Richard London 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:30.280 who went by Ricardo London. Tribal Thumb enjoyed good relations 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:32.440 with UPU during the People in Need. 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:33.360 Effort or PIN. 0:14:34.440 --> 0:14:37.960 Remember, this was Randolph Hurst's attempt to respond to the 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:42.280 Symbionese Liberation Army's demands to feed the poor of California 0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:47.120 as a requirement for Patty Hurst's release. It was around 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:50.240 this time that Sarah Jane Moore also became involved in 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:56.320 PIN and UPU. After People in Need ended, tension developed 0:14:56.320 --> 0:15:01.280 between UPU and Tribal Thumb members. D Sargists had collected 0:15:01.320 --> 0:15:05.000 money at some UPU benefits and was suspected of keeping 0:15:05.000 --> 0:15:09.560 some of the proceeds. Popeye Jackson confronted Sargist about this 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:14.600 and things became heated. After that, Tribal Thumb no longer 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:19.320 associated with UPO. Sarah Jane Moore left it around the 0:15:19.360 --> 0:15:22.960 same time and began associating to an unknown degree with 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:28.920 Tribal Thumb. Even in the context of radical and revolutionary groups, 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:33.920 Tribal Thumb had some strange beliefs and tenets. First among 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:37.880 them was their adherence to the teachings of Austrian doctor 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:43.960 and psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich. SATR focused primarily on Reich's ideas 0:15:44.000 --> 0:15:48.800 around orgone energy. Orgone was a word coined by Reich 0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:54.640 that was a combination of organism and orgasm. He theorized 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:59.120 that orgone was an omnipresent and essential substance, and that 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:02.280 a lack of organ in the body could cause problems 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:07.160 ranging from neuroses to cancer. Sex was apparently the remedy 0:16:07.200 --> 0:16:11.280 for this, and was encouraged and at times forced among 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:17.480 Tribal Thumb members. Monogamy was bourgeois. Tribal Thumb owned a 0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:21.160 property called the Honeydew Ranch north of San Francisco in 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:27.240 Mendocino County, where they raised Arabian horses. Here, the activities 0:16:27.320 --> 0:16:32.160 veered between the colt like and revolutionary. Like many radical groups, 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:35.800 Tribal Thumb performed a type of brutal group therapy that 0:16:35.840 --> 0:16:43.320 could include browbeating, interrogation, isolation, sleep, deprivation, violence, and other 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:49.040 techniques often used by colts to instill competence in revolutionary action. 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:53.880 A Tribal Thumb member named Walter Hunsacker trained the group 0:16:53.960 --> 0:16:57.120 in the use of firearms and allegedly arranged for the 0:16:57.120 --> 0:17:01.040 purchase of guns as well. He taught techniques to make 0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:06.560 guns untraceable. Huntsacker pushed the group towards action. He talked 0:17:06.560 --> 0:17:10.960 about revolutionary subjects, and in January of nineteen seventy five, 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:15.680 was present when Benny Sargis told Ricardo London that Popeye 0:17:15.760 --> 0:17:19.200 Jackson was a snitch and that they had to lean 0:17:19.280 --> 0:17:24.119 on him. But Huntsacker was not a true believer. He 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:29.080 was an infiltrator working for the FBI, a provocateur, and 0:17:29.119 --> 0:17:32.240 there are questions about whether he was the driving force 0:17:32.359 --> 0:17:35.840 behind violent actions that would have fallen under the aims 0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:40.640 of the FBI's co intel pro initiative, actions such as 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:46.359 the murder of Popeye Jackson. Sacher's strange political and philosophical 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:51.040 teachings alienated some followers, and Tribal Thumb evolved into a 0:17:51.119 --> 0:17:56.679 small group dedicated to Sacher. The consequences for leaving the 0:17:56.720 --> 0:18:00.800 group or not adhering to Sacher's beliefs were in Benny 0:18:00.880 --> 0:18:06.320 Sargus's weird mafia speak to take their air. Here's an 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:11.560 example of Satri's bizarre activities. He brought several Tribal Thumb 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:15.480 members to an isolated house in Pacific Grove, a town 0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:19.760 on the Monterey Peninsula south of San Francisco. The house 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:22.560 was owned by a single woman, and SATR thought it 0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:26.600 could serve as a headquarters. Sacher apparently wanted to show 0:18:26.640 --> 0:18:30.400 her how completely he controlled his followers. To do this, 0:18:30.920 --> 0:18:33.480 he had a child dive off a table toward a 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:36.879 stone floor, making no attempt to break his own fall. 0:18:38.000 --> 0:18:42.280 Sacher grabbed him just before he landed. There's no account 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:45.720 of the woman's reaction, but the group left when Sacher 0:18:45.840 --> 0:18:50.240 saw just how many people regularly visited the house. It 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:54.600 didn't have the privacy that he'd anticipated. We cover the 0:18:54.640 --> 0:18:58.720 Popeye Jackson assassination in the main podcast, so I won't 0:18:58.720 --> 0:19:01.480 go into it again here other than to mention that 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:04.320 the Berkeley barb found plenty of reason to believe that 0:19:04.400 --> 0:19:09.320 the FBI was at best indifferent to Popeye's murder. They 0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:11.560 pointed to the fact that the only witness to the 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:15.280 crime described two people involved in the murder, but the 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:18.840 investigation essentially stopped with the arrest of a single person, 0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:24.719 Ricardo London. Allegedly, thirty eight caliber bullets were found at 0:19:24.720 --> 0:19:27.639 the assassination scene, in addition to the bullets from the 0:19:27.760 --> 0:19:33.040 nine millimeter handgun used by Ricardo London. This was never explained, 0:19:34.160 --> 0:19:38.119 and despite his dominant control over Tribal Thumb, Sacher was 0:19:38.160 --> 0:19:43.080 only questioned once in association with Popeye's murder. The FBI 0:19:43.119 --> 0:19:46.399 had not only placed Walter Huntsacker in Tribal Thumb, but 0:19:46.520 --> 0:19:50.880 had another informant, Gary Johnson, in the group. Both were 0:19:50.880 --> 0:19:53.959 in position to know about the plans to assassinate Popeye, 0:19:54.800 --> 0:19:58.160 but they didn't try to stop it. Ricardo London gave 0:19:58.240 --> 0:20:02.000 Huntsacker the nine millimeter pistol he used, minus the barrel 0:20:02.400 --> 0:20:06.359 on July second, nineteen seventy five, less than a month 0:20:06.520 --> 0:20:11.440 after the June seventh assassination. San Francisco police detective Frank 0:20:11.480 --> 0:20:15.680 Falzan had found the gun's barrel on June eighth. Clearly, 0:20:15.840 --> 0:20:19.800 the evidence that Huntsacker possessed the barrelless gun and his 0:20:19.920 --> 0:20:22.800 knowledge from inside Tribal Thumb, could have led to an 0:20:22.840 --> 0:20:27.000 early resolution of the investigation, but Falzon did not even 0:20:27.040 --> 0:20:29.960 get that part of the gun until March of seventy six, 0:20:30.720 --> 0:20:36.000 nine months later. Finally, Popeye's murder was in keeping with 0:20:36.080 --> 0:20:39.120 the methods of co intel Pro, which had been officially 0:20:39.200 --> 0:20:42.919 ended in nineteen seventy one, but whose tactics continued on 0:20:43.200 --> 0:20:47.719 informally provoking. The murder of one revolutionary figure by a 0:20:47.760 --> 0:20:51.960 separate revolutionary group was exactly the type of operation that 0:20:52.000 --> 0:20:53.200 would have fallen under. 0:20:53.160 --> 0:20:53.960 Co intel Pro. 0:20:55.480 --> 0:20:58.720 This was, not, however, the only Tribal Thumb action that 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:01.439 appeared to the Berkeley Bar to be consistent with co 0:21:01.600 --> 0:21:11.520 intel Pro methods. After the break, the next chapter in 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:15.240 the Tribal Thumb story involved moving into the food business. 0:21:15.840 --> 0:21:18.680 This played out in two ways, one of which ended 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:22.520 up in disaster. The move that was not disastrous was 0:21:22.600 --> 0:21:26.000 the takeover in August of nineteen seventy six of a 0:21:26.080 --> 0:21:31.679 vegetarian restaurant called The Communion. The Communion was a unique place. 0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:37.160 Conversation was forbidden, no music was played, the walls were bare. 0:21:38.000 --> 0:21:40.840 The idea was that the food was the sole focus 0:21:40.840 --> 0:21:45.320 of diners. Then Tribal Thumb arrived. According to the owner 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:48.680 at the time, he was promised lots of sex from 0:21:48.720 --> 0:21:51.359 the women members of Tribal Thumb if he let the 0:21:51.400 --> 0:21:55.240 group move in. He would later assert in Small Claims 0:21:55.280 --> 0:21:59.679 Court that this abundant sex was not provided, but Tribal 0:21:59.720 --> 0:22:02.600 Thumb had already moved in, changing the name of the 0:22:02.640 --> 0:22:06.600 restaurant and eventually their group to the Well Springs Communion, 0:22:07.320 --> 0:22:12.159 they made the building their headquarters. Among other changes, the 0:22:12.240 --> 0:22:17.040 restaurant began to hold jazz concerts, including saxophone duets with Satcher, 0:22:17.480 --> 0:22:21.720 who is considered a very accomplished saxophonist, and Sunny Stitt, 0:22:22.160 --> 0:22:25.560 considered one of the great jazz saxophonists of his generation. 0:22:26.920 --> 0:22:29.880 A restaurant review in nineteen seventy nine stead of Well 0:22:29.880 --> 0:22:33.679 Springs Communion. It regards the restaurant as a service to 0:22:33.720 --> 0:22:38.119 the community wholesome fare at bedrock cost, but it is 0:22:38.160 --> 0:22:41.080 also a source of income for the group, whose primary 0:22:41.160 --> 0:22:44.960 effort is to provide alternative patterns of work and life 0:22:45.040 --> 0:22:49.639 for its members. The review is not great, emphasizing that 0:22:49.680 --> 0:22:55.600 the food, usually curried, was generally cold. It concludes, given 0:22:55.640 --> 0:23:00.359 hot food, I'm sure more would attend. It's not entirely 0:23:00.400 --> 0:23:04.120 clear when Tribal Thumb began calling themselves the Well Springs Communion, 0:23:04.680 --> 0:23:07.160 but I'll continue to refer to the group as Tribal 0:23:07.200 --> 0:23:11.640 Thumb to keep things from getting confusing. The second move 0:23:11.680 --> 0:23:15.160 they made was to infiltrate what was called the People's 0:23:15.200 --> 0:23:19.240 Food System. This was a loose network of Bay Area 0:23:19.359 --> 0:23:23.879 food co ops, households, and communes that banded together to 0:23:23.920 --> 0:23:28.199 provide an alternative to the large grocery store chains. They 0:23:28.200 --> 0:23:31.480 would pool money to purchase large amounts of organic foods 0:23:31.880 --> 0:23:33.440 and then meet to divvy. 0:23:33.240 --> 0:23:34.040 Up the supplies. 0:23:34.960 --> 0:23:39.520 These meetings themselves became social and political events. The system 0:23:39.560 --> 0:23:44.159 comprised a mix of ideologies. Among the system's members was 0:23:44.160 --> 0:23:48.520 a Berkeley food co op called Ma Revolutions, which employed 0:23:48.520 --> 0:23:52.040 a number of black activists, including a man named Willie Tait, 0:23:52.560 --> 0:23:55.480 who was a close friend of George Jackson's and one 0:23:55.520 --> 0:23:59.719 of the san Quentins six. Another system member was an 0:23:59.800 --> 0:24:04.840 organic food distributor called the Veritable Vegetable. Two Tribal Thumb 0:24:04.920 --> 0:24:09.520 members worked at the Veritable Vegetable. Benny Sargis, second only 0:24:09.560 --> 0:24:13.119 to Sacher in the Tribal Thumb hierarchy, and a former 0:24:13.200 --> 0:24:16.640 San quentin inmate known as Red, who may or may 0:24:16.640 --> 0:24:19.919 not have been a member of the Aryan Brotherhood. It 0:24:19.960 --> 0:24:23.600 was Tribal Thumb's association with the Veritable Vegetable that would 0:24:23.640 --> 0:24:24.760 eventually lead. 0:24:24.680 --> 0:24:25.960 To Earl Sacher's death. 0:24:27.359 --> 0:24:31.160 There was a sense among some people, particularly those involved 0:24:31.200 --> 0:24:34.680 with Ma revolutions, that Tribal Thumb was trying to take 0:24:34.720 --> 0:24:38.399 over the people's food system. It does make some sense 0:24:38.560 --> 0:24:42.760 from Tribal Thumb's perspective. It would provide a legitimate power 0:24:42.760 --> 0:24:46.480 base for the group, having control over the distribution of 0:24:46.520 --> 0:24:49.920 the communally purchased food. It would also be a place 0:24:49.960 --> 0:24:53.800 where they could employ associates, especially ex cons who might 0:24:53.840 --> 0:24:57.560 have trouble securing employment elsewhere, and it would supply a 0:24:57.680 --> 0:25:00.800 stream of money for a group that was poor and 0:25:00.880 --> 0:25:05.439 were incompetent bank robbers. In the spring of nineteen seventy seven, 0:25:05.920 --> 0:25:10.360 suspicions arose that Sargus and Red were diverting goods from 0:25:10.359 --> 0:25:12.280 the Veritable Vegetable to the Well. 0:25:12.119 --> 0:25:15.320 Springs Communion restaurant. This crisis led. 0:25:15.119 --> 0:25:17.760 To a meeting on April seventeenth with the aim of 0:25:17.800 --> 0:25:23.400 discussing principles of unity for the network. The Veritable Vegetable 0:25:23.520 --> 0:25:30.840 sent several observers, including Sacher. Sacher brought chaos he demanded 0:25:30.840 --> 0:25:33.800 to be allowed to participate in the meeting. The chair 0:25:33.840 --> 0:25:36.720 refused him twice, but Sacher forced his. 0:25:36.720 --> 0:25:38.200 Way into the proceedings. 0:25:38.640 --> 0:25:41.520 When it was brought to a vote, the overwhelming majority 0:25:41.520 --> 0:25:45.480 of workers present voted to expel the Veritable Vegetable Contingent 0:25:45.680 --> 0:25:49.560 from the system meeting. An argument broke out between Sacher 0:25:49.640 --> 0:25:53.000 and his group and the opposition, who had voted them out. 0:25:53.359 --> 0:25:56.960 One worker, believing that Sacher and company were actually police 0:25:57.040 --> 0:26:01.760 plants whose purpose was to disrupt the system's functioning, took photos. 0:26:02.640 --> 0:26:06.040 Sacher confronted him, telling the photographer that he'd pay. 0:26:05.920 --> 0:26:07.000 Him for the film. 0:26:07.440 --> 0:26:11.639 The man refused and was surrounded by Sacher's contingent. He 0:26:11.680 --> 0:26:13.760 made a move toward the door, and a fight broke 0:26:13.800 --> 0:26:17.159 out between Tribal Thumb and the system workers at the meeting. 0:26:17.560 --> 0:26:18.879 As Sacher tried. 0:26:18.640 --> 0:26:22.480 To get the camera, The photographer passed the camera to 0:26:22.560 --> 0:26:25.480