WEBVTT - The Legend of Imam Jamil 0:00:02.080 --> 0:00:04.960 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely 0:00:05.000 --> 0:00:08.840 those of the podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast, 0:00:09.119 --> 0:00:12.400 and do not represent those of iHeartRadio or their employees. 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:15.840 This podcast also contains subject matter which may not be 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:18.919 suitable for everyone listening to. Discretion is advised. 0:00:20.640 --> 0:00:24.240 Radical is released every Tuesday and brought to you absolutely free, 0:00:24.680 --> 0:00:27.280 but if you want to add free listening and early 0:00:27.320 --> 0:00:31.560 access to next week's episode, subscribe to tenderfoot Plus. For 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:35.960 more information, check out tenderfootplus dot com. 0:00:36.040 --> 0:00:47.440 Enjoy the episode. 0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:47.560 Campsite Media. 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:55.800 Investigating what Really happened in the West End on the 0:00:55.880 --> 0:00:57.680 nine of March sixteenth, two thousand. 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:00.480 The whole scene frame I frame. 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:04.840 It's been exhausting, but as a deadline approach to finish 0:01:04.920 --> 0:01:07.480 reporting and to put this story out into the world, 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:09.759 I was starting to have a good sense of things, 0:01:10.360 --> 0:01:12.440 of a man Jamil as someone who could have very 0:01:12.440 --> 0:01:15.600 well shot those deputies, and of a West End community 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:17.160 that was far from peaceful. 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:19.319 As I was turning over. 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:22.560 Various scenarios in my head, two questions kept popping up. 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:25.920 Was there really only one person shooting at the deputies? 0:01:26.720 --> 0:01:28.880 And did the FBI have someone there at the scene 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:32.440 when everything went down. These were hard questions to answer 0:01:32.440 --> 0:01:35.840 because so few eyewitnesses came forward after the shootout, and 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:38.600 none of the ones who talked had to clear unobstructed view. 0:01:39.480 --> 0:01:42.959 We spoke to one Abdusamat Jahad, the kid being tutored 0:01:42.959 --> 0:01:46.399 inside the mashed when the shooting started, but Abdusamat was 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:49.160 on the floor and in a closet during most of 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:52.440 the shootout. I was starting to think I'd gotten all 0:01:52.480 --> 0:01:55.280 I could get, stopped imagining there could be anything new 0:01:55.320 --> 0:01:58.080 around the corner. You've heard me say it a lot, 0:01:58.280 --> 0:02:00.480 that there was more to the story than the official account. 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:04.760 I thought I'd reached the limits of more. But there 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:12.120 was another eyewitness, a man named Damien Gordon. In the 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:16.919 late nineties, Damien, a young entrepreneur, discovered there was money 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:19.359 to be made and renting on apartments to students attending 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:23.239 the historically black colleges near the West End. Late one night, 0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:25.880 he was driving near the park when he saw brothers 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:28.880 from the Mashjit out on the corners. The security patrol 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:30.360 of Maam Jamil's mas jed. 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:33.560 Like he would have them out there keep the drug 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:35.760 dealers away from the park because they knew it don't 0:02:35.760 --> 0:02:37.880 come to the park, So when I saw that, I 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:39.640 was like, all right, I can't save a spot for 0:02:39.800 --> 0:02:40.840 girls to come stay. 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:44.280 Damien ended up buying a house next to the mass 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:48.400 jed and renting it out to students. With deadlines and 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:51.040 the demands of making this podcast, we wavered a bit 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:53.800 on whether it was worth speaking to Damien. We had 0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:56.360 read his story multiple times and all the documents were gathered, 0:02:57.160 --> 0:03:01.200 So what else do we really need to know? So 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:04.600 we could we could jump to two thousand. What happened 0:03:04.760 --> 0:03:07.800 that on that night you were doing some modeling? 0:03:08.080 --> 0:03:11.079 Yeah, all right, So me and Stacy are coming to 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:11.600 the house. 0:03:12.040 --> 0:03:15.359 Stacy is Damien's younger cousin, and he was with Demien 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:17.960 to help him move a bathtub into the house, but 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:20.160 the truck they were using got stuck in the mud. 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:23.919 When the gunfire started. Demian jumped from the truck to 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:26.680 see what was going on, but there were box trailers 0:03:26.720 --> 0:03:29.720 parked in the fields next to the mastet, partially blocking 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:33.440 Damien's view. He couldn't see what was going on except 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:35.280 the deputy English was lying on the ground. 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:39.520 And then as I'm walking further out, it just goes 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:43.960 off tumbling, tumbling, So I run grab I mean, I 0:03:44.440 --> 0:03:47.600 know scared. I run grab my cousin, throw him on 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:50.600 my shoulder, and I run up into the house. 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:52.960 Then I run to the back of the house. 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:56.400 Demien looked out a window, but he was still far 0:03:56.480 --> 0:04:01.000 away and he couldn't see everything. When the shootings, Damien 0:04:01.080 --> 0:04:03.600 heard two car door slam and then he heard a 0:04:03.640 --> 0:04:07.560 car speed away. The two door slams we had seen 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:10.320 Damien describe that in one of his statements to prosecutors. 0:04:11.040 --> 0:04:13.480 It could mean a lot of things that not one, 0:04:13.520 --> 0:04:15.760 but two people were shooting back at Deputy English and 0:04:15.800 --> 0:04:18.880 Deputy Kenchin. Or it could just mean that one person 0:04:18.960 --> 0:04:20.880 threw something in the back seat of their car before 0:04:20.920 --> 0:04:24.080 they drove away. The two door slams were notable but 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:29.720 seemed pretty inconclusive. But when we finally interviewed Damien at 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:32.599 a club he owned in Atlanta, he told us something else. 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:35.680 He said he actually saw two people get into the 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:39.000 car before it drove away. That would put two people 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:41.479 in the black Mercedes fleeing the scene. 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:43.040 That wasn't in the documents. 0:04:43.560 --> 0:04:44.240 That was new. 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:48.520 Two people getting into the car. He was certain about it. 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:52.560 There were other inconsistencies in Damien's different tellings of what 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:55.719 happened that night, But this new information was too big 0:04:55.760 --> 0:04:59.120 of a deal. We had to take it seriously. Damien 0:04:59.160 --> 0:05:01.120 said he couldn't ide the people from the window where 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:03.679 he was watching, but he did seem to know something 0:05:03.680 --> 0:05:05.760 else about who might have been there during the shootout, 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:09.880 something that he wasn't keen to share, so some other 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:10.720 people were there. 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:15.480 It gets a little it gets a little deeper than that. 0:05:15.600 --> 0:05:18.680 You know, we can't have that conversation. But you know 0:05:18.760 --> 0:05:21.640 what I'm saying, But. 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:21.960 But what do you mean, Well, if you don't want 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:23.680 to have the conversation, then let's have it off off. 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:25.120 Yeah, we had to have that off books. 0:05:25.440 --> 0:05:26.320 You know it is there. 0:05:27.080 --> 0:05:29.760 Yeah, you need to turn it off, like you need to. 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:30.760 Turn that off. 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:37.640 What Damian told us was off the record, and we'll 0:05:37.680 --> 0:05:40.680 stay off the record. But Johnny and I left that 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:43.960 meeting kind of pumped. We were feeling hopeful that we 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:46.360 might actually get to the bottom of what happened the night. 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:46.880 Of the shootout. 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:57.719 From Campside Media, Tenderfoot TV, and iHeart Podcasts. This is Radical, 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:04.440 I'm Mostly Secret. Episode eight, The Legend of a Man 0:06:04.520 --> 0:06:32.479 Jimmil Consider a black boy who came into this world 0:06:32.480 --> 0:06:35.960 with a fiery nature in the nineteen forties Jim Crow 0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:42.400 South racial oppression at every turn. Humiliations didn't put out 0:06:42.400 --> 0:06:47.080 his light, They only made his fire burn hotter gave 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:48.680 him something he felt he should burn. 0:06:50.279 --> 0:06:52.000 Consider that the child grew up to. 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:55.359 Be a trap Brown whose nickname made clear that he 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:58.440 had away with rhymes and words he could rouse the 0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:00.760 brothers on the corner to follow him to the front 0:07:00.760 --> 0:07:04.680 lines of the Black struggle, rifles in hand, firebombs in hand, 0:07:05.320 --> 0:07:08.160 because the real way to defeat American violence, he told them, 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:13.080 was to harness violence yourself. Consider that this man was 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:15.880 viewed as such a threat by the US government, a 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:18.040 messiah to the oppressed at the height of the Black 0:07:18.080 --> 0:07:22.400 Power movement, that federal agents scheme to take him down, 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:25.960 maybe even tried to kill him. But that in prison 0:07:26.320 --> 0:07:30.160 he found religion. Islam changed his name to Jamil a 0:07:30.200 --> 0:07:33.560 Lamin and started amaster it when he got out a 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:36.560 whole community, creating his own domain in the middle of 0:07:36.560 --> 0:07:39.520 what he'd once sought to destroy, doing what he thought 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:46.520 had to be done to keep his community alive. Does 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:49.560 that have the ring of destiny? The feel of God's 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:52.960 guiding hand. It's easy to get tied up and not 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:56.480 philosophizing about how much power we really have over our lives. 0:07:56.840 --> 0:07:58.960 But a man Jamil talked often about the will of 0:07:59.000 --> 0:08:01.600 a law, a sense he had that his life was 0:08:01.600 --> 0:08:08.360 maybe predetermined or out of his control, whether it was 0:08:08.440 --> 0:08:11.960 destiny or something else. In the late nineties, the pressure 0:08:11.960 --> 0:08:14.680 on a Mam Jamil from the world surrounding him was building. 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:20.880 The FBI appeared to intensify its surveillance, and periodic gun violence, 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:24.720 perpetrated often by members of his own community, was practically 0:08:24.760 --> 0:08:29.000 at his doorstep. It was near the beginning of this 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:32.240 period the spring of nineteen ninety eight when a Maam 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:34.280 Jamil spoken in the event in Washington, d c. 0:08:41.000 --> 0:08:43.120 All praise is due to a Law who has created 0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:47.360 man and has not left him, but indeed has given 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:51.320 him guidance as to that which is liked by the creator, 0:08:52.360 --> 0:08:57.000 and he has commanded upon man struggle with consciousness and 0:08:57.040 --> 0:08:58.440 awareness in his behalf. 0:09:01.120 --> 0:09:03.440 It was a fundraiser held in a big hotel ballroom 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:07.559 to honor Quame Toure formerly Stokely Carmichael, the chairman of 0:09:07.600 --> 0:09:11.319 Snick before h Rap Brown took over. Listening to a 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:15.280 Mam Jamil speak, you can still hear some rap. Maybe 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:17.760 a Mam Jimil's voice was lower and his pace slower, 0:09:18.400 --> 0:09:21.640 but the rhythm and determination behind his words that was 0:09:21.679 --> 0:09:24.760 the same. There must have been some ember still inside 0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:28.160 of Ma'am Jamil, and I wonder was it being stoked 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:32.480 building into a flame, a fire by all the challenges 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:34.280 and pressure swirling around him at the time. 0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:37.959 Oppression is worse than the grave, he said. It is 0:09:38.080 --> 0:09:42.120 better to live and fight for a noble cause than 0:09:42.160 --> 0:09:44.440 to live and die slaves. 0:09:47.720 --> 0:09:52.240 Muslims, he said, are commanded to remind themselves and those 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:55.800 around them that struggle is ongoing. But there is a 0:09:55.880 --> 0:09:59.920 higher form of struggle, an internal struggle to raise one's 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:05.040 level of consciousness and awareness. Deal with yourself, Struggle with yourself, 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:07.520 and that will emanate to the world. 0:10:09.720 --> 0:10:12.200 If you can't beat yourself, you can't beat nobody else. 0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:15.280 Everybody can fight, but everybody can't win. 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:19.000 We know so much more about him Man Jamil struggle 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:22.440 with the world with America's ills, that we know about 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:25.440 his struggle with himself. I wish I had been able 0:10:25.480 --> 0:10:28.800 to learn more about his inner life. Was he fulfilled? 0:10:29.200 --> 0:10:32.199 What brought him joy, what put him on edge. That's 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:34.480 why I've often wondered out loud what he was thinking, 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:37.680 how he was feeling during certain moments in the story. 0:10:38.640 --> 0:10:41.680 Struggle has not stopped. It didn't begin in the fifties 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:44.960 and end in the seventies. The movement sense of struggle 0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:48.360 which has always visited struggle. It says at the anti 0:10:48.400 --> 0:10:53.280 slavery movement, Marcus god Is movement, the Black power movement, 0:10:53.520 --> 0:10:56.480 civil rights movement. They come and they go, but the 0:10:56.520 --> 0:11:00.160 struggle is continuous until a loss from the law has 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:02.520 righted the wrong that has come about. 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:09.200 Even though a Maam Jamil had given so much, risked 0:11:09.240 --> 0:11:12.280 so much, and his external struggle to improve the lives 0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:15.160 of black people, I don't think he believed that Allah 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:18.880 had righted America's wrongs, And as the twentieth century came 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:21.280 to an end, he seemed to be struggling with what 0:11:21.320 --> 0:11:21.839 he had wrought. 0:11:21.840 --> 0:11:22.600 In the West End. 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:28.040 I spoke to a man Pleman Elemine about this period 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:31.079 in a Maam Jamial's life. You might remember a man 0:11:31.080 --> 0:11:33.800 Pleman from much earlier in the story. He's one of 0:11:33.840 --> 0:11:37.200 the most prominent elders in Atlanta's African American Muslim community 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:39.960 in the late nineties. A man Pleman was a leader 0:11:39.960 --> 0:11:42.240 of a massed across the city from the West End, 0:11:42.720 --> 0:11:44.600 and he saw what he thought to be informant in 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:46.199 AmAm Jamil's mastered. 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:49.240 I think even he would have been surprised or he 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:54.319 was surprised to see that people were close to him 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:57.360 were working for the government. 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:02.520 Grappling with suspicions about informants must have been exhausting for 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:05.560 a Mam Jamial. He was trying to create a welcoming 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:09.000 community where anyone could join the mass jed all while 0:12:09.080 --> 0:12:11.320 law enforcement was working to get people close to him. 0:12:12.040 --> 0:12:15.320 That kind of pressure takes a serious toll. History had 0:12:15.360 --> 0:12:18.800 already shown that when a Ma'am Jamil's mother and sister 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:22.720 Karama's parents succumbed amid FBI harassment in the early seventies, 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:27.040 and there wasn't just surveillance coming down on a ma'am Jamil. 0:12:28.000 --> 0:12:31.720 Remember Lowndes County in the Black belt of Alabama, where 0:12:31.720 --> 0:12:34.520 a Maam Jamil went after the shootout. He had worked 0:12:34.559 --> 0:12:36.920 there back in the sixties and then in the nineties 0:12:36.960 --> 0:12:39.480 he helped establish a small Muslim community in the area. 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:43.080 By nineteen ninety nine, a Maam Jamil had decided he 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:45.640 wanted the Western mass Jed and the Muslim community around 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:50.640 it to leave Atlanta and move to Lowndes County. 0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:53.640 He presented it to his community, Hey, we're going to 0:12:53.760 --> 0:12:56.400 move to Alabama, and they said no. 0:12:57.640 --> 0:12:58.320 So he was. 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:01.800 Upset about that as well. Yeah, because they had never 0:13:01.840 --> 0:13:02.520 said no to. 0:13:02.480 --> 0:13:03.760 Anything for it. 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:06.800 But they say, hey, man, we're not going to the country. Man, 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:09.440 we established here and we got the family, got business, 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:12.720 got this whatever. And they had had several meetings and 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:17.360 discussions about that, and he's not telling me that. I'm 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:20.079 getting it from some of his members and everything. Hey 0:13:20.280 --> 0:13:24.000 we can't go to the country. We're at lanterns, you know. 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:27.120 And so he was. He was upset about that. 0:13:27.440 --> 0:13:30.160 I wondered if he wanted to go there and start 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:35.080 over because the West End had become so infiltrated. 0:13:37.720 --> 0:13:40.480 Well, it could be, but. 0:13:42.800 --> 0:13:50.160 I really think that, you know, the whole idea is 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:54.360 based in the Nation of Islam, that's based in Sunni Islam. 0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:59.360 Is let's go back and if we're not going back 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:03.240 to Africa, let's go back somewhere. You know, in Nati Islam. 0:14:03.520 --> 0:14:06.559 They lied to Bahama give US six six southern states, 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:09.360 and we'll do our own things. 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:10.520 That was part of that. 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:14.240 So all that's still in all of this African American Islam, 0:14:14.800 --> 0:14:16.000 it's still there somewhere. 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:18.640 Let us get our separate land. 0:14:18.400 --> 0:14:21.720 And we'll do our own thing, you know. So I'm 0:14:21.720 --> 0:14:25.040 thinking he's just saying, hey, we're gonna try it again. 0:14:25.200 --> 0:14:28.080 Start off new, start off fresh, with. 0:14:28.240 --> 0:14:33.400 Just us on acres of land. But nobody wanted to go. 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:39.240 And then also in nineteen ninety nine, and Ma'am Jamil 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:42.800 was arrested in copp County, a suburban county north of Atlanta. 0:14:43.560 --> 0:14:45.920 This was the arrest that ultimately led to the warrant 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:48.600 the Deputy Kenchin and Deputy English had with them when 0:14:48.640 --> 0:14:50.080 they came to arrest to ma'am Jamil. 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:53.080 In March of two thousand, a. 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:55.360 Ma'am Jamil was driving a Ford Explorer with a dealer 0:14:55.400 --> 0:14:59.440 license plate. A local police officer pulled him over. The 0:14:59.440 --> 0:15:01.720 officers had and when he asked for license and registration, 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:06.720 a Maam Jamil's hands were shaking. The paperwork didn't check out. 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:11.800 The SUV had been reported stolen, according to the officer's 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:15.040 testimony in court, he ordered a Maam Jamil get out 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:17.640 of the vehicle and as he patted him down, he 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:22.240 found his wallet. Inside there was a police badge. The 0:15:22.320 --> 0:15:24.880 officer asked to ma'am Jamil if he was a police officer, 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:28.200 and he said yes. It was an honorary bad from 0:15:28.240 --> 0:15:32.200 the mayor of Whitehall in Lowndes County. Years later, these 0:15:32.280 --> 0:15:35.400 charges would be thrown out as unconstitutional, but the officer 0:15:35.520 --> 0:15:39.120 arrested to Mamajamil for operating a stolen vehicle and impersonating 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:42.880 a police officer, and man Pleman said that the second 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:46.320 charge for impersonating a police officer, that was the one 0:15:46.320 --> 0:15:47.680 that really bothered at Maam Jamil. 0:15:49.240 --> 0:15:52.280 That's the last thing he would want to be doing 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:57.200 is playing like he's a policeman. And so I could 0:15:57.240 --> 0:16:01.000 see him try to let this police officer know that 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:05.640 he's not just anybody, not just a African American who 0:16:05.720 --> 0:16:09.000 you stopped and giving a ticket, that he's somebody. 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:12.840 You know, it was out there that a man Jamil 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:16.040 was pretending to be something he despised, and even with 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:18.880 all his authority in the West End, he was powerless 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:22.200 to do anything about it, powerless to shift the narrative, 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:26.200 restore his reputation. I'm pretty powerless before any judge he 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:29.480 would face in a court of law. He's somebody, a man, 0:16:29.480 --> 0:16:32.320 Pleman said, but only to a small number of people 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:34.480 who don't have much political power in the first place. 0:16:35.520 --> 0:16:37.920 A couple occasions that I saw him in the midst 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:43.960 of those things, he was very irritable and upset about 0:16:44.000 --> 0:16:47.640 what was going on. And I had never seen him 0:16:47.920 --> 0:16:52.680 like that before. You know, it was always hey, what 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:54.800 can I do for you? What do you need anything? 0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:59.360 You know, there's always his demeanor that he was ready 0:16:59.360 --> 0:17:02.360 to ass issue whatever you needed or whatever. But in 0:17:02.400 --> 0:17:06.640 the bits of that, it was like, yeah, just complaining 0:17:06.640 --> 0:17:11.600 about these people, these people, man, And you know, how 0:17:11.640 --> 0:17:14.200 can anybody think that I want to be a police 0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:18.280 be a policeman? You know, that's that's the last thing, 0:17:18.400 --> 0:17:21.800 my man. I'm trying to show somebody I'm a police officer, 0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:23.520 impersonate a police office. 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:26.399 I heard from other people that a Man Jamil's demeanor 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:29.560 changed during this time. People from the West End who 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:31.159 I trust but who didn't want to say it on 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:34.080 the record. They told me that they believe that man 0:17:34.160 --> 0:17:37.520 Jamil shot those deputies, that something in him seemed to 0:17:37.520 --> 0:17:41.560 have caught fire and then the Friday jun my services 0:17:41.600 --> 0:17:44.640 at the mask. Yet he kept saying I'm gonna. 0:17:44.440 --> 0:17:45.320 Get me one. 0:17:45.600 --> 0:17:49.080 I'm gonna get me one, and no one knew what he. 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:49.720 Was talking about. 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:04.520 After Damien Gordon, the man who owned the house next 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:07.119 to the mash Jed in the West End, told Johnny 0:18:07.160 --> 0:18:08.760 and me that he saw two people get into the 0:18:08.760 --> 0:18:11.520 car and drive off. After the shootout, we went to 0:18:11.560 --> 0:18:15.000 speak with Abdusa mat Jahad, the seventeen year old who 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:18.600 was inside the mass Jed that night. Abdusa Matt told 0:18:18.600 --> 0:18:20.320 me that a lawyer came and questioned him in the 0:18:20.320 --> 0:18:23.760 months after the shootout, but that since then I was 0:18:23.800 --> 0:18:25.800 the first person in all these years to really ask. 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:26.280 Him about it. 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:30.800 So, yeah, what we want to do is go over 0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:34.840 that night, just kind of slow it down from the beginning, 0:18:34.920 --> 0:18:37.440 figure out. 0:18:36.440 --> 0:18:39.560 What you remember, what you really remember, so. 0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:47.440 You are in the mask shit, Yeah, in the mass hit. 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:53.240 After they had to been not the because no other prayer. 0:18:53.080 --> 0:18:53.960 Was going on after that. 0:18:56.440 --> 0:18:59.120 After the Easterer prayer, the last prayer of the day 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:02.120 about remembers being tutored by a math. 0:19:01.920 --> 0:19:03.400 Teacher who lived in the community. 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:07.200 When they heard gunfire outside the tutor jumped on top 0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:11.119 of a Dusamat. They laid motionless on the floor. I 0:19:11.160 --> 0:19:13.200 tried to reach that tutor, but I didn't hear back 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:18.399 from him. When the gunfire stopped, a different man, not 0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:21.680 the tutor, he dragged Abdussimat into a closet and told 0:19:21.760 --> 0:19:25.560 him to stay there. That man his Muslim name was Nigell, 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:29.520 and Abdusamat told us that Nigell was carrying a gun. 0:19:30.720 --> 0:19:33.640 And it wasn't like a comer right, It was a 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:36.840 Stifer type rifle. It was a rifle that who were 0:19:36.960 --> 0:19:39.679 used to kill a deer or snipe some kind of 0:19:39.720 --> 0:19:41.840 hot power, hot collar of a rifle. 0:19:43.320 --> 0:19:46.240 While Abdusamat was still in the closet, he heard what 0:19:46.280 --> 0:19:50.160 he thought was Nigeal leaving the mast Git. Then there 0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:54.320 was more gunfire outside, and when it stopped, Abdusamat left 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:57.400 the closet and looked out the window. He saw Nigel 0:19:57.480 --> 0:20:00.480 standing near Deputy English, who was lying in the field 0:20:00.600 --> 0:20:05.600 next to the mass Jit bleeding. Abdusamat heard Nigel yell out, hey, 0:20:05.920 --> 0:20:07.919 there's one over here, like he was. 0:20:07.960 --> 0:20:09.960 Letting someone know. The English was lying there. 0:20:11.119 --> 0:20:14.560 Abduso Ount isn't clear who Nigel was speaking to. It 0:20:14.600 --> 0:20:17.280 could have been a man Jimial or other people from 0:20:17.280 --> 0:20:20.159 the mass Jed, or it could have been someone in 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:22.960 law enforcement who was not one of the deputies but 0:20:23.000 --> 0:20:26.280 had already arrived at the scene. But if Nigel was 0:20:26.400 --> 0:20:28.879 yelling out to some cops, that would seemed to be 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:30.800 a death wish. 0:20:31.040 --> 0:20:37.880 He's standing there holding a high powered rifle. They didn't 0:20:37.880 --> 0:20:39.160 even shoot him. Les stick them up. 0:20:41.040 --> 0:20:44.960 That is very silly, you get saying if you ran 0:20:45.040 --> 0:20:47.320 if a shooting that happened, you ran out with a rifle, 0:20:47.840 --> 0:20:50.240 you would be shot. That's his way. 0:20:51.280 --> 0:20:53.120 It was black. Yeah. 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:56.520 After Abdusamat heard Nigell call out, he saw him come 0:20:56.560 --> 0:20:58.880 back into the mass Jed and Nigel put his gun 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:04.600 away somewhere in the closet. Abdusamat thinks then Nigell was gone. 0:21:04.800 --> 0:21:08.399 That was it. He disappeared. He never came back in 0:21:08.440 --> 0:21:11.080 the mask ged he but before that he was a regular. 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:13.840 Before that, he was a regular. He had just came 0:21:13.920 --> 0:21:15.920 to the mean. Nobody really know much about him. 0:21:17.640 --> 0:21:19.879 Nigel had shown up in the Western community about three 0:21:19.960 --> 0:21:22.920 years earlier. He took care of the mass Jed grounds 0:21:23.359 --> 0:21:25.480 didn't have another job at the time, and he was 0:21:25.520 --> 0:21:26.440 living in the masjed. 0:21:27.400 --> 0:21:28.560 That wasn't so unusual. 0:21:29.040 --> 0:21:31.280 Men would sometimes stay there when they were passing through 0:21:31.680 --> 0:21:36.480 or temporarily homeless. Abdusamat never got any weird vibe from Nigell, 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:39.320 but he said there was speculation in the community that 0:21:39.359 --> 0:21:44.000 he was an informant. Abdusamat's dad, who's now deceased, he 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:45.640 was among those skeptical of Nigell. 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:49.560 Assuming Nigell was. 0:21:49.520 --> 0:21:52.520 There and he had a rifle with him, what did 0:21:52.560 --> 0:21:54.600 he do after he put Abdusamat in the closet and 0:21:54.640 --> 0:21:59.439 exited the masjed. It's possible, maybe even likely, that he 0:21:59.440 --> 0:22:03.879 fired at day deputies. The kind of rifle that Abdusamat 0:22:03.880 --> 0:22:06.760 described Nigel as carrying. It could have shot two two 0:22:06.840 --> 0:22:09.639 three caliber rounds like the dozens found at the scene. 0:22:11.160 --> 0:22:14.040 If Nigel did fire at the deputies, it could mean 0:22:14.040 --> 0:22:16.359 that a maam Jimial wasn't responsible for the injury to 0:22:16.400 --> 0:22:21.320 English or the death of Kenchin. A ma'am Jimil's lawyers 0:22:21.359 --> 0:22:24.919 called Nigel to testify at the trial. He said he 0:22:25.000 --> 0:22:27.400 was inside the mast jed with abdusamat At the time 0:22:27.440 --> 0:22:29.879 of the shooting, and they laid on the floor until 0:22:29.920 --> 0:22:33.480 all the shooting stopped. Then Nigil said he looked out 0:22:33.480 --> 0:22:37.960 the window and saw English lying in the grass. While 0:22:38.000 --> 0:22:41.240 Abdusamat was still inside. Nigil walked out and he ran 0:22:41.359 --> 0:22:43.840 into two officers who had already arrived at the scene. 0:22:44.840 --> 0:22:48.679 The officers asked if anybody was inside. During his testimony, 0:22:48.880 --> 0:22:51.560 Nigel admitted he'd lie to the officers and said no 0:22:51.920 --> 0:22:55.480 because he was trying to protect Abdusamat. The officers turned 0:22:55.520 --> 0:22:58.800 around and didn't enter the mass jed. The story seems 0:22:58.800 --> 0:23:06.639 odd to me. If Nigel was indeed an FBI informant, 0:23:07.400 --> 0:23:11.160 the defense in the prosecution might not know. I read 0:23:11.160 --> 0:23:14.000 through a congressional report about the FBI's use of murderers 0:23:14.000 --> 0:23:16.399 as informants, which came out around the time of a 0:23:16.480 --> 0:23:20.080