Speaker 1: Novel Phoenix Jones was arrested by saddle p d on
Speaker 1: suspicion of poor people got pepper school. The pepper spray
Speaker 1: turned the scene into total chaos. M When we last
Speaker 1: left our hero Phoenix Jones, he'd just been arrested for
Speaker 1: pepper spraying a bunch of people outside of bar that
Speaker 1: night on October nine, two thousand and eleven. He was
Speaker 1: booked into the county jail and then bailed out. He
Speaker 1: says that when he showed up to court a few
Speaker 1: days later, his old nemesis, Seattle attorney Pete Holmes, was
Speaker 1: there waiting for him. He's trying to convince me not
Speaker 1: to fight crime, Like, if you don't stop fin and crime,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell your identity. I'm like, you can't threaten
Speaker 1: me with something like I will not be threatened. You
Speaker 1: have nothing to threaten me with, Like it's ridiculous for
Speaker 1: you to think you're gonna threaten me, ridiculous. The concepts
Speaker 1: offensive you threatening me ridiculous, Like, oh, you're gonna tell
Speaker 1: everybody in my identity you already did. Jerk off. I'm
Speaker 1: in court. Do you think we can keep all these
Speaker 1: court documents sealed? I'm aware of the clocks ticking. That's
Speaker 1: why you did it. You did it to expose me
Speaker 1: and to make fun of me, because you thought that
Speaker 1: people would think of was a clown. It was at
Speaker 1: this moment that Phoenix decided he would turn the tables
Speaker 1: on his nemesis. That was one of those moments where
Speaker 1: I was like, everything sucks, but if it's gonna suck,
Speaker 1: it's gonna suck my way. He looked to Iron Man
Speaker 1: for inspiration, specifically the scene where the inventor Tony Stark
Speaker 1: reveals his identity at a press conference and now Mr
Speaker 1: Stark has prepared a statement. Phoenix watched that lip over
Speaker 1: and over again, like five or six times in a row. Truthish,
Speaker 1: I am, I right man, And it was like, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do my version of that. Phoenix set up a
Speaker 1: press conference outside the courthouse on October two thousand and eleven,
Speaker 1: wearing his black and gold superhero costume, flanked by people
Speaker 1: in business suits. He turns to the reporters and speaks,
Speaker 1: I'm Phoenix Jones, I'm also Ben Voter. I'm just like
Speaker 1: everyone else. The only difference is that I decided to
Speaker 1: make a difference and stop crime. In my neighborhood, in
Speaker 1: my area. The reveal didn't quite have that Hollywood polish,
Speaker 1: but it was an impressive thing to witness. Phoenix had
Speaker 1: made it clear to Pete Holmes and the rest of
Speaker 1: the Seattle Police Department, the whole world really that he
Speaker 1: would not back down from his mission to fight crime.
Speaker 1: As Phoenix saw, he called their bluff and they folded.
Speaker 1: Life only is a certain amount of moments, right, and
Speaker 1: I think sometimes people are conflicted by how they feel
Speaker 1: their emotions, right were as I'm not so so it
Speaker 1: really have a chance to look at them as how
Speaker 1: can I add to my legacy? At this moment, Phoenix
Speaker 1: concluded his press conference with an announcement the city Attorney
Speaker 1: could take his request that Phoenix stopped fighting crime and
Speaker 1: shove it. I'm paraphrasing. What he actually said was that
Speaker 1: he was heading back out on patrol that weekend, but
Speaker 1: the point still stands Phoenix Jones would not be deterred.
Speaker 1: I'm David Weinberg and from the team's at Novel and
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. This is the Superhero Complex episode five
Speaker 1: the Rogue Era. When Phoenix Jones revealed his identity outside
Speaker 1: the Seattle Courthouse it was a moment of triumph. Shortly
Speaker 1: after Pete Holmes's office announced that they were dropping the
Speaker 1: charges for the pepper spray incident. I think they just
Speaker 1: went perfectly. Other than having my identity, it really went
Speaker 1: perfectly because I think that legitimized me as a superhero
Speaker 1: in a weird way. How well, because when I revealed
Speaker 1: my secret identity, every news article said, hey, superhero revealed
Speaker 1: secret identity. You have to be a superhero to have
Speaker 1: a secret identity. And I revealed it because the cops
Speaker 1: were coming after me for stopping crime. Phoenix said that
Speaker 1: in a way, revealing his identity actually helped him because
Speaker 1: before now nobody had been able to check whether he
Speaker 1: had bona fide superhero credentials. People thought it was a
Speaker 1: guy running around in spandex trying to fight crime. It
Speaker 1: was kind of a clown. But when you expose y
Speaker 1: and behind it, you find out that I'm a four
Speaker 1: time regional champion martial artist, a black belt in taekwondo.
Speaker 1: Have over crimestops now they can look up because they
Speaker 1: know my school name, and then they see all these
Speaker 1: legal police stocks where my name is mentioned in crime reports,
Speaker 1: including an attempted murder stop right, and all of a
Speaker 1: sudden you're like, oh, that guy is not a clown.
Speaker 1: So in a weird way, it legitimizes me further than
Speaker 1: I ever could. If Seattle's law enforcement were out to
Speaker 1: get Phoenix by charging him for a crime, they had failed.
Speaker 1: If anything, the arrest made Phoenix more confident and more defiant.
Speaker 1: Shortly after he revealed his true identity, he made an
Speaker 1: appearance on Fox News on Megan Kelly's show, Phoenix. Is
Speaker 1: it true that at the end of the court hearing
Speaker 1: yesterday you tore off your dress shirt to reveal your
Speaker 1: signature black and green superhero costume? It was black and gold. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was wearing my super suit because this wasn't about
Speaker 1: the guy under the mask. They were charging Phoenix Jones
Speaker 1: because I'm Phoenix Jones. If I was a regular person
Speaker 1: and I had just regularly pepper sprayed someone who was
Speaker 1: in a fight, they would have shook my hand and
Speaker 1: sent me away. So I wore the suit because that's
Speaker 1: what this was about, and I took my mask off
Speaker 1: because the person suffering for it is the person under
Speaker 1: the mask. Phoenix may have one his first major battle
Speaker 1: with the police, but it was really just the start
Speaker 1: of the war. When Phoenix was arrested, the Seattle police
Speaker 1: confiscated his beloved super suit and they refused to give
Speaker 1: it back. Phoenix complained about it on the local Seattle
Speaker 1: radio program The Bob Rivers Show. Why did they confiscate
Speaker 1: your There's two answers. There's the politically correct answer and
Speaker 1: then the truth. So Phoenix says that the police claimed
Speaker 1: his suit was evidence and they needed it to identify him.
Speaker 1: He says that doesn't make any sense because he'd already
Speaker 1: identified himself publicly. He ends up complaining to the host
Speaker 1: about the fact that he's having to use a substandard
Speaker 1: replacement suite proof vest staff plating and doesn't have stay
Speaker 1: and the police confiscated that suit. This one is not
Speaker 1: so expensive. The other one that that police confiscated as
Speaker 1: quotations evidence evidence was like seven thousand seven in what
Speaker 1: are they doing with that? That makes me mad? They're
Speaker 1: probably wearing it and taking photos. Call every day and
Speaker 1: ask about the sup several times day. Phoenix assigned to
Speaker 1: my suit, so there's not an officer I can call
Speaker 1: it directly. In the moments right after Phoenix revealed his
Speaker 1: identity and his dramatic press conference. It felt like he'd
Speaker 1: won a massive victory over the system, but the reality
Speaker 1: was that Phoenix had just opened up a huge can
Speaker 1: of worms, and the repercussions of his decision to out
Speaker 1: himself were about to hit with disastrous consequences. It was
Speaker 1: hard for me is when my identity came out. I
Speaker 1: was working with autistic children. So they yanked my state
Speaker 1: license and much other stuff and said I was crazy.
Speaker 1: When Ben Photor wasn't putting on a superhero costume and
Speaker 1: chasing down criminals as Phoenix Jones, or training at the gym,
Speaker 1: or competing as an m M A fighter, he was
Speaker 1: at his day job caring for kids with autism. He
Speaker 1: went to their homes or to state run facilities, and
Speaker 1: he took them out shopping and help them learn other
Speaker 1: life skills they would need to navigate the world as adults. Well.
Speaker 1: My parents own foster home that works with autistic children
Speaker 1: for a living. When I turned eighteen, the first job
Speaker 1: I ever had was working with autistic children. I worked
Speaker 1: with autistic children until I was twenty five, and I
Speaker 1: got like a bunch of different awards for like, you know,
Speaker 1: a Teacher of the Years and all kinds of different
Speaker 1: stuff for working with autistic kids and helping them cope
Speaker 1: with their general life skills. I found him incredibly easy
Speaker 1: to like understand and like incredibly easy to help, So
Speaker 1: being somewhat on that spectrum would make that easier. I guess. Obviously,
Speaker 1: any person who becomes a real life superhero probably thinks
Speaker 1: outside of societal norms. But there were also these small
Speaker 1: moments I had with Phoenix that revealed something deeper about
Speaker 1: how he sees the world, about his thought processes. For example,
Speaker 1: one night I was driving with Phoenix when he got
Speaker 1: a text from his girlfriend Dre. He pulled over to respond,
Speaker 1: and then he explained this bizarre system he created for
Speaker 1: talking to friends over text messages. I don't always understand
Speaker 1: how to explain things to other people, are like, uh,
Speaker 1: what you? How you As a way to show that
Speaker 1: I like, he was not ever going to be something
Speaker 1: that I value, So I came up with the system
Speaker 1: with my friends where when I think about them, I'll
Speaker 1: send a number, like if it's like so three one
Speaker 1: three is like a sandwich. Any number has a sandwich,
Speaker 1: or run like one to three, like one in morning
Speaker 1: in the morning, like two numbers on the ends and
Speaker 1: once number in the middle. Right. When I'm thinking of
Speaker 1: my friends, I'll send him a random like the random
Speaker 1: set of numbers, you know what I mean, because math
Speaker 1: always makes sense three seven right, Three plus four equals seven,
Speaker 1: so I'll send him like three plus four and then
Speaker 1: an equal sign and seven right. So we all send
Speaker 1: each other numbers back and forth. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: saying I'm thinking about you at a specific time, or
Speaker 1: I waited till that time because you're an important person
Speaker 1: to me and math makes sense to me. I didn't
Speaker 1: quite understand Ben's system. It just sounds a little like
Speaker 1: autistic to me. Yeah, well, like on the spectrum people
Speaker 1: have said that about me before you know, I started explaining,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I feel like autism is a negative thing,
Speaker 1: Like people are always saying something negative about being autistic.
Speaker 1: In my mind, and if I am autistic, then I
Speaker 1: guess I'm one of the most successful autistic people that
Speaker 1: there is, Like I win at every game I play.
Speaker 1: So whatever label people want to put on that they can,
Speaker 1: I don't care what the the funk I guess. After Phoenix
Speaker 1: was arrested, the Department of Social and Health Services notified
Speaker 1: his employer who barred him from working with any of
Speaker 1: the children in their care. Phoenix was told to leave immediately.
Speaker 1: He says he had to walk out of his job
Speaker 1: in the middle of the day. The department spokesperson said
Speaker 1: they were just trying to air on the side of
Speaker 1: caution and that he could have his job back if
Speaker 1: he wasn't convicted. But after the charges were dropped, Phoenix
Speaker 1: says he still had to prove that he wasn't mentally
Speaker 1: ill before they'd consider letting him go back to work.
Speaker 1: One test he says he was given was supposed to
Speaker 1: determine whether or not he was autistic. At the end
Speaker 1: of the test, Phoenix got a score, a number that
Speaker 1: determined where on the autism spectrum someone is. Phoenix says
Speaker 1: he scored a fifty seven out of a hundred. Anything
Speaker 1: above fifty could be autistic, anything above sixty is autistic.
Speaker 1: So what then does that mean? The part of the
Speaker 1: test that really tripped Phoenix up was the facial recognition questions.
Speaker 1: There's a part where they play like a video of
Speaker 1: these faces and people make weird faces, right, and they're
Speaker 1: supposed to say what emotion the person's feeling. Had no
Speaker 1: fucking clue. Like it was just like random faces. It
Speaker 1: didn't make any sense, no one could have done it.
Speaker 1: It was crazy. So afterwards I was like, this is insane.
Speaker 1: So I told my doctor about it. He's like, oh, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the facial recognition recognizant tester or whatever. Right, So they
Speaker 1: were like, well, we'll give it to you again. So
Speaker 1: I did again. I scored the exact same thing. Right
Speaker 1: then he was like, what's your son do it? Because
Speaker 1: my son was with me. Right then, my son did
Speaker 1: it and he just straight up was like sad, happy, confused, angry,
Speaker 1: and nailed all of them. So I was like with
Speaker 1: this weird moment where I'm like, Okay, there's something happening
Speaker 1: here that I'm not seeing clearly. Phoenix told me that
Speaker 1: the autism assessment was just one of several psychological tests
Speaker 1: he was given. So it took me like three years
Speaker 1: of like proving I'm not a crazy person. What was
Speaker 1: that three year process of trying to prove that you
Speaker 1: weren't crazy? What did that look like? Well, like, first
Speaker 1: I had to go to stupid hearing. Then after the hearing,
Speaker 1: I had some many piece of paper and then they
Speaker 1: wanted me to do a mental evaluation, and then they
Speaker 1: did a I e. P. Meetings, which are like between
Speaker 1: like the kids that you work within the parents, and
Speaker 1: the final process was something called a judgment review, which
Speaker 1: is like where they just ask you a bunch of
Speaker 1: questions basically. But I mean, it wasn't it wasn't hard,
Speaker 1: because I'm not crazy. Eventually, Phoenix says he did everything
Speaker 1: he needed to pass the psychological tests, but in the meantime,
Speaker 1: he was still out of a job and a super suit.
Speaker 1: But Phoenix was determined to continue protecting the citizens of Seattle,
Speaker 1: so he put on his budget backup suit and hit
Speaker 1: the streets looking for action. For Phoenix, the only thing
Speaker 1: that mattered was the work protecting those in danger and
Speaker 1: helping those in need, even if everything else in his
Speaker 1: life was a total mess. I'm deficient in these areas
Speaker 1: over here, but none of them have to do with
Speaker 1: crime fighting. That is the one place I am sucking flawless.
Speaker 1: Now Here is one issue that Phoenix and I will
Speaker 1: never agree on. I wholly reject the idea that Phoenix
Speaker 1: is perfect at crime fighting. I mean, this is a
Speaker 1: guy who almost drowned in a puddle because he got
Speaker 1: caught in his own net and then got robbed by
Speaker 1: the criminal he was chasing. Also, every time I hung
Speaker 1: out with Phoenix, we had to use my rental car
Speaker 1: to get around because his car had either been towed
Speaker 1: or broken into by thieves who he was never able
Speaker 1: to apprehend. So yeah, I think we have different ideas
Speaker 1: about what crime fighting perfection looks like. But Phoenix was
Speaker 1: adamant that he had achieved it. There's no crime he
Speaker 1: can't stop, nobody he can't save. But there was one
Speaker 1: tragic incident in two thousand and twelve that Phoenix admittedly
Speaker 1: failed to prevent. It was a night that changed everything
Speaker 1: that's coming up. On April two thousand and twelve, a
Speaker 1: young businessman named Dennis was in Seattle for a work trip.
Speaker 1: I had brought my wife and one of my kids
Speaker 1: up there to spend the weekend. They did some shopping
Speaker 1: and cruising around while I did all my work. After
Speaker 1: he wrapped up the day's business, you went to see
Speaker 1: the Supercross at the Football Stadium with a friend. They
Speaker 1: were grabbing some food and heading back to the hotel
Speaker 1: where Dennis's wife was waiting for him. It was two
Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning on Saturday, night, so bars were
Speaker 1: closing and it was busy down there, so there was
Speaker 1: a ton of people. They walked from the stadium to
Speaker 1: Pioneer Square, where the streets were filled with tourists and
Speaker 1: folks from the surrounding suburbs who came into the area
Speaker 1: for the bars and clubs. There was also a large
Speaker 1: community of homeless people and drug dealers who catered to
Speaker 1: them alright, which was why Phoenix was a few streets
Speaker 1: away on patrol with Ghost, Midnight Jack, Captain Karma, and
Speaker 1: a few other members of the Rain City Superheroes. How
Speaker 1: so far, it had been just like any other night
Speaker 1: on patrol. They looked for bar fights or drunk people
Speaker 1: in need of assistance, and as usual, Phoenix had snapped
Speaker 1: some photos with late night revelers. Yeah, we definitely Yeah,
Speaker 1: Well you gotta hurrying great there, We have a good night.
Speaker 1: By the time Dennis was setting off back to his hotel,
Speaker 1: the Rain City Superheroes had stopped a couple of blocks
Speaker 1: away outside a night club called Trinity. A lot of
Speaker 1: people out here, right, bot right. Phoenix was preoccupied with
Speaker 1: some communication problems. Then again, we're losing contact. Brother, radios
Speaker 1: were trash. We had literally good radios that we had
Speaker 1: painted Garma, what's your code? I tried to hail Captain
Speaker 1: Karma on the radio and he didn't answer, Karma report,
Speaker 1: make him give me good radio contact? All right, who's
Speaker 1: running your radio? Phoenix was getting frustrated. Can you hear
Speaker 1: what I call you? Yeah? I called you three times?
Speaker 1: You didn't respond? Really? Yes? Really? What are your pocket?
Speaker 1: At this point locked in a petty argument about communication,
Speaker 1: they had no idea that their night was about to
Speaker 1: be turned inside out. And I couldn't hear what code
Speaker 1: you wor so I freaked out because bang bang bang
Speaker 1: gun shot gun shot gun shot. Three gunshots go off,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, yo, follow me, well me. Phoenix immediately
Speaker 1: started sprinting towards the sound. Within seconds, it arrived at
Speaker 1: a street called Yesler Way. People were screaming and fleeing
Speaker 1: in all directions. There's a person standing on their cell phone.
Speaker 1: There's a guy who's kind of crouching, you know, and
Speaker 1: then over here there's like a car that's driving by,
Speaker 1: and then I see it, the guy crouching. He's got
Speaker 1: a gun. M H. Dennis said he and his friend
Speaker 1: were there too. In the midst of the chaos. They've
Speaker 1: been crossing the road when the shots were fired. You
Speaker 1: could hear the panic. It was chaos, like scary. Over
Speaker 1: on his side of Yesler Way, phoenix froze out of
Speaker 1: the corner of my eye. The person on the cell
Speaker 1: phone just like drops, and it's a weird kind of
Speaker 1: drop because it's like like everything just stopped working versus
Speaker 1: like someone laying down or being her was like it
Speaker 1: just was like, oh. The person who dropped to the
Speaker 1: ground was te year old Nicole Westbrook. Nicole had been
Speaker 1: shot in the face and the bullet had gone through
Speaker 1: her cheeks and shattered her spine. Dennis said he ran
Speaker 1: towards her. Everything's slowed down, it went into like slow motion.
Speaker 1: I was just trying to keep her alert and awakened
Speaker 1: talking to me. So I had my hand kind of
Speaker 1: underneath her neck to kind of have her like look
Speaker 1: at me and talked me. And I felt blood underneath
Speaker 1: her neck. I could tell that's where she had been shocked,
Speaker 1: and uh yeah, I just sat there kind of screaming
Speaker 1: and yelling for police to come. By this point, Dennis
Speaker 1: said the square had emptied. It was scary quiet after
Speaker 1: the shooting because everybody was gone. There wasn't a soul
Speaker 1: around me. Phoenix was gone too. He had taken off
Speaker 1: in pursuit of the person he had seen crouching, who
Speaker 1: he thought was the gunman. He tore down the street
Speaker 1: past the confused onlookers, and he says he ran into
Speaker 1: the cops who were arriving on the scene, and I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: the shooting with this way, and the cops like hold
Speaker 1: up Phoenix. Phoenix says the police wanted to wait for backup.
Speaker 1: I'm like, that's ridiculous. I didn't come into this game
Speaker 1: to play these rules and like do this ship like
Speaker 1: but it was too late. It's mathematically not intelligent to
Speaker 1: run around a blind corner into the dark with the
Speaker 1: doodoo as a weapon. But it could have done it
Speaker 1: if I kept going when I started it, if I
Speaker 1: hadn't stopped. I wanted to do something, you know, we
Speaker 1: all got just up to do something. In the body
Speaker 1: cam footage available online, Phoenix talks to the police a
Speaker 1: few times, but I couldn't hear the cops telling him
Speaker 1: to turn back either way. Phoenix says he'd lost sight
Speaker 1: of the man he was chasing, and he blames himself
Speaker 1: for giving up the chase back at the intersection on
Speaker 1: Yesler Way. Dennis says he sat with Nicole and her
Speaker 1: boyfriend until the ambulance arrived. The couple had just moved
Speaker 1: to Seattle three weeks earlier. Nicole had just started class
Speaker 1: as in a culinary program at the Art Institute, and
Speaker 1: her boyfriend had recently been hired at a screen printing shop.
Speaker 1: They were out that night to celebrate their good fortune
Speaker 1: and landing a job and starting a new life together
Speaker 1: in the city. When the ambulance arrived, Nicole was alive
Speaker 1: but in critical condition. Dennis watched the medics pull away
Speaker 1: and walked back to his hotel with his shirt covered
Speaker 1: in blood. I remember seeing like a he's dressed up
Speaker 1: like a superhero ocape. You know you're in downtown Seattle.
Speaker 1: It's another crazy guy dressed up in a costume. I
Speaker 1: I really didn't think anything of it. It's all gonna
Speaker 1: stay with me, probably forever. Um. It just changes you
Speaker 1: when something like that happens. Phoenix says that after he
Speaker 1: gave up his pursuit of the gunman, he returned to
Speaker 1: the scene of the shooting. The cops wouldn't let me
Speaker 1: leave because I was the key witness of the thing,
Speaker 1: and I'm sitting there on the curb right there, like
Speaker 1: on the corner. And then after a little bit of time,
Speaker 1: like the crime tape, they just take the crime tape down,
Speaker 1: and then I'm sitting there and I'm just just me
Speaker 1: and I'm just like sitting next to this pile of
Speaker 1: blood on the street in my suit. And it's like
Speaker 1: the morning, and like people are coming to work and
Speaker 1: like living their lives and doing their thing. And then
Speaker 1: like maybe like seven, a firetruck comes by and just
Speaker 1: sprays all the blood into the drain. And that was it,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Like nothing got fixed, nothing
Speaker 1: got solved, None of us helped in any way. The
Speaker 1: shooter never got captured. We all just didn't do our job.
Speaker 1: Nicole never regained consciousness. She died in the hospital three
Speaker 1: days after she was shot. It's still an unsolved case.
Speaker 1: Her family keeps a Facebook page running, hoping for new
Speaker 1: information that might lead to an arrest. There are just
Speaker 1: moments in your life that you are never going to forget. Um.
Speaker 1: I took a long portion of my life and dedicated
Speaker 1: it stopping bad people from doing bad things. And I
Speaker 1: don't care if people don't like me. I don't care
Speaker 1: if people don't agree with what I did, but I
Speaker 1: live with the repercussions what I did every day. You know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm just realistically, there's nothing Phoenix could have done to
Speaker 1: save no Hole. He was blocked away when the shots
Speaker 1: were fired, but maybe that's why he was so affected
Speaker 1: by it. When Phoenix told me about how he'd been
Speaker 1: inspired by the Night Wind comics as a kid, he'd
Speaker 1: vowed that he would never be helpless again, but when
Speaker 1: it came to the senseless act of violence that ended
Speaker 1: in Nicole Westbrook's life, he was just as powerless as
Speaker 1: everyone else. Several of Phoenix's former teammates told me that
Speaker 1: he was never the same after that night. Ghost, who
Speaker 1: was with Phoenix during the shooting and has known him
Speaker 1: since they were in high school, put it bluntly, that
Speaker 1: was when my friend, in my mind died, and what
Speaker 1: we have now is not who I used to know.
Speaker 1: But he he did used to mean a lot to
Speaker 1: me as a person. I followed him into gunfire multiple times.
Speaker 1: He did too. You know, we all did against our
Speaker 1: better judgment often, but in my opinion, he took that
Speaker 1: the fact that we couldn't save that one person that night,
Speaker 1: way too personally. And I don't know, it sounds terrible
Speaker 1: coming out like that, but like there's a nature to
Speaker 1: this and we're not gonna win everything, you know, But
Speaker 1: he somehow took that upon himself in a way that
Speaker 1: I think changed him. Phoenix returned from that devastating patrol
Speaker 1: a different man, and the transformation would have consequences for
Speaker 1: everyone around him. That's coming up in the days after
Speaker 1: Nicole Westbrook's murder, Phoenix is in bad shape. Didn't come
Speaker 1: inside a house, take a shower, and take my supersuit,
Speaker 1: including my mask off. For four days, I was like
Speaker 1: patrolling at night and then just like just sleeping outside
Speaker 1: wherever I wanted. I mean, I lost my mind. I
Speaker 1: just like stop living for like four days. Phoenix was
Speaker 1: fixated on the man he'd seen crouching at the scene
Speaker 1: of the crime, and he was determined to find him.
Speaker 1: How would you able to find him? Because because knew
Speaker 1: what he looked like. I knew what he looked like.
Speaker 1: I knew most likely from his clothes. He didn't have
Speaker 1: a car. And there's this place called the Jungle. It's
Speaker 1: like a lot of homeless encampments just stretched next to
Speaker 1: the side of the city freeway, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I bet you he's in that place. The jungle stretches
Speaker 1: for three miles in a green belt directly underneath Interstate five.
Speaker 1: It's a sea of tents with a constant drone of
Speaker 1: traffic from the cars fifty ft overhead. According to some reports,
Speaker 1: unhoused people have lived in the jungle since as far
Speaker 1: back as the nineteen thirties. Phoenix made his way to
Speaker 1: the jungle in the hopes of finding the suspect, and
Speaker 1: I went through every single ten a ripping part and
Speaker 1: gotten fights and destroyed things. This is one of the
Speaker 1: few times Phoenix has ever admitted to losing his cool
Speaker 1: and going against his own strict moral code. Despite his
Speaker 1: objections in the past about homeless outreach not being a
Speaker 1: central part of his mission as a superhero, he's always
Speaker 1: claimed to offer assistance to those in need when he
Speaker 1: comes across them. But rampaging through a homeless encountment and
Speaker 1: destroying people's only belongings, Phoenix was out of control. Eventually,
Speaker 1: some was like, yo, stop it, this is where that
Speaker 1: dude's had And this took me there, and then me
Speaker 1: and him. At a conversation, Phoenix told me that when
Speaker 1: he finally found the man he'd been hunting for days,
Speaker 1: it turned out that he'd been after the wrong person.
Speaker 1: Phoenix said the man talked to him and convinced him
Speaker 1: that he wasn't the shooter. The police investigating believe it
Speaker 1: was a drive by and that the shots had been
Speaker 1: fired from a white sedan. When he heard this, Phoenix
Speaker 1: felt totally deflated. I went back to like under the
Speaker 1: bridge on James Street, there's like a parking lot. I
Speaker 1: was sitting up against a pole and ask guy's got
Speaker 1: to sleep under the parking lot? And then Ghost found
Speaker 1: me because of my cell phone tracker that we had on.
Speaker 1: He's like, yo, you gotta stop patrolling. Ghost had been
Speaker 1: there the night of the shooting as well, but he
Speaker 1: told me he had a different perspective on it than Phoenix.
Speaker 1: It does get to me in that way. I have
Speaker 1: severe PTSD and I managed it every day in my life.
Speaker 1: You know, there'd be something wrong with you if it
Speaker 1: didn't get to you. But you can't let one loss
Speaker 1: define you, you know, And I think that's what he did.
Speaker 1: In the aftermath of the shooting, some team members were
Speaker 1: skeptical about how sincere Phoenix's reaction was. Fellow real life
Speaker 1: superhero Crystal Marks told me that she always felt that
Speaker 1: Phoenix used Nicole Westbrook's murder to his advantage. I think
Speaker 1: it definitely left an impact. You can't be a human
Speaker 1: and know that that happened and not be changed in
Speaker 1: some way. But he keeps coming back, like I can't
Speaker 1: rest until her killer is found and and it's again
Speaker 1: he uses it for media attention, Like I don't know
Speaker 1: if he really was all that impacted Phoenix that interviews
Speaker 1: with the media about the murder. Nicole's family thanked him
Speaker 1: on their Facebook page for raising awareness, But Phoenix also
Speaker 1: had a comic book made which featured the shooting, starring him.
Speaker 1: It included graphic images Nicole laying in a pool of
Speaker 1: her own blood. Phoenix said on a radio show that
Speaker 1: it was intended to shine a light on the unsolved case.
Speaker 1: But there's something about making a comic book about a
Speaker 1: tragedy like that and making yourself the star that just
Speaker 1: feels a little gross to me. Whenever Nichol's murder came
Speaker 1: up when I talked to him, Phoenix was still very
Speaker 1: emotional about it, even all these years later, I just
Speaker 1: I cannot explain why this event it hurts me so
Speaker 1: much inside this person I don't know, getting shot by
Speaker 1: someone I don't know, in a scenario when the guns
Speaker 1: were already done before we could do anything. You know,
Speaker 1: there's nothing we could have done. There's no amount of training,
Speaker 1: there's no amount of superhero suits or movies or ideas
Speaker 1: or beliefs that they are changing. That nothing changes that.
Speaker 1: Phoenix told me that after the shooting his approach to
Speaker 1: crime fighting totally changed. A start patrol, right about an
Speaker 1: hour into patrol, I'd be like, all right, guys, if
Speaker 1: I need you, I'll give you a call, and then
Speaker 1: I would go tear up the jungle and getting fist
Speaker 1: fights with like crazy like just crazy ship, you know,
Speaker 1: or like me and Jack would break into an abandoned
Speaker 1: house that was full of like homeless people who were
Speaker 1: selling drugs in there, and like we would just do
Speaker 1: reckless things. I was on a reckless mission. I was
Speaker 1: just on one. Phoenix was acting increasingly wild and impulsive.
Speaker 1: Evo called him out on it. Eva was the street shooter.
Speaker 1: Like every time I tell him about a plan, he
Speaker 1: would be like, no, you want to go break into
Speaker 1: an abandoned house. No like no right. But the crew
Speaker 1: of guys wanted to patrol, and Eva was the secondary
Speaker 1: guy that they would follow. Eva grew more and more
Speaker 1: frustrated with Phoenix's erratic behavior. You wouldn't answer anything. Do
Speaker 1: you want to answer calls? You want to answer text, voicemails, emails,
Speaker 1: messages on Facebook or Twitter or anything like that, Like
Speaker 1: he was unreachable in the meantime, Like, okay, well the
Speaker 1: show must go on. So almost out of necessity, I
Speaker 1: would leap into this thing, like, hey, everybody, I just
Speaker 1: heard from Phoenix that we're doing Kept Hill tonight. So
Speaker 1: meat at our usual spot at eleven o'clock and we'll
Speaker 1: figure out roles there and be safe. I asked Phoenix
Speaker 1: about what Evo had told me. I think he got
Speaker 1: frustrated because he said, oftentimes you would just disappear and
Speaker 1: not be reachable, and you'd have to kind of like
Speaker 1: step in, And I feel like he felt like that
Speaker 1: hindered the patrols. I would agree to what was going
Speaker 1: on with you at that time, like that I was
Speaker 1: going rogue. So when he's talking about it's like the
Speaker 1: rogue era, the rogue era, Phoenix made no apologies about
Speaker 1: that chaotic period. Maybe you should go save its sex
Speaker 1: trafficking occasionally, or maybe you should do something Evo, because
Speaker 1: the thing that Evo has done was just what was
Speaker 1: Ebo done? Devo, take any of his cool crimestops. Tell
Speaker 1: me when the Evil's cram stops? Oh wait none? Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I mean because he have any. I mean you
Speaker 1: just interviewed him, right, What was one story he told
Speaker 1: you about where he stopped a crime because he doesn't
Speaker 1: have any, stopped the bagel Evil stopped zero crimes, full bagels.
Speaker 1: I'm not being mean none, So what are you talking about? Bro? Oh?
Speaker 1: Phoenix would leave all the time and go fight real
Speaker 1: crimes while you walked around and gave food to homeless
Speaker 1: people and smiled for photos and ship because you're like
Speaker 1: a Captain America and that's great, dude, congratulations for you.
Speaker 1: But like I'm in some real ship. We're out here,
Speaker 1: people are dying. I want to do some real fucking shit.
Speaker 1: As things started to unravel for Phoenix, there were other
Speaker 1: troubling lapses in judgment that caused alarm among his teammates.
Speaker 1: One incident in particular really rattled Evo. It was a
Speaker 1: bottle eleven am and I showed up to his house
Speaker 1: and he has passed out on the couch half naked,
Speaker 1: and like, hey, dud, gotta get up, man, we gotta go.
Speaker 1: As Phoenix was waking up, EVA went to use the bathroom.
Speaker 1: That's when he noticed the bottle of pills right next
Speaker 1: to the sink of this little medical bottle on its side,
Speaker 1: half empty, looking at it's real hypnol, Like, what the
Speaker 1: fuck is he doing with fucking date rape drug? What
Speaker 1: the hell is that? So I come out and say, hey,
Speaker 1: what's the little bottle of Ruffy's out there? And he
Speaker 1: just started, like almost panic, speaking at a million miles
Speaker 1: per hour, talking about how this friend of his had
Speaker 1: roofied purple. So Phoenix got some Roofi's and he was
Speaker 1: going to roofy this friend of his in revenge. It
Speaker 1: clearly made sense to him, but I was so lost
Speaker 1: on like this is something you call the police, Ford, bro,
Speaker 1: this is what? How is this helping any or? Like
Speaker 1: what does this fix? I asked Phoenix about this incident
Speaker 1: and he didn't deny it. That's true, Yeah it happened.
Speaker 1: Can you tell? Man? Shouldn't shared that? See when I
Speaker 1: said there were things have actually done that are bad, right,
Speaker 1: this is one of those things I've actually done. Phoenix
Speaker 1: says he'd seen a guy put real hypnol and his
Speaker 1: girlfriend's drink, so he threw out the drink, stole the hypno,
Speaker 1: and decided to take the matter into his own hands.
Speaker 1: I was like, yo, evil, you gotta help me, and uh,
Speaker 1: I stole the bottle and he was like, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to commit a crime with you. He's like, how
Speaker 1: dare you want to hypno someone? I don't even know
Speaker 1: if that's where you got it? And I got all
Speaker 1: like ridiculous about it, which made sense. Phoenix went through
Speaker 1: with this plan without Eva. So then I immediately got
Speaker 1: on the phone and called someone else, super friend of
Speaker 1: b who was like, down, that's terrible. So we went
Speaker 1: to this party and I dropped in this dude's drink
Speaker 1: and he just out right. So I rented a hotel,
Speaker 1: put him in the hotel, took all of his clothes off,
Speaker 1: wrote a note on the door as it thinks for
Speaker 1: the good time, and dipped with the guy passed out.
Speaker 1: Phoenix says they took his credit card and ordered shrimp
Speaker 1: and thirty seven bottles of champagne. We threw the shrimp
Speaker 1: all around the room and just put like put cooks bottles,
Speaker 1: and then we put condomns over the tops of cooks bottles.
Speaker 1: So he just woke up in this room with just
Speaker 1: like shrimp and cook's bottles. So was that was that
Speaker 1: a Phoenix Jones operation or was that a Ben Photo operation?
Speaker 1: I wasn't in my uniform. I would in my regular clothes.
Speaker 1: I would never do that as Phoenix Jones. There's no
Speaker 1: reason to me this whole story just seems like an
Speaker 1: example of Phoenix's immaturity. But it was also an example
Speaker 1: of yet another way in which Phoenix was not, as
Speaker 1: he keeps insisting perfect. The first time we talked, you
Speaker 1: kept insisting that you were perfect at crime fighting. But
Speaker 1: then but then today I feel like you just keep
Speaker 1: telling all these stories about when you weren't perfect. I'm
Speaker 1: curious how you like square those two ideas in crime fighting?
Speaker 1: Is just this not breaking the law, not harming other people,
Speaker 1: and stopping the crime. Right, moved on it every time.
Speaker 1: But what about Nicole. I mean, that's not a win,
Speaker 1: not possible to win. But isn't that a little bit
Speaker 1: like no, no, no, no, Well, I'm just saying the
Speaker 1: person who did it never got caught, right, Well, that's
Speaker 1: not a success. Then my job is not to catch
Speaker 1: the people who do crimes, is to protect the people
Speaker 1: who are getting hurt from the crime. You have a
Speaker 1: misconception of what crime fighting is because you don't have
Speaker 1: any experience on the streets. There's no tidy closed corners,
Speaker 1: not even in police work. Never right. But there's not
Speaker 1: one story where I showed up and it got worse,
Speaker 1: where I showed up and no one got helped. Where
Speaker 1: I showed up and they're like, you broke the law,
Speaker 1: or like they see me twenty seven times trying to
Speaker 1: say I broke the line. I fucking didn't. There's never
Speaker 1: been any of that. It's been flawless. So I don't
Speaker 1: care if you don't agree, you're just wrong. I hate
Speaker 1: to beat a dead horse here, but I am fixated
Speaker 1: on this claim of Phoenix is that he is perfect
Speaker 1: at crime fighting, largely because I want to believe in
Speaker 1: Phoenix strongs and I want to believe in what he
Speaker 1: stands for. I see the need for real life superheroes
Speaker 1: and the potential benefit to society that can provide. But
Speaker 1: Phoenix's life is messy, and there are so many people
Speaker 1: who say he's betrayed them that it's hard to know
Speaker 1: if he is to be trusted. And Phoenix has claimed
Speaker 1: that he is perfect is one of the instances where
Speaker 1: I feel entirely confident. Pushing back against his version of
Speaker 1: the story. We have had this debate where you say
Speaker 1: you're perfect crime fighting. I disagree. What I'm more interested
Speaker 1: in is like why because you are admittedly have this
Speaker 1: disastrous life, Like you're always like late to things like
Speaker 1: your cart, you have a lot of personal struggles. And
Speaker 1: the reason I find the idea that you can be
Speaker 1: perfect in crime fighting is like when you put on
Speaker 1: the suit, you don't become a different person. So like,
Speaker 1: how in your mind you justify this compartmentalization where you're
Speaker 1: perfect at this thing, but everything else in your life
Speaker 1: is a mess. And more importantly, like why do you
Speaker 1: feel this need to be perfect? I don't. I'm single
Speaker 1: minded to the point of recklessness, and that's why I'm
Speaker 1: so good at crime fighting and why I'm so bad
Speaker 1: at everything else. Like I've got to come to an
Speaker 1: interview today, right, But my car got told because of something,
Speaker 1: so now I'm focused on that car Tale and I'm
Speaker 1: late for the interview. But when you walk up to
Speaker 1: a crime scenario, it happens in front of you and
Speaker 1: it involves all of your attention. It's not ideal. They
Speaker 1: need to be per but it's just what I am.
Speaker 1: Every time we get into this debate, we reach a stalemate.
Speaker 1: But regardless of whether or not you believe Phoenix is logic,
Speaker 1: I think it's safe to say that what he sees
Speaker 1: as as great as failure as a superhero. Nicole Westbrook's
Speaker 1: murder changed his life forever. I don't know it was weird,
Speaker 1: but if we like makes chapters of people's lives were
Speaker 1: like in like our time, we use before Christ like
Speaker 1: B C N A D. My life would be like
Speaker 1: before Nicole and after it just never got better. And
Speaker 1: it's really like where the team started unraveling. That unraveling
Speaker 1: would ultimately lead to a superhero breakup on a mass scale.
Speaker 1: Next time the rain City Superheroes come crashing to an end.
Speaker 1: The Superhero Complex is hosted and written by Me David
Speaker 1: Weinberg and reported by Me, Amalia Sortland and Caroline THORNA
Speaker 1: production from Amalia Shortland and Caroline thornha Sean Glenn, Max
Speaker 1: O'Brien and David Waters are executive producers. Fact checking by
Speaker 1: Andrew Schwartz. Production management from Sharie Houston, Frankie Taylor and
Speaker 1: Charlie Wolf. Sound design, mixing and scoring by Nicholas Alexander
Speaker 1: and Daniel Kempson. Music supervision by Nicholas Alexander and David Waters.
Speaker 1: Original music is composed by Paul Housden. Special thanks to
Speaker 1: Peter Tangan, Willard Foxton, Matt Olmera, Katrina Norvelle Beth and Macaluso,
Speaker 1: Born Rosenbaum, Shelby Shnkman and all the team at U
Speaker 1: t A. For more from Novel, visit novel dot Audio