WEBVTT - Cherry Pie 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 --> 0:00:16.880 suitable for everyone. 0:00:17.280 --> 0:00:22.320 Listening to Discretion is advised. Radical is released every Tuesday 0:00:22.480 --> 0:00:25.599 and brought to you absolutely free, but if you want 0:00:25.600 --> 0:00:28.960 to add free listening and early access to next week's episode, 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:34.520 subscribe to tenderfoot Plus. For more information, check out tenderfootplus 0:00:34.600 --> 0:00:35.960 dot com. 0:00:36.040 --> 0:00:47.760 Enjoy the episode Campsite Media. 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:51.120 When European settlers arrived in the colonies in the seventeenth century, 0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:55.320 they brought the death penalty with them. The first recorded 0:00:55.320 --> 0:00:58.240 execution by Europeans was carried out in sixteen oh eight, 0:00:58.960 --> 0:01:02.360 long before American independence and the ratification of the Constitution. 0:01:03.880 --> 0:01:08.880 Crime subject to the death penalty have included murder, robbery, rape, 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:14.360 horse dealing, and aiding a runaway slave. For most of 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:17.640 the twentieth century, the state of Georgia electrocuted intimates to 0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:21.240 death right up until the time of a mam Jamial's arrest, actually, 0:01:22.600 --> 0:01:26.240 but the courts ruled that cruel and unusual, so when 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:28.120 a Maam Jamil's life was put in the hands of 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:32.360 twelve good folks from Georgia. He faced lethal injection that 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:36.160 was supposed to be more humane. A Mam Jamil's defense 0:01:36.200 --> 0:01:40.199 team felt the pressure. Their arguments, the words they chose, 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:44.360 even their facial expressions. It could all affect the jury's opinion. 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:48.040 A mistake, a poor choice could lead to a mam 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:53.560 Jamial being sentenced to death and ultimately killed. A Mam 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:56.000 Jamial's defense attorney, Tony Axam. 0:01:57.160 --> 0:02:01.800 I would be asking to save his life. So that's all. 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:10.880 That's a tremendous bird. You've said, jurors, he's not guilty. 0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:14.240 There's not enough evidence, and now you have to come 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:17.200 in front of that same jury and say, okay, let's 0:02:17.240 --> 0:02:20.000 assume you got it right. I have a second argument 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:21.600 for you. He should live. 0:02:24.960 --> 0:02:29.160 The prosecution was the first side to call witnesses. Deputy 0:02:29.240 --> 0:02:33.120 Kinchin's mother took the stand. She said when she was 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:36.440 at home, she found herself sitting next to the phone 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:40.080 waiting for her son to call. Kinchin's sister said his 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:43.880 death left her depressed and angry. Kinchin's wife said he 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:46.840 had been a good father and that some days she 0:02:47.000 --> 0:02:52.160 just sat and cried. The defense called witnesses in an 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:54.880 effort to show that a man Jimil and the decades 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:59.520 before the shooting, had lived a life of service. Andrew Young, 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:02.239 the former mayor of Atlanta and aid to doctor King, 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:06.679 he was a defense witness. Remember it was Young who, 0:03:06.720 --> 0:03:09.480 nearly twenty years after this day in court, wrote a 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:12.320 letter to the Fulton County DA's office arguing that AmAm 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:16.760 Jamial was innocent. Young said that he and a Maam 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:20.040 Jamil or h. Rat Brown at the time, met briefly 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:23.720 in the sixties. They weren't close, but Young still knew 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:26.519 that Rapp had lived through Jim Crow worked in the 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:29.679 rural South, endured violence, and spent much of his life 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:32.160 as part of a movement pushing to improve the lives 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:37.520 of black people that counted for something. The way Young 0:03:37.560 --> 0:03:40.520 saw it, Axem told me and Maam Jamil had built 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:43.600 up some credits going through all that credit to some 0:03:43.680 --> 0:03:46.320 imaginary system weighing the value of human lives. 0:03:46.920 --> 0:03:47.960 So he should be spared. 0:03:50.040 --> 0:03:54.320 Now we're at two thousand and we still don't have freedom. 0:03:54.800 --> 0:04:00.440 And that's the storm that Jamil Alamin weathered, and being 0:04:00.480 --> 0:04:05.000 in that storm, he deserves to live even if you 0:04:05.040 --> 0:04:08.440 think that he did it, spare his life, let him live. 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:14.080 In their closing arguments, the prosecution to the murder was 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:18.000 especially vile and that it showed a Maam Jamil was depraved. 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:22.920 Prosecutors showed gruesome, bloody photos of Kinchin's wounds. They said 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:25.159 it mattered that it was a sheriff's deputy who was killed, 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:28.440 and by sentencing a Maam Jamil to die, the jury 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:31.840 would be signaling that violence against law enforcement won't be tolerated. 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:37.200 Jack Martin, in his closing argument, stressed the power that 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:40.520 society had put in the hands of the jury. What 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:43.279 is to be decided now, he said, is the most 0:04:43.320 --> 0:04:46.279 important decision that any person ever makes in their whole life, 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:50.080 the most important decision that any democracy or any government 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:52.919 ever makes, the one time that we presume to be 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:56.800 god like. I appeal to your best, not your worst, 0:04:57.040 --> 0:05:00.719 Martin said. I appeal to your hopes for the future, 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:04.880 not your fears. I appealed to the possibility and the 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:07.840 reality of redemption in all of us, not the brutal 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:09.120 satisfaction of revenge. 0:05:09.800 --> 0:05:10.720 Not the worst than us. 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:20.080 AmAm Jamil didn't fear execution, and as the jury deliberated 0:05:20.120 --> 0:05:22.479 on a sentence. He put everything in the hands of 0:05:22.480 --> 0:05:26.920 a law. After five hours, the jury decided against the 0:05:26.920 --> 0:05:30.960 death penalty and they sentenced a Mam Jamil to life 0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:39.080 in prison without parole. From Campside Media, Tenderfoot TV, and 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:45.600 iHeart Podcasts, This is Radical, I'm Mostly Secret, Episode five, 0:05:46.720 --> 0:06:07.599 Cherry Pie, AmAm Jamille h. 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:08.240 Rat Brown. 0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:12.680 He had a gift for delivering unforgettable lines. But there's 0:06:12.720 --> 0:06:15.640 one phrase that's stuck in our culture memory more than 0:06:15.680 --> 0:06:18.360 any other. He said it in the speech in nineteen 0:06:18.440 --> 0:06:21.800 sixty seven during the long hot Summer of Black Rebellion. 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:24.880 Violence is a plot of America's culture. 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:27.119 It is as American as cherry pie. 0:06:28.360 --> 0:06:32.000 Violence is as American as cherry pie. It's meant as 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:35.159 a statement of fact, one of those beautiful phrases that's 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:39.120 simple and profound. At the same time, Rap wasn't saying 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:42.720 that violence is inherently good. He was saying that violence 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:47.600 is America, and America is violence. America was founded with violence, 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:52.320 built with violence, and persists because of violence. Never mind 0:06:52.320 --> 0:06:55.159 that Americans eat apple pie way more than cherry pie. 0:06:55.640 --> 0:06:58.320 The slip better conjures up the red bloodiness of it all. 0:07:01.440 --> 0:07:03.080 I was still obsessed with getting to. 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:05.360 The bottom of what happened on the ninth of March sixteenth, 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:09.160 two thousand. The evidence that came out at trial, it 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:11.480 was too shaky for me to set aside the possibility 0:07:11.520 --> 0:07:14.960 that a Mamjimial was wrongfully convicted. But I was pulled 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:19.600 in another direction too. I needed to investigate this American violence, 0:07:20.320 --> 0:07:24.520 how it operates, and the consequences, however dark or disguised 0:07:24.520 --> 0:07:27.920 they might be. I since it was key to understanding 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:31.160 a Maamjamial and to understanding the eruption of violence in 0:07:31.200 --> 0:07:34.400 the West End, whether a Mam Jamil was involved or not. 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:42.800 After AmAm Jamil was convicted and sentenced, law enforcement officials 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:45.320 held a secret meeting with the warden of Reidsville Prison 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:48.560 in Tattnall County, Georgia. A Maam Jamil was going to 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:54.360 be transferred there. Tattnall County's story is America's story crammed 0:07:54.360 --> 0:07:57.360 into five hundred square miles of swamps and rolling hills 0:07:57.400 --> 0:08:01.280 in southeastern Georgia. One point a quarter of the county's 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:05.320 population was enslaved raising beef, cattle, and cotton under the 0:08:05.360 --> 0:08:08.520 Georgia sun and under the threat of death, rape, and 0:08:08.560 --> 0:08:13.560 family separation. Much of Tattenneau County's success at the time, 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:17.160 according to an official county website, can be attributed to 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:17.960 slave labor. 0:08:20.000 --> 0:08:21.920 Then the State of Georgia opened. 0:08:21.720 --> 0:08:25.000 A prison near the county seat, Readsville, and much of 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:27.800 the county's growth in the last thirty five years, again, 0:08:27.840 --> 0:08:31.280 according to an official county website, can be attributed to 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:38.920 Regisville Prison. In that secret meeting, law enforcement officials told 0:08:38.920 --> 0:08:41.720 the warden that thirty to fifty thousand people had vowed 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:44.520 to save a Maam Demial and to spirit him away 0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:48.400 from the State of Georgia by force if necessary. Thirty 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:52.640 to fifty thousand people before law enforcement flew a Maamjamial 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:55.400 to Reedsville in a helicopter. They set up a five 0:08:55.480 --> 0:08:59.040 mile perimeter around the prison. A Ma'am Tarak Khan was 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:00.720 the sole Muslim chape at the prison. 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:02.479 When a Man Jamial arrived. 0:09:02.679 --> 0:09:05.559 They treated it like al chapo, right like that there 0:09:05.640 --> 0:09:08.079 was gonna be you know, this army is going to 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:11.040 break him out of something, and the snipers and everybody 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:14.320 outside and trucks and this and that and bring him 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:16.640 in in a hui, you know, and all of that 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:20.439 kind of stuff, and uh, it wasn't none of that. 0:09:20.720 --> 0:09:22.400 You know, they just overdo stuff. 0:09:23.240 --> 0:09:26.080 A Mam Tarik had met a Man Jamil before on 0:09:26.160 --> 0:09:30.160 the outside. They seen each other at basketball games, and 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:32.439 a Mam Tark went to the Western Mastet a couple 0:09:32.440 --> 0:09:36.480 of times as a chaplain. He had seen guards abuse 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:39.600 inmates for basically no reason, and he worried they would 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:43.000 give a man Jamil an especially hard time. So after 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:47.040 the helicopter landed the Hueiye, he went to check on him. 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:49.720 I wanted to stay there a little longer that day 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:54.080 to make sure that when hey body men, that he 0:09:54.160 --> 0:09:56.280 didn't get scraped up, you know. 0:09:56.320 --> 0:09:56.719 What I mean. 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:04.920 Reedsville was one of the state's highest security prisons. Politicians 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:09.080 called inmates there the worst of the worst. A Ma'am Jimil, 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:12.560 now nearly sixty years old, was held in a unit 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:17.440 named K Building and solitary Confinement. The doors to the 0:10:17.480 --> 0:10:20.080 cells and K Building were solid metal, except for a 0:10:20.120 --> 0:10:22.720 slot for a tray of food and a flap guards 0:10:22.720 --> 0:10:26.400 would open to handcuff the inmates. A Maam Jamil's cell 0:10:26.480 --> 0:10:29.720 was probably eight feet by ten feet, just enough room 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:32.840 for him to take three steps in either direction. He 0:10:32.960 --> 0:10:35.240 was forced to spend twenty four hours a day inside 0:10:35.240 --> 0:10:37.960 his cell, except for the occasions he was given an 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:40.760 hour to go outside to get some fresh air and 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:46.720 direct sunlight, but even then he was still inside a cage. 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:49.920 Our systems of public safety are built on the idea 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:52.480 that in order to protect the public, we must harm 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:57.080 some individuals. Punishment is a kind of harm, a kind 0:10:57.080 --> 0:11:00.199 of violence. Often that as a society we have read 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:04.320 a person deserves because of the acts they committed. The 0:11:04.360 --> 0:11:07.520 death penalty is an obvious example of violence if it's 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:11.079 squarely into the most common definition, the exercise of physical 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:15.320 force against another, and the practice of solitary confinement isn't 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:19.520 too far off. Most often, state violence is concealed by 0:11:19.559 --> 0:11:27.679 bureaucracy and innocuous terms corrections, k building, even confinement. 0:11:30.400 --> 0:11:34.040 They were really stringent on him, thinking that he was 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:36.480 going to have control over people there, you know what 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:39.760 I mean. But you know, he had an even mindset 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:43.200 about him being in there. He wasn't panicking, you know, 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:45.840 he just this is where I'm at, you know, this 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:48.280 is the hand I'm in debt, So I'm here. 0:11:49.960 --> 0:11:53.080 A man Jamil was in solitary confinement, but he wasn't 0:11:53.080 --> 0:11:56.800 completely isolated. He could see visitors, and he had them 0:11:56.800 --> 0:12:00.640 almost every weekend in holiday. His wife Karima and their 0:12:00.679 --> 0:12:04.360 son Kyrie came about three times a month. Sister Karima, 0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:07.920 an attorney herself by this time, was working with a 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:11.120 legal team to appeal to Mam Jimil's conviction and the 0:12:11.200 --> 0:12:14.920 Maam Jamil supporters. At least once a year, around Thanksgiving 0:12:14.920 --> 0:12:18.200 and Christmas, they gathered outside the prison to protest his 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:22.400 conviction and his treatment inside. A Maam Jamil communicated with 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:25.240 the other inmates in K Building by talking through air 0:12:25.320 --> 0:12:28.560 ducts between the cells. A Maam Tarak told us that 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:32.040 AmAm Jamil gave the Shahada, the Muslim oath to a 0:12:32.080 --> 0:12:35.199 white supremacist and K Building that he converted the guy 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:40.160 to Alam. A tale, maybe a true one from the 0:12:40.240 --> 0:12:46.040 legend of AmAm Jamil. A Ma'am Tark. He visited a 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:47.480 K Building pretty regularly. 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:52.200 It wasn't necessarily a special trip for him per se. 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:54.319 But I've made short of when I went over there 0:12:54.440 --> 0:12:57.280 that I got a chance to talk with him. I 0:12:57.360 --> 0:13:02.720 called officer officer to dropped slot. There's a little slot 0:13:02.760 --> 0:13:04.960 there and they would drop the slot. So I don't 0:13:05.000 --> 0:13:07.439 have to talk in the crack of the door. But 0:13:07.480 --> 0:13:09.599 you know, I used to talk to him periodically, you 0:13:09.640 --> 0:13:11.680 know what I mean. And he always had good spirits. 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:13.720 You know what I mean. He's locked up, don't have anything, 0:13:13.760 --> 0:13:15.640 and then ask you is anything I could do for 0:13:15.720 --> 0:13:18.760 you? You know what you need anything? I mean, that's his 0:13:18.840 --> 0:13:20.760 first words, you know, I mean, you locked up? 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:21.400 What you got? 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:24.640 You know what I'm saying. So, but that's how he was. 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:26.679 He always did that. Even if you see him now, 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:27.760 he'll say the same thing. 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:32.040 I know from court documents that when a Mamjamil arrived 0:13:32.040 --> 0:13:35.480 at regivial prison, the warden was immediately suspicious and wary 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:38.480 of him. Mam Jamil was accused at least three times 0:13:38.480 --> 0:13:42.120 of being involved in escape plots. I'm talking Shawshank redemption 0:13:42.240 --> 0:13:46.840 type stuff here. One time he was allegedly caught hanging 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:49.520 out near a broken window on the other side of 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:52.000 the glass, a rope made of sheets and a hacksaw. 0:13:52.800 --> 0:13:55.240 He denied all of it, but the possibility of mam 0:13:55.280 --> 0:13:58.320 Jamil's escape that was just the beginning of the warden's concerns. 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:04.240 In a memo from July two thousand and two, months 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:07.160 after a Maam Jamil was convicted. The warden said that 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:10.440 AmAm Jamil had the potential and influence to be a 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:14.480 definite threat. This at the same time, he said that 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:18.640 AmAm Jamil hadn't created any trouble, that his behavior was acceptable, 0:14:19.160 --> 0:14:21.880 and that the warden expected his behavior would continue to be. 0:14:21.840 --> 0:14:24.560 Acceptable to me. 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:28.920 This contradiction that a Maam Jamil was a threat but 0:14:29.040 --> 0:14:33.480 also well behaved the warden was revealing a deeper fear, 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:37.000 something like the evil energy that the US Marshall felt 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:41.360 in that Alabama courtroom standing near him. The myth of 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:44.280 a man Jamil. It was spreading out of a man 0:14:44.400 --> 0:14:48.000 Jamil's control and gaining traction among people with the power 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:59.800 to punish. In two thousand and five, after three years 0:14:59.800 --> 0:15:03.040 of prison time, a Muslim inmate and a different facility 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:06.320 is in a Mam Jamila message. The other guy wanted 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:09.160 to know if a Mam Jamil would assume leadership over Muslims. 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:13.080 Throughout the Georgia Department of Corrections, unifying Muslim inmates at 0:15:13.080 --> 0:15:17.400 over fifty prisons, a Ma'am Jamil said yes. A document 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:19.920 was circulated for other Muslim inmates to sign if they 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:22.880 agreed to pledge baya or loyalty to a man Jamil. 0:15:23.920 --> 0:15:26.640 The mission as it's laid out in the copy of 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:31.240 the document we have seemed noble enough. It said, Look, 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:35.280 Muslims aren't treated well in Georgia prisons. If we come 0:15:35.320 --> 0:15:38.320 together under a Mam Jamil, we can better advocate for 0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:41.800 ourselves and that will ultimately help us be better Muslims. 0:15:42.760 --> 0:15:45.280 But a Ma'am Tarik he didn't think this was a 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:47.960 good idea, even though he had a lot of respect 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:48.720 for a Maam Jamil. 0:15:51.400 --> 0:15:55.040 I think a few brothers told me about it, and 0:15:55.080 --> 0:15:56.960 they would ask me about it, and I told him, no, 0:15:57.160 --> 0:16:02.520 that's not gonna happen, because that would even that at 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:06.640 that particular time, would trump the other authority that is there. 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:12.560 The wardens ran the prisons period, and they would shut 0:16:12.600 --> 0:16:16.960 down any other parallel hierarchy. When prison administration learned of 0:16:16.960 --> 0:16:19.120 the BAI, they talked to a Maam Jimial about it 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:21.680 and he said he would instruct the other Muslims to 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:24.680 quash the effort. That would be the end of that. 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:30.600 But in June of two thousand and six, about six 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:34.360 months after the BAI began, the FBI published an internal 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:38.120 report with the title the attempt to radicalize the Georgia 0:16:38.160 --> 0:16:43.040 Department of Corrections inmate population. The report called AmAm Jimil 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:45.480 an Islamic extremist. 0:16:45.600 --> 0:16:47.320 Basically a terrorist. 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:51.800 It ran through his biography, even quoted his fiery speech in. 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:52.680 Cambridge, Maryland. 0:16:54.560 --> 0:16:56.960 The FBI report narrowed in on a few lines in 0:16:57.000 --> 0:17:00.600 the BAI document, and maybe reasonably so. One of the 0:17:00.640 --> 0:17:04.360 lines said the Georgia Department of Corrections is a battlefield 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:07.480 and we need a general to coordinate and direct us, 0:17:08.240 --> 0:17:11.800 and another a quote from an Islamic text. It suggested 0:17:12.080 --> 0:17:16.399 violence against anyone who challenges the leader. Here's this idea again. 0:17:17.080 --> 0:17:20.040 Violence is a means for the greater good. It's scary 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:24.520 for authorities when they're facing it too. It's why so 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:26.720 much of the response from the FEDS was based on 0:17:26.840 --> 0:17:29.879 what they thought a man Jamil might do or how 0:17:29.880 --> 0:17:32.480 they imagine others might respond to him. 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:33.840 Not what actually happened. 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:38.080 One passage of the report reads, it should be noted 0:17:38.080 --> 0:17:41.240 that any statements made by Alamine could be taken in 0:17:41.280 --> 0:17:44.320 an extreme nature, and the content could be potentially dangerous, 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:49.120 even if Alamine's intent was innocuous and Mama Jamil became 0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:52.679 bigger than he actually was, scarier than he actually was, 0:17:53.240 --> 0:17:55.920 because the fear of violence freaks you the fuck out. 0:17:57.560 --> 0:18:00.880 One morning in two thousand and seven, prison guards showed 0:18:00.920 --> 0:18:04.000 up at a mamm Jimial cell and k building. They 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:06.439 took him out through the rear gate of the prison, 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:10.359 where there was a caravan waiting. The guards put him 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:13.280 in the back of an suv. We got you now 0:18:13.560 --> 0:18:15.439 that Mam Jamil, said, one of the guards told him. 0:18:16.440 --> 0:18:39.280 Then they drove off. In the most common definition of violence, 0:18:39.960 --> 0:18:42.840 like I mentioned a few minutes ago, the word simply 0:18:42.880 --> 0:18:46.960 means to exercise physical force against another. But there are 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:50.280 also meetings of violence, obsolete uses dating back to the 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:53.399 fifteenth century that define it as an abuse of power 0:18:53.560 --> 0:18:57.960 or authority that persecutes or oppresses. These days, we don't 0:18:57.960 --> 0:19:03.080 really call that violence. No blood, no visible injury, But 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:06.160 the consequences of such violence that we don't really call violence, 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:12.360 they're very real, tangible. The FBI surveillance of a Mamjmial 0:19:13.040 --> 0:19:16.120 the infiltration of the mass JD by informants, it could 0:19:16.160 --> 0:19:19.960 fall under this lesser used definition of violence, And the 0:19:19.960 --> 0:19:22.359 more I learned about the extent and duration of the 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:25.280 surveillance the more I was convinced that it contributed to 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:31.760 the shootout where there was very real blood a Ma'am 0:19:31.840 --> 0:19:35.879 Jamil's wife, Karima Elamine, she got information from the FBI 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:41.520 that helped me draw this conclusion. Sister Karima is a lawyer, 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:45.480 one I'm acquainted with. Actually, she represented me and my 0:19:45.520 --> 0:19:49.639 wife on our green card application. Embarrassingly enough, I didn't 0:19:49.640 --> 0:19:53.320 realize at the time who her husband was. We reconnected 0:19:53.320 --> 0:19:56.080 when I started working on this project, and she was 0:19:56.119 --> 0:19:58.239 as nice as ever, though she did tell me that 0:19:58.280 --> 0:20:02.040 my generation needs to know more of its history. Sister 0:20:02.080 --> 0:20:04.920 Kareema is pretty private and she didn't want to be interviewed, 0:20:05.359 --> 0:20:07.239 but we were able to find a recording of her 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:13.240 from a rally to support AmAm Jamil that happened in Harlem. 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:18.240 He struggle. 0:20:19.400 --> 0:20:22.040 Rallies for a man Jamil weren't uncommon after he was 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:25.040 convicted and placed in isolation. This is one of the 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:28.160 larger ones we've come across. There were about two hundred 0:20:28.200 --> 0:20:30.479 people there. Here's sister Kareema. 0:20:31.080 --> 0:20:36.679 I do want to extend email Jamil and I do 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:42.040 call him Emaim Jamil. I want to extend his greetings 0:20:42.400 --> 0:20:46.200 and his appreciation and he would say, I Salamu a 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:51.000 leako to everyone, and that's how I begin, and I 0:20:51.080 --> 0:20:54.600 begin in the name of Allah the most Merciful. 0:20:54.960 --> 0:20:58.000 Soon after she and Rap began their relationship, the FBI 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:00.320 contacted her sister. 0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:01.920 Karama's family were part of a. 0:21:01.880 --> 0:21:05.159 Black power group and they had been arrested. The FBI 0:21:05.240 --> 0:21:06.560 tried to make a deal with Kareema. 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:13.600 They wanted me to tell them where my husband might 0:21:13.840 --> 0:21:16.920 soon to be husband, where he was traveling. And they 0:21:17.000 --> 0:21:19.240 told me at that time, well, if you help us, 0:21:20.040 --> 0:21:23.760 will drop the chargees against your sister and her husband. 0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:26.800 And I said, well, you know they were frayed, so 0:21:27.119 --> 0:21:29.200 I'm not even going to go there. I'm not going 0:21:29.240 --> 0:21:34.280 to cooperate. Five years later, my husband is still saying 0:21:34.280 --> 0:21:37.840 he could never figure out whether I had cooperated or not. 0:21:39.480 --> 0:21:41.160 He's still telling me that, right. 0:21:41.960 --> 0:21:44.800 It's sort of a dark joke, but also an ugly 0:21:44.840 --> 0:21:48.480 thing to have between a couple. Sister Karma said that 0:21:48.480 --> 0:21:51.280 when Rapp was a target of the FBI, the bureau 0:21:51.280 --> 0:21:54.160 harassed both of their parents so intensely that her father 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:56.760 dropped dead in the street after some officials visited him 0:21:56.760 --> 0:22:01.080 in his job. A month later, a Mamjimialsma died and 0:22:01.160 --> 0:22:05.680 four months after that, Sister Karima's mother died. And let's 0:22:05.680 --> 0:22:06.879 not forget the car bomb. 0:22:09.280 --> 0:22:12.440 It brought out a family closer and closer to him. 0:22:13.600 --> 0:22:18.360 Why they demonstrated the extent and the degree that they 0:22:18.440 --> 0:22:22.240 will go to divide family. 0:22:24.080 --> 0:22:27.480 After a Mam Jamil was convicted, Sister Karma filed a 0:22:27.520 --> 0:22:31.520 Freedom of Information Act request with the FBI. It told 0:22:31.520 --> 0:22:34.040 her that they had twenty one thousand, six hundred and 0:22:34.040 --> 0:22:37.160 forty nine pages of records potentially responsive to her request. 0:22:38.240 --> 0:22:41.840 Twenty one thousand, six hundred and forty nine. Maybe at 0:22:41.840 --> 0:22:43.800 one point there had been even more records on a 0:22:43.840 --> 0:22:46.919 Mam Jamil, but the FBI said many were damaged in 0:22:46.960 --> 0:22:47.399 a flood. 0:22:48.680 --> 0:22:49.120 Anyway. 0:22:49.480 --> 0:22:52.680 Two years later, after Sister Karma submitted their request, the 0:22:52.720 --> 0:22:55.240 FBI turned over almost seven hundred pages. 0:22:56.440 --> 0:22:57.320 When I look through the. 0:22:57.280 --> 0:23:00.159 Documents, there were two things I saw that suggest the 0:23:00.240 --> 0:23:02.480 FBI was at least linked to the shooting of Deputy 0:23:02.560 --> 0:23:06.639 Kinchin and Deputy English. I don't mean they somehow orchestrated 0:23:06.640 --> 0:23:10.000 the thing. What I mean is that the FBI, they 0:23:10.000 --> 0:23:16.959 were up in the mix. First, there were three handwritten words. 0:23:18.359 --> 0:23:22.280 It was placed remember how when a Mam Jmial was 0:23:22.320 --> 0:23:25.760 captured in Lowndes County, Alabama, an FBI agent named Ron 0:23:25.880 --> 0:23:29.080 Campbell and kicked and spit on him. Campbell had a 0:23:29.080 --> 0:23:32.000 troubled history with the Bureau. Was accused of shooting an 0:23:32.040 --> 0:23:34.679 African American Muslim in the back of the head and 0:23:34.760 --> 0:23:38.360 planting a gun at the scene in Philadelphia. While Campbell 0:23:38.400 --> 0:23:40.959 was chasing a Mam Demial, he fell in the swamp, 0:23:41.119 --> 0:23:43.320 he'd say later, and was on his own for at 0:23:43.400 --> 0:23:47.320 least a few minutes. During the trial, the defense called 0:23:47.359 --> 0:23:50.959 Campbell to testify. Here's a ma'am Jamil's lead defense attorney, 0:23:51.240 --> 0:23:51.879 Jack Martin. 0:23:52.680 --> 0:23:56.320 We knew that Campbell was willing to plant out as 0:23:56.320 --> 0:23:59.639 he was a corrupt FBI agent. The gun was not 0:23:59.760 --> 0:24:03.520 on at the time he was arrested. It was supposedly 0:24:03.600 --> 0:24:06.359 found later, and they found the gun on the ground. 0:24:06.359 --> 0:24:08.359 I wonder why they didn't find the grun in the 0:24:08.400 --> 0:24:09.040 first place. 0:24:10.560 --> 0:24:13.800 I said this earlier, but I'll say it again. We 0:24:13.920 --> 0:24:17.679 contacted Campbell, but he didn't agree to an interview. An 0:24:17.680 --> 0:24:21.399 internal investigation cleared Campbell in that Philadelphia case and he 0:24:21.480 --> 0:24:24.280 was never charged with anything related to it. And we 0:24:24.320 --> 0:24:27.280 don't have any evidence Campbell was a corrupt agent. That's 0:24:27.320 --> 0:24:31.520 just what Martin thought. After a man Jimial was captured 0:24:31.880 --> 0:24:34.800 that same night, a sergeant on the dog tracking team 0:24:34.840 --> 0:24:38.120 found a nine millimeter pistol near the edge of the woods. 0:24:40.160 --> 0:24:43.200 Why would ala mean if you had this shootout in 0:24:43.600 --> 0:24:45.840 the lad with his gun, had brought it with him 0:24:45.840 --> 0:24:47.480 to Alabama, why wouldn't he just. 0:24:47.480 --> 0:24:48.119 Get rid of it? 0:24:49.840 --> 0:24:53.600