WEBVTT - Sacrifices 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 --> 0:00:17.640 suitable for everyone listening to. 0:00:17.640 --> 0:00:22.880 Discretion is advised. Radical is released every Tuesday and brought 0:00:22.880 --> 0:00:25.840 to you absolutely free. But if you want to add 0:00:25.880 --> 0:00:29.800 free listening and early access to next week's episode, subscribe 0:00:29.840 --> 0:00:35.960 to tenderfoot Plus. For more information, check out tenderfootplus dot com. 0:00:36.040 --> 0:00:44.560 Enjoy the episode Campsite Media. 0:00:49.400 --> 0:00:51.360 So you now it is really why I should started 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:54.360 real here Casscase dot claim right. 0:00:54.360 --> 0:00:59.680 Up the hill. It took months of reporting on this 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:01.960 store before I had a good reason to return to 0:01:02.000 --> 0:01:05.480 Atlanta's West End, to the leafy neighborhood of bungalows and 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:08.760 Victorian homes surrounding the mass hit the corner store and 0:01:08.760 --> 0:01:11.440 the park the side of the shootout on March sixteenth, 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:15.920 two thousand. The community, the village, even founded and led 0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:19.080 by Imam Jamille A Lamine, with its own school, its 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:22.200 own security force, even something like its own laws. 0:01:22.680 --> 0:01:24.880 Make a right right and we'll come back in the back, 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:26.119 come out for what I did. 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:31.680 It was this man, Rodney Brown who brought me back here. 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:34.880 Rodney grew up in the West End and he was 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:38.200 a teenager when crack cocaine hit in the eighties. So 0:01:38.280 --> 0:01:40.400 many people on his side of town got sucked into 0:01:40.440 --> 0:01:43.640 a zombie like existence, traded their spirit for the little 0:01:43.640 --> 0:01:47.639 white rocks, and Rodney he got sucked into the fast 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:51.240 cash started dealing. He said he can make three or 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:53.800 four thousand dollars a day when he started out, as 0:01:53.800 --> 0:01:55.520 long as he was willing to risk standing out on 0:01:55.520 --> 0:02:01.000 the corner. I remember those days. I was just a kid, 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:04.880 but I saw how older relatives got caught up in 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:09.160 and out of jail, on and off the streets. Drugs, 0:02:09.160 --> 0:02:12.919 guns and violence were cornerstones of the life. My parents 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:15.440 steered me and my siblings clear of it. We even 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:18.840 kept a distance from some relatives. And Mam Jimial was 0:02:18.840 --> 0:02:20.959 in the thick of it, though, and as a leader, 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:23.720 he had little choice but to confront the problem head on. 0:02:25.040 --> 0:02:28.600 In time, he developed a reputation for a quote cleaning 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:30.880 up the West End, making it a safe place to 0:02:30.960 --> 0:02:34.480 raise families, not just for Muslims in his community, but 0:02:34.520 --> 0:02:38.000 also others who lived nearby. Rodney witnessed some of that 0:02:38.919 --> 0:02:41.800 from his particular perspective. 0:02:43.480 --> 0:02:46.080 Did rad Hill was a maid to Trout this happen? 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:47.639 This is what tim of got key you. 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:50.840 Rodney was still a teenager when he bought his first 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:54.600 eight K forty seven, so he saw some things more 0:02:54.639 --> 0:02:57.920 than his share of violence in his younger days. He 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:00.040 might have had more acquaintances who were killed than I 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:04.080 had friends in all of high school. Driving through the 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:06.960 neighborhood with him, the specter of violence gave me a headache. 0:03:07.280 --> 0:03:09.720 We were surrounded by places where people who Rodney knew 0:03:09.720 --> 0:03:12.359 had been struck down. Back in the book, I told 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:14.560 you I wasn't selling drug until. 0:03:14.360 --> 0:03:17.680 The girl got killed on the bridge, Tanya Natalia mine. 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:21.239 He got killed on the bread. I just got got 0:03:21.320 --> 0:03:24.240 myself caught up in sound. I don't think they chopped 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:26.840 him up back though, but I know they are. This 0:03:26.880 --> 0:03:31.800 is what they dunk about it at. This was black giants. 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:34.960 This was black giant trap house. This way he sold 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:38.720 his weight. He was right here, but he ain't get killed. 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:40.600 He got killed back up though. I should have showed 0:03:40.680 --> 0:03:41.880 down that when I was up there. 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:45.880 These killings happened in and around the part of the 0:03:45.920 --> 0:03:49.320 West End controlled by a man Jamil, the area he 0:03:49.360 --> 0:03:55.400 had supposedly cleaned up. It's the roughly six or seven 0:03:55.760 --> 0:03:59.640 mostly residential blocks, apartments and houses that surround the park. 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:03.760 Just to the south of the park was the mas 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:09.840 Jed and the man Jamil's corner store. That was Jamel's store. 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:17.360 Exactly we turned and drove over the place where Deputy 0:04:17.440 --> 0:04:20.000 Kinchin and Deputy English were shot. The part of the 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:21.920 street that was littered with shellcasings that. 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:28.360 Night in two thousand. It's the mobs, this green and 0:04:28.400 --> 0:04:34.039 white one. That's the mobs. Jamil Alami stayed all these 0:04:34.160 --> 0:04:38.239 his house, each one of these houses. See all these 0:04:39.400 --> 0:04:45.640 this community mobs. I's see up in here. Ain't nobody 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:47.080 never sold no drugs here. 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:52.440 And Man Jamil hated drugs and drug dealing. So Rodney 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:55.080 and the seasoned dealers in the West End they knew 0:04:55.120 --> 0:04:57.240 better than posting up on the corners next to the 0:04:57.279 --> 0:05:00.360 mass Jed, the park and the corner store, the spot 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:03.479 where a mam gmial could be found most days, shooting hoops, 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:06.799 tending to the store, or chilling outside at the picnic table. 0:05:07.480 --> 0:05:11.719 It was considered holy land. Instead, Rodney and the other dealers. 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:13.800 They did their business on the edges of a mam 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:18.880 Jamil's community. Still, somehow many of them ended up shot 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:23.800 and dead. Rodney was one of the few who survived. 0:05:24.440 --> 0:05:27.480 In the nineties, before the shootout in March two thousand, 0:05:28.279 --> 0:05:30.840 dozens of people were allegedly murdered in the West End, 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:36.520 dozens with little accountability. And it wasn't just the typical 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:41.560 violence you might expect drug dealers to encounter. In my 0:05:41.640 --> 0:05:45.160 reporting of this story, so many people described for me 0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:48.440 the breezy way a mam gmial moved through the West End, 0:05:49.480 --> 0:05:53.400 how he seemed to carelessly float past his though catching 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:57.680 the wind. But my question after hearing these stories was this. 0:05:59.200 --> 0:06:01.560 Did a mam Jamil rest control from the dope dealers 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:04.799 with that kind of grace alone, or was there something else? 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:09.560 When I looked into the killings all those folks who 0:06:09.640 --> 0:06:14.440 Rodney knew who died, what I learned was disturbing, far 0:06:14.480 --> 0:06:21.000 worse than I ever imagined. From Campside Media, Tenderfoot TV, 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:28.080 and iHeart podcasts, this is radical. I'm Mosey's Secret Episode 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:51.760 seven Sacrifices. We learned about the murders and the thousands 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:54.520 of pages of documents were received from the Fulton County 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:57.640 DA's office. The stuff we got in response to our 0:06:57.680 --> 0:07:03.039 open records request. Reading those reports, what started out as 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:04.880 a quest to get to the bottom of the shootout 0:07:04.880 --> 0:07:07.440 with the deputies and to figure out whether a Mam 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:11.320 Jamil was really capable of that kind of violence, suddenly 0:07:11.360 --> 0:07:15.320 got this whole other layer because the documents described a 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:19.240 man who allegedly was way more than capable, who was 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:21.200 involved in a rash of killings in the West End 0:07:21.320 --> 0:07:25.840 way before the shootout, who used a mafioso like ruthlessness 0:07:25.840 --> 0:07:30.280 to get what he wanted. Figuring out whether the accusations 0:07:30.320 --> 0:07:33.480 had any merit had every bearing on understanding who a 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:37.880 Maam Jamil was and just as importantly, who law enforcement 0:07:37.960 --> 0:07:41.600 thought he was in the period leading up to the shootout. 0:07:42.920 --> 0:07:45.920 The key document we got is called Synopsis of West 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:50.880 End Homicides. It's just eleven pages long, a list mostly 0:07:51.520 --> 0:07:56.080 with quick summaries, dates and the names of victims, and 0:07:56.160 --> 0:07:59.400 the section at the top law enforcement connects a Mamjmil 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:03.160 to see sixteen killings over about a decade nineteen eighty 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:07.200 six to nineteen ninety seven. Most of the victims were 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:11.280 drug dealers. Rodney knew many, if not all, the people 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:14.680 who were killed, and we looked over the list with him. 0:08:14.920 --> 0:08:17.600 He's not in the streets anymore. He spent time in 0:08:17.600 --> 0:08:20.480 prison and started fresh. So part of what he felt 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:23.239 was shocked at seeing the world he was so close 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:27.280 to with more perspective. He struggled to make sense of 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:28.119 the amount of killing. 0:08:30.000 --> 0:08:34.160 I guess when they started happening, it was normal to man. 0:08:34.320 --> 0:08:36.240 Think about you walk out the door and they have 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:38.520 shot his dude face off. When they shot Tome and 0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:41.080 face off, and it was you know, it was always 0:08:41.240 --> 0:08:44.360 violand in the West then but they shot his face 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:47.719 off a month not even a month later, shot n 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:51.520 them times in the face. Then everybody on your neighborhood. 0:08:51.520 --> 0:08:53.520 You go to the globe, y'all killing there. Everybody. 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:55.520 They thought we was killing the motherfucker. 0:08:55.600 --> 0:08:58.959 You know, we thought about it, so it was attached 0:08:58.960 --> 0:08:59.360 to us. 0:08:59.720 --> 0:09:02.080 Really they went or one for it because we won't over. 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:07.400 The synopsis of the Weston Homicides portrays a man Jamil 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:10.040 as some kind of kingpin heading up a group of 0:09:10.080 --> 0:09:13.160 brothers from the mass jed An inner circle who ran 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:17.040 guns and extorted drug dealers, secretly killing the competition and 0:09:17.080 --> 0:09:19.280 anyone else who knew too much about what they were doing. 0:09:20.480 --> 0:09:25.080 Very strong allegations. In the earliest days of the West 0:09:25.160 --> 0:09:28.440 End mass Jed, a mam Jamil set up a security team. 0:09:29.040 --> 0:09:32.040 This I know it to be true. Nothing unusual there. 0:09:32.440 --> 0:09:35.680 Most mass Jeds have them. Brothers would walk people home 0:09:35.679 --> 0:09:38.480 from the mass Jed after prayer make sure nobody out 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:41.440 on the street caused any trouble. But the West End 0:09:41.440 --> 0:09:45.120 seems to have taken their security further than most. A 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:47.760 member of the mass Jed told me how once some 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:50.400 guys started fighting during a basketball game at the park. 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:54.640 It was the West End versus a different neighborhood. The 0:09:54.679 --> 0:09:57.320 outsiders left, but they were so pissed they came back 0:09:57.360 --> 0:10:00.760 with guns before they could do any home though the 0:10:00.840 --> 0:10:04.199 Muslim brothers fired. Even a mammaed Meal came out of 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:07.960 his little shop and let loose. As the outsiders fled, 0:10:08.200 --> 0:10:11.240 they nearly flipped their car over, and when the cops 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:14.360 came by afterwards asking if everything was all right, the 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:20.040 Westend brothers said yeah, they had it under control. It 0:10:20.080 --> 0:10:23.880 was frontier justice and guns were critical. On any given 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:25.760 day in the park, a good number of men had 0:10:25.840 --> 0:10:29.560 rifles hanging on straps under their thobes. At night, they 0:10:29.640 --> 0:10:32.840 rode around in cars or stood out on corners, also strapped, 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:37.400 they could hold their own behind the trigger too. The 0:10:37.440 --> 0:10:40.560 brothers sometimes went to the shooting range together for target practice, 0:10:41.960 --> 0:10:45.480 and the Mamas Meal would often join, just like he 0:10:45.559 --> 0:10:49.439 used to in his earliest days in the movement. There 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:52.520 were many many guns flowing through the West End in 0:10:52.559 --> 0:10:56.160 the late eighties and early nineties. Rodney he wasn't only 0:10:56.200 --> 0:10:58.720 dealing in cracking weed. He sold guns too. 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:03.360 Yody who wanted guns in a lon did like they 0:11:03.400 --> 0:11:06.080 want weed in Lona. They came to the West End. 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:10.120 They want a pistol. I said, okay, what kind won't. 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:15.120 Rodney's gun supplier was right around the corner. He was 0:11:15.120 --> 0:11:16.199 buying from the Muslims. 0:11:17.120 --> 0:11:18.960 I had Muslim knock on my door in the middle 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:22.959 of the night with boxes. Man, No, lie, I can't 0:11:22.960 --> 0:11:29.079 count them. I'm talking about guns, rifles. Yeah. 0:11:29.240 --> 0:11:32.000 In the early nineties, two brothers from the mass Jed 0:11:32.040 --> 0:11:34.440 were charged with running guns out of the storefront right 0:11:34.440 --> 0:11:37.480 next to a man Jimill's corner store. They bought the 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:40.520 guns legally, but they were accused of selling them like 0:11:40.559 --> 0:11:43.080 they might have done to Rodney without keeping the right 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:47.040 paperwork to track where they went. A federal agent testified 0:11:47.080 --> 0:11:49.000 that a handful of guns went to the mass Jed's 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:53.520 security patrol, but more than two hundred were recovered in Philadelphia, Detroit, 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:57.400 New Haven, and New York City over three years. The 0:11:57.400 --> 0:12:00.000 two accused men allegedly bought at least seventy three thousand 0:12:00.240 --> 0:12:03.400 dollars worth of firearms, and they probably weren't just being 0:12:03.480 --> 0:12:07.560 used for target practice. Many were Davis three eighties, a 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:11.480 handgun with a reputation as a Saturday Night special because 0:12:11.480 --> 0:12:15.200 it's cheap and often used in crimes. At the gun 0:12:15.280 --> 0:12:18.120 running trial, a member of the Masjid and the security 0:12:18.120 --> 0:12:22.280 patrol testified for the prosecution. His name was Shahid ab 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:25.360 duur Rahman. He was in prison at the time for 0:12:25.440 --> 0:12:29.280 shooting and killing a man. On the stand, he said 0:12:29.280 --> 0:12:31.880 he bought guns from the accused men and then sent 0:12:31.920 --> 0:12:35.920 them to New York, but he stopped short of saying 0:12:35.920 --> 0:12:38.560 that the defendants knowingly sold gun to criminals planning to 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:42.359 commit crimes. Maybe that was because on the day he testified, 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:46.640 AmAm Jamil showed up the picture of menace he was 0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:49.480 wearing an all black thobe and a black turban and 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:54.400 black charcoal around his eyes. If the FBI thought this 0:12:54.480 --> 0:12:57.840 dude Shahid might implicate the AmAm, they better think again. 0:13:00.840 --> 0:13:03.839 Not long after the gun running case wrapped up, Ma'am 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:05.600 Jamil got caught up in a case himself. 0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:09.760 He was once the leader of the Student Non Violent 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:13.480 Coordinating Committee and part of the Black Power movement. Today, 0:13:13.800 --> 0:13:16.320 h Rap Brown is known as Jamil Abdullah a La 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:19.040 Main and he appeared in court. He is charged with 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:23.400 aggravated assault and weapons violations after allegedly shooting a man 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:24.640 July twenty sixth. 0:13:25.440 --> 0:13:28.680 In nineteen ninety five, Atlanta police responded to a shooting 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:31.160 at West End Park of a man named William Miles. 0:13:32.040 --> 0:13:34.560 One bullet entered and exited his leg without doing any 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:38.040 permanent damage. The responding officer said, Myles I d'ed to 0:13:38.080 --> 0:13:41.960 Maam Jamil as the shooter. Then the next morning, AmAm 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:44.320 Jamil and another brother from the mass Jed went to 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:49.240 visit Miles at home. When an Atlanta police detective later 0:13:49.280 --> 0:13:52.360 interviewed Myles, he did not identify a man Jamil as 0:13:52.360 --> 0:13:55.120 the shooter, but a few days later that detective and 0:13:55.160 --> 0:13:57.560 some federal agents pulled a Mam Jamil over in his 0:13:57.640 --> 0:14:01.400 black Mercedes. They arrested him for aggravated assault and for 0:14:01.440 --> 0:14:05.080 carrying a forty five caliber pistol without a license. We 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:07.720 found the recording of an interview a local television reporter 0:14:07.800 --> 0:14:10.640 did with a Man Jamil a few days later after 0:14:10.679 --> 0:14:12.920 he got out of jail on bond. He was in 0:14:12.960 --> 0:14:15.760 his early fifties at the time. During the interview, he's 0:14:15.760 --> 0:14:18.520 standing on the sidewalk outside his store wearing a black 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:21.520 thoat and a black knitted coofee. He has a thin 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:23.080 beard and oval glasses. 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:27.640 Do you know William Miles only from reading the paper 0:14:28.000 --> 0:14:31.160 and seeing his name? You know this is my familiar 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:34.600 being familiar with him through that you never met with him? 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:36.640 And I went to his house. If he's the same 0:14:36.680 --> 0:14:37.480 person who was shot? 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:41.000 I asked him, was it true that he was saying 0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:44.360 that a Muslim shot him? He said that he saw 0:14:44.400 --> 0:14:49.000 a tall person and the person had black on and 0:14:49.440 --> 0:14:51.680 the person who shut him, you know, was tall and. 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:52.280 Had black on. 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:53.800 Was it you to do? 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:54.000 Do? 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:56.160 What to go see him, to talk to shot him? 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:58.000 To shoot him? 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:01.360 That's the allegation of police of made Well again. That's 0:15:01.400 --> 0:15:03.360 the thing that has to be determined in court. 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:06.080 Man Then the reporter asked to Ma'am Jamil if he 0:15:06.120 --> 0:15:08.800 still thinks violence is as an American as cherry pie. 0:15:09.040 --> 0:15:11.160 I think it's evident, and I think that more people 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:15.680 realize what was being said. And I've always advocated self defense. 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:18.880 A loss is in the Qur'an tyranny and oppression is 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:21.240 worse than slaw. To fight them wherever you may find him. 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:24.520 So again, that whole sense of the right to self 0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:27.320 defense as a human is a platform we've always stood on. 0:15:28.280 --> 0:15:30.680 I guess then the obvious question is did you have 0:15:30.720 --> 0:15:33.880 a forty five automatic pistol on you as a means 0:15:33.920 --> 0:15:34.720 of self defense. 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:37.200 That's a part of the case again that has to 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:38.320 be litigated in court. 0:15:40.320 --> 0:15:42.920 Imam Jamil didn't seem to be denying he was involved, 0:15:43.520 --> 0:15:46.640 but William Miles, the victim of the shooting, he later 0:15:46.680 --> 0:15:48.840 suggested that he was actually pressured by the police to 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:52.400 name a Maam Jamil as the shooter. Four national Islamic 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:55.040 groups urge the Department of Justice to investigate the arrest. 0:15:55.720 --> 0:15:59.880 The charges were eventually dropped and the case went away. 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:04.320 So not counting the incident with the sheriff's deputies. That's 0:16:04.320 --> 0:16:06.360 two shootings at the park that a Maam Jamil may 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:09.920 have been involved in, the one after the basketball game 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:13.920 and the shooting of William Miles. Nobody that we know 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:17.680 of was seriously hurt, and the shootings could be described 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:21.880 as part of protecting the community self defense in a way. 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:25.280 Like a Maam Jimil told the reporter in that interview, 0:16:26.240 --> 0:16:29.360 it's a platform he's always stood on. But the a 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:33.320 Maam killing all those drug dealers, or even ordering them killed, 0:16:34.200 --> 0:16:37.120 like the allegations we saw in the synopsis of Western homicides, 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:43.160 that would be on a whole other level. I don't 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:45.560 think a Mam Jmil was pulling the trigger in those murders, 0:16:46.160 --> 0:16:47.680 but he didn't know the man who did much of 0:16:47.680 --> 0:16:50.160 the killing, if not all of it, because he was 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:52.000 a well respected member of the Master JD and the 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:56.880 security patrol. Law enforcement knew this killer too, and not 0:16:56.920 --> 0:17:00.520 just because they were trying to catch him. No, they 0:17:00.520 --> 0:17:04.119 had a secret relationship with him, one that reveals just 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:06.960 how far they'd go to take down a man Jamil. 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:22.760 In the late eighties, when Ronnie got into the game 0:17:22.800 --> 0:17:25.680 and started dealing, he had his disposal in the West 0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:29.679 End to use the business school term a network. He 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:31.800 grew up about a block from West End Park and 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:34.520 the kids he played with, many of them were still around. 0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:36.520 That included Muslim kids too. 0:17:37.560 --> 0:17:40.840 Yeah. I hung with the smoked weeds and smoked cigarettes 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:43.520 and thrunk them. The ones that came to mind place 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:47.160 to shoot pool. But they still went and prayed every Friday, 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:47.440 you know. 0:17:48.080 --> 0:17:51.800 Just like Chris was just like all religions, all. 0:17:51.640 --> 0:17:54.040 Of them not good, all of them not bad. He's 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:56.760 just like the ones that hung around me. Probably was 0:17:56.800 --> 0:18:00.919 the bad seeds. I was a bad seed. So and 0:18:00.960 --> 0:18:01.919 that's that's that relation. 0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:03.560 I grew up with. How you gonna do? 0:18:03.640 --> 0:18:06.520 People say they just killed God men? One of us did? 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:08.760 Why he knews since we was kids. 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:12.240 Shaheed abduer Rothman was maybe the Muslim who Rodney came 0:18:12.280 --> 0:18:14.840 to know best in the West End. He had moved 0:18:14.880 --> 0:18:18.320 to Atlanta from New York, where he'd lived through shattering trauma. 0:18:19.400 --> 0:18:23.159 It was the Jamaicans that killed his mom. He stayed 0:18:23.200 --> 0:18:25.800 in the house for like four days with a dead body. 0:18:26.280 --> 0:18:29.480 When he was whole, he was really like a toxic 0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:31.600 of self. I think he stayed in there. 0:18:31.640 --> 0:18:33.480 He stayed in high with a dead by it like 0:18:33.600 --> 0:18:34.920 four days and was his mom. 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:36.240 That's the story. 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:37.879 Tell people, you know what I'm saying. 0:18:39.119 --> 0:18:42.439 Shahid's passed is pretty mysterious. Other than that, but his 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:46.320 childhood seemed to have marked his destiny for darkness. Shahid 0:18:46.359 --> 0:18:48.720 said that when he moved to Atlanta at seventeen or eighteen, 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:51.640 it was because he was flinging the aftermath of some shooting. 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:55.840 He joined the Master and the security team, and over 0:18:55.880 --> 0:18:58.920 time built a reputation as a gentleman, a good Muslim, 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:02.399 and a family man. But he was secretly or not 0:19:02.480 --> 0:19:05.240 so secretly, depending on whom you talk to, living a 0:19:05.240 --> 0:19:09.720 double life, and the security team was his cover. If 0:19:09.720 --> 0:19:12.560 most guys on the security patrol kept the defensive posture, 0:19:13.040 --> 0:19:15.679 standing guard in the neighborhood or escorting families to their 0:19:15.680 --> 0:19:18.879 houses at night, Shahid seemed to use his authority to 0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:22.359 shake down the streets, going out sometimes with younger guys, 0:19:22.560 --> 0:19:26.040 teenagers mostly, who went after drug dealers like they were cops, 0:19:26.440 --> 0:19:30.760 busting into trap houses and confiscating dope, and that response 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:34.800 seemed to blow the lines between right and wrong. I 0:19:34.840 --> 0:19:36.840 heard how these guys got rid of the drugs they 0:19:36.880 --> 0:19:40.440 seized at first flushed them down the toilet, but after 0:19:40.480 --> 0:19:43.399 a while they realized they were throwing money away, And 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:47.360 I wonder when dealers didn't back down what happened? Then 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:50.760 I got like Shahid, who seemed to have developed a 0:19:50.800 --> 0:19:53.400 taste for blood. He thrived. 0:19:54.280 --> 0:19:58.080 With Shahi, everybody knew he was a dangerous person, and 0:19:58.720 --> 0:20:01.800 my friends said, hey, whatever you do, don't get in 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:04.880 the call with that motherfucker, because they know you'd come 0:20:04.880 --> 0:20:05.960 at When murt came. 0:20:08.160 --> 0:20:12.000 In nineteen ninety, Shahied was involved in two killings. The 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:14.840 victims were in that document we got the synopsis of 0:20:14.880 --> 0:20:19.679 Western homicides. Then about a year later, Shahied was involved 0:20:19.720 --> 0:20:23.160 in another killing. People began to suspect he was doing 0:20:23.240 --> 0:20:26.160 hit jobs, and to wonder who was calling the shots. 0:20:27.359 --> 0:20:30.440 Shahid became a leader of the patrol and became close 0:20:30.480 --> 0:20:34.520 to a man Jamil, but eventually he was charged with murder, 0:20:35.680 --> 0:20:38.359 and with Shahied off the streets, the violence in the 0:20:38.400 --> 0:20:43.800 West End seemed to taper off. Meanwhile, after Shahid got 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:46.200 locked up, Rodney said he was doing well for himself. 0:20:46.720 --> 0:20:49.320 When things are really humming. He was moving hundreds of 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:51.880 thousands of dollars worth of drugs on a monthly basis. 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:54.879 Rodney stayed in touch with Shaheed while Shahid was in prison, 0:20:55.400 --> 0:20:58.800 sent him weed. Shahid was his friend and Rodney, in 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:01.320 his criminal way at the time, was generous like that. 0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:07.560 Around this time the FBI came offering Shahied some help too. 0:21:08.320 --> 0:21:10.840 We know that while Shahied was incarcerated, he met with 0:21:10.880 --> 0:21:15.080 an agent named Bill Gant. Not long after Shahid testified 0:21:15.440 --> 0:21:18.280 for the prosecution in the gun running case against two 0:21:18.280 --> 0:21:21.000 brothers from the weston mass Jed, when a man Jamil 0:21:21.080 --> 0:21:25.720 showed up in all black then likely in exchange for 0:21:25.760 --> 0:21:30.199 Shahid's cooperation, Gant the agent put in a word with 0:21:30.240 --> 0:21:34.640 the Georgia Parole Board and by nineteen ninety five, Shahied 0:21:34.760 --> 0:21:37.640 was back on the street and back in the mass Jed. 0:21:39.040 --> 0:21:42.600 He had done approximately four years for killing and this 0:21:42.640 --> 0:21:45.720 is when folks on the outside started wondering what the 0:21:45.720 --> 0:21:49.639 fuck is going on here. When Shahid got out, Rodney 0:21:49.680 --> 0:21:52.760 was surprised he didn't hear from him right away. I'm 0:21:52.760 --> 0:21:56.600 a man, I'm mother, I'm the man. He know that, 0:21:57.760 --> 0:21:58.800 he know he didn't her. 0:21:58.880 --> 0:22:01.960 I'm taking care of his motherfuck in prison. I'm sending 0:22:02.000 --> 0:22:07.119 weed to prison for free. Never ask for a penny. 0:22:08.240 --> 0:22:12.399 So why when you come speak to me? Why? 0:22:15.119 --> 0:22:17.439 And Ronnie didn't want to worry about Shahied walking up 0:22:17.440 --> 0:22:19.679 behind him on the street with a pistol or a shotgun. 0:22:21.000 --> 0:22:24.200 Rodney was starting to think Shahied was a rat his words, 0:22:24.200 --> 0:22:28.000 not mine. So after three months of waiting, Rodney got 0:22:28.000 --> 0:22:29.760 his address and stopped by. 0:22:30.080 --> 0:22:30.920 I knocked on the door. 0:22:30.960 --> 0:22:31.640 He looked at him. 0:22:31.680 --> 0:22:34.080 I fucking seeing it with me, opened the door. I said, 0:22:34.080 --> 0:22:36.840 what's up, man? How long you been out? 0:22:37.040 --> 0:22:37.280 You know? 0:22:37.600 --> 0:22:39.600 He was like, I've been a few coming out. Come 0:22:39.640 --> 0:22:43.480 on in. Rodney asked Shahied straight up. How'd you get 0:22:43.480 --> 0:22:46.879 out of jail? Shahid told Rodney that the brothers in 0:22:46.920 --> 0:22:49.320 the mast and they wanted him back in the neighborhood. 0:22:49.880 --> 0:22:52.639 They said, look, why don't you testify against one of 0:22:52.680 --> 0:22:54.960 the accused in this gun running case so that you 0:22:55.000 --> 0:22:58.639 can get your time cut. Just don't implicate the big man, 0:22:58.960 --> 0:23:05.240 meaning a man Jimmy Rodney believed Shahied. But here's what's 0:23:05.280 --> 0:23:09.600 weird about that story from my perspective. Anyway, the brothers 0:23:09.600 --> 0:23:12.040 who Shahid testified against were members of the mass Jed 0:23:12.200 --> 0:23:16.560 since the earliest days founding members. Really, why let them 0:23:16.600 --> 0:23:19.920 take the fall so that Shahed, a much more dangerous 0:23:19.920 --> 0:23:23.240