Speaker 1: Before we get started, I want to give you a
Speaker 1: reason up front to stick around for the next ten episodes,
Speaker 1: as well as offer a warning we are going to
Speaker 1: expose using secret undercover recordings, have the Federal Bureau of
Speaker 1: Investigation infiltrated and undermined the racial justice movement during the
Speaker 1: summer of twenty twenty. This is not a story the
Speaker 1: FBI once told, and these episodes contain explicit language and
Speaker 1: descriptions of violence and death. Some listeners may find the
Speaker 1: show disturbing. I want to take you back to the
Speaker 1: summer of twenty twenty. The pandemic is here and a
Speaker 1: lot is still really unknown. For months, millions of Americans
Speaker 1: have been out of work, locked up in their homes,
Speaker 1: and left deeply uncertain about the future. The nation is
Speaker 1: a tinder box of anger. Look. Racial justice activists have
Speaker 1: come out in force in cities nationwide to protest against
Speaker 1: police brutality, resulting in an unprecedented explosion of activism around
Speaker 1: the broader Black Lives Matter movement. Right wing activists hit
Speaker 1: the streets too as counter protesters, groups ranging from pro
Speaker 1: police demonstrators to violent street thugs like the Proud Boys,
Speaker 1: and militia groups like the oathkeepers, it will turn to war.
Speaker 1: Some of the encounters turned violent. In turn, anti fascist activists,
Speaker 1: often dressed in black and referred to as antifa, begin
Speaker 1: meeting right wing violence with force of their own. The
Speaker 1: clashes result in the kind of political violence Americans haven't
Speaker 1: seen in decades. The city became a war zone. Large
Speaker 1: groups torch police cruisers as officers fired back with rubber bullings.
Speaker 1: Violence involving the Proud Boys and leftist Antifa in Portland, Oregon.
Speaker 1: In recent weeks, President has been calling for law and order,
Speaker 1: but many say he's fueling the flames. Lots of people
Speaker 1: on the right, from President Donald Trump in the Oval
Speaker 1: Office to Tucker Carlson on Fox News, they start calling
Speaker 1: out Antifa, painting them as militarized extremists who want nothing
Speaker 1: more than to kill cops and burn America to the ground.
Speaker 1: Black lives matter, Antifa is going to grow like ices
Speaker 1: dated the Middle Ease. Violent young men with guns will
Speaker 1: be in charge. You will not want to live here
Speaker 1: when that happens. According to President Trump, anti fascist activists
Speaker 1: aren't simply there to stop violent right wing extremists and fascists. No,
Speaker 1: these antifa guys they're the real threat. Former Defense Secretary
Speaker 1: Mark Asper says that Trump suggested that the US military
Speaker 1: shoot Black Lives Matter protesters outside of the White House.
Speaker 1: A mounted police have been coming down the street using
Speaker 1: lash bangs in front of them to clear what has
Speaker 1: been an entirely peaceful protest. Note nine percent, but one
Speaker 1: hundred percent. People can protests. If you remember this public
Speaker 1: debate gets pretty ridiculous. Soup and they throw the cans
Speaker 1: of soup. That's better than a brick, because you can't
Speaker 1: throw a brick it's too heavy. But a can of soup,
Speaker 1: you can really put some power into that. Right, people
Speaker 1: on the left are practically screaming, this is all a distraction,
Speaker 1: a distraction from the very real issues of police brutality
Speaker 1: against black people. And TIEF is an idea, not an organization,
Speaker 1: you got it. Not polition, That's what it is. To
Speaker 1: the FBI is FBI direct. All the while, demonstrators are
Speaker 1: marching and COVID is raging, the economy is falling apart,
Speaker 1: people are getting shot, and nobody knows what's going to
Speaker 1: happen next. Plus there's this boogeyman hiding behind every corner.
Speaker 1: He's playing into Antifa being the boogeyman being behind these protests.
Speaker 1: You know, Fox News is still running riot porn, acting
Speaker 1: like the riots are still happening today. Fantiva is just
Speaker 1: sort of this abstract boogeyman word that we hear. On
Speaker 1: the other side, you can clearly see it is what happens.
Speaker 1: All I can tell you is we're not the evil
Speaker 1: boogeyman people think we are. What are you people that
Speaker 1: care about our country? But what if I were to
Speaker 1: tell you there is an Antifa boogeyman? He was real.
Speaker 1: He drove a silver hearse and the back of that
Speaker 1: hearse was filled with guns, lots and lots of guns.
Speaker 1: In the summer of twenty twenty, he rode into town.
Speaker 1: I don't give a fuck about the cops, and I
Speaker 1: don't care about the police. I do not agree nor
Speaker 1: accept fascism. But understand this, if you come to me
Speaker 1: fucked up, I'm gonna fuck you up. Stupid games, when
Speaker 1: stupid prizes. I'm Trevor Aaronson from Western Sound and iHeart podcasts.
Speaker 1: This is alphabet boys, So what or who is an
Speaker 1: alphabet boy. Alphabet boys are federal agents or informants working
Speaker 1: for the Alphabet agencies FBI, CIA, d EA, ATF These
Speaker 1: are our national law enforcement and intelligence agencies that run
Speaker 1: around the country and the world, fighting crime and collecting intelligence.
Speaker 1: These agencies aren't interested in small cases either. We're talking
Speaker 1: about really, really big cases, some of the biggest attacks
Speaker 1: against the United States, criminal organizations, terrorists, etc. For about
Speaker 1: as long as I've been a journalist, I've covered the
Speaker 1: way that these alphabet agencies use undercover agents and informants
Speaker 1: to orchestrate so called sting operations, where an undercover agent
Speaker 1: pretends to be a criminal, a terrorist, a drug dealer,
Speaker 1: an arms trader, a corrupt lobbyist, a money launder, and
Speaker 1: on and on. We've largely come to accept undercover stings
Speaker 1: as legitimate and necessary. But it wasn't so long ago
Speaker 1: that many Americans found these techniques outrageous for the way
Speaker 1: they appear to create crimes and entrap people in criminal
Speaker 1: plots made possible only by aggressive undercover federal agents. Each
Speaker 1: season of Alphabet Boys, we'll take you inside one of
Speaker 1: these investigations as the FBI. Sometimes you get it grabbed
Speaker 1: the little guy to go after the biggest. You'll hear
Speaker 1: undercover recordings that were kept secret until now. This is
Speaker 1: reference case number four one five Season Charlie, New York
Speaker 1: three zero zero eight five one. Okay, so you do
Speaker 1: personal security all over the world. You're connected to all
Speaker 1: these different people. You'll meet supposed terrorists, arms dealers, and
Speaker 1: drug runners. And you had somebody call you and say,
Speaker 1: can you get grenades and guns for this guy in Columbia?
Speaker 1: A lot of ammunitions forty seven And you'll discover that
Speaker 1: while many of these cases have plenty of danger and intrigue,
Speaker 1: I just drove for eight hours and then I just
Speaker 1: stuffed my gun in the face of a federal agent.
Speaker 1: They also introduce so much absurdity. I got knocked off
Speaker 1: of Golding about a month ago, and my hip is shattered.
Speaker 1: My maipulation is a Jedi mindshield that it's hard not
Speaker 1: to wonder. I will be polite and professional, our America's
Speaker 1: top cops catching real criminals, but I have a plan
Speaker 1: to kill everybody in the fucking room. I need to
Speaker 1: be or are they creating them? You want to show?
Speaker 1: This is season one Trojan Hearst, Episode one, Summer of Rage.
Speaker 1: The protests in Denver continuous. Hundreds of protesters have gathered
Speaker 1: in front of the state capital tonight. Of all the
Speaker 1: racial justice demonstrations around the country in the summer of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, Denver, Colorado saw some of the biggest, most
Speaker 1: intense protests we've been watching as fences are smashed, torn down,
Speaker 1: protesters starting fires, and building umbrella barricades. This is a
Speaker 1: live look at downtown Denver where we have seen this
Speaker 1: clash happening now for about the thousands demonstrate outside the
Speaker 1: Colorado State Capital, chanting a phrase synonymous with young black
Speaker 1: men dying at the hands of police officers. Some of
Speaker 1: the Denver protests become violent and destructive. The police fire
Speaker 1: pepper spray and rubber bullets into the crowds, injuring dozens,
Speaker 1: but the protesters just keep coming out undaunted. Day ten
Speaker 1: of protests across Denver, nearly a week after police use
Speaker 1: tear gas and pepper balls to disperse protesters outside, and
Speaker 1: then one night, a new guy shows up at the protests.
Speaker 1: He's a white guy wearing military fatigues with patches and
Speaker 1: stripes that he claims to have earned fighting the Islamic
Speaker 1: State or ISIS in a rock and Syria. He has
Speaker 1: a cigar dangling from his lips. And the car he
Speaker 1: drives is unmistakable. It's a silver hearse with a sticker
Speaker 1: on the back window reading Peshmerga, the Kurdish military force,
Speaker 1: and inside his hearts with a lack a lot of guns,
Speaker 1: you know, a R fifteens and all other kind of shit.
Speaker 1: This is zep Hal. He was a regular at the
Speaker 1: Denver protests. Yeah, it was just this badass dude, you know,
Speaker 1: talking about he worked in the foreign military. He was
Speaker 1: for the Black Lives Matter movement. He just seemed like
Speaker 1: some authoritary figure, you know, this powerful figure that was there.
Speaker 1: He was very convincing, but he did explain, you know,
Speaker 1: he was part of like a bad biker gangs. You know,
Speaker 1: he had committed a ton of violence, you know, but
Speaker 1: you know he was for this BLM movement. This dude
Speaker 1: was like a bad motherfucker. This bad motherfucker also introduces
Speaker 1: himself to another Denver organizer, Trey Quinn. He's like, I've
Speaker 1: done this and that. I was in the PKK and
Speaker 1: the French Foreign Legion and so on, and YadA, YadA, YadA.
Speaker 1: We ran night protests every night, and so we see
Speaker 1: him a bunch and he approaches us every single time
Speaker 1: from that point on, he walked up with a body
Speaker 1: cam on me. And here's another regular at the Denver protests,
Speaker 1: Bright Shelby. I didn't think nothing about the body cam
Speaker 1: in hindsight, just because I just I don't know. There
Speaker 1: were just a lot of things going on. I guess
Speaker 1: he remembers the Hearst dude walking around with a GoPro
Speaker 1: camera stropped to his chest. It was strange. I guess
Speaker 1: he de escalated any type of suspicion because he started
Speaker 1: like flashing his prison badge. So yeah, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Like, Okay, he's not this guy in affair
Speaker 1: you walking around with a prison badge. Yeah. Around the
Speaker 1: time this mysterious character starts showing up, the protests in
Speaker 1: Denver are stagnating. They're becoming this cat and mouse game
Speaker 1: between demonstrators and cops. People coming out in mostly peaceful ways,
Speaker 1: cops coming out with riot gear and overwhelming force. People
Speaker 1: like zeb Tray and Bryce. They're getting frustrated. Something more
Speaker 1: needs to happen, something new, and then something new does happen.
Speaker 1: I was like, Hey, this guy, you know, he wants
Speaker 1: to train people how to you know, defend themselves and
Speaker 1: use the weapons and he showed me how to do
Speaker 1: it as well. The guy with real military experience is here.
Speaker 1: He's a commanding presence, he's got a hearse full of guns.
Speaker 1: He's going to take things to the next level. That's
Speaker 1: after the break. We live in a very divided country
Speaker 1: right now, and that's not news. Everyone knows it. We
Speaker 1: talk about it over dinner, cable news, on social media.
Speaker 1: But this division is something that really bothers Denver racial
Speaker 1: justice activist zeb Hal. He thinks it's really a distraction.
Speaker 1: We're not focusing on how our government is abusing all
Speaker 1: of us. They're so good at dividing us, so good
Speaker 1: at it that we can't acknowledge things will happening to
Speaker 1: other people. We can't accept anyone stepping out degree from
Speaker 1: the group think, and that enables them to continue this
Speaker 1: mass surveillance. Instead, zeb says, we sit at home watching
Speaker 1: Cops and Robbers shows with clear good guys and unambiguous
Speaker 1: bad guys, the portrait of a just and fair American
Speaker 1: criminal justice system that has never really existed. Look at CBS,
Speaker 1: they have like fucking a million police officer shows, all
Speaker 1: these other major networks, so we know the networks cater
Speaker 1: them make them look real good. Hell, they could be
Speaker 1: listening in here, they could be in my fucking TV.
Speaker 1: The apparatus is that powerful. So yeah, Zeb, he's pretty
Speaker 1: skeptical of the US government, and as a black man,
Speaker 1: Zeb's pretty tired of hearing about our racial divide. In
Speaker 1: his view, the US government and the country's most powerful
Speaker 1: corporations encourage the racial division we now have so that
Speaker 1: poor white people and poor black people can't form the
Speaker 1: political alliance they naturally should. Well, I understand, you know,
Speaker 1: me and being black in this system, you know, I
Speaker 1: feel like this, Yeah, yeah, Okay, there's white privilege, but
Speaker 1: we are led to believe that it's this all powerful weapon,
Speaker 1: like white people don't have to do anything, and that
Speaker 1: is part of the thing that's used to divide us.
Speaker 1: But I dare someone to go in the middle of
Speaker 1: fucking Arkansas to a white community who lost a factory
Speaker 1: and say, hey, you're entitled, You've got this privilege. But
Speaker 1: we're made to think that way. They're dealing with the
Speaker 1: same shit people in inner city. They are fucked up,
Speaker 1: they're own drugs. Also, they're living in poverty. But we're
Speaker 1: made to think those white people in rural areas are
Speaker 1: constantly the enemy when they're living in a hall as well,
Speaker 1: the same fucking hell as us, but we are told
Speaker 1: that that other side is fucking terrible. Zeb, whose full
Speaker 1: name is Zebadias, wasn't always this caustic. His anger really
Speaker 1: set in a couple of years ago, in early twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: when the pandemic started. He saw how people on the
Speaker 1: an edge like him, suffered job losses, poor healthcare, mounting debts,
Speaker 1: and anxieties about eviction. At the same time, Zeb saw
Speaker 1: affluent Americans adapting to the pandemic with ease, working remotely
Speaker 1: deliveries from Amazon in their local grocery store, lush fenced
Speaker 1: in backyards to get fresh air, iPads, and new laptops
Speaker 1: for their kids to use for remote schooling. The pandemic,
Speaker 1: in Zeb's view, laid bare the inequities in America. Some
Speaker 1: of us had everything, while others of us were a
Speaker 1: missed paycheck away from poverty. Were all in danger. We're
Speaker 1: all in danger, and that is serious. I think in
Speaker 1: the right ways. I have become more radicalized because I
Speaker 1: care more about people. Zeb was born in nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 1: His parents were in high school when his mom got
Speaker 1: pregnant with him, and then his dad skipped down, so
Speaker 1: Zeb's childhood was tumultuous. He lived with his grandmother for
Speaker 1: a bit in California when he was a small boy,
Speaker 1: and aually moved to North Carolina when his mother married
Speaker 1: a US marine. In his twenties, Zeb had a serious
Speaker 1: girlfriend in North Carolina and she decided to move to Denver.
Speaker 1: So Zeb followed and he and his girlfriend got married.
Speaker 1: I got here shockingly, unexpectedly on four twenty and she
Speaker 1: takes me downtown Denver, and I'm seeing all these people smoking.
Speaker 1: They're all going to get arrested. They're all gonna arrested.
Speaker 1: I gotta get out of here. I gotta get here,
Speaker 1: and I'm freaking out. Then I got pulled over by
Speaker 1: a cop in October of twenty twelve, and he asked,
Speaker 1: you got any drugs in the car, And I'm like,
Speaker 1: I've got some marijuana sart, Okay, you got any drugs
Speaker 1: in the car I've got this week? And I'm freaking out.
Speaker 1: He says, no, do you have any real drugs. We're
Speaker 1: not worried about that. I'm like, oh no, I do not.
Speaker 1: You know. It was real funny. It was real funny.
Speaker 1: But that's how I got your You know, we had
Speaker 1: a daughter along the way. She has our other two
Speaker 1: kids as well, which is a big story on the side.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's how I got here. I got here.
Speaker 1: Zeb glosses over this part a bit. He and his
Speaker 1: now ex wife, Bridget, had a dog, as Zeb mentioned,
Speaker 1: but they were living in poverty and didn't want to
Speaker 1: subject their daughter to such a difficult life. So Zeb's
Speaker 1: mother and stepfather in North Carolina, who were well off
Speaker 1: by comparison, agreed to take care of the girl. Zeb
Speaker 1: travels back regularly to visit and tries to be there
Speaker 1: for big moments birthdays, first days of school, major holidays.
Speaker 1: It was around twenty fifteen when his daughter was born.
Speaker 1: That's when Zeb began to feel America had become fundamentally unfair,
Speaker 1: that rich people were getting richer, and that no matter
Speaker 1: how hard he worked, he was getting poorer. He couldn't
Speaker 1: even support his daughter. The American system seemed broken. Zeb
Speaker 1: wasn't the first person to feel disillusioned with the American promise,
Speaker 1: but he and others were seeing how body camera and
Speaker 1: cell phone footage had created a near constant stream of
Speaker 1: news stories about Black people dying at the hands of
Speaker 1: police officers nationwide. Eric Gardner, Michael Brown, to mere Rice,
Speaker 1: Freddy Gray, Brianna Taylor. The list goes on. In Colorado,
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen, there was Elijah McClain, a twenty three
Speaker 1: year old who died after being arrested by a war police.
Speaker 1: Police say Elijah McClain was wearing a ski mask, acting
Speaker 1: agitated and ignored officers commands. Elijah was, by all accounts,
Speaker 1: an introverted, sensitive, twenty three year old. He worked as
Speaker 1: a massage therapist and taught himself to play guitar and violin.
Speaker 1: Elijah would often play music at animal shelters to help
Speaker 1: calm the stray cats and dogs. Elijah also suffered from anemia,
Speaker 1: and so we'd wear an open faced ski mask even
Speaker 1: during the summer in Colorado in order to stay warm.
Speaker 1: On the evening of August twenty four, twenty nineteen, Elijah
Speaker 1: walked from his apartment to a convenience store in Aurora
Speaker 1: suburb just outside Denver. A resident there called nine one
Speaker 1: one and reported a man wearing a ski mask. The mask, Oh, man,
Speaker 1: Elijah looks sketchy, the nine one one caller said, then
Speaker 1: added he might be a good person or a bad person.
Speaker 1: Three cops responding to this call stopped Elijah as he
Speaker 1: was walking back to his apartment. The cops claimed Elijah
Speaker 1: resisted arrest and reached for one of the officers guns.
Speaker 1: It's hard to know what's true. The video of the
Speaker 1: initial encounter is shaky and unclear. The body camera of
Speaker 1: another police officer recorded from the point that Elijah was
Speaker 1: already on the ground. We started their visiting. That's one
Speaker 1: of the officers claiming that Elijah reached for a gun.
Speaker 1: As you can hear, Elijah pinned down to the ground,
Speaker 1: pleading to be let go. The officers speculated that Elijah
Speaker 1: was on drugs, but Elijah kept telling them that he
Speaker 1: wasn't on drugs and that he wasn't trying to resist.
Speaker 1: I can't breathe, I have my ID right here. That's
Speaker 1: what Elijah tells the officers. At the time, Elijah was
Speaker 1: handcuffed behind his back and one of the officers was
Speaker 1: applying a chokeold to his neck. Page of different, completely,
Speaker 1: I'm just different, Elijah told the officers as a way
Speaker 1: to explain why they might have thought his behavior was odd,
Speaker 1: but also to assure them that he wasn't violent, he
Speaker 1: wasn't trying to resist. He kept saying that to the cops.
Speaker 1: Paramedics then arrived on the scene and injected Elijah with
Speaker 1: five hundred milligrams of ketamine as a sedative. That dosage
Speaker 1: would have been excessive for a two hundred pound man.
Speaker 1: Elijah was just one hundred and forty pounds. His pull
Speaker 1: stopped and he was taken to the hospital. Three days later,
Speaker 1: Elijah was pronounced brain dead and taken off life support.
Speaker 1: Elijah's death sparked outrage in Denver. People poured into the
Speaker 1: streets to protest. One of the first events I went
Speaker 1: to was shortly after the murder of Elijah mclin. Zeb
Speaker 1: Angered about Elijah's senseless killing was among them. He'd never
Speaker 1: been politically active before. You know. I went there and
Speaker 1: saw his mother and a bunch of other people, and
Speaker 1: everyone was hurt. You know, we knew it was wrong.
Speaker 1: In February twenty twenty, after the demonstrations for Elijah mclin
Speaker 1: began to fizzle out, public officials announced they would investigate
Speaker 1: the police response. It was something, sure, but there wasn't
Speaker 1: a lot of faith that the police officers and paramedics
Speaker 1: responsible for Elijah's death would be held accountable. Then three
Speaker 1: months later, on May twenty fifth, twenty twenty, a white
Speaker 1: police officer in Minneapolis named Derek Schouven arrest a black
Speaker 1: man named George Floyd on suspicion that he had used
Speaker 1: a counterfeit twenty dollar bill. Chauvin restrains Floyd on the
Speaker 1: concrete street during the arrest, and he places his knee
Speaker 1: directly on Floyd's neck for approximately nine minutes, and he
Speaker 1: murders George Floyd. Good even to everyone. We're coming on
Speaker 1: the air with the latest on the wave of protests
Speaker 1: unrest taking place at this hour across the country, outrage
Speaker 1: at the death of George Floyd and African American man
Speaker 1: in Denver. Floyd's death is like gasoline thrown on the
Speaker 1: warm embers of anger over Elijah McClain. Thousands of people
Speaker 1: protest in the streets, animated by both men's untimely death
Speaker 1: at the hands of police officers, and the Denver area
Speaker 1: police response to the demonstrations was brutal. In June, dozens
Speaker 1: of people gather in Aurora's public Square for Elijah McClain.
Speaker 1: They call it the Violin vigil as many of the
Speaker 1: demonstrators play violins in Elijah's honor. The police, dressed in
Speaker 1: riot gear, storm into the demonstration and disperse the crowd
Speaker 1: with violent shoves in full volume streams of pepper spring.
Speaker 1: During other demonstrations, police in the Denver area fire pepper
Speaker 1: balls and rubber bullets into the crowds, injuring dozens. It's like,
Speaker 1: fucking wow, I'm out there with my camera, he goes,
Speaker 1: I'd never taken photos, you know before, I just picked
Speaker 1: up the hobby at the time. Zeb Hal had purchased
Speaker 1: a camera to document the protest. It was crazy, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm just you know, taking pictures that I'm seeing his
Speaker 1: fire in a civic center park and then it's kind
Speaker 1: of like a saving private Ryan moment. Zeb isn't quite
Speaker 1: sure what happened next. Did a rubber bullet hit him
Speaker 1: in the head? Where did he pass out after being
Speaker 1: overwhelmed with pepper spray and then smack his head on
Speaker 1: the concrete. I'm like, you're just like kind of flozzed
Speaker 1: out of people picked me up off the ground and
Speaker 1: they brought me, you know, took me away, put some
Speaker 1: I think it was milk in my eyes and shit
Speaker 1: and kind of brought me back to But I was
Speaker 1: having issues after that. My head was hurting so bad
Speaker 1: and I wasn't able to sleep well. I was just
Speaker 1: like sporadic, like emotional, like losing my mind. You know.
Speaker 1: I had to get I think it was a cat skin.
Speaker 1: You know. They almost told me to like stop driving
Speaker 1: at one point, they were really concerned memory was off
Speaker 1: a little bit, you know, to some degree. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was pretty pretty rough. From that point on, Zeb admits
Speaker 1: he's done in his right mind. He's taking a hard
Speaker 1: hit to the head, and he feels traumatized by the
Speaker 1: police response of the protests, but he doesn't want to quit.
Speaker 1: It feels like they're on the edge of something big.
Speaker 1: Maybe the system could be reformed if enough people come
Speaker 1: out and speak up. He's too far in, Zeb can't
Speaker 1: stop now. And this is about the time that a
Speaker 1: man arrives in Denver driving up to a protest in
Speaker 1: a silver hearse filled with guns. One of the primary
Speaker 1: organizers of the Denver racial justice protests is Trey Quinn,
Speaker 1: a tall black man who wears a beard and large
Speaker 1: frame glasses. Trey identifies as a black nationalist through his
Speaker 1: activism he's trying to promote organizations and causes that invest
Speaker 1: directly in black communities in Colorado. What we were asking
Speaker 1: for is the same type of investment in the community
Speaker 1: that would give us the same type of ownership in
Speaker 1: a city that other communities have. You know, people can
Speaker 1: look at the skyline and they see all these buildings,
Speaker 1: and none of those buildings provide any sort of wealth
Speaker 1: to black culture, but they provide wealth to these other
Speaker 1: cultures because they have investments in that. And we wanted
Speaker 1: to let people know this is what is really needed
Speaker 1: for us to get out of our situation. Since you
Speaker 1: want to help us so much, this is actually what
Speaker 1: we need, and so that was my message. Trade dislikes
Speaker 1: that the protests in Denver and others around the country
Speaker 1: are being described as Black Lives Matter protests. Black Lives
Speaker 1: Matter is largely a decentralized movement, and the term became
Speaker 1: a catch all phrase for news media worldwide. Any racial
Speaker 1: justice protest in America was described as a Black Lives
Speaker 1: Matter or BLM demonstration. But at the same time, a
Speaker 1: number of groups begin raising money under BLM, and in
Speaker 1: Trade's view, very little of this money is being invested
Speaker 1: in black communities. As Tracy's it, it's all a scam.
Speaker 1: They extract wealth from us via the donations that we
Speaker 1: get from these well meaning white liberals who want to
Speaker 1: give us money, who want to stay out of it,
Speaker 1: but want to help out. They see that as a
Speaker 1: cash cow, and so they became a barrier over top
Speaker 1: of us, a big fat bubble layer, to catch all
Speaker 1: of that money before it reached us, so that they
Speaker 1: could decide who to give it to, which obviously wasn't us.
Speaker 1: Besides all that, Trey has some real practical things to
Speaker 1: sort out on the ground. The police have established a
Speaker 1: reputation in and around Denver for responding to demonstrators with force,
Speaker 1: like they did on June twenty, twenty twenty during the
Speaker 1: violin vigil for Elijah McClain. It's now mid July and
Speaker 1: Trey has gathered a bunch of demonstrators to teach them
Speaker 1: how to move together in a formation in order to
Speaker 1: escape safely from a charging line of police officers dressed
Speaker 1: in riot gear. The cops come in lines like stormtroopers,
Speaker 1: and so what they try to do is they'll pick
Speaker 1: a person off by separating the group with their line.
Speaker 1: And so I started teaching these people how to create
Speaker 1: you know, like the Spartan Faylenx rank, essentially teaching them
Speaker 1: how to cress it moon and how to like open
Speaker 1: up in like a wide oval so that they can
Speaker 1: move their way out of a situation. And so if
Speaker 1: everyone links arms and everyone creates a crescent moon, it
Speaker 1: prevents the cops from wanting to go into the group
Speaker 1: and move people out because now they see that they
Speaker 1: are in danger. As Trey is describing how to employ
Speaker 1: this defensive tactic during a demonstration, a couple of other
Speaker 1: activists show up with this new guy. He'd driven up
Speaker 1: in a silver hearse he's a white guy in military fatigues,
Speaker 1: and so they're like, hey, this guy's really really dope.
Speaker 1: He's legit, he knows his shit. You should let him
Speaker 1: sit in and he could probably help you out. And
Speaker 1: so he comes in and essentially he's really pushy, trying
Speaker 1: to like give directions and trying to like, you know,
Speaker 1: like put himself at the forefront to trade. This guy's
Speaker 1: a brash, no it all who's ready to take charge.
Speaker 1: And he looks like a biker and Trey he doesn't
Speaker 1: trust bikers, and I usually approach dudes who look bikers
Speaker 1: in these groups because I just need to know one,
Speaker 1: are you armed, so that I can keep an eye
Speaker 1: on you until I know that you're quote unquote one
Speaker 1: of us or whatever you know the term could be.
Speaker 1: But this biker guy, he's got the goods. He's like,
Speaker 1: I got guys all around here videotaping. They'll give us
Speaker 1: a call as soon as the cops are moving around
Speaker 1: the corner, which they did. They let us know by
Speaker 1: providing information about where the police were, information that turned
Speaker 1: out to be accurate. This guy quickly establishes credibility among
Speaker 1: the demonstrators. They start to trust him, and as far
Speaker 1: as Trey remembers, this is also around the time that
Speaker 1: Zeb Hall comes on the scene. Zeb was known for
Speaker 1: his impassioned and fiery speeches during demonstrations. At one of
Speaker 1: the demonstrations, Zeb meets the guy driving the silver hearse,
Speaker 1: the mysterious man who appears to be taking charge of
Speaker 1: the demonstrators. He's leading protests, organizing people, and drawing up plans.
Speaker 1: Zeb is in awe of him. He seems like a
Speaker 1: guy who can make stuff happen. He has military training.
Speaker 1: He speaks with a raspy voice of dominance, his shirt
Speaker 1: fits tight or and his large biceps. He's like, he
Speaker 1: has testosterone dripping from his pores. And he has guns,
Speaker 1: a lot of guns. He was there and I'm like, Yo,
Speaker 1: this dude has a ship ton of guns in his car.
Speaker 1: So my thing is he worked for foreign military. He
Speaker 1: said the United States government knew it, So maybe this
Speaker 1: guy's a lot to have guns. At that time, Zeb
Speaker 1: is enthralled with this mysterious guy. He's experienced on the
Speaker 1: battlefield and he has expertise with weapons. Zeb exchanged his
Speaker 1: phone numbers with him and they agree to stay in touch. Yeah,
Speaker 1: see you the next protests a year round. I'll contact you.
Speaker 1: You know, I'll text you if I find out if
Speaker 1: this is going on with this thing. Zeb's new friend
Speaker 1: doesn't waste any time contacting him. He tells Zeb that
Speaker 1: the protests are reaching a tipping point and that violence
Speaker 1: is coming. It's inevitable. The way I look at is
Speaker 1: like shit has to happen. The has to happen. Shit
Speaker 1: has to happen. He says to Zeb, how extreme do
Speaker 1: you expected? Would you want it to go? This guy
Speaker 1: he's about to take the racial justice protest in Denver
Speaker 1: a violent step forward. It's time to shoot the rich,
Speaker 1: he tells zeb. It's time to take down buildings, It's
Speaker 1: time to burn down the whole system. I don't give
Speaker 1: a fuck about going to prison. I don't give a
Speaker 1: fuck about getting killed, because you believe me. I've fought
Speaker 1: Isis or Nash, I've fought Al Kayeeda, I've fought Hubble Shoppy.
Speaker 1: I've fought in Iraq and I've fought in Syria. I've
Speaker 1: trained real emptief of freedom fighters in both those regions.
Speaker 1: And I am certainly not fucking scared of you. Who
Speaker 1: is this man that's in the next episode? This is
Speaker 1: Trojan Hearst Season one of Alphabet Boys. Alphabet Boys is
Speaker 1: a production of Western Sound and iHeart Podcasts. The show
Speaker 1: is reported, written and hosted by me Trevor Aaronson. For
Speaker 1: more information about this series or to drop us a tip,
Speaker 1: head to our website Alphabet Boys dot xyz. You can
Speaker 1: contact me on Twitter or Instagram at Trevor Aaronson. We
Speaker 1: believe this story is important and could result in changes
Speaker 1: to FBI oversight and public policy. But to have impact,
Speaker 1: people need to hear this story, so we need your help. First,
Speaker 1: tell your friends about the show. Personal recommendations are the
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Speaker 1: alphabet boys dot x y Z you'll find FBI undercover
Speaker 1: recordings and secret documents. You can share stuff the government
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Speaker 1: that helps other people find us and thanks for listening.