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Speaker 2: dot com. Enjoy the episode Gamsite Media. On the night
Speaker 2: of the shooting in the West End March sixteenth, two thousand,
Speaker 2: Atlanta Police detective Brett Zimbrick was working in his cubicle.
Speaker 2: It was a Thursday, and Brett's shift ran from three
Speaker 2: pm to eleven pm.
Speaker 3: Thursday nights were Fridays for most of us. We had
Speaker 3: either Friday and Saturday off or at Sunday and Monday off,
Speaker 3: So Thursday night was a Friday night for me.
Speaker 4: So that you're kind of like winding down, getting ready
Speaker 4: for the weekend, right.
Speaker 3: And a weekly tradition is to go to the local
Speaker 3: drinking establishment and all the cops that are off on
Speaker 3: Friday would show up and you know, have a beer
Speaker 3: or two and start the weekend that way.
Speaker 2: Brett was about to head out and get a beer
Speaker 2: with his buddies when one of the Fulton County Sheriff's
Speaker 2: deputies on duty in the West End, Algernon English, made
Speaker 2: a distress call on his radio. He and his partner
Speaker 2: and Rickie Kinchin were taking fire and Kenchin was down.
Speaker 2: English said he and Kinchin were at an address on
Speaker 2: Oak Street. Brett grabbed his keys and rushed toward the
Speaker 2: West End because it was a cop who had been shot.
Speaker 2: He told me everyone was responding, bolting from their desks
Speaker 2: for their cars. Brent knew that when he arrived he
Speaker 2: would be in charge of the crime scene. On the
Speaker 2: drive across the city, he was listening to his police radio.
Speaker 3: It's chaotic.
Speaker 5: It's a zoo for real.
Speaker 3: I mean, you have no idea that they had no
Speaker 3: idea where the shooter was, or if it was somebody
Speaker 3: that was getting high ground on them or whatever. But
Speaker 3: their priority at that point was to get medical assistance
Speaker 3: to the officers that were down.
Speaker 4: And having worked so many homicides by that point, is
Speaker 4: this a heightened level of emotion and chaos.
Speaker 3: Because it's an officer who was involved, right, Because back
Speaker 3: in two thousand, unlike today, you know, it was a
Speaker 3: big deal to shoot the cops. Now not so much,
Speaker 3: but back then it was a big deal. If the
Speaker 3: cops were shot, then this was somebody that was really
Speaker 3: desperate or you know, angry, whatever, but there was, you know,
Speaker 3: some passion behind the event of shooting law enforcement.
Speaker 2: It's still a big deal to shoot a police officer.
Speaker 2: But I think I get what Brett is saying. The
Speaker 2: uprisings of the past few years have brought the police
Speaker 2: as an institution. The police has this unimpeachable arm of
Speaker 2: law and order down to a much more human size.
Speaker 2: Respect for the position isn't what it used to be,
Speaker 2: and that has to sting. By the time Brett arrived
Speaker 2: at the scene in the West End, the two deputies
Speaker 2: who were shot, English and Kenchin, they were already in
Speaker 2: ambulances on their way to the hospital.
Speaker 5: Brett was a methodical.
Speaker 2: Cop, not the running gun type, the trim white guy
Speaker 2: in his late thirties who prided himself on being smarter
Speaker 2: than the next guy. His eyes were immediately drawn to
Speaker 2: all the evidence the police would need to collect and organize.
Speaker 2: Cops fanned out in the neighborhood to canvas for even
Speaker 2: more evidence and knock on doors asking if anyone had
Speaker 2: seen or.
Speaker 5: Heard what happened.
Speaker 2: But most of the Muslims who lived nearby, the members
Speaker 2: of the mass died, they weren't talking.
Speaker 3: There wasn't a whole lot of onlookers for this event,
Speaker 3: which was rare.
Speaker 4: Did the lack of onlookers mean anything to.
Speaker 3: You, Well, it wasn't a shock. I don't think it
Speaker 3: was the West End. It was the corner store there
Speaker 3: at West End Place. So it was one of those
Speaker 3: neighborhoods where there wasn't a whole lot of late night
Speaker 3: you know, shenanigans.
Speaker 5: I see.
Speaker 4: So it's kind of representative of the folks there are
Speaker 4: not really out in the street at.
Speaker 3: That hour, right, Yeah, the West End is kind of
Speaker 3: you know, controlled, Right, It was a different neighborhood, right.
Speaker 2: Brett focused on the physical evidence at the scene, dozens
Speaker 2: of shell casings and bullets lit up by the street
Speaker 2: lights and lying in the grass. There was a small
Speaker 2: stack of paper, four pages or so stapled together. Only
Speaker 2: the top sheet was initially visible white paper with black
Speaker 2: type and an image of a sheriff's batch. The page
Speaker 2: was covered with splotches of blood, and there was a
Speaker 2: bullet hole right through the center. It was a warrant,
Speaker 2: please arrest this subject. The first paragraph said the deputies
Speaker 2: had been out looking for someone. There is perhaps no
Speaker 2: greater emblem of the promise of the American criminal legal
Speaker 2: system than the warrant. A document that grants officers of
Speaker 2: the law the power to jail people, to search them,
Speaker 2: to take their property after a judge approves. That's the
Speaker 2: bedrock of our legal system. What our constitution and court's
Speaker 2: promise police power with constraint, with judicial oversight and the
Speaker 2: interest of public safety. Cops aren't supposed to just break
Speaker 2: down doors, or search cars, or detain people whenever they please.
Speaker 2: This is an idea that goes back to the Bill
Speaker 2: of Rights. It's also an idea that hasn't worked in
Speaker 2: everyone's favor. And that night in the West End, someone
Speaker 2: deemed it all worthy of destruction. Maybe they thought they
Speaker 2: were exempt, or that police and the legal system were
Speaker 2: only out to get them. In any case, they shot
Speaker 2: it all up. All of the criminal procedure wrapped up
Speaker 2: in that document, bloodied it. If this were a piece
Speaker 2: of fiction. Maybe you'd find the symbolism too heavy handed,
Speaker 2: too literal, maybe even melodramatic, like something out of an
Speaker 2: old Western. A warrant shot through the center, along with
Speaker 2: the deputies who carried it. But this is in fact
Speaker 2: what happened. Someone shot up the system and then got
Speaker 2: the hell out of dodge. Printed on that bloody to
Speaker 2: rest warrant was the name Jamil Abdellah Alamin. The warrant
Speaker 2: was for man Jamil. There was a physical description black
Speaker 2: mail six feet five inches tall, one hundred and eighty
Speaker 2: seven pounds, with gray eyes and brown hair, and a
Speaker 2: note of caution the subject could be armed. From Campside Media,
Speaker 2: Tenderfoot TV, and iHeart podcasts, This is Radical, I'm Mosty's Secret,
Speaker 2: episode two, Heroes and Villains. About a year before the shootout,
Speaker 2: AmAm Jamil was driving a green Ford Explorer in Cobb County,
Speaker 2: a suburban county just north of Atlanta. The suv had
Speaker 2: a dealer license played on it, and a local police
Speaker 2: officer spotted the vehicle, turned on his patrol lights and
Speaker 2: pulled a Mamjamil over. The officer said in court that
Speaker 2: when he asked for license and registration, a Maam Jamil's
Speaker 2: hands were shaking. The paperwork didn't check out. The explorer
Speaker 2: had been reported stolen, so the officer took him to jail,
Speaker 2: where he stayed a few hours until he posted bond.
Speaker 2: I should note here that years later the traffic stop
Speaker 2: was ruled unconstitutional. There was no probable cause for the stop,
Speaker 2: and a Mam Demial was never convicted of anything related
Speaker 2: to it.
Speaker 5: Anyway.
Speaker 2: In January of two thousand, he had a court dat
Speaker 2: in the case, but there was an ice storm and
Speaker 2: the judge delayed the proceedings by two hours. A Mam
Speaker 2: Jamial never showed up, and the judge issued a warrant
Speaker 2: for his arrest. That was the warrant that the deputies
Speaker 2: had with them on the night of the shootout. It
Speaker 2: was why they were in the West End. When Atlanta
Speaker 2: Police Detective Brett Ziembrick saw that warrant, now bloodied and
Speaker 2: with a boat hole in it, he logically concluded that
Speaker 2: a Ma'am Jamil was his main suspect. After Brett got
Speaker 2: up the next morning, he learned that Deputy Algernon English
Speaker 2: was awake and ready to talk. English and Deputy Ricky
Speaker 2: Kinchin had both been through surgery. Kenchin was hit at
Speaker 2: least six times, English at least three times. Brett went
Speaker 2: to English's room at the hospital to interview him.
Speaker 3: He's remarkably alert.
Speaker 5: I was shocked that he was.
Speaker 3: I mean, not upbeat, but his attitude was, you know,
Speaker 3: me and my partner got shot. We got to get
Speaker 3: the bad guy. I need to tell you my side
Speaker 3: of the story. You know, he wasn't like TV guy
Speaker 3: and lighten in the hospital with you know, hoses coming
Speaker 3: out of his nose and mouth and all that stuff.
Speaker 3: He was, you know, surprisingly alert and upbeat for what
Speaker 3: had happened to him.
Speaker 2: Zimbert began to interview English on March sixteenth, two thousand.
Speaker 2: English's workday began at around two thirty in the afternoon.
Speaker 2: He went to the Sheriff's office in downtown Atlanta for
Speaker 2: a roll call, where he was assigned to ride with
Speaker 2: Deputy Kenchin. They were given fifteen warrants to execute for
Speaker 2: their shift that ended at midnight, and they'd consider themselves
Speaker 2: lucky if they were able to find even one person
Speaker 2: and arrest them. That was the nature of the work.
Speaker 2: Kenchin and English had worked together before. They made something
Speaker 2: of a balanced pair Kenchin, a thirty five year old
Speaker 2: black deputy with a thin mustache who was known for
Speaker 2: his charm. He was the more senior of the two
Speaker 2: had worked in the department for at least seven years. English,
Speaker 2: who was also black, had been there for just three
Speaker 2: years before that, he was in the Marine Corps. After
Speaker 2: Kinchin and English had been out for about three hours,
Speaker 2: they ate dinner at a wingspot in Atlanta called JR.
Speaker 5: Crickets.
Speaker 2: After the meal, Kinchin called his wife to check in
Speaker 2: and the two deputies drove their marked carr a Crown
Speaker 2: Victoria to the West End.
Speaker 6: So he had them eating lunch. We approached the location
Speaker 6: from Oak Street.
Speaker 2: This is a recording of English while he was still
Speaker 2: in the hospital. English said that he and Kenchin pulled
Speaker 2: up in front of the address that was on the warrant,
Speaker 2: the corner store in the West End run by a
Speaker 2: man Jamil.
Speaker 6: We noticed that there was no life running in the store.
Speaker 6: In the back on the deck, there was no life
Speaker 6: indicating someone was there.
Speaker 2: English and Kensin drove off. Kenchin was behind the wheel,
Speaker 2: and then in the rear view mirror he saw black
Speaker 2: Mercedes pull up next to the store. A man stepped
Speaker 2: out of the vehicle and onto the sidewalk. He was
Speaker 2: wearing a trench coat and a skull cap of some kind,
Speaker 2: and he looked like he was taller than six feet,
Speaker 2: which fit the description.
Speaker 3: On the warrant.
Speaker 2: Kenchin turned their car around and drove back. The deputies
Speaker 2: pulled up in front of the other car, so the
Speaker 2: Sheriff's crowned Vic and the Mercedes were facing each other,
Speaker 2: their headlights on. English told Kenchin, Okay.
Speaker 5: We're going to count to three.
Speaker 2: They opened their doors and got out, and I.
Speaker 6: Needed to notice the gentlemen. I couldn't see his right hand,
Speaker 6: so I said, sir, I need to see.
Speaker 2: Your right hand, Kenchin. At the driver's side of the
Speaker 2: crown Vic. He was sort of diagonal to the man,
Speaker 2: but English was facing him straight on.
Speaker 6: My mom always told me look a man in his eye,
Speaker 6: always looking man.
Speaker 5: Is so.
Speaker 6: Because I was looking at him in his eyes and
Speaker 6: I remember him gray eyes, so I couldn't man, I
Speaker 6: remember that face, that face, that cold face, so I
Speaker 6: couldn't forget that. That's when he frowned at me and
Speaker 6: he noted me with yeah him all and me aggressive
Speaker 6: metal like yeah, and introduced the black O fault rifle
Speaker 6: and start firing at me.
Speaker 2: The first round hit English in the hip nearest holster.
Speaker 2: It's stung and burned.
Speaker 6: I realized, Oh, this is this real life. It's not
Speaker 6: really a dream.
Speaker 7: It's happened.
Speaker 6: It was happening so fast because he didn't give him
Speaker 6: a chance of doing anything else.
Speaker 2: At some point, the pepper spray cannisterer on English's hip
Speaker 2: had been hit and the chemical was in his eyes.
Speaker 2: He drew his pistol, a forty caliber glock, and fired back.
Speaker 5: He said he hit the man.
Speaker 2: In these moments, the way English tells it, the situation
Speaker 2: brought him right back to was training in the Marine Corps.
Speaker 2: He he determined he was facing a terrorist attack because
Speaker 2: terrorists are trained to kill, and they know that cops
Speaker 2: wear bulletproof vests, so they shoot at the waist and
Speaker 2: the hips of their targets. English also figured it was
Speaker 2: an ambush and he was outgunned, facing a rifle with
Speaker 2: a pistol. He was inside what he was trained to
Speaker 2: call the kill zone. The only way to survive was
Speaker 2: to get out of there, and to do that he
Speaker 2: had to run through it. So he dashed between the
Speaker 2: cars and I.
Speaker 6: Was running and I was screaming and yelling and firing
Speaker 6: back at him and trying to get out of the
Speaker 6: kill zone.
Speaker 2: He ended up across the street, lying in the grass
Speaker 2: next to the mast shit. He could feel that he'd
Speaker 2: been shot in the arm too.
Speaker 5: English called out for Kenchin.
Speaker 2: Then he heard more assault rifle fire and shots from
Speaker 2: a smaller gun. When it stopped, English thought the man
Speaker 2: was walking towards him, coming over to finish him off.
Speaker 6: I was screaming, yelling, please don't shoot me, no more.
Speaker 6: Don't shoot me no more, don't shoot me no more.
Speaker 2: But there was no more gunfire. English was lying in
Speaker 2: the grass, curled in the fetal position. He couldn't feel
Speaker 2: his legs. His radio mic was still attached to his
Speaker 2: shoulder and he turned his head to speak into it.
Speaker 6: It was like America just came over. He just came
Speaker 6: to the fence, and I said, my God said talking tall,
Speaker 6: just talk to everybody. Can let the whole one know
Speaker 6: what's going on.
Speaker 5: So I just I.
Speaker 6: Just pressed the mic and just start talking and give
Speaker 6: him the rest.
Speaker 2: The location where we were, English heard a car start
Speaker 2: and drive off. Other law enforcement arrived moments later. They
Speaker 2: found Keenchin lying in the middle of the street and
Speaker 2: English in the grass next to the mast. The morning
Speaker 2: after the shootout at the hospital, Brett Zimbrick the detective,
Speaker 2: he had a photo lineup of six men, one of
Speaker 2: them a man Jamial. He wanted to see if English
Speaker 2: could id the man he said he looked in the
Speaker 2: eye the man who shot him in Keinchin. According to
Speaker 2: his report, Brett didn't ask English if he'd seen anyone
Speaker 2: else with a gun before Brett showed English the lineup.
Speaker 2: He wanted to make sure that English would make a
Speaker 2: choice based solely on his memory from that night, So
Speaker 2: Brett asked English some questions.
Speaker 3: Had you seen TV? No, has anybody told you who
Speaker 3: you were going after?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 3: Has anybody told you who shot you?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 5: Do you know who you were going after?
Speaker 3: And that, to me was important because if he would
Speaker 3: have said that, then there would have been some question
Speaker 3: on the lineup. He never mentioned it. He didn't have
Speaker 3: any idea who this man was, so the lineup was
Speaker 3: a pure lineup.
Speaker 2: Brett concluded that English didn't know of a man Jamil
Speaker 2: before that night, that he hadn't seen him on TV,
Speaker 2: that he didn't remember h Rap Brown from some history
Speaker 2: class that he didn't know about the rotten relationship between
Speaker 2: Rapp and the police, so Brett showed him the lineup.
Speaker 3: He looks at the lineup and immediately goes to alamine
Speaker 3: and says, that's the guy. I said, that's the guy.
Speaker 3: What he says, that's the guy that shot me and
Speaker 3: my partner.
Speaker 2: Actually, he said, that's the motherfucker who shot me and
Speaker 2: my partner. By that afternoon, Brett went to a judge
Speaker 2: for warrance to arrest a Maam Jamil on charges of
Speaker 2: aggravated assault for shooting Kensin and English, but he had
Speaker 2: to go back later that day to get the warrant updated.
Speaker 2: English survived, but Kenchin had died in the hospital. Now
Speaker 2: Ma'am Jamil was wanted for murder. English's account is not
Speaker 2: without detractors, and rightfully so. There are inconsistencies, some that
Speaker 2: even suggest that a Maam Jamial wasn't the person who
Speaker 2: shot the day, but law enforcement tends to trust an
Speaker 2: injured officer their account can generate appointed and powerful energy
Speaker 2: to catch the alleged criminal at almost any cost. For
Speaker 2: most of the twenty years I've been a journalist, I've
Speaker 2: covered the criminal court system in America. We have an
Speaker 2: adversarial system prosecutors and police officers against alleged criminals and
Speaker 2: their lawyers, And I'm starting to think that's at the
Speaker 2: root of something I keep bumping into while reporting this story.
Speaker 2: And us versus them, mentality, good guys versus bad guys,
Speaker 2: even some cosmic battle between righteousness and evil are countless
Speaker 2: TV crime dramas, only reinforced and heighten the stakes when
Speaker 2: people enter this territory. In their thinking, something is lost
Speaker 2: about how they see the human beings on the other side.
Speaker 2: Something beautiful that I believe, which is that nearly all
Speaker 2: of us have a heroic impulse to do what we
Speaker 2: think is good. Sure some people are thwarted and get
Speaker 2: it really really twisted.
Speaker 5: Still we all have it.
Speaker 2: But law enforcement, I wonder how much they see that.
Speaker 2: What I most often heard from them and working on
Speaker 2: the story was some version of the good versus evil philosophy.
Speaker 2: Maybe if your whole job is looking for people you're
Speaker 2: told or bad guys, you're going to believe they're inherently bad.
Speaker 2: Some people definitely do awful things to others, don't get
Speaker 2: me wrong, but losing sight of human goodness, staying entrenched
Speaker 2: in that adversarial system. It limits any chance of finding
Speaker 2: common cause justice and that deeper sense the US versus
Speaker 2: them mentality. It fosters camaraderie and loyalty.
Speaker 5: On each side.
Speaker 2: In the hours after the shootout in the West End,
Speaker 2: Brett Zimbrick was feeling some of the pressure that comes
Speaker 2: with that pressure to look out for his fellow cops.
Speaker 2: It took Brett less than twenty four hours to get
Speaker 2: an arrest warrant for a Ma'am Jamil for shooting the
Speaker 2: two deputies.
Speaker 3: Some investigations, you know, bad guys there on the scene
Speaker 3: gets taken into custody. Others, you know, it takes days, weeks, months,
Speaker 3: sometimes years for it to be law enforcement that was shot.
Speaker 3: It was probably pretty important for morale and confidence in
Speaker 3: the police department that we got warrants quick. I'm sure
Speaker 3: cops appreciate the fact that we work quick and efficiently
Speaker 3: and diligently to get the bad guys off the street.
Speaker 2: So it wasn't just law enforcement in Atlanta that was
Speaker 2: paying special attention to the case. It would have been
Speaker 2: law enforcement around the country at all levels. That's because
Speaker 2: a Ma'am Jamil had a reputation with law enforcement that
Speaker 2: began to develop when he was still a trap Brown.
Speaker 2: I want to go back to a story about how
Speaker 2: that reputation crystallized, how cops came to view him something
Speaker 2: like an enemy. It helps explain some of the ways
Speaker 2: law enforcement acted in the days after the shootout as
Speaker 2: they chased down a man Jamil. In nineteen seventy one,
Speaker 2: during a period when Rap was in hiding in on
Speaker 2: the FBI's most wanted list, he and three other men,
Speaker 2: also Black Power activists, carried gans into a club in Manhattan.
Speaker 2: Most if not all, the customers at the bar were black.
Speaker 2: The four men held them up, hit them for cash
Speaker 2: and jewelry. When police arrived, Rap fled and the chase
Speaker 2: led police to the roof of a nearby apartment building.
Speaker 2: An officer shot and wounded Rap and carried him bleeding
Speaker 2: down thirteen flights of stairs to the street, not knowing
Speaker 2: who he was. There was gambling happening at the club,
Speaker 2: and at the trial, Rap's defense tried to introduce evidence
Speaker 2: that the police were on the take and covering up
Speaker 2: a legal activity. It was never proven, but stealing from
Speaker 2: a corrupt syndicate might have been motive for Rap and
Speaker 2: the other men. The whole episode, including a blow by
Speaker 2: blow account of the chase and the shooting, was chronicled
Speaker 2: in a New York magazine story written by a retired
Speaker 2: police commissioner. It celebrated the officer who shot Rap is
Speaker 2: a hero. Decades later, in two thousand, bred Zimberg got
Speaker 2: a call from that same officer.
Speaker 5: What did he say?
Speaker 3: He was just checking on the officers. He was just like, hey, man,
Speaker 3: I'm the one that you know was involved in that shootout,
Speaker 3: shot him, arrested him. He said he was, you know,
Speaker 3: you know, the old cop thing. He tried to be
Speaker 3: a badass. You know, like if I'd have known then
Speaker 3: what I know now, I'd have shot him more or something,
Speaker 3: you know whatever, something like that.
Speaker 2: That New York cop and maybe others in law enforcement,
Speaker 2: they seem to think Rap was a violent criminal out
Speaker 2: to get them.
Speaker 5: Specifically, I'd have shot him more, the officer told Brett.
Speaker 2: A homicide. To prevent a homicide, a bad guy dies,
Speaker 2: so a good guy lives. It's a pernicious way of
Speaker 2: thinking that can spin out of control. It does remind
Speaker 2: me of how one of a man Jamil supporters, Belal
Speaker 2: Sunni Ali said the deputy killed in the West End
Speaker 2: deserved what he got coming into their neighborhood like that
Speaker 2: saw him as a cop and nothing more. To me,
Speaker 2: it's the same kind of essentialism. Deputy English didn't want
Speaker 2: to be interviewed for this story. A friend of his
Speaker 2: passed on the message to me that English has moved
Speaker 2: on and also that he forgave that guy a long
Speaker 2: time ago, referring to a man Jamil. We wrote to
Speaker 2: Kinchin's family, but we couldn't reach them. Still, I want
Speaker 2: to take a moment to acknowledge a life that was lost.
Speaker 2: We were able to talk to a union leader for
Speaker 2: the Fulton County Sheriff's Office who worked with Kenchin in
Speaker 2: the county jail. He said that Kenchin was a jokester,
Speaker 2: that he could burn you and you until you wanted
Speaker 2: to punch him, and then he would back off and
Speaker 2: have everyone laughing, including you the target of the jokes.
Speaker 2: The killing of Keensin it had ripple effects. He had
Speaker 2: a wife and two daughters. We know from court documents
Speaker 2: that he left his family angry and depressed. I can
Speaker 2: only hope that they are finding peace. So back to
Speaker 2: the aftermath of the shooting in the west End. Brett
Speaker 2: had gotten the warrants for Ma'am Jamil's arrest. His job
Speaker 2: was mostly done, but Ma'am Jamil was still missing. Enter
Speaker 2: James Ergus, a US Marshal at the time. James had
Speaker 2: made a life's work of being a good guy chasing
Speaker 2: bad guys. Before James joined the Marshals, he was in
Speaker 2: the US Special Forces, deployed in the Middle East and Somalia,
Speaker 2: jumping out of planes and flying in a dangerous places
Speaker 2: and helicopters, that kind of thing.
Speaker 7: I really joined the military because I just thought I
Speaker 7: didn't know whether I was a coward or not. And
Speaker 7: all I can tell you to this day is not yet.
Speaker 2: James said, he's good with a rifle. He's short and muscled,
Speaker 2: built like a running back, like someone who was good
Speaker 2: at chasing people. And that's what he did when he
Speaker 2: joined the Marshals. A big part of their job is
Speaker 2: arresting fugitives. It makes James tierry to think about it.
Speaker 7: The Marshal Service and the guys and gals that work
Speaker 7: with the Marshal Service have the single best job that
Speaker 7: you can have in enforcement. They get to go hunt
Speaker 7: people that harm their community. They get to go give
Speaker 7: that person to someone else, and then they get to
Speaker 7: hunt another person that harms someone in their community, and
Speaker 7: it's all good work. You can't want to do something
Speaker 7: more than stop people from hurting people, and you get
Speaker 7: to be in a position to do that. That's the
Speaker 7: best thing ever.
Speaker 2: It is this idea of hunting people. I'm troubled by it.
Speaker 2: I have to say, I'm a writer. Words matter to me.
Speaker 2: I'm going to assume that James isn't out there looking
Speaker 2: for a kill. But for me, a hunt is something
Speaker 2: that ends in a loss of life, So I'm not
Speaker 2: going to use that word anyway.
Speaker 5: That's James.
Speaker 2: After the shooting in the West End, he got an
Speaker 2: early morning call there was going to be a meeting
Speaker 2: of federal, state, and local law enforcement. James said that
Speaker 2: since he knew it was about two deputies who were shot,
Speaker 2: two people working in law enforcement, he would have tried
Speaker 2: to get into that meeting even if he wasn't invited.
Speaker 2: He just wanted to be involved.
Speaker 7: Every agency and representatives from every single agency in Metro
Speaker 7: Atlanta or at the meeting. Everything was really a blur.
Speaker 7: All this information was coming in. Everybodys trying to figure
Speaker 7: it out. And they pretty much called out Alaman as
Speaker 7: being the target. Investigation right away.
Speaker 2: James and the Marshall's got a manage meals records and
Speaker 2: the phone records of some people close to him. Then
Speaker 2: he worked the phones himself. He called colleagues to access databases,
Speaker 2: and he fielded calls from other law enforcement.
Speaker 7: We would burn through phone batteries, like we all had
Speaker 7: multiple cell phones, and we had them because you'd be
Speaker 7: on one so much that the battery would die on
Speaker 7: it and you'd have to charge it and couldn't stay
Speaker 7: You'd be talking on it and it's plugged in and
Speaker 7: it wouldn't stay charged.
Speaker 2: On March seventeenth, less than twenty four hours after the shootout,
Speaker 2: an alert went out to law enforcement around the country.
Speaker 2: It said be on the lookout for Jamil Abdullah el Amine.
Speaker 2: Other notices warned he was armed and dangerous. News outlets
Speaker 2: were reporting he was a suspect in the shooting, a
Speaker 2: man Jamil must have known he was being pursued. I
Speaker 2: don't know much about what AmAm Jamil was doing, but
Speaker 2: the FBI listened in on calls from at least to
Speaker 2: one of his phones, and we were able to get
Speaker 2: some recordings. Yeah, the calls were very short and they're vague.
Speaker 1: I mean that that leads to the huhl, that leads
Speaker 1: to the back back.
Speaker 2: Then it's hard to understand what's going on, but everyone
Speaker 2: on the phone seemed tense.
Speaker 3: Picked the other brother up first, and then make sure
Speaker 3: man better, make sure ain't.
Speaker 6: Nobody behind him?
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 7: So like what time you come uh bottom of awl?
Speaker 4: Yeah, picked the.
Speaker 7: Other brother and makes you ain't no better behind you man, Okay.
Speaker 2: I wonder if ma'am Jamil felt like he was really
Speaker 2: going to get away, like there were enough people out
Speaker 2: there on his side to spirit him to safety. I
Speaker 2: don't know exactly how the FEDS eventually figured out the
Speaker 2: general area where he was. My best theory is that
Speaker 2: it was a combination of human informants and surveillance of
Speaker 2: his phone. They zeroed in on a rural area in
Speaker 2: Alabama where ma'am Jamil had helped set up a mass
Speaker 2: j it. It was the same place that in the
Speaker 2: sixties a man Jamil rap at the time helped inspire
Speaker 2: people to stand up to the white establishment. In the
Speaker 2: local sheriff James and the Marshalls, and dozens of FBI agents.
Speaker 2: They were going to get a ma'am genial in the
Speaker 2: black belt in Lowndes County. So in March two thousand,
Speaker 2: just a few days after the shootout, a bunch of
Speaker 2: men with guns descended on the flatlands and pine forests
Speaker 2: of Lowndes County, Alabama. The officers had explicit orders from
Speaker 2: the government find Jamil Alamine within Lowndes County. James, Ergus,
Speaker 2: the US Marshall, and the other federal agents. They were
Speaker 2: focused on the tiny city of Whitehall, population just a
Speaker 2: few thousand. It was where Ma'am Jamil was hoping to
Speaker 2: grow and lead another Muslim community. Back in the sixties,
Speaker 2: Whitehall had been a center of Snick's voter registration campaigns
Speaker 2: in Lowndes County, but black people never took over the
Speaker 2: reins of power there. It led a local activist to
Speaker 2: incorporate Whitehall. If they couldn't control the county, at least
Speaker 2: black people could control their own city. It was community
Speaker 2: self determination and black power and practice not unlike a
Speaker 2: Ma'am Jamial's West End. To help them find a Mam Jmial,
Speaker 2: James and his Marshall colleagues were using a surveillance technology
Speaker 2: called a cell site simulator. The Marshals and FBI they
Speaker 2: had a mam Jamal's number. If he turned on his phone,
Speaker 2: the cell site simulator could give them a general sense
Speaker 2: of where he was, but when he made a call,
Speaker 2: they could get a more precise location based on the
Speaker 2: strength of the signal and which direction it was coming from.
Speaker 2: James and most of the FEDS were stationed outside of Whitehall,
Speaker 2: so when a mam jamial made a call, they would
Speaker 2: rush toward the signal, but when he hung up, the
Speaker 2: signal would drop out and they'd have to start over.
Speaker 7: So we would get over there, and by the time
Speaker 7: that you'd get over there, the hit wouldn't be there
Speaker 7: and you couldn't figure out exactly where it was. So
Speaker 7: we would drive back, and I think that day it happened
Speaker 7: a couple of times and we all looked at each
Speaker 7: other and we're We're like, we're not doing that anymore.
Speaker 7: We can't.
Speaker 2: We can't be here with all the agents and vehicles around.
Speaker 2: James figured a mam jamil must have known the Feds
Speaker 2: were there, and the more time passed, the more likely
Speaker 2: it was that someone would come pick him up and
Speaker 2: take him across the country or out of the country,
Speaker 2: so James and his two Marshall colleagues drove to Whitehall.
Speaker 2: They backed their black Chevy Tahoe into the edge of
Speaker 2: a thicket and waited. Late in the day on March twentieth,
Speaker 2: they picked up another call from a.
Speaker 5: Man Jamial's phone.
Speaker 2: It was a strong, clear signal and it showed that
Speaker 2: the phone was close.
Speaker 5: The Marshals drove out of the woods.
Speaker 2: They radioed the FBI to let them know what was happening.
Speaker 7: They were like, can you It was like we could
Speaker 7: lose a signal again, and we lose a signal again.
Speaker 7: We're right back where we were before. We don't know
Speaker 7: if he's not moving, We don't know, you know what
Speaker 7: I mean, We don't know.
Speaker 2: After the Marshalls drove onto the road, they realized they
Speaker 2: were headed in the wrong direction and they made a
Speaker 2: U turn. A mam Demial was still on the phone
Speaker 2: and the signal kept getting stronger, and all of.
Speaker 7: Sudden we see him and we all see him at
Speaker 7: the same time. He's standing right at the edge of
Speaker 7: a little shed at the edge of the woodline.
Speaker 2: James remembers seeing a Mam Demial out of the right
Speaker 2: side of the suv standing next to a ship, which
Speaker 2: was near a small, one story white house. A little
Speaker 2: further back was a wooded area. James said, a mam
Speaker 2: Jamial was wearing a hat, probably a Koofi, and a
Speaker 2: light colored thoat.
Speaker 7: So we drove right toward the shed and that's exactly
Speaker 7: where it was, and he he looked exactly like every
Speaker 7: picture that you'd ever seen him. I mean, there was
Speaker 7: instantaneous recognition, and that I can't say that that's always
Speaker 7: the case.
Speaker 2: As they pulled up, a man Demial began to head
Speaker 2: towards the woods nearby. The marshals guy out of the
Speaker 2: suv yelled, they wear police, and almost immediately James said
Speaker 2: he heard about three to five gunshots from a rifle.
Speaker 2: He and the other marshals found cover and they watched
Speaker 2: a man Jamil disappear.
Speaker 5: Into the woods.
Speaker 2: People living in Whitehall witness this confrontation. One of them
Speaker 2: said he saw the fed shooting. When my colleague, producer
Speaker 2: Johnny Kaufman, contacted him, he confirmed his account but never
Speaker 2: agreed to a recorded interview. James is clear that a
Speaker 2: man Jamil shot at him and the other marshals. Three
Speaker 2: shellcasings were found at the scene and linked to a
Speaker 2: man Jamial. But at this point I've accepted that I'll
Speaker 2: never know for sure what happened during this confrontation. Anyway,
Speaker 2: after the gunfire and after a mam Jamial went into
Speaker 2: the woods, James and the Marshals stopped their pursuit. They
Speaker 2: didn't follow him. The FBI agent had already arrived at
Speaker 2: the scene, many more would be there soon, and they
Speaker 2: began to surround the woods. They called in a dog
Speaker 2: tracking team that was based about an hour away at
Speaker 2: an Alabama state prison.
Speaker 7: We knew he was in the woods. We knew he
Speaker 7: didn't have anybody else with him. He doesn't have a car.
Speaker 7: There's nowhere for him to go. We've got the area contained. Basically,
Speaker 7: we don't want to run in there after him, because
Speaker 7: you're going to mess up the track for the dog.
Speaker 2: The FBI searched the shed in the White House next
Speaker 2: to it, the small Muslim community in Whitehall that a
Speaker 2: mam Jamil had established. At some point, they had been
Speaker 2: using the house as a mass hit. Inside, the FBI
Speaker 2: found water jugs, a pizza hut box, toilet paper, and
Speaker 2: a mattress. It seemed like a mam Jamial had been
Speaker 2: hiding out there. I'm often wondering what a Mam Demial
Speaker 2: must have been thinking at different moments like this one,
Speaker 2: when he was on the run in Whitehall and now
Speaker 2: in the woods, surrounded by the Feds. He must have
Speaker 2: been scared. But what's scared a most being killed, being
Speaker 2: locked up and sort of losing to law enforcement. I
Speaker 2: don't know. And I also don't know if he expected
Speaker 2: someone to come pick him up on the edge of
Speaker 2: the woods. James was worried about that and the possibility
Speaker 2: that he might have to track down a Maneamial somewhere else.
Speaker 7: The guys are going to the woods if they can
Speaker 7: get away from law enforcement, they'll call somebody and they'll
Speaker 7: have them come pick them up. The run out the woods,
Speaker 7: jumping the car and they'll drive off.
Speaker 2: It was dark out when the dog team arrived, two
Speaker 2: handlers and their beagles. A few hours had passed since
Speaker 2: James first spotted a man Jamial. The most detailed acount
Speaker 2: of what happened in the woods probably comes from a
Speaker 2: document we have. It's an affidavit signed by Ron Campbell,
Speaker 2: an FBI agent based in Atlanta. Campbell and two other
Speaker 2: agents went into the woods with a dog team to
Speaker 2: protect them. Overhead was a helicopter with the big.
Speaker 5: Light on the bottom.
Speaker 2: The men went from the woods across the road and
Speaker 2: into a waste deep swamp. Campbell fell and he got
Speaker 2: separated from the dogs and the other agents. It was
Speaker 2: a black deputy with the Loundes County Sheriff's Office who
Speaker 2: ultimately spotted a Maam Jamial. He was from the same
Speaker 2: office that h. Rapp Brown and his fellow snake activists
Speaker 2: had been so focused on back in the sixties. The
Speaker 2: deputy saw him walking across the road back near the
Speaker 2: city of Whitehall. He pulled his gun out and told
Speaker 2: a Mam Jmial to lay on the ground, and he did.
Speaker 2: Most of the other agents showed up and surrounded a
Speaker 2: Mam Jmial. He was on the ground, handcuffed. James Ergas said,
Speaker 2: he looked tired and worn out.
Speaker 7: He was very quiet at least when I got to him,
Speaker 7: and I probably got it to him within a I
Speaker 7: would say, within a minute or two of him coming
Speaker 7: out of the woods. He wasn't combato or anything.
Speaker 2: Then two things happen within minutes that have inspired claims
Speaker 2: that a Maam Jamial was framed. They're part of the
Speaker 2: reason I decided to look into the case. First, a
Speaker 2: medic checked a Mam Demial for injuries. Remember that Deputy
Speaker 2: English said he shot his assailant in the West End. Well,
Speaker 2: the medic didn't find any wounds on a Mam Jamial,
Speaker 2: he hadn't been shot, and moments later, as a Mam
Speaker 2: Jamil was still on the ground defenseless, Campbell, the FBI
Speaker 2: agent who fell behind, he showed up. He kicked a
Speaker 2: Ma'am Jamil and said this is what we do to
Speaker 2: cop killers. Then Campbell spit at him and cursed him out.
Speaker 2: Campbell had a history. Earlier in his career, he shot
Speaker 2: an African American Muslim in the back of the head
Speaker 2: and killed him. It was a man law enforcement had
Speaker 2: been after for assaulting two officers. Campbell's story was that
Speaker 2: he fired because the man had a gun, and a
Speaker 2: gun was recovered after the shooting, but it didn't have
Speaker 2: any fingerprints on it, and witnesses.
Speaker 5: Alleged it had been placed.
Speaker 2: An internal investigation cleared Campbell and he was never charged
Speaker 2: for anything related to the incident. The same night of
Speaker 2: Ma'am Jamil was arrested after Campbell had kicked him. One
Speaker 2: of the dog handlers found the pistol along Campbell's path
Speaker 2: through the woods, and the next day law enforcement found
Speaker 2: a semi automatic rifle. Both weapons were linked to the
Speaker 2: shootout in the West End, but as far as I
Speaker 2: can tell, there were no fingerprints on either of them.
Speaker 2: We contacted both dog handlers and Campbell, but they didn't
Speaker 2: agree to interviews. For Defenders of a Man Jamil, it
Speaker 2: was easy to imagine all kinds of devious scenarios about
Speaker 2: what Campbell might have done in those moments he was
Speaker 2: alone in the woods, especially because the FBI had targeted
Speaker 2: rap at least once before.
Speaker 7: The bomb was so bad that it totally eviscerated the car,
Speaker 7: and most people argue that and Brown was the target.
Speaker 2: Why wouldn't people imagine they'd do it again that In
Speaker 2: the next episode of Radical. Radical is a production of
Speaker 2: Campside Media, Tenderfoot TV, and iHeart Podcasts. Radical was reported
Speaker 2: and written by Johnny Kaufman and me Mossey's Secret Johnny
Speaker 2: Coaufman is our senior producer.
Speaker 5: Sheba Joseph is our associate producer.
Speaker 2: Editing by Eric Benson, Johnny Coffin, Emily Martinez.
Speaker 5: And Matt Cher.
Speaker 2: Fact checking by Sophie Hurwitz, Kaylin Lynch and Layla Dos.
Speaker 2: Original music by Kyle Murdoch and by Ray Murray of
Speaker 2: Organized Noise. Sound design and mixing by Kevin Seaman. Recording
Speaker 2: by Ewan Leed trem Ewen.
Speaker 5: And Sheba Joseph.
Speaker 2: Campside Media's operations team is Doug Slaywan, Ashley Warren, Eliah Papes,
Speaker 2: Destiny Dingle, and Sabina Mera.
Speaker 5: The executive producers at.
Speaker 2: Campside Media are Josh Dean, Vanessa, Gregoriatis, Adam Hoff, and
Speaker 2: Matt Cheer. For Tenderfoot TV, executive producers are Donald Albright
Speaker 2: and Payne Lindsay. The executive producers at iHeart Podcasts are
Speaker 2: Matt Frederick and Alex Williams, with additional support from Trevor Young,