WEBVTT - S2 E9: A Deadly Plot 0:00:02.279 --> 0:00:05.880 You're listening to Law and Order Criminal Justice System, a 0:00:05.920 --> 0:00:09.840 production of Wolf Entertainment and iHeart podcasts. 0:00:12.680 --> 0:00:16.840 In the criminal justice System, landmark trials transcend the courtroom 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:20.280 to reshape the law. The brave many women who investigate 0:00:20.320 --> 0:00:23.200 and prosecute these cases are part of a select group 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:32.159 that is defined American history. These are their stories. May nineteenth, 0:00:32.360 --> 0:00:35.960 twenty seventeen, Tampa, Florida. 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:42.160 A hostage situation. Police respond to a call of three 0:00:42.280 --> 0:00:45.480 people being held at gunpoint at a nearby strip mall. 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:48.400 The attacker, a twenty four year old by the name 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:54.160 of Devon Arthur's, is apprehended. While in police custody, Arthur's 0:00:54.280 --> 0:01:00.320 was asked if anyone else was hurt. His response was chilling, said, 0:01:00.360 --> 0:01:03.960 and I quote the people in the apartment, but they 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:09.320 aren't hurt, they're dead. Arthur's directed police to a street 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:14.039 line with pastel colored condos. Inside one of the apartments, 0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:19.200 they found two young men Arthur's roommates, dead on the floor. 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:24.720 Police walked through the rooms, surveying the scene. Inside the 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:28.200 bedroom of a fourth roommate, they found something that had 0:01:28.319 --> 0:01:32.240 nothing to do with the double murder, but was almost 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:33.680 equally disturbing. 0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:38.520 He had a framed picture of Timothy mcveay in his room. 0:01:38.520 --> 0:01:41.399 He idolized McVeigh and he wanted to do something similar 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:44.120 to what McVeigh did, and he was working on constructing 0:01:44.200 --> 0:01:45.320 explosive devices. 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:50.000 The picture of McVeigh belonged to a man named Brandon Russell, 0:01:50.600 --> 0:01:55.040 and investigators had just uncovered the first layer of his 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:58.680 hidden world. It wouldn't be long until they learned it 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:05.080 went even first. There secret chat rooms, stockpilp, explosives, and 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:07.920 a blueprint for a deadly attack. 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:18.120 I got a call, get out to Lavardia Airport. 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:19.040 There's been a bombing. 0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:21.280 There was a thirty two foot crater in front of 0:02:21.280 --> 0:02:22.360 what was left of the building. 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:24.080 I was trying to figure out, am I dead? Am 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:28.119 I alive? Where am I? I'm Anethega Nicolazzi. That's why 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:32.239 terrorism works. It doesn't care who you are. From Wolf 0:02:32.440 --> 0:02:42.520 Entertainment and iHeart Podcasts, this is Lawn Order Criminal Justice System. 0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:48.040 This season, we've explored cases that change the trajectory of 0:02:48.080 --> 0:02:52.639 the United States, moments that cost lives and forced law 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:56.720 enforcement to respond to the aftermath. Those are the cases 0:02:56.760 --> 0:03:01.359 that make headlines, the ones that define era. But as 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:04.520 we saw in the last episode, there's another side to 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:08.240 this fight, one that you almost never hear about, the 0:03:08.280 --> 0:03:13.320 attacks that didn't happen, the plots that were stopped before 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:17.959 they could claim lives. This episode is about those cases, 0:03:18.320 --> 0:03:22.080 the near misses, the moments where agents stepped in just 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:26.720 in time, the plots were thwarted before they could become tragedies. 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:30.440 Take the case of twenty one year old Brandon Russell. 0:03:30.919 --> 0:03:36.160 His shrine to Timothy McVeigh wasn't just extremist theater. He 0:03:36.280 --> 0:03:41.920 was connected to something larger, something far beyond that Tampa apartment. 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:45.840 The reason Brandon Russell and his group Adam Woff and 0:03:45.920 --> 0:03:50.960 Division are so important is because they became early leaders 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:52.680 in the accelerationist movements. 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:59.040 As Michael Jensen explains, the accelerationist movement believes that terror 0:03:59.160 --> 0:04:03.320 itself can be the spark to bring down democracy, and 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:08.440 Brandon Russell's neo Nazi group, the atam Waffen Division, which 0:04:08.520 --> 0:04:12.560 means atomic weapons in German, they embraced it. 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:17.200 So they got onto a forum that was called Iron March, 0:04:17.520 --> 0:04:22.040 which was an online forum of white supremacist organizations. Essentially, 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:25.920 they got in there, started using Iron March and quickly 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:30.200 became kind of the most popular group that was acting there. 0:04:30.440 --> 0:04:33.839 Brandon Russell was the leader of Adam Waffen Division on 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:34.719 Iron March. 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:40.719 While Russell's network spread internationally, that part of his identity 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:41.799 was well masked. 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:46.600 Russell was also a member of the US National Guard 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:49.320 at the time that he was doing all of this. 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:53.000 As someone in the military, he was gathering the tactical 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:55.839 knowledge and skills that he would need to be potentially 0:04:56.200 --> 0:04:57.960 quite deadly if he wanted to. 0:04:59.320 --> 0:05:04.920 Inside his garage, investigators uncovered far more than ideology. They 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:11.400 found explosive materials, radiation sources, and bomb making components. It 0:05:11.480 --> 0:05:15.680 was clear Russell wasn't just dabbling in extremism, he was 0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:21.760 preparing to attack. The threat was taken seriously. Russell was 0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:26.760 charged with possession of an unregistered destructive device and unlawful 0:05:26.839 --> 0:05:31.840 storage of explosive material. He was convicted and sent to prison. 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:36.320 Even while incarcerated, he was laying the groundwork for what 0:05:36.440 --> 0:05:37.039 came next. 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:41.720 And then he gets released, goes on to federal supervision, 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:45.919 and within a year is arrested again. He and a 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:48.720 woman that he had started communicating with while he was 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:52.480 in prison were plotting a series of attacks to attack 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:54.480 the Baltimore power grid. 0:05:55.400 --> 0:06:00.120 But federal agents were listening. They had inserted a confidential 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:04.640 informant tracking the couple's plans as they took form, but 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:07.919 before they were put in motion, Russell was arrested a 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:13.520 second time. The grid attack never happened. From an online 0:06:13.640 --> 0:06:18.279 forum to real world violence, both stopped before a disaster. 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:23.839 This is just one of many cases that highlight the 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:29.400 attacks that have been prevented before extremists succeeded. One of 0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:33.400 those cases began in Kansas with an FBI agent who 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:36.280 found herself in the middle of a deadly plot. 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:41.800 My name is Amy Kuhn and I am currently a 0:06:41.960 --> 0:06:45.480 special Agent in the Garden City resident Agent out of 0:06:45.520 --> 0:06:50.680 the Kansas City Division. I just had my seventeenth year anniversary. 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:53.680 Amy was drawn to the Bureau from a young age, 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:55.920 even if it seemed out of reach. 0:06:57.160 --> 0:07:01.640 I grew up in a really small town, and the 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:05.640 FBI was not a job that people where I grew 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:09.680 up with had. The FBI was something I was interested in, 0:07:10.400 --> 0:07:15.160 so I went to law school with the antition of 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:18.080 trying to get into the FBI. I worked as a 0:07:18.120 --> 0:07:20.840 prosecutor for a couple of years, and then I got 0:07:20.880 --> 0:07:22.120 accepted into the FBI. 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:26.800 Her career began in Garden City, a small town in 0:07:26.880 --> 0:07:31.760 southwest Kansas, filled with wide open prairie and farmland. The 0:07:31.800 --> 0:07:36.160 office looked very different from the larger field divisions seen elsewhere. 0:07:37.240 --> 0:07:41.320 The Garden City FBI office is two agents and we 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:45.000 don't have any support staff there. The western third of 0:07:45.120 --> 0:07:49.240 Kansas is our territory, and now there is one DEA 0:07:49.400 --> 0:07:53.920 agent in Garden City, but kind of for that area, 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:57.720 that's the only federal law enforcement presence that's out there. 0:07:59.000 --> 0:08:02.120 Her post couldn't have been further from the hubs of 0:08:02.200 --> 0:08:03.360 federal law enforcement. 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:09.120 We are probably six and a half hours from Kansas City, 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:14.520 six hours to Denver, five hours to Albuquerque, four and 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:19.960 a half hours to Oklahoma City. It is a rural area, 0:08:20.320 --> 0:08:25.200 lots of agriculture, and Garden City is like the big 0:08:25.320 --> 0:08:29.840 city for the area, centrally located in the middle of nowhere, 0:08:30.400 --> 0:08:33.599 not what most people would consider a big city. 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:37.640 The community she served had been shaped by its industry. 0:08:38.080 --> 0:08:43.440 Garden City was a meatpacking town. The plants employed thousands, 0:08:43.920 --> 0:08:47.560 drawing workers from across the region and immigrants who came 0:08:47.600 --> 0:08:49.559 to the US looking for work. 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:54.080 And the plants they have some recruiters that will go 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:57.400 to refugee camps and just say, hey, we'll give you 0:08:57.640 --> 0:08:59.839 housing for a certain amount of time and we'll pay 0:08:59.880 --> 0:09:02.800 you if you want to come live in wherever the 0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:04.000 meatpacking plant is. 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:09.480 The area became an unlikely melting pot. In Garden City 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:13.640 schools alone, children spoke dozens of languages. 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:18.680 So in Garden City there's like fifty languages spoken in 0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:19.679 the school system. 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:25.839 Families arrived from Mexico and Cuba, from Somalia and Vietnam, 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:29.720 each new wave building on the last, each new group 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:31.680 becoming part of the community. 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:36.040 They've just accepted who the new refugee is. 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:41.800 On the surface, all was calm, but this quiet posting 0:09:41.840 --> 0:09:45.680 would soon pull her into something she had never faced before. 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:50.640 It was my first domestic terrorism. 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:55.079 Case, and the investigation had the potential to impact her 0:09:55.160 --> 0:10:01.760 community forever. In the summer of twoenty fifteen, a story 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:03.840 began spreading online. 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:08.360 There was a Facebook message that came out that had 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:13.400 a picture of a Palestinian flag and it said that 0:10:14.040 --> 0:10:17.319 Palestinian flag had been hung up in the Garden City library, 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:21.000 that there was an ISIS flag there, and there were 0:10:21.440 --> 0:10:25.719 some Maali's that were recruiting for ISIS in the library. 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:30.760 We got several calls regarding that Facebook message. 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:32.640 People were concerned about it. 0:10:33.280 --> 0:10:36.959 The calls kept coming. Amy went to see for herself 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:39.960 to try and get answers, but when she got there, 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:41.360 the flag was gone. 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:45.360 I went to the library and tried to figure out 0:10:45.520 --> 0:10:50.559 where this information came from. And interviewing people, I discovered 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:56.000 who had taken the Palestinian flag down. 0:10:56.559 --> 0:10:59.320 That was Dan Day. He was just a local citizen. 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:03.960 Amy located Dan and the two met. She wanted to 0:11:03.960 --> 0:11:08.360 figure out what had happened and why Dan's explanation cast 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:10.000 the rumors in a different light. 0:11:11.200 --> 0:11:14.559 He said he didn't really see people recruiting for ISIS. 0:11:14.679 --> 0:11:18.599 There were Somalis in the library that use the library frequently, 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:23.000 but he didn't see an ISIS flag. The Palestinian flag 0:11:23.080 --> 0:11:26.679 had been posted and he took it down because it 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:30.120 was supporting Palestine. In talking to people, what I came 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:32.960 to the conclusion of was it had gotten blown out 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:36.560 of proportion. There was no ISIS recruiting and there was 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:38.640 no ISIS flag at the library. 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:42.400 The rumors had turned out to be a false alarm. 0:11:42.720 --> 0:11:47.120 But Amy's collaboration with Dan was just beginning because he 0:11:47.160 --> 0:11:49.520 went on to tell her about a meeting that would 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:52.400 soon lead to an investigation of its own. 0:11:53.640 --> 0:11:59.560 He said he had been to a militia meeting for 0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:05.640 a security force, and the people were very concerned about 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:11.360 the Somali presence in the southwest Kansas, and we're concerned 0:12:11.400 --> 0:12:16.080 that there were ISIS members. And at the time, this 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:21.000 is twenty fifteen, there were a lot of beheading videos 0:12:21.080 --> 0:12:25.840 that were being shown on YouTube and internet. So it 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:28.960 was a time when people were very frightened of ISSIS. 0:12:29.559 --> 0:12:36.440 And during certain holy days for Muslims, there would be 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:41.199 a group of Somalis that would meet on Tennis Court 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:45.520 and they would pray all together there on some of 0:12:45.520 --> 0:12:49.720 the religious holidays, and this group had a particular problem 0:12:49.760 --> 0:12:50.080 with that. 0:12:51.679 --> 0:12:54.920 Militias are generally described as an armed force made up 0:12:55.000 --> 0:12:56.679 of civilian volunteers. 0:12:57.600 --> 0:13:01.439 In general, it is part of constitution you have a 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:04.680 right to have militias and bear arms. And so a 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:09.280 lot of these militia groups, the commonalty is that they 0:13:09.520 --> 0:13:13.600 are patriots, They believe in the United States, and they 0:13:13.920 --> 0:13:19.280 want to protect the values they deem important in the 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:22.680 United States. A lot of the militias want to be 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:26.440 armed and they want to not lose that freedom. A 0:13:26.480 --> 0:13:30.120 lot of the militia groups, we don't have concerns about 0:13:30.120 --> 0:13:32.160 it because they just meet and do their own thing 0:13:32.520 --> 0:13:36.400 and there's not ever any issues from them. 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:39.080 It wasn't that it was a militia meeting that caught 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:44.400 Amy's attention, it was what was being said at the time. 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:47.960 There were a lot of online conversations that were being monitored. 0:13:49.000 --> 0:13:51.440 There were a lot of what I would call Facebook warriors. 0:13:52.000 --> 0:13:54.520 There were a lot of people talking a big game 0:13:54.920 --> 0:13:59.000 on the internet and posting stuff, but actually doing anything 0:13:59.559 --> 0:14:01.080 was not as prevalent. 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:06.319 For Amy. What raised red flags was that this group's 0:14:06.360 --> 0:14:10.439 hostility was pointed, and it raised the question of whether 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:12.319 words might turn into action. 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:18.800 That's what makes domestic terrorism hard is that you are 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:23.360 investigating something that a lot of people deem First Amendment 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:27.960 right protected. So you have to balance that line. And 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:31.600 to me, some of the things that were concerning to 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:35.880 me were that they were focusing on the Somali population. 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:38.880 Just the fact that they were focusing. 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:43.080 Their energy on one particular group, it gave me concern 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:47.720 to at least try to get somebody that could determine 0:14:47.760 --> 0:14:50.000 if there was even a problem. 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:54.040 All of which left Amy walking a fine line. The 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:58.560 challenge was how to move forward without overstepping her next 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:01.520 move was to see whether she could develop a source 0:15:01.720 --> 0:15:02.640 inside the group. 0:15:03.960 --> 0:15:07.120 We left the meeting and I told my partner Robin Smith, 0:15:07.200 --> 0:15:10.240 I said, I think I might try to open Dan Day. 0:15:10.080 --> 0:15:10.880 As a source. 0:15:11.640 --> 0:15:15.600 Robin said that guy really, like, You're not going to 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:18.720 get anything out of that guy, essentially, and I said, yeah, 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:23.200 I think I will. So I called Dan Day and 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:26.600 I met with him again, and he described that Kansas 0:15:26.640 --> 0:15:30.560 Security Force was a militia. A militia is not illegal, 0:15:31.120 --> 0:15:34.600 but he said that they had talked about doing surveillance 0:15:34.840 --> 0:15:38.360 of people and that starts getting into kind of a 0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:43.480 fuzzy area. I told Dan that if he wanted to 0:15:43.520 --> 0:15:47.400 continue going to Kansas Security Force meetings, I would be 0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:51.440 interested in anything that you find out about Somali's or 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:55.120 any illegal activities that are going on that they think 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:56.080 they're discovering. 0:15:56.800 --> 0:15:58.280 He said, okay. 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:01.960 Stepping into that role wasn't easy. 0:16:03.280 --> 0:16:08.240 Dan was pretty nervous type of guy, and I think 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:13.040 initially my partner didn't think he would be very well 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:19.280 suited for it. But Dan was very patriotic and he 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:23.800 wanted to do something that he felt was right that 0:16:24.000 --> 0:16:27.720 was protecting his community and his country. And I also 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:31.520 think that he enjoyed being part of the team and 0:16:31.640 --> 0:16:32.240 he felt. 0:16:32.040 --> 0:16:34.040 It was important what he was doing. 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:40.840 With Dan on board, Amy now had someone on the inside. 0:16:41.120 --> 0:16:45.040 She quickly realized that the conversations went beyond the in 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:46.280 person meetings. 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:50.880 They met a lot online. They would have a lot 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:55.280 of Facebook messaging, and they would have Zello calls. They 0:16:55.400 --> 0:16:58.520 did not believe it could be monitored by the government. 0:16:59.280 --> 0:17:01.560 So that's the app that a lot. 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:04.119 Of these militia groups were using, was this Zello app. 0:17:04.520 --> 0:17:10.080 So they would have these nightly Zello calls and check ins. 0:17:08.720 --> 0:17:12.159 And the tone of those communications started to change. 0:17:13.240 --> 0:17:18.640 They started talking about wanting to do something to one 0:17:18.680 --> 0:17:22.920 of the Somali businesses. They would talk about throwing pigs 0:17:23.040 --> 0:17:27.919 in their store or wrapping bacon around the handles, and 0:17:27.960 --> 0:17:31.679 so they started talking about things that would be a 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:35.040 civil rights violation if they followed through with it. And 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:37.520 then they also were planning surveillance. 0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:42.240 The words were moving from ideas to actual plans. 0:17:43.480 --> 0:17:45.800 They were going to be in separate vehicles, use this 0:17:45.960 --> 0:17:49.720 Zello app as walkie talkies, and they were going to 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:54.080 follow some of these Somalis to see where they went 0:17:54.760 --> 0:17:59.040 and what they were doing, like a police surveillance. So 0:17:59.119 --> 0:18:02.399 at that point we felt that there was enough to 0:18:02.560 --> 0:18:06.600 open a domestic terrorism investigation. 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:09.520 And it quickly got internal attention. 0:18:10.760 --> 0:18:14.000 When I did open the case, it had a lot 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:19.560 of oversight from our division council. I had to give 0:18:19.640 --> 0:18:23.199 him updates to make sure that we weren't infringing on 0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:27.760 anybody's constitutional rights. So I would update him frequently, and 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:31.000 I was in frequent contact with the prosecutor, who was 0:18:31.000 --> 0:18:33.800 also concerned about people's rights. 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:37.080 Amy wasn't sure where the case would lead. 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:41.440 I thought, at most maybe some of these militia guys 0:18:41.840 --> 0:18:45.399 were going to be doing surveillance and do something stupid 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:48.280 and you know, pull out a gun and shoot somebody 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:49.840 that they shouldn't like. 0:18:49.920 --> 0:18:52.359 I never thought it would end up where it did. 0:18:53.440 --> 0:18:56.520 The group that Amy was monitoring was a small part 0:18:56.600 --> 0:19:00.000 of a much larger organization that spread across Cans. 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:06.520 Kansas Security Force was a statewide organization and they had 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:11.159 it split up into zones. DAN was a part of 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:14.760 was the Southwest Kansas zone. I think there were three zones. 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:20.680 It wasn't the entirety of Kansas Security Force. Or KSF 0:19:21.040 --> 0:19:22.919 that was viewed as a potential threat. 0:19:24.000 --> 0:19:28.520 Kansas Security Force in general, there were no issues with 0:19:29.080 --> 0:19:32.119 there were a few people that ended up being members 0:19:32.160 --> 0:19:36.080 of Kansas Security Force that were a problem. 0:19:36.480 --> 0:19:39.440 The world Dan Day was navigating was about to take 0:19:39.480 --> 0:19:41.640 on a more dangerous edge. 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:46.840 When Patrick Stein comes into the picture. He is who 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:51.840 recruits Dan to be a member of KSF. Patrick Stein 0:19:52.160 --> 0:19:57.520 was a farmer in Ford County, didn't like immigrants, and 0:19:58.000 --> 0:20:00.600 he's expressed racist idealies. 0:20:01.640 --> 0:20:04.720 His rhetoric quickly escalated beyond talk. 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:09.480 Patrick Stein called Dan Day and said, can you take 0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:12.720 me around to these addresses that were going to be surveilling. 0:20:13.440 --> 0:20:17.160 So Dan took him around. There were a couple African 0:20:17.320 --> 0:20:21.440 stores and apartment complex and when Dan took him around, 0:20:21.600 --> 0:20:25.439 he went off, for lack of a better term, on 0:20:25.520 --> 0:20:30.040 the somalies. He was calling him names and he said 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:33.520 he wanted to shoot some of them. So that's when 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:36.680 we thought we might have a bigger problem. 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:41.600 Dan grew uneasy with where Stein was pushing things. 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:47.760 After Stein met with Dan, Dan called me and he 0:20:47.920 --> 0:20:50.119 was very concerned and he didn't want to do the 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:53.639 surveillance because he was afraid that Patrick Stein was going 0:20:53.680 --> 0:20:56.160 to shoot somebody or do something. 0:20:57.680 --> 0:21:02.360 Out in rural western Kansas, FBI backup wasn't easy. There 0:21:02.359 --> 0:21:05.960 were no nearby buildings or vantage points that could keep 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:10.840 agents hidden from view. Cover was scarce, and every move 0:21:11.320 --> 0:21:12.359 risk exposure. 0:21:13.600 --> 0:21:16.600 I said, well, that's why you have to go. I said, 0:21:16.640 --> 0:21:19.879 I can't come and do surveillance. You need to stick 0:21:19.920 --> 0:21:22.520 by Patrick Stein's side, and you have to be the 0:21:22.560 --> 0:21:26.040 voice of reason. You need to try to keep him 0:21:26.040 --> 0:21:27.440 from doing something stupid. 0:21:28.280 --> 0:21:30.480 Dan was very concerned at that time. 0:21:31.520 --> 0:21:35.719 Dan's warnings made it clear Stein wasn't just talking. His 0:21:35.920 --> 0:21:38.240 volatility posed a real risk. 0:21:39.560 --> 0:21:42.280 So we opened a case on Patrick Stein. 0:21:42.800 --> 0:21:46.840 We told Dan that whatever Patrick Stein was doing, that's 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:48.440 who we wanted to focus on. 0:21:49.680 --> 0:21:54.280 Stein's anger continued to simmer. Then came the shooting at 0:21:54.320 --> 0:21:57.639 the Pulse nightclub in Orlando two. 0:21:57.560 --> 0:22:00.320 O'clock in the morning. An officer who was working at 0:22:00.400 --> 0:22:04.520 Paul's nightclub engaged this gunman in a firefight. 0:22:04.800 --> 0:22:06.400 The person I was with or shot in the back. 0:22:06.800 --> 0:22:08.800 I had taken my bandanna off and tied it up, 0:22:08.840 --> 0:22:11.520 put it in a knockbull hole that was in his. 0:22:11.520 --> 0:22:12.760 Back so that he wasn't lead. 0:22:14.040 --> 0:22:18.160 In June twenty sixteen, a man swearing allegiance to ISIS 0:22:18.400 --> 0:22:22.120 shot and killed forty nine people and wounded fifty three 0:22:22.520 --> 0:22:24.879 at the Gay nightclub in Florida. 0:22:25.840 --> 0:22:31.320 The next day, patrick Stein called Dan day and said, 0:22:31.480 --> 0:22:35.320 we have to do something. We can't let this happen again. 0:22:35.680 --> 0:22:40.200 We need to take action. He believed that most of 0:22:40.240 --> 0:22:44.960 the Muslims in southwest Kansas were associated with ISIS, so 0:22:45.240 --> 0:22:49.520 he felt they needed to do something before Muslims and 0:22:49.640 --> 0:22:51.720 ISIS took over the United States. 0:22:52.960 --> 0:22:54.720 Stein wasted no time. 0:22:55.560 --> 0:23:01.719 So patrick Stein organized a meeting in a field in 0:23:01.760 --> 0:23:08.000 a rural area and gathered people that he deemed would 0:23:08.000 --> 0:23:10.320 be willing to do something. 0:23:11.520 --> 0:23:13.880 Dan went to the meeting to capture what happened. 0:23:14.920 --> 0:23:17.800 He was recording it was a whole thing. His car 0:23:17.880 --> 0:23:18.520 broke down. 0:23:19.040 --> 0:23:22.400 I had to take him to meet up with Stein, 0:23:23.040 --> 0:23:25.960 so he had had a stressful day already. I dropped 0:23:26.000 --> 0:23:28.920 him off and Stein picked him up, and he rode 0:23:28.960 --> 0:23:32.679 with Stein to the meeting, which was about three hour 0:23:32.880 --> 0:23:34.160 drive to where they went. 0:23:35.040 --> 0:23:38.800 Stein didn't have air conditioning and Dan. 0:23:38.720 --> 0:23:42.600 Did not take anything to drink, and it was June 0:23:43.200 --> 0:23:44.760 and it was really hot. 0:23:45.680 --> 0:23:49.440 The FBI couldn't directly keep eyes on the gathering as 0:23:49.480 --> 0:23:52.320 it was in a wide open field outside of town. 0:23:53.320 --> 0:23:56.840 Amy was listening on the wire from far away, knowing 0:23:56.880 --> 0:24:00.679 if something went wrong, Dan was on his own. It 0:24:00.800 --> 0:24:05.720 was a dangerous assignment for a civilian. Despite being surrounded 0:24:05.760 --> 0:24:09.600 by armed, angry men in the middle of nowhere, Dan 0:24:09.800 --> 0:24:13.840 kept the recorder running. The conversation dragged on in the 0:24:13.960 --> 0:24:18.400 sweltering heat, moving from complaints to violent ideas. 0:24:19.920 --> 0:24:25.080 So they're in this field talking about what they should do, 0:24:25.760 --> 0:24:30.080 and there's things brought up, like shooting at a mosque. 0:24:30.320 --> 0:24:33.800 Hours dragged on until the strain became too much. 0:24:35.280 --> 0:24:38.439 I was trying to text him and I was getting 0:24:38.480 --> 0:24:39.280 no response. 0:24:40.480 --> 0:24:56.480 Had Dan's cover been blown? The silence felt like an eternity. 0:24:57.160 --> 0:25:01.000 With informant Dan day on responsive. The question for the 0:25:01.119 --> 0:25:05.480 FBI became whether to break cover and intervene. 0:25:05.800 --> 0:25:08.840 So my bosses were like, do we need to go in? 0:25:09.400 --> 0:25:10.159 What's going on? 0:25:10.920 --> 0:25:13.919 And because of the rule of nature, we had a 0:25:13.960 --> 0:25:18.280 surveillance team, but they were a long ways away because 0:25:18.359 --> 0:25:22.600 we did not want to burn Dan, and I felt 0:25:23.040 --> 0:25:26.919 his safety would be more at issue if we went in. 0:25:28.400 --> 0:25:32.080 As the team considered what to do, Amy's phone suddenly buzzed. 0:25:33.160 --> 0:25:35.560 Dan texted me and said he was in the hospital 0:25:35.600 --> 0:25:36.359 in Hutchison. 0:25:36.920 --> 0:25:37.840 He had passed out. 0:25:37.920 --> 0:25:40.560 They had called an ambulance, the ambulance had taken him 0:25:40.560 --> 0:25:43.960 to the hospital. I was like, all right, So Robin 0:25:44.000 --> 0:25:46.679 and I loaded up to go get him from the 0:25:46.680 --> 0:25:47.320 hospital in. 0:25:47.440 --> 0:25:52.040 Hutch The heat had taken its toll and he had 0:25:52.080 --> 0:25:57.159 passed out. Most importantly that Amy Dan was safe. The 0:25:57.200 --> 0:26:00.680 device he had been carrying also survived, and so did 0:26:00.680 --> 0:26:05.080 the recording. But would they be able to use it. 0:26:05.080 --> 0:26:09.840 It's clear when he passes out we were consensually recording. 0:26:09.960 --> 0:26:11.280 Not to mention it. 0:26:11.440 --> 0:26:14.199 Also, when he passes out, we no longer have a 0:26:14.240 --> 0:26:18.520 consenting party. It becomes an illegal title iree because our 0:26:18.560 --> 0:26:20.280 consenting party is not there. 0:26:21.520 --> 0:26:25.240 That meant every second of audio after Dan collapsed couldn't 0:26:25.320 --> 0:26:25.760 be used. 0:26:27.200 --> 0:26:30.840 They did not find the recording device on him, neither 0:26:31.000 --> 0:26:35.000 the people in the field nor the hospital people. When 0:26:35.640 --> 0:26:38.160