WEBVTT - S1 E10: It Serves the Pigs’ Interests to Create Confusion 0:00:01.880 --> 0:00:05.080 Rip Current is a production of iHeart Podcasts. The views 0:00:05.120 --> 0:00:08.920 and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the host. 0:00:08.720 --> 0:00:10.200 Producers or parent company. 0:00:10.640 --> 0:00:18.520 Listener discretion is it fine. 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:21.959 Eryl Hendra's Camera Shop was an eclectic print shop and 0:00:22.040 --> 0:00:26.520 gathering place in San Francisco in the nineteen sixties and seventies. 0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:30.840 It was owned by Errol Hendra, a former seaman from 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:34.519 New Zealand author Jerry Spieler. 0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:38.000 It was a camera shop on Folsom Street, but they 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:42.240 did all the printing of the various flyers and posters 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:44.880 for the political community in the Bay Area. 0:00:46.680 --> 0:00:50.640 They also did rock concert posters, underground comic art, and 0:00:50.720 --> 0:00:53.960 so on, and the shop seemed more like a clubhouse 0:00:54.040 --> 0:00:57.880 than a business. In a footnote in his book The 0:00:57.960 --> 0:01:02.120 Pirates in the Mouse Disney's World Against the Underground, Bob 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:03.680 Levin describes. 0:01:03.280 --> 0:01:06.800 The scene his place was wal to wall posters with 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:11.720 Hell's Angels, rock stars, underground cartoonists, dope dealers, and sometimes 0:01:11.760 --> 0:01:14.720 the Sheriff of San Francisco hanging out in the dark room, 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:19.080 sitting on the waterbed itemized as a depreciable water storage 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:24.319 facility on Hendra's irs returns, joking, bantering smoking weed, playing 0:01:24.360 --> 0:01:26.840 out the dramas Hendra like to set in motion, like 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:29.479 he was the ringmaster of a Bedlamite circus. 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:35.040 Dan O'Neil was a cartoonist with a cartoon called Odd Bodkins, 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:38.839 which was very popular at the time. Sarah Jane would 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:42.920 go visit them and they would basically sort of put 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:47.120 her on and laugh behind her back and get her 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:51.960 all excited. They would tease Sarah Jane and she didn't 0:01:52.000 --> 0:01:55.120 realize she was being teased, and she would get all 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:59.280 worked up about their conversations. But it was Dan O'Neill 0:02:00.320 --> 0:02:04.880 who said, if Ford wasn't president anymore and Rockefeller would 0:02:05.040 --> 0:02:09.280 become president, all hell would break loose. And they were joking, 0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:16.160 but Sarah Jane took them seriously, and when that conversation happened, 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:19.200 they realized that she thinks that's real. 0:02:19.760 --> 0:02:21.000 She really thinks that's real. 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:25.360 In her interview in Playboy magazine months after the attempt, 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:29.720 Sarah Jane talked about this motive, Oh. 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:32.359 Ford of the Nevish. I have nothing against him personally. 0:02:32.720 --> 0:02:34.600 It was the office of the Presidency that I was 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:37.800 trying to attack. Killing Ford would have shaken a lot 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:40.959 of people up. More importantly, it would have elevated Nelson 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:43.760 Rockefeller to the presidency, and then people would see who 0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:45.480 the actual leaders of the country are. 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:51.760 Nelson Rockefeller was a member of the extravagantly wealthy Rockefeller family, 0:02:52.800 --> 0:02:57.000 considered it a moderate. He'd run unsuccessfully three times for 0:02:57.120 --> 0:03:01.240 the Republican presidential nomination before Ford named him as vice 0:03:01.280 --> 0:03:07.560 president after Nixon's resignation. Referring to Rockefeller as Rocky, Sarah 0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:08.560 Jane went on to. 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:11.359 Say, killing Ford would have meant that people would have 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:14.200 had to face Rocky head on, which should rouse a 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:16.639 lot of people out of their rationalizing daydreams. 0:03:23.280 --> 0:03:24.359 I'm Toby Ball. 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:29.280 And I'm Mary Catherine Garrison, and this is rip current. 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:38.840 We feel that the murder of Popeye Jackson and Sally 0:03:38.920 --> 0:03:39.840 Boy was the work of. 0:03:39.840 --> 0:03:49.880 Pigs Episode ten. It serves the pig's interests to create confusion. 0:03:55.000 --> 0:03:58.440 In the early morning hours of June eighth, nineteen seventy five, 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:02.680 Popeye Jackson was murdered along with a friend named Sally 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:05.880 Voy as they sat in a parked car just a 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:09.960 couple of blocks from Sarah Jane Moore's apartment. His death 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:14.120 was ominous for Sarah Jane. Popeye had been her mentor 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:17.360 and entree to the radical groups in the Bay Area. 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:21.400 She had recently accused him of being a police informant, 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:24.479 and it seemed likely this had contributed. 0:04:23.920 --> 0:04:24.719 To his murder. 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:29.080 But in truth, it was she who was an informant, 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:32.680 and many people in the Bay Area knew this. She 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:36.880 had good reason to believe she was not safe at 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:39.880 the time. Ellen Hume was a young reporter with the 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:44.360 Los Angeles Times during this period. Sarah Jane went by 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:48.560 the name Sally. When Allen mentioned Sally, she is talking 0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:50.480 about Sarah Jane. 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:54.760 One time she called and she was absolutely terrified. She said, 0:04:54.839 --> 0:04:57.279 I'm in danger. My life is in danger. I said, 0:04:57.320 --> 0:05:00.000 what are you talking about? She said, Popeye's just been 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:03.280 killed and he was about two blocks from her apartment. 0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:05.680 And I didn't know anything about her involvement with Popeye. 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:09.719 She hadn't told me about Popeye. So Popeye's murder really 0:05:09.760 --> 0:05:14.839 freaked Sally out. After Popeye's murder and Sally, who always 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:17.719 acted as if she had several screws loose, I gave 0:05:17.720 --> 0:05:20.719 her fifty dollars, which I never did, not for the story, 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:23.520 but I said, get out of town, cool off for 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:26.600 a while. Because she was so scared. She was literally shaking. 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:28.560 I flew up and was with her in her apartment. 0:05:28.960 --> 0:05:32.080 A couple days later, she seemed to be okay again. 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:36.320 As Sarah Jane wrestled with how to protect herself after 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:41.839 Popeye's murder, the investigation into his death got underway. His 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:45.440 murder was yet another black mark for a city that 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:48.719 had been hit with high profile violence and gained a 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:54.200 reputation for fear and paranoia author Jeffrey Tubin. 0:05:55.120 --> 0:05:59.839 In the nineteen seventies, San Francisco was synonymous with urban decay. 0:06:00.560 --> 0:06:03.679 You get to ask yourself one question, Do I feel lucky? 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:05.279 Well? 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:05.960 Do you bunk? 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:11.200 Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry was a San Francisco detective. The 0:06:11.200 --> 0:06:15.760 Streets of San Francisco, Michael Douglas's TV series was based 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:18.680 on the idea that San Francisco was a very dangerous 0:06:18.720 --> 0:06:19.960 place to be a detective. 0:06:20.960 --> 0:06:22.320 The night's episode. 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:27.400 Death Watch by seventy two, seventy three, seventy four, you 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:32.000 had cops being ambushed and killed because they're cops. I 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:34.880 think San Francisco lost seven officers in a year and 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:38.000 a half period, which was unheard of. My name is 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:43.520 Duffy Jennings. I am a retired journalist and publicist who 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:46.839 lives here in the San Francisco Bay Area. I was 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:50.320 a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle from nineteen sixty 0:06:50.400 --> 0:06:54.120 nine to nineteen eighty. The city just morphed into an 0:06:54.200 --> 0:06:58.880 ugly place. This kind of random violence, political violence just 0:06:59.040 --> 0:07:00.680 rolled on through this seventies. 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:02.160 There was just no letup. 0:07:03.360 --> 0:07:07.360 But the violence also gave opportunities to San Francisco's homicide 0:07:07.360 --> 0:07:12.280 detectives to make their names in high profile cases. One 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:16.200 of those detectives was Frank Falzon, who we heard from 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:18.160 last episode. 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:22.520 Every day was a new exciting day. Every day was 0:07:22.560 --> 0:07:27.080 a new and exciting case. And being young, energetic and 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:30.200 always wanting to work the big cases, I didn't have 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:32.520 to look very far. They were right in front of me. 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:36.280 Falson was assigned to Popeye's case. 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:41.320 Well, initially, we're totally in the dark when we started 0:07:41.440 --> 0:07:46.880 researching the background of Popeye Jackson, and it wasn't like 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:50.360 he was a wallflower. He was very well known in 0:07:50.400 --> 0:07:56.000 the criminal justice system. Within two days, a citizen called 0:07:56.040 --> 0:08:00.320 in about finding a barrel of a gun. It was 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:04.520 the nine millimeter automatic gun. It had been discarded in 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:08.320 the street we knew it was probably linked to our murders, 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:11.160 but without the rest of the gun, we just booked 0:08:11.160 --> 0:08:14.000 it into the property clerk's office to see if it 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:18.440 would prove to be influential at a later time. The 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:24.040 radical violent underground was a tangled web of competing New 0:08:24.160 --> 0:08:30.520 left radical extremists. We started looking into all those radical 0:08:31.160 --> 0:08:35.640 extremists individuals, trying to talk to people that might be 0:08:35.720 --> 0:08:39.600 able to point us in the right direction. Popeye Jackson 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:43.080 was loved by many and hated by some. 0:08:44.960 --> 0:08:48.120 Popeye was executed in the early morning of June eighth. 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:53.400 As Frankfelzhan mentioned, the investigation would center on the complicated 0:08:53.440 --> 0:08:57.480 ecosystem of small, violent radical groups in the Bay Area. 0:08:58.480 --> 0:09:02.480 The trail actually was laid five days before Popeye's murder. 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:07.040 On June third, a mysterious group called the New World 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:11.560 Liberation Front or NWLF, had sent an open letter to 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:16.720 San Francisco radio station KPOO accusing Popeye of being a 0:09:16.720 --> 0:09:22.240 police informant. In the days following Popeye's assassination, a commentary 0:09:22.280 --> 0:09:25.199 on whether his death was justified played out in a 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:29.320 letter to the editor page of the underground newspaper The 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:34.840 Berkeley barb It began with two communica's signed by the NWLF. 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:40.320 The first Communica claimed credit for Popeye's execution. It was 0:09:40.400 --> 0:09:44.360 quickly identified as a fraud. It is still unclear who 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:49.679 wrote this letter. The second, much longer Communica arrived soon after. 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:55.640 It was regarded as genuine. In it, the NWLF stated 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:59.720 that Popeye's execution was justified, but denied that they had 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:03.960 actually carried it out. It harshly condemned the murder of 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:08.480 Sally Voi, and then it denounced the first fake communicate 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:13.160 as disinformation. Its language was heated. 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:17.480 When the ruling class pigs and steal fear and oppressed peoples. 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:20.840 We must be able to decipher pig shit from revolutionary 0:10:20.920 --> 0:10:25.320 tactics and respond by drawing together, not in paranoia, but 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:27.000 in strength and imagination. 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:31.760 It ended by calling on an underground prison group called 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:36.800 the Black Gorilla Family to conduct an analysis of Popeye's murder. 0:10:37.800 --> 0:10:41.640 This analysis, it was implied, would be the definitive judgment. 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:46.800 The NWLF was just one of several groups to communicate 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:50.960 through that week's edition of the Berkeley Barb Something called 0:10:51.080 --> 0:10:55.400 the People's Commission of Inquiry Berkeley sent an open letter 0:10:55.840 --> 0:11:01.200 asserting that the nwlf's June third letter contained only accusations 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:05.280 and no actual evidence. It also claimed that no true 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:09.120 revolutionary group would have executed Popeye under what they called 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:14.320 these circumstances. The letter went on to say that if 0:11:14.360 --> 0:11:18.880 the NWLF didn't denounce the murderer and the previous communications 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:20.199 about Popeye, that. 0:11:21.040 --> 0:11:23.960 We would have to assume that the NWLF is a 0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:27.360 creation of the repressive forces of the state, created to 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:31.280 so confusion and division among the general population and a left, 0:11:31.280 --> 0:11:35.359 in particular as to the true actions, behaviors, and policies 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:37.280 of revolutionary underground groups. 0:11:38.520 --> 0:11:43.000 In short, the NWLF accused Popeye of being an agent 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:47.400 of the government, and the People's Inquiry accused the NWLF 0:11:47.559 --> 0:11:50.720 of being an agent of the government for making that accusation. 0:11:52.080 --> 0:11:55.480 To further complicate the situation, many on the left thought 0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:58.960 that Popeye had most likely been executed by the government 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:03.400 in the form of the police. Pat Singer, Popeye's wife, 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:06.880 who was nine months pregnant at the time, told the Berkeley. 0:12:06.520 --> 0:12:11.240 Barb Popeye's most outstanding enemies were the police. They had 0:12:11.280 --> 0:12:14.520 talked about him being killed and made threats from the 0:12:14.559 --> 0:12:17.800 California Department of Corrections down to the blacks and whites 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:21.640 on the SFPD. They were his most outspoken enemies and 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:24.199 the ones who would have benefited most from his death. 0:12:25.559 --> 0:12:30.000 Rumors also circulated that the racist Aryan Brotherhood had put 0:12:30.040 --> 0:12:32.880 out a ten thousand dollars contract for the murder of 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:36.760 Popeye and four other unnamed radicals in the Bay Area. 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:43.320 Paranoia reigned, So what we saw here was factions of 0:12:43.360 --> 0:12:48.160 this extreme left, very divided on who they felt should 0:12:48.200 --> 0:12:50.800 be supported and who should be taken out. 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:52.680 None of it was any good. 0:12:54.200 --> 0:12:57.880 The Berkeley barb Letter section also carried two anonymous letters, 0:12:58.480 --> 0:13:01.520 both concerned with the effects of violence within the left. 0:13:02.400 --> 0:13:06.600 A letter signed by a comrade concluded this way. 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:11.200 We his fellow revolutionaries killed Popeye, regardless of who pulled 0:13:11.240 --> 0:13:14.040 the trigger. We who got angry and left him, We 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:17.440 who feared displeasing his followers, We who were afraid to 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:21.839 confront and struggle with a strong but misled comrade. 0:13:21.960 --> 0:13:25.319 The second letter referred to the executions of Popeye and 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:30.040 Oakland School's superintendent Marcus Foster instead of the violence. 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:35.080 The result of this approach has been confusion, divisiveness, paranoia, 0:13:35.240 --> 0:13:39.360 and increased physical and mental oppression for us. All it 0:13:39.520 --> 0:13:43.400 was signed with intense feelings some of the people. 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:47.480 A week later, the Black Gorilla Family responded to the 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:52.480 nwlf's requests for an analysis. This is from a report 0:13:52.559 --> 0:13:56.760 on KPFA, a Bay Area community radio station. 0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:00.200 Last week when the New War Liberation Front is to 0:14:00.240 --> 0:14:04.840 communicate denying responsibility for the June eighth execution of Popeye Jackson. 0:14:05.200 --> 0:14:07.560 They also called on the Black Gorilla Family to use 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:10.880 its vantage point from inside prison to analyze some of 0:14:10.920 --> 0:14:14.560 the charges made earlier against Popeye Jackson. Today, the Black 0:14:14.600 --> 0:14:18.720 Gorilla Family issued their response, which reads as follows. To 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:22.000 the people, this is long in coming because we had 0:14:22.000 --> 0:14:25.640 decided not to become involved. However, due to the conflict 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:29.119 and speculations which have arisen, we feel it is necessary 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:32.240 to clarify our position and give an objective opinion. 0:14:34.360 --> 0:14:38.800 The communicay was long, but this paragraph summed up the findings. 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:41.920 We feel that the murder of Popeye Jackson and Sally 0:14:42.040 --> 0:14:44.600 Voi was the work of pigs. As to the murder 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:47.440 of Sally Voi, there is no justification to the left, 0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:51.040 especially the Gorilla Army, but it serves the pig's interests 0:14:51.040 --> 0:14:54.520 to create confusion within the left and to maintain control. 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:58.720 Through that confusion, the charges lodged against Popeye we feel 0:14:58.920 --> 0:14:59.960 are void of foundation. 0:15:01.680 --> 0:15:04.440 The Black Gorilla family said it was the work of 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:08.000 the pigs. In other words, they placed the blame on 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:12.040 the police department, that the police for some reason didn't 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:16.000 like Popeye Jackson, didn't like what he was promoting, and 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:22.240 the police killed Popeye. But this, obviously for us, was 0:15:22.320 --> 0:15:27.360 totally disregarded because there was no indication of that at all. 0:15:28.000 --> 0:15:32.200 There was also a word that Popeye was killed because 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:36.320 he was an FBI informant. Well, we checked with the FBI. 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:41.400 They don't give up their informants, so we hit a 0:15:41.440 --> 0:15:46.920 wall there. To our knowledge, Popeye Jackson was not an informant. 0:15:48.840 --> 0:15:52.760 But Falzan is still not sure. The question over whether 0:15:52.880 --> 0:15:56.680 or not Jackson was an informant would continue to be debated, 0:15:57.480 --> 0:16:00.960 But the public statements on Popeye's murder did not tackle 0:16:01.040 --> 0:16:05.480 a big ethical question. Does a snitch deserve to be executed? 0:16:06.760 --> 0:16:09.840 In the radical underground, it seemed the answer was taken 0:16:09.920 --> 0:16:16.200 for granted. Yes, a code of death for informants seems 0:16:16.240 --> 0:16:19.240 to have a kind of movie logic to it, But 0:16:19.320 --> 0:16:23.840 to Sally Voy's sister Lee Darby, it is almost a farce. 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:28.960 As it turned out, all their investigation happened on the 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:33.440 San Francisco and pop By Jackson end of things. He 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:37.840 was accused of being a snitch. And you know, that 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:39.880 whole thing is just so ridiculous. 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:41.280 You could be a. 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:46.800 Murderer and a rapist and a child molester and hold 0:16:46.840 --> 0:16:53.440 your head high, but a snitch that was grounds for 0:16:53.720 --> 0:17:00.080 immediate assassination. The worst thing in that underworld is to 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:05.520 be an informant, and they weren't, but that probably led 0:17:05.600 --> 0:17:06.479 to their killing. 0:17:11.359 --> 0:17:17.800 My partner, Dave Toski, his original partner had retired. My 0:17:18.000 --> 0:17:22.480 partner had been promoted to the district attorney lead job 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:28.080 as the lead investigator. I and Dave were teamed up together. 0:17:29.760 --> 0:17:33.199 If you've seen the movie Zodiac, Dave Tashi is a 0:17:33.240 --> 0:17:35.160 detective played by Mark Ruffalo. 0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:38.439 Were coordinating with the Scoreboard, and we expect to break in. 0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:39.240 The case very soon. 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:42.160 What do we really got and they can't get anyone 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:42.800 on the tip line. 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:45.800 In the early days of the investigation into Popeye's murder, 0:17:46.280 --> 0:17:49.760 Falzan and Tashi struggled to get a foothold on the case. 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:54.840 On June tenth, Tasha even made the statement that though 0:17:54.840 --> 0:17:58.439 they thought the target was most likely Popeye quote, we 0:17:58.520 --> 0:18:02.080 can't rule out the possibility that maybe miss Voi had 0:18:02.119 --> 0:18:04.800 been involved in something that might make her a target. 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:09.720 Two days later, it was reported that Falzan and Tashi's 0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:13.320 boss had forbidden any further public comment about the case. 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:16.880 But the idea that Sally might somehow have been targeted 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:20.680 by a militant group was disorienting to her grieving family. 0:18:22.480 --> 0:18:26.439 There was just a bunch of them, the New World 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:34.000 Liberation Front, the people who who had kidnapped Patty Hurst, 0:18:34.240 --> 0:18:42.880 the Symbionese Liberation Army, the Black Panthers, the Aryan Brotherhood. 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:49.399 All of these groups delivered communic hays about the killings 0:18:50.160 --> 0:18:56.000 that either supported it or condemned it. And we were 0:18:56.080 --> 0:19:01.159 just who are these people? And were trying to hunker 0:19:01.240 --> 0:19:04.600 down at our house, and you know, reporters would call 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:09.160 and my dad would you know, We were just bewildered. 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:16.919 Popeye most likely was not an informant. Sally Voy was 0:19:17.040 --> 0:19:22.679 definitely not, but Sarah Jane definitely was. And soon this 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:27.439 fact was published in a newspaper. On June twentieth, The 0:19:27.480 --> 0:19:30.879 Berkeley bar Ran an article about Sarah Jane's involvement with 0:19:30.960 --> 0:19:33.919 Popeye and her possible role in his death. 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:39.560 The article began damaging information about Popeye Jackson was leaked 0:19:39.560 --> 0:19:42.840 to numerous movement groups before his death by a woman 0:19:42.880 --> 0:19:45.240 who had worked as an informant for the FBI. 0:19:47.320 --> 0:19:50.240 Sarah Jane was interviewed for the article and sought to 0:19:50.280 --> 0:19:52.600 put the best face on her work with the FBI 0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:56.800 and accusations against Popeye, but it was the most public 0:19:56.800 --> 0:20:00.800 of confessions that she had betrayed the radical Left. She 0:20:00.920 --> 0:20:03.679 confessed that she had been an informant and about the 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:07.240 information she had distributed in the left about Popeye Jackson. 0:20:08.520 --> 0:20:12.200 In the article, Mark Bramhall of the Vietnam Veterans Against 0:20:12.240 --> 0:20:15.760 the War was quoted as saying we had gotten word 0:20:15.880 --> 0:20:20.000 from many movement groups that she was a pig. He 0:20:20.080 --> 0:20:23.800 also said that the VVAW had voted to expel Sarah 0:20:23.840 --> 0:20:28.320 Jane from their organization. Sarah Jane was becoming more and 0:20:28.440 --> 0:20:34.560 more marginalized by the radical Left. Isolated and desperate, she 0:20:34.680 --> 0:20:38.119 headed into the summer of nineteen seventy five determined to 0:20:38.119 --> 0:20:40.119 show the left that she was not an agent of 0:20:40.160 --> 0:20:45.840 Middle America but one of them. The radical young. After 0:20:45.880 --> 0:20:53.560 the break, it's an indication of the chaos in San 0:20:53.600 --> 0:20:58.320 Francisco in nineteen seventy five that detective Frank Falzand lost 0:20:58.359 --> 0:21:03.080 his partner Dave Tosh because Tashi was too busy investigating 0:21:03.119 --> 0:21:06.920 the high profile Zodiac murderers to help with the Popeye 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:07.800 Jackson case. 0:21:09.119 --> 0:21:12.919 Dave was also at the time working the Zodiac case 0:21:13.400 --> 0:21:17.840 in San Francisco, so I grabbed Jim Lessart, lead prosecutor 0:21:18.000 --> 0:21:21.320 in the DA's office. He and I took this case 0:21:21.359 --> 0:21:25.159 head on. We realize that we're dealing with very violent 0:21:25.320 --> 0:21:31.080 underground groups that had fragmented into many arms and tentacles. 0:21:31.400 --> 0:21:33.879 Group we weren't even aware of turned out to be 0:21:33.880 --> 0:21:36.560 one of the more violent groups, a group called a 0:21:36.680 --> 0:21:37.720 Tribal Thumb. 0:21:38.960 --> 0:21:41.280 One name which police and certain media have linked to 0:21:41.320 --> 0:21:44.600 the Jackson Voice shooting is Earl Satyre, a black man 0:21:44.640 --> 0:21:47.119 who served nineteen years in prison until his release a 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:49.760 few years ago. Satur has been labeled the leader of 0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:52.840 a clandestine guerrilla group known as the Tribal Thumb, and 0:21:52.920 --> 0:21:55.720 most recently was acquitted of a November nineteen seventy three 0:21:55.760 --> 0:21:57.000 bank robbery in Berkeley. 0:21:58.040 --> 0:22:01.879 Tribal Thumb was another small revolutionary group led by a 0:22:02.000 --> 0:22:05.880 charismatic black man who had been involved in prison radicalism. 0:22:06.800 --> 0:22:11.600 In this case, the man's name was Earl Satcher. Satcher 0:22:11.760 --> 0:22:15.480 was a more formidable figure than SLA leader Donald de Friese. 0:22:16.119 --> 0:22:19.720 Defrize had picked up radical ideology in prison, but wasn't 0:22:19.720 --> 0:22:25.320 a leader inside the walls. Sacher, however, was. In nineteen 0:22:25.359 --> 0:22:29.719 seventy one, E. F. Shaver of Houston's underground newspaper Space 0:22:29.800 --> 0:22:35.399 City identified him as SOLIDAD prisons leading black panther. It 0:22:35.440 --> 0:22:39.080 gets a little complicated, but Sacher was released from prison 0:22:39.440 --> 0:22:43.000 and then arrested again in nineteen seventy three in connection 0:22:43.119 --> 0:22:46.280 with the shooting down of a police helicopter in Oakland. 0:22:47.160 --> 0:22:49.240 It was while he was in jail awaiting trial for 0:22:49.320 --> 0:22:51.240 this that he met Rick Riley. 0:22:52.359 --> 0:22:55.560 I met Earl in the Oakland County jail. I was 0:22:55.600 --> 0:22:58.480 there fighting my case and they got him brought him in. 0:22:58.520 --> 0:23:00.680 It was a police helicopter shot. 0:23:00.520 --> 0:23:03.160 Down and some banks had been robbed, so they had 0:23:03.200 --> 0:23:05.240 Earl in on suspicion on all that stuff. 0:23:05.359 --> 0:23:09.200 Right. My name is Rick Riley. I'm known as Sundown. 0:23:09.960 --> 0:23:13.719 I was the leader in the Western phil Media prison 0:23:13.760 --> 0:23:15.159 gang criminal organization. 0:23:16.280 --> 0:23:18.200 I was also a member of Tribal Thumb. 0:23:18.280 --> 0:23:22.399 Prior to that, I was a martial artist and I 0:23:22.520 --> 0:23:24.400 used to work out all the time, and Earl loved 0:23:24.440 --> 0:23:27.560 the martial arts. And so that's how we became friends 0:23:27.600 --> 0:23:30.240 because he would want to spar with me, and he 0:23:30.320 --> 0:23:32.480 began talking to me, and he began recruiting me. 0:23:33.280 --> 0:23:36.800 He was a good looking black man, muscular, he had charisma. 0:23:37.040 --> 0:23:41.480 Earl had charisma, man had. 0:23:40.040 --> 0:23:42.960 A smile that was very charismatic. 0:23:44.040 --> 0:23:48.200 Women loved him and guys liked him. 0:23:48.480 --> 0:23:51.760 Like many of these small groups, Tribal Thumb started in 0:23:51.760 --> 0:23:55.040 prison and then evolved to a new form when Earl 0:23:55.119 --> 0:23:56.359 Satcher was released. 0:23:58.119 --> 0:23:59.760 The goals were anarchy. 0:24:00.480 --> 0:24:03.880 Everybody talked about revolution, right, but anybody who had any 0:24:03.920 --> 0:24:06.320 sense realized that in America you were not going to 0:24:06.359 --> 0:24:09.600 have a revolution. The most you could have is anarchy. 0:24:10.040 --> 0:24:14.680 It's like like the elite, they create problems because they 0:24:14.720 --> 0:24:17.639 believe they're out of chaos they get control. You know, 0:24:17.760 --> 0:24:21.119 they'll create a situation and then they'll have the answer 0:24:21.160 --> 0:24:22.080 to that situation. 0:24:22.280 --> 0:24:24.720 Right, So out of chaos they get their power. 0:24:25.280 --> 0:24:28.920 They also out of anarchy, the revolutionary groups that were 0:24:28.960 --> 0:24:30.439 smart would get their power. 0:24:31.920 --> 0:24:34.760 In the previous episode, we looked at the efforts by 0:24:34.840 --> 0:24:39.360 various law enforcement agencies to plan informants in the radical underground. 0:24:40.560 --> 0:24:43.680 At the time of Popeye's murder, the FBI had two 0:24:43.720 --> 0:24:48.840 informants within Tribal Thumb. Their names were Gary Johnson and 0:24:48.920 --> 0:24:52.760 Walter Handsacker. They were able to help Frank fels On 0:24:53.040 --> 0:24:54.520 break Popeye's murder case. 0:24:55.760 --> 0:25:00.399 This informant, Walter Handsacker, was in possession of the stolen 0:25:00.520 --> 0:25:03.840 guns that had been given to him after a hold 0:25:03.920 --> 0:25:09.160 up in Crockett, California, where multiple weapons were stolen. These 0:25:09.200 --> 0:25:13.680 guns were now in possession of Walter Handsacker. Jim Lasart myself, 0:25:13.720 --> 0:25:17.720 we interviewed Walter and what he told us was quite shocking. 0:25:18.160 --> 0:25:20.919 He said that the man he was talking to was 0:25:21.000 --> 0:25:23.200 definitely not a black man and was a white man. 0:25:24.119 --> 0:25:28.480 His name was Richard London, also known as Ricardo London. 0:25:28.880 --> 0:25:32.479 He brought two guns, in particular to Walt Hansacker and 0:25:32.560 --> 0:25:36.000 wanted Walter to dispose of them. He said one was 0:25:36.119 --> 0:25:39.800 extremely hot, and when he said that, he also said, 0:25:40.080 --> 0:25:43.239 I'm now a hit man. I did a job with 0:25:43.280 --> 0:25:47.280 this gun. It was the nine millimeter without a barrel. 0:25:48.480 --> 0:25:51.840 I remembered early on in the investigation that I booked 0:25:51.840 --> 0:25:55.359 into evidence a barrel from a nine millimeter had to 0:25:55.400 --> 0:25:59.639 be a divine intervention because we put that gun together. 0:25:59.800 --> 0:26:01.159 Now was the murder weapon. 0:26:02.680 --> 0:26:05.480 Ricardo London was a twenty six year old ex cohn. 0:26:06.119 --> 0:26:09.160 He'd been a member of Popeye's United Prisoners Union while 0:26:09.160 --> 0:26:12.040 he was imprisoned, and then joined Tribal Thomb. 0:26:13.240 --> 0:26:16.920 Our prime suspect now was Ricardo London, but we had 0:26:17.000 --> 0:26:21.760 witnesses who described a tall, thin black man with a 0:26:21.800 --> 0:26:26.399 bushy afro medium dark complexion. Well, as luck would have it, 0:26:26.720 --> 0:26:32.200 our suspect, Ricardo London was in custody in Napa, Sonoma 0:26:32.280 --> 0:26:35.440 County for another case that he had been arrested for, 0:26:35.840 --> 0:26:40.000