Welcome to another edition of Scheer Intelligence with your host, Robert Scheer. Today, we delve into the profound implications of the Ferguson movement, a pivotal moment in American history that continues to resonate throughout our society. Joining us are two exceptional guests: State Senator Marie Chappelle Nadal, who was on the ground in St. Louis during the turbulent aftermath of Michael Brown's tragic shooting, and filmmaker Ray Nowaselski, known for his compelling documentaries that tackle critical societal issues.

As we explore their investigative efforts and the stories of those affected by violence and injustice, we'll uncover the essential lessons we've learned over the past decade. From the profound impact of police accountability to the importance of understanding our history, this conversation aims to shed light on systemic challenges and the ongoing fight for justice. Join us as we navigate the complexities of these intertwined narratives, seeking to learn from the past and advocate for a better future.

00:01.04

Robert Scheer

Hi, this is Robert Scheer with another edition of Scheer Intelligence, where the intelligence comes to my guests. And these guests of mine here, ah Marie Chappelle Nadel, who was a state senator in St. Louis at the time of the Ferguson a shooting.

00:19.60

Robert Scheer

And ah Ray Nowaselski, who I first met when he did a ah movie on 9-11 and Watch Dogs Didn't Bark, if I remember the title, and why the whole system of security broke down.

00:33.52

Ray

Yeah.

00:35.65

Robert Scheer

And I'm particularly fascinated with the work that they do because they actually take history seriously. And I do these podcasts in a way of rescuing history.

00:47.61

Robert Scheer

want people to be able to use them in high school and college classes. And we had this event of Ferguson and Michael Brown, the killing of Michael Brown. That was, well, this last August, 10 years ago.

01:02.00

Robert Scheer

and ah And there were a lot of lessons for the nation, the Black Lives Movement and so forth. And, you know, if you go to ah watch a basketball game now in February, you hear about black history, you hear about.

01:15.85

Robert Scheer

And at that time, a actually leading basketball teams reacted and affected playoffs and what have you. And i'm I'm here because yeah i'm really fascinated that a major media outlet, like iHeartMedia, or a major radio outlet in the country, would put on an investigative program and that one was nominated for the NAACP Image Awards ah just recently.

01:45.18

Robert Scheer

And you people have devoted a lot of time to getting history right. And you may have even cracked the case. It certainly wasn't cracked by the courts, and no one went to jail over it, right?

01:58.13

Robert Scheer

And we'll let you tell the history. So why don't you really summarize this major media effort of yours to to do journalism right, to get it right, and why it matters and what you came up with. So I'm going to let you take over at this point. Either the one who wants to go first and, you know, your ah directors, ah tell us what you're doing, your work, why it matters.

02:24.03

Ray

Maria, can I give a brief intro to the overall concept and segue over to you? Because I think you're the right one to pick it up from there. But I would just say that there's this phenomenon in the last 10 plus years since these incredible people started this movement.

02:37.54

Ray

ah They called it the Ferguson movement and Maria was there on the ground repping Ferguson. as an elected official, but, um, but of these people who became leaders and this movement spread around the country, one by one began to, um, die mysteriously, sadly.

02:55.15

Ray

And after, about the third one, Edward Crawford, um, State Senator Maria Chappelle Nadal here stepped to the state Senate floor and gave a speech that essentially sounded the alarm on this.

03:07.99

Ray

And a number more have died since. And this has become this kind of phenomenon that the internet has been following, but that hasn't really gotten a ton of sort of mainstream attention until you know our iHeart podcast came along. But Maria, what i mean, what can you say about the the mystery deaths phenomenon?

03:29.55

maria

Well, you know, we were at a time where there was ah a lot of confusion surrounding what the responsibilities were of police officers and what our responsibilities were going to be as citizens.

03:44.42

Robert Scheer

Thank you.

03:45.53

Ray

Thank you.

03:46.41

maria

And after the the shooting of Michael Brown, there was a clash um and the multiple sides didn't understand each other at all.

03:59.98

maria

And so when we got to the point, wait a minute, there are a lot of you know people on the front lines who are getting targeted in various ways and oh by the way many of them um are ending up dead in some kind of way.

04:16.05

maria

I mean something seems strange you know Missouri is a half-freight half slave state and um you know during these times there are are a lot of questionable people who were in St. Louis at the time, and many of us had to be concerned about our safety, and many of the frontline activists also had to be concerned. So when it came to um the death of Darren Seals, we were nervous about it.

04:51.26

maria

And because he was not the first to die, um he was maybe the third or fourth, but one of the more formidable people who were involved in the activism in Ferguson.

05:07.08

maria

And we wanted to know, wait a minute, why did people not look up the reason, how, why, who was participating in his death?

05:17.58

maria

Like no one seemed concerned about trying to drill down into the dirty details and figuring out who was responsible for Darren's death. Was it someone who was against Black Lives Matter?

05:31.89

maria

Was it someone for Black g Lives Matter? Why did he die? And so that's what took us two and a half years to figure out. We figured it out.

05:43.39

maria

Unfortunately, you know, the the institution that I have belonged to for 22 years was not responsive to the investigation in the investigation and the calls of concern from the community.

05:58.54

maria

So um that's how we started.

06:02.49

Robert Scheer

When you say the institution you were loyal to for 22 years, why don't you describe it?

06:08.86

maria

06:19.71

maria

06:33.34

maria

And then i went back to the House for the last term um for another two years. So I've spent 16 years in the legislative branch and i have served another six years in some type of executive branch.

06:52.56

Robert Scheer

So yeah that's really important because you're not like Ray and myself. We're media people. We're out for a story where you have a nose for news. I'm speaking for you, Ray, but, you know, I assume we're in the same racket here.

07:03.46

Ray

No, yeah, totally.

07:06.47

Robert Scheer

You're one of the people who believed in the system. And you try to make the system work. You're not some you know person just coming in to make trouble or look under the rocks or anything else.

07:17.83

Robert Scheer

And the other thing, I just want to also take you back to your statement about ah Missouri being half slave and half free. Unfortunately, we have really no keen sense of history in this country. We don't.

07:30.46

Robert Scheer

bury history. We ignore it. We think everything started 24 hours ago and so forth. And there wouldn't be the old example of Ferguson if any people had any sense of history, why people in that community felt disenfranchised, why they were suspicious of what had happened.

07:48.60

Robert Scheer

And we should, you know we have to even in this show bring up some of this history. But I'm i'm fascinated ah by your role in this, because after all, there is a system. There's state government, there's policing, there's the federal government, there's the FBI.

08:04.63

Robert Scheer

A lot of people have looked at this. The courts have looked at it. So tell me from your point of view, how did the system fail? Why? And then What does it mean that you stepped in to solve a murder related to this? The movie with a program you people did is called After the Uprising.

08:24.44

Robert Scheer

Right. and And so why would you spend two and half years of your life doing this? And, you know, let's get to the lead here. What did you come up with?

08:33.97

maria

Well, let me just tell you, our our system of government, the the um industry that I had been in for 22 years failed at multiple fronts.

08:46.65

maria

um When you look at, um i guess it is episode seven, episode eight, you will recognize that the system failed when they did not prosecute people violent offenders who had been involved in multiple criminal actions.

09:06.91

maria

Those people ended up being back on the streets. Those individuals ended up killing more people. So in in a few cases that we have followed and continue to follow,

09:18.87

maria

um There was a serial killer who still hasn't been charged.

09:21.96

Robert Scheer

Yes.

09:23.87

maria

There was ah the person who organized um Darren Seals' is murder. ah He had not gone to jail for that particular murder. There are multiple people who have been involved in the Sinaloa cartel.

09:39.74

maria

ah Many of them did not go to jail. um There have been people to murder multiple times who didn't go to jail. ah The person who ended it who was seen as being responsible for Darren Seale's death um did not go to jail but for about five or six days.

10:00.71

maria

And then he was released without any paperwork. So the county refused to give us the information through Sunshine Request, the release papers of the individual who was targeted as the killer for

10:04.52

Robert Scheer

Thank

10:15.98

maria

four Darren Seals, of Darren Seals. And the thing is, ah a year and a half later, he dies himself. And the people who killed him were never prosecuted either.

10:28.75

maria

So, i mean, this, it's very easy to say the police didn't do their job, but in in the two and a half years that we dedicated to this project in pursuing Darren Seals' killer,

10:41.96

maria

10:54.63

maria

We may enter war as the United States. We may have a not only a recession, but I think a depression. Right now, we have a sitting congressman who served as the prosecutor during this time period um when Darren Seals was killed, when Darren Seals' killer was killed.

11:15.19

maria

When the other suspects were let go of being responsible for for killing multiple people, he never prosecuted them. There's no paperwork on file.

11:27.34

maria

And he's serving in Congress responsible for these These big issues that we're dealing with, like a war, like going into a Great Depression 2.0.

11:31.38

Robert Scheer

Thank you.

11:38.29

maria

um And what we're dealing with here at home in St. Louis is the fact that our streets are still dangerous because the people who we thought, the woke prosecutors, did not do their job.

11:52.80

Robert Scheer

Okay, so first of all, because we're going to have to do a lot of catch-up here and people watching it, when you talk about episode seven or eight, ah we're talking about a a record that you people have established.

12:07.04

Robert Scheer

So ah when people get interested, in as I am, and what you're saying, how do they access this record? Where is the where is your show?

12:16.85

Ray

Thank you for asking that.

12:16.84

Robert Scheer

How do they...

12:17.93

Ray

So wherever people get their podcasts, if people listen to podcasts, they can search after the uprising. after the uprising, wherever you get your podcasts and you will find two seasons.

12:28.75

Ray

First one's 11 episodes.

12:29.78

Robert Scheer

Thank you.

12:30.15

Ray

The second one is 10 episodes, essentially a documentary. It's an audio documentary series. The first season investigated the hanging death of the son of a major Ferguson activist named Melissa McInnes.

12:45.43

Ray

And her son's name was Donye Jones. And we found some really compelling and interesting things in particular around ah ah allegedly racist and corrupt detective that led that investigation.

12:57.26

Ray

And then season two, which is when Maria ah moved in as host, investigator, producer, writer, um reporter, ah that one looked at the murder of Darren Seals.

13:13.45

Ray

And that's another 10 episodes, season two. Both have been nominated for NAACP Image Awards. um But that latest season came out in June.

13:23.45

Robert Scheer

so And people get this, you say, wherever there's podcasts and so forth. Now, the way I'm interested in now is as a ah murder mystery detective story.

13:36.08

Robert Scheer

And, you know, and and people like, or they shouldn't, I mean, We're talking about the deaths of people. We're talking about injustice. I don't want to trivialize it. But one reason to get into this is a fascinating story, a whodunit ah story.

13:52.24

Robert Scheer

So first of all, why don't you tell us about the most well-known person other than Michael Brown got to be very well-known because he was killed in this book. But what tell us about Darren Seals.

14:03.22

Robert Scheer

And of course, he's a central figure. in this whole thing. All right. And again, I want to keep asking Maria to bring in your own, because you're not, come when you confront the police, when you talk to the prosecutor, we you're talking about, you're one of them.

14:20.25

Robert Scheer

ah Right. I mean, you're you're you know, really, yeah they can't just say, well, here's some oddball, you know, who even knows if you're real journalist or what you're doing and who do you represent, blah, blah, blah.

14:30.83

Robert Scheer

You know, or you're some activist. You're a person who actually wanted to make the system work. And you spent much of your you don't look that old. So if you spent 22 years, you've spent much of your life trying to make government work.

14:45.42

Robert Scheer

And you're basically now saying it didn't work on any level. So tell us about that, but also begin by telling us about Darren Seals.

14:55.38

maria

You know, Darren was um a hard and easy person to love. He was a hard person to love because whatever he saw, he would just tell it like it is, whether you liked it or not.

15:08.54

maria

And um you loved him because he cared about the community and the success for the next generation. um You can see that in his relationship with young people on the streets.

15:21.71

maria

The way that he brought in um a group of young people who wanted to be rappers and tried to raise money for them and He was their their um director, if you will. They were his make their manager.

15:37.74

maria

and He gave them opportunities to get out of the hood. He wanted to see them succeed. He wanted to see them make money in a legal way.

15:49.36

maria

And he sacrificed a lot for that, using his own money to help these young people succeed. And they actually did really well. They were great rappers.

16:00.73

maria

And then there was another component in the story, if you listen to After the Uprising Season 2, there was another forcep play, the reality of what the streets look like um now and in the past with the drug cartels, um you know, a lot of people getting involved in gang activity.

16:22.28

maria

ah The young men that he was trying to support and get on the the right um journey, the right road, um they didn't do that. And they ended up targeting him.

16:35.36

maria

But Darren was, he was militant. um He was lovable. He would spend you know weekends with his mom and his brother watching movies. um He would go to family events.

16:49.12

maria

That was very normal for him to do um But he when he was on the front lines, he would get in the faces of police officers because he wanted to see systemic change.

17:00.99

maria

um He wanted to see institutional change. And the reason why as an elected if a former elected official, um I was so drawn to this story and participating in this podcast is because I wanted to get down to the truth so we could have closure.

17:18.92

maria

I mean, there's nothing like, that's my dog that you hear, there's nothing like a grandmother or a mother losing their child and not having closure.

17:30.62

maria

not knowing who killed them, or if they knew who killed them, not seeing that person prosecuted. And, you know, there's this misconception perhaps in the black community and and other communities of color that, you know, for because some people don't like law enforcement, they don't want law enforcement around.

17:51.53

maria

Well, the truth is that we are all victims of crime and we want the police to do their job. So in this situation, like I said, they actually did their job. It's a 200 page report.

18:05.82

maria

And that 200 page report, which involved work from the FBI, was basically dismissed by the prosecutor.

18:07.32

Ray

Thank you.

18:14.51

maria

you you know, you know Being an elected official, I believe in law and order. I believe in the three branches of government and, oh, by the way, the fourth branch of government, which is the media.

18:27.16

maria

You know, those things are are part of my foundation as an individual. And when looked at the fact that our prosecutor, Wesley Bell, had not been doing his job and there wasn't any paperwork. Now, you know, in government, there is always paperwork. There is always a paper trail.

18:46.63

maria

There's always a paper trail.

18:46.70

Robert Scheer

Thank you.

18:48.91

maria

But in this circumstance, as we investigated, there were documents that were missing. There were documents that would not be provided. um and that became a huge question that i think um is worth exploring, continuing to explore.

19:07.93

maria

Why did government fail us um when it came to, let's see, Perez Reed, sociopathic um You know, someone who went on a crime spree, a murder spree.

19:23.52

maria

You have someone called Jay Bird, who may have been the orchestrator of this murder. You have um someone by the name of Lopez, who's been tied to...

19:35.40

maria

two murders. You have someone called Kilo who has been um connected to a murder, the murder of Darren Seals. And then you have Darren who um was a loose associate of all of these entities, but at the same time um someone who valued the success of young people getting on the right track.

20:01.11

Robert Scheer

So, you know, Ray's previous movie, which I did a podcast on, or his work, ah when the, I hope I get the title right, When the Watchdogs Didn't Bark, really, it's an indictment of government that rings so true, because we know this was about 9-11, and you know what what what caused it, and what we know about We know it comes from the foreign policies.

20:25.28

Robert Scheer

When it comes to national security, the government has a ah built-in excuse for lying. They say it's national security. You can't read this. It's classified. You can't learn this.

20:36.79

Robert Scheer

One has the expectation, at least I do as a journalist, on the local level. On the local level, they don't have the national security argument, right? They're not going to put troops' lives in danger. They're not going to prevent the next terror attack.

20:53.18

Robert Scheer

and And what is it about this case? And I i was saw another very good movie, yeah ah Ferguson Rising, Mohamed Mujalabi Obalama,

21:06.69

Robert Scheer

Originally, families from Nigeria, but very powerful. I show it in class. And you look at Ferguson, you know, and you wonder, how does even happen? And I want to get back to something you said about half slave and half free, ah because you it's like the Watts riot in L.A.,

21:24.15

Robert Scheer

When the journalists discovered where Watts was all those decades ago, they were even surprised. They said, this is a pretty nice community. Why is there all this tension and violence and everything? Well, there are roots to that.

21:37.44

Robert Scheer

So tell me about the roots of what happened in Ferguson and and why there would be such major passions. And and ah my only know a knowledge of St. Louis is by some weird quirk, I was a St. Louis Cardinal fan as a kid when they won won the World Series against the Red Sox.

21:58.17

Robert Scheer

I guess it was 46, yeah. And Enos Slaughter, the great hero, spiked Jackie Robinson the next year going around first base when Jackie Robinson came in, you know, to play for the Dodgers.

22:10.91

Robert Scheer

And then one was reminded that in Major League Baseball, the most Southern team was the St. Louis and that it was a community that was right on the border of racial communities.

22:23.40

Robert Scheer

ah segregation in America. So why don't you give us that history a little bit and maybe try to set the tone of why would this otherwise community of, you know, basically private houses and, you know, when you look at the pictures, it doesn't look like a you know, it's not an inner city visibly and and and you've represented part of that community anyway.

22:46.38

Robert Scheer

ah What is this half, this history going back to the division of Missouri, you before the Emancipation Proclamation...................

22:56.35

maria

Well, you know, first of all, you have to look at the fact that, you know, slavery was profitable. and But also humanity was meaningful.

23:09.49

maria

And you have this collision way back when on humanity versus succeeding financially. And, you know, the compromise was, well, let's be half free, half slave state, Missouri.

23:25.50

Robert Scheer

Thank

23:26.74

maria

But in St. Louis, what it looked like is you had what we call townships, and a lot of the townships um had the French and it had other settlers.

23:39.12

maria

um But in those areas where the French settled, you ended up, fast forward you know decades, sundown towns. And I don't know if you're familiar with a sundown town, but what it is is If you were of color, mainly black, then by the time the sun went down, you had to be out.

24:02.14

maria

Now, this is also the case in, you know, a place called Forsyth County in Georgia. But in in Ferguson, in Florissant, and other inter-suburban municipalities in St. Louis County,

24:17.95

maria

24:33.38

maria

Well, when they figured out that the train was in a different location, um many of the Caucasian people moved to Ferguson and they moved to Florissant.

24:45.54

maria

um But they still had this population of of freed black people that um they would utilize financially and in other ways.

24:57.32

maria

um And so that became what the backdrop is in four in Ferguson and Florissant. um You had many people of color um who...

25:10.14

maria

unfortunately, were not part of the political system, um did not own property, did not own businesses, um were not integrated into government as they should be.

25:24.67

maria

25:30.25

Robert Scheer

Thank you.

25:35.50

maria

was a person who would is still say Yes, okay, whatever you say. And, you know, the Caucasian political elite were fine with that. They weren't about black empowerment or Latino empowerment.

25:53.10

maria

They were about, this is the system that we have created and designed for you. You participate in your quadrant And do as we say, don't make an uproar, don't make a scene, but we're the ones who are handling you in this black community.

26:10.59

maria

That's what it was like. That's what it's still like. You have a lot of, um you know, political elite.

26:17.32

Robert Scheer

Thank you.

26:17.73

maria

and They're responsible for getting Wesley Bell into office. They wanted um the kind of person of color who would not fight back. the kind of person of color who um would not create any ripples in the system.

26:37.17

maria

27:14.84

maria

so What you see in the way government works, and I was working on on revamping the education law back then and was quite successful at it, um and our governor vetoed it two years in a row.

27:32.15

maria

The thing is, we were fighting for better educational resources for high poverty areas.

27:43.33

maria

And there hadn't been anyone fighting for equity in the public school system, period. You know, for years, for decades. And so you have this fight for education at the same time as you have the death of Michael Brown.

28:02.98

maria

And it becomes like this perfect storm. The black community has been ignored. for such a long time because people were just you know doing as they were supposed to do. They weren't standing up to the police.

28:17.75

maria

They weren't going to the city council meetings. They weren't going to the county council meetings. And someone like myself, you know who has loved politics since I was five years old and voted for Jimmy Carter,

28:31.10

maria

You know, like politics is everything. Government is everything. It's answering the needs of the most vulnerable in society. And in our own town, in our own state, we had people in our own party who were willing to turn their heads and say, we're just, we want things to be the way we designed them to be.

28:46.75

Robert Scheer

Thank you.

28:54.86

maria

And when Michael Brown was killed on August 9th, that opened up the eyes to people, and and we all said no more. So as a state senator at that point, I was at this intersection of you know being mother, being sister, being teacher, being legislator, being activist, and understanding the people who I represent

29:22.91

Robert Scheer

Thank

29:23.28

maria

didn't really know how government operated.

29:24.74

Ray

Thank you.

29:26.58

maria

They didn't know how how activism within government operated. So the only thing that people had before them is their voices, their feet to protest and be out in public and and cause you know all kinds of good chaos for a better community, for a better education, for better assets, for better housing, um you know not living in food deserts.

29:55.55

maria

It became a movement of empowerment. And so when I talk about Missouri being half free, half slave state, what I'm talking about is an institution that wants people of color to remain behind and not be outwardly um responsive to the decisions that lawmakers are necessarily making or the decisions that the political elite are making.

30:09.92

Robert Scheer

Thank

30:25.00

maria

They wanted and continue to want to be seen, to be heard, and want systemic change, institutional change. So we're still fighting that because there're there are people who, and you know, i I think it's a culture clash in many ways.

30:42.71

maria

You know, there are people who are accustomed to going to the private clubs, you know, that wouldn't allow allow black people in for a long time um and did not want to see the progress of of a community um that looked like mine, the one that you know, was left behind.

31:02.90

maria

um And then you had people are just living day to day. I mean, right now, the reality is, and it's only going to get worse with these tariffs, but we have multiple generations of people living in one household because they have to.

31:19.64

maria

it And even in that circumstance, many of those people don't have housing, I'm sorry, they don't have transportation. um They go to like a family dollar and instead of going to like a regular grocery store because it's too far away.

31:36.50

maria

There are isms that we're still facing, even since Ferguson, that explain the divide that we had 11 years ago, you know, 50 years ago, 100 years ago. and that is the state of of missouri

31:53.51

Ray

But Robert, you mentioned the book.

31:53.58

Robert Scheer

Well, that's, well, and now let me, give I'm sorry, let me just respond.

31:57.49

Ray

Yeah.

31:57.59

Robert Scheer

to what was just said, because I think, I'm sorry, I'll cut right back to you, Ray. I don't mean to cut you out here, but I think that's really, that's why I'm doing this podcast in general, ah to try to get history straight.

32:02.38

Ray

No, you're fine.

32:12.85

Robert Scheer

And that's why I think your your work is so important because we're living at a moment where whatever else you think about Donald Trump, and this is not the purpose here is to start bashing Trump. Everybody I know, they bash him nonstop all day long, you know, and he hasn't been there that long enough to do that much.

32:34.16

Robert Scheer

But there there is one consistent

32:42.66

Robert Scheer

Now, you know, it involves really a nostalgia about what America was. And, you know, and idiocy i to pick on a Democrat here.

32:53.61

Robert Scheer

When Donald Trump first started trumpeting this about make America great, you had Hillary Clinton saying he's going to make America great. America's always been great. Well, the fact of matter is, if you think America has always been great, you're even in in a way being dumber about this than Donald Trump is, because at least he's recognizing no.

33:11.50

Robert Scheer

ah but But the point is, you talk about half slave, half free. You talk about the impact of segregation after. You talk about schools that are not accredited, that don't teach. And right now we have, a ah under Trump, a full-blown assault on any notion of of ah redemption, of of ah making things better, of accounting for past eras, of improving schools.

33:38.99

Robert Scheer

I mean, any notion of affirmative action, any teaching about the need for affirmative action is going to be banned in colleges. They're dropping any in government agencies, any awareness of inequality,

33:51.76

Robert Scheer

ah racial inequality, gender inequality, and so forth, as you're like, you know, disturbing the party here, how America is great. And and what what you're, you know, I do these shows because I'm trying to establish some access to history.

34:08.64

Robert Scheer

And it seems to me, you know, after why should people go watch two years of your programming. You know, ah why? i mean, give it to me fast. Give it to me in a few minutes. But what you're really talking about is the texture ah oppression of of class division, how it gets institutionalized, how it becomes part of our culture, and how even the people most victimized by it come to accept it as normal.

34:34.61

Robert Scheer

And then, you know, you got to look right, work right, and get along and go along and so forth. And you get angry with protesters. And we even saw this in the election. There was a surprising number of black and brown people who voted for Donald Trump because they, you know, all right, we had enough noise, but you're not really, you guys didn't help us ah that much, you know.

34:55.58

Robert Scheer

and and And actually, it's funny you should mention that you got it into politics ah with Jimmy Carter. I'm the guy who interviewed play Jimmy Carter for Playboy. And I got very involved with his career before when he was a segregationist.

35:09.72

Robert Scheer

and came from the strongest segregationist family in his own county and the richest. And then he changed, yes, I'll give him that. ah But the the whole idea of like the even the inability to view That whole history, you know, when Jimmy Carter was a departure, he knew you had to reckon with it.

35:30.00

Robert Scheer

I'm trying to get people to watch or listen to your programs. That's the point of this exercise, okay? Because we can go on talking. You know, we've already done it for 35 minutes.

35:40.57

Robert Scheer

And what I'm trying to get at is you have a wisdom, and I'm going to let Ray talk because he – pioneered this whole thing. ah But that wisdom has to be shared. That's what's being obliterated now.

35:52.71

Robert Scheer

That's the real significance of Donald Trump. You know, he may do some good things. He may do a lot of terrible things. I don't know. You know, we'll see. I believe in being open-minded about this, you know, evaluating anybody.

36:06.10

Robert Scheer

See what he does. And I think there was an overreaction the first time where they They were you know accusing this guy of every crime in the world. You're a Russian agent. You're this. didn't win the election. So ah I'm just giving you my take. I think we should be open minded.

36:20.64

Robert Scheer

But the fact is, the one thing he seems to really care about is denying our history. that that people like and on immigration, for example, you know, my father came from Germany, you know, it was a hell of a lot easier to get in this country from Germany ah than from almost anybody else. anywhere else That's why we have the largest number of immigrants for the longest time were from Germany.

36:43.87

Robert Scheer

And they were white and they, you know, so for England, of course, they even spoke the same language. And so i want to get to that. And I want to ask Ray about the difficulty of doing this kind of work. And yet you had the success of iHeart.

36:56.86

Robert Scheer

putting it on. You've tried to reach people, right? You were honored by these Image Awards. So I want to talk to you as a filmmaker. you know What does it mean to spend years on something like that? you Can you find an audience? Is there room? how does it work?

37:14.17

Ray

Well, as a filmmaker, so I respond very much as a filmmaker to what you said a moment ago, which is I'm trying to get people to listen to this show.

37:21.61

Robert Scheer

Okay.

37:22.11

Ray

And and and we need that kind of help, Robert. So everything Maria talked about and everything you just talked about is absolutely in the DNA of this show. But we understand that there's a whole group of people who aren't necessarily interested in coming to a show consciously to explore what y'all just talked about.

37:38.32

Ray

And that's why we took a sugar with the medicine kind of approach, which was that murder mystery you mentioned. And so over the first 11 episodes of season one, and over the 10 episodes of season two, you'll see a zigzaggy, I thought it was going this way, and then it went that way.

37:48.68

Robert Scheer

Thank you.

37:53.15

Ray

And oh my god, did that just happen? And You know, it's not going to go where you expect at the start or at the middle. And, um and we do believe. So what happened? what Well, um let me, sorry, I'm trying to bottle this, but so what I,

38:04.65

Robert Scheer

tell Tell me what you reveal without getting me sued for libel, because I can't accuse people of having committed murder here. You know, and so what legally and and and and in all fairness can you say was missed?

38:14.10

Ray

Yeah.

38:20.11

Robert Scheer

And what have you guys come up with?

38:21.83

Ray

Well, here's what I think will intrigue a lot of people. Without naming who we found did it in each case, um what what is interesting is that when we went into this originally, we thought,

38:33.30

Ray

you know, all the headlines about Darren Seals and also about Donye Jones's death were very suggestive. Who killed Darren Seals? But there was, right, it was a lot of like, oh, isn't this convenient that all these activists who were involved, you know, in this movement for Black Lives are dying one by one. And we wondered, is this just a lot of paranoia? Is this conspiracy theory? Or is there any there there?

38:54.03

Ray

And we thought we would go one case at a time. And so far, we're two cases in, right? And so wouldn't you know it when it it comes out ah a couple of years ago and we were among the the first to to make the public aware of the fact that six months before Darren Seals was murdered, the FBI did in fact open and a surveillance on him that was running through his murder.

39:06.11

Robert Scheer

you

39:16.43

Ray

Isn't it odd then that people that they would never have come that the case was never officially solved? I'll give you another one. The police, it turns out, weeks before we were dropping the show in June, we thought we had solved it.

39:30.11

Ray

And then somehow, by accident, we're still not sure, the police end up ah handing us over their 100-plus page report into Darren Seale's murder.

39:40.08

Robert Scheer

you

39:40.30

Ray

39:57.48

Ray

A team of cops and FBI had arrested this person, held him for three days and the prosecutor let him out. Then a year and a half later, he got killed.

40:08.03

Ray

And those people who who are known to have killed him remain unprosecuted. So that those are tantalizing details that I think listeners may get more from our show if anyone's tantalized by what I just said.

40:22.28

Robert Scheer

Well, could take it a little further because ah yeah you know my wife has been involved in the Kevin Cooper case in Washington and again, starts with a much publicized event.

40:34.41

Robert Scheer

And he's still, he's not on San Quentin death row, but he's still facing this. But there's been one example after another of the destruction of evidence, denying evidence. It just goes on endlessly.

40:48.50

Robert Scheer

A lot of people looking at these kind of cases say, wait a minute, it can't be. Too many people, too many decent people, too many honest people know about this. And it always seems to be the showstopper then.

41:01.00

Robert Scheer

Would they have all remained silent? Would they, you know, why doesn't it come out? and and And you have been involved in that very, but you could say it about lots of famous cases in America.

41:13.14

Robert Scheer

The fact is the truth doesn't often come out or as often as you would expect. So I want you to talk about what you're up against in terms of your craft. You know, what have you come up with?

41:25.56

Robert Scheer

what What have you come up with? And why isn't it just accepted? And why hasn't it changed anything?

41:32.36

Ray

Well, so we did some of the last, in fact, Maria sat with the mother of Darren Seals for, you know, what, three or four months of interviews just before she she passed passed away. So these were the final.

41:44.46

Ray

the final comments from Darren Seals mother and she was convinced the FBI had had murdered her son. Now we talked with experts in the FBI, including people who are not huge fans of the FBI, but former agents, guys from the Brennan Center.

41:57.53

Ray

And they were like very low likelihood that in the modern age, the FBI officially targets somebody like Darren Seals. But what's interesting is the person we found ordered or likely ordered the death of Darren Seals appears to have done so because he was under the impression that Darren was cooperating with the feds.

42:17.96

Ray

Now, it appears that the feds were actively attempting to recruit Darren at that time amidst the surveillance operation they were doing on him. And whether they were successful or not, our question is, how did the person who ultimately targeted Darren come under the impression that the feds had turned Darren into an asset at the exact time that the feds were trying to turn Darren into an asset.

42:45.15

Ray

So in other words, perhaps there are ways, and this is where it does get a little conspiracy land, and I can't prove what I'm about to say, but there might be ways that let's say a rogue agent who had an agenda could go sort of outside of official dome and still see the same outcome we used to see right when the FBI were doing dirtier tricks back in the day against the same communities.

42:49.14

Robert Scheer

Thank you.

43:09.11

Robert Scheer

Well, also dirty tricks against Martin Luther King to try to get to commit suicide and smear him, right? That record is, Donald Trump tells us we're going to get to actually see what the FBI said they did. It's not going to be a clear record of what happened. But, you know, you're right. I mean, we've had a history of learning of what our government agencies do on a regular basis and the lies.

43:36.22

Robert Scheer

But I just want to throw it back and then we're going to have to wrap this up. I want to throw it back to that original question. They don't have a national security argument. and And we aren't in the worst days of the deep south or something, you know, and where the Klan is going to come get you and all that.

43:55.70

Robert Scheer

We have a much publicized event in a community that some people, you know, who apologizing say, wait, I know, because in this other movie, which I have a lot of respect for,

44:07.13

Robert Scheer

and of Ferguson Rising, you have a number of white people and and and some people of color who are actually saying, we like our town. ah That doesn't go on here. We have you know ah good stuff happening. And then then yeah you say, yeah, but, but, but.

44:22.50

Robert Scheer

So I want to know, yeah despite being honored they or being nominated twice now for war, but despite being, ah the show has been available and widespread and so forth, ah how can people shrug it off?

44:37.72

Robert Scheer

And how do how do you how do you get people to, I mean, people can't even remember something that happened three days ago, the the way the whole news cycle works. How are you going to get people right now? Okay, if we've got people listening to this and we make it pretty widely available, you know, again, tell me, because going to run out of time here.

44:59.47

Robert Scheer

Where do they go to it right now? How do they get it

45:03.19

Ray

Wherever they're listening to their podcast, they should search after the uprising, subscribe, like all the good stuff, but after the uprising and start listening right away. And if it doesn't hook you right away, and i say I say it will, you don't have to keep listening, but give it a shot because I think you're going to find yourself compelled and and pulled into this journey with us of Shorework Journalism.

45:23.22

Robert Scheer

well I'm pulled in already but I'm just saying what are we talking about hours and hours of listening or you said is episode seven where do we start here

45:31.45

Ray

It's great for a road trip. It's great for if you do if you commute on the subway, right? But, ah I mean, you can start at the top of season one or if you're more interested in the Darren Seals story we've been talking about, start at the top of of season two and just take that 10 episode journey. It'll go like that.

45:48.83

maria

it's It's also good to listen to as you're cleaning the house um or if you're doing some detailed cleaning um or as as my colleague said, if you're on the road.

45:48.95

Robert Scheer

Okay.

46:00.90

maria

I mean, this is a journey. This is a true crime journey. This is about getting to the truth of why this this aspiring young man who wanted it to do good for the community, why was he one of several people who were targeted and killed.

46:19.96

maria

Why did it happen? Did the police do their job? Who killed them? Who done it? When did it happen? You know, all of these things because it happens in every single major city. What happened to Darren happens in every single major city.

46:35.52

maria

The difference here is there is an uprising that moved the world to pause for just a moment. And we have not, we need to figure out, as we're in a day where black history is being erased, literally, um from government servers, we have to go backwards and figure out what did government do right?

46:47.34

Robert Scheer

Thank

47:01.51

maria

What did government do wrong? Because we're bound to repeat our history if we don't know it. We're bound to repeat our history when we are not active participants in civics.

47:16.61

maria

in our county council meetings or our our city council meetings, when we're not going up to our state capitals and telling people of the things that we want to see in our communities.

47:29.19

maria

um So I really encourage people to take time out for this journey. And if nothing more, know that this could be your son.

47:40.41

maria

know that this could be your mother. Know that this could be your sister. Know that this could be your neighbor. And if you're not looking at all of the indicators that we talk about in this journey, this 10 episode journey,

47:56.63

maria

You know, listen to other people who reviewed it. That's also on, I think, our YouTube page. But it's season two of After the Uprising and season one of After the Uprising that delves into the relationship between everyday people who look like me and their interactions with the police.

48:17.78

maria

That's what it is.

48:19.87

Robert Scheer

Well, and let's stress, you know, when we talk about the trouble we're in, we know we got a very large, in fact, we have the largest incarcerated population in the And we know we've got a lot of unhappy people of all colors and so forth. they The people who vote against Trump and the people who vote for Trump are both expressing unhappiness, unfortunately, at each other.

48:44.60

Robert Scheer

The question is, are there systemic problems? How do we get to this mess? We know the system's not working. That much, I think, there's a pretty widespread feeling. Half the country thinks it's not working because what the other side did, right? And so they...

48:59.74

Robert Scheer

you want to go after each other and and yet there's this sort of feeling but wait a minute what what is at the heart of the whole thing what is you know what is our democracy all about why do we have so many unanswered questions so on that note I'm going to end it I want to thank you guys for doing this we'll post some of the material that you've given me to to show it it is a great true crime story so it should be pushed that way And I want to thank our executive producer, Joshua Scheer, for forcing me to do this because I kept saying, what are we going to make of all this? And he said, just read all this, do all this.

49:39.93

Robert Scheer

I want to thank Diego Ramas for writing the introduction, Max Jones for doing the video. I want thank the JKW Foundation for giving us for some funding to be able to do this in the name of very independent writer, journalist, Gene Stein, and Integrity Media, which is determined to help and will bring America's free press back to some vitality and some sense of responsibility.

50:04.37

Robert Scheer

So let's leave it on that note and see you next week with another edition of, well, I shouldn't say that, see in a few days with another edition Share Intelligence. I forgot I no longer am doing this just on a weekly basis for KCRW NPR stations.

50:20.08

Robert Scheer

I now have it going out as often as we can find interesting people to talk to. So anyway, you certainly fit that bill. And I said, we'll show people how to link to it and get the word out.

50:33.45

Robert Scheer

Take care.