the, the, the on august 10th, 2014 a police officer in ferguson, missouri outside st. louis, shot and killed an 18 year old young man by the name of michael brown. that shooting which has been repeated far too often in american society set off a series of protests that have become known as the ferguson writes,

ferguson laid bare the national problem of police violence against young black men . and in many ways, it was the precursor to the black lives matter movement, which began formally when police in saint paul, minnesota killed another black man, george floyd several years later. but ferguson is important in part because it's so complicated. ferguson wasn't just the death of one black 18 year old event, created a move and from movements come leaders. it was another young man, darren seals who emerged from ferguson as a leader and need he did until he was murdered. i'm john curiosity. welcome to the whistle blowers the . 2 2 2 2 2 2 a. 2 darren seals was born in 1987 in ferguson, missouri, and grew up just a few blocks from where michael brown was killed in 2014. he had known the brown

family all of his life and when a police officer shot and killed michael seals became a defacto spokesman, not just for the family, but for many of the protesters, tired of police violence against their community and against the political and cultural structure that takes african americans for granted and offers them no hope of improving their lots in life. the ferguson riots thrust darren seals into the spotlight with his commentary, appearing on news networks around the world, covering the violence. he quickly became one of the most important and notable activists for racial justice and against gun violence and police brutality in the country. he co founded an anti police violence organization called hands up united and became involved in politics describing himself on social media as a business man, revolutionary activist, unapologetically black, african in america, fighter and leader. he also became

a vocal critic of the black lives matter movement because it took millions of dollars and donations from 1000000000 air george soros. and it hijacked the movement in ferguson. as you might suspect, seals quickly came to the attention of the f. b, i which has had its own long and bloody history with black activists in america. yes, b, i surveilled him, investigated him and collected intelligence on him. but to what end? on the night of september 6th, 2016. darren seals was found dead in a burning car in a suburb north of st. louis. he had been shot and placed in the car before it was set on fire. that murder has never been solved. we were very happy to be joined by filmmaker journalist author and podcast, or reading over chelsea and by former missouri state senator maria chappelle and that all they are the creators of a new pod cast series called after the uprising. the murder of darren seals. rain.

maria, thank you so much for being with us. i know this is going to be a fascinating conversation. thank you. thanks john. nice to see again. good to see you re, let's start with you. you and i have known each other for a long time, and i know that you have a nose for a story, whether it's about the c i a and the so called war on terror, or the saudi government's involvement in the 911 attacks. we've had many conversations about these issues. this one though, the murder of darren seals fascinates me. so let's start at the beginning. a cop kills mike brown. the uprising begins in ferguson after a few days of chaos activist leaders and merge. and one of them is darren seals take it from there. all right, so then seals. uh makes a lot of enemies. um, you know, he was, uh, this may be counterintuitive to a lot of people. uh, but he was an outspoken critic of black lives matter. because in ferguson,

they considered their movement to be something different. and something that uh, at least he felt was being co opted by that kind of the broader national movement that we know as black lives matter. so he had enemies who were active this year and enemies who were members of the gangs that he had once dealt throughout for uh, you know, he had, he had a lot of it. he had enemies, obviously, among the police, and perhaps the amongst the federal cops that he had been protesting to reform. and so cut the 2016 and he's shot dead in a burning jeep. and the question becomes, which of these many enemies is the one who, who chose to do him in? and that's where we maria and i began to and a half years ago as we started looking at trying to run down. if we could figure out who had in fact murder, maria, you found yourself thrust into the very center of this historic event that was ferguson. you were representing the 14th district in the missouri states senate,

which includes ferguson and you became an important voice against a police violence. tell us about those days in ferguson at the very start of the uprising and tell us a little bit about the emergence of deron seals as the voice of ferguson is african american community. from the beginning there was no script. there were people who were coming together because they felt the injury of a young black man laying on the streets for 4 hours. and so all of us, no matter what our backgrounds were. we were all standing there stunned and just believe. and so the protest didn't start actually until a few days after, but everyone was standing around gathering together people from multiple gangs, people from the underground music world. we were just all gathering together. and you could see the pain and people's faces at that time. it had been the 1st time i held the bro man crying in fact,

and so darren was among those people who were gathering amongst the many groups of people. and um, you know, we, we were trying to get answers. and at the same time, at the very beginning, we also had a lot of police presence and it was threatening, and i remember the 1st day of tear gassing, which was on the 1st. so it was the monday after it was the 11th. and this type of violence our community has never experienced. and so that's really when the protest started. and when you start hearing individual words, in fact, the 1st day of tear gassing um, as you will hear, reflected in the pod cast, you hear about still getting shot. well, i was there that night and it was right off of west uh, west wing states. i believe and they are in references,

a person by the name of spook. i didn't know the person's name. i just heard that a woman was shot in the eye and that's all we knew. so darren, as you will hear in this pod cast, starts wanting to get the stories out of what is happening on the streets and how to find resolve when it comes to police brutality. re. as maria just noted, darren seals emerged relatively quickly as a leader in ferguson. he was a serious person. he was quoted on cnn. he was quoted in the washington post. he was giving interviews to the international media, but because he was a serious person, he came to the attention of the f, b i. and we know now thanks to the freedom of information act that the f b i was trailing him in fact the f b. i described him as quote, a revolutionary who has a spouse somewhat militant rhetoric and has access to weapons and quote, f

b. i has a well documented history of harassing activists and especially black activists. how much of a problem was this for darren seals and what was it that the f b i thought it could learn about him? well, this remains an open question. by the end of our 10th episode, we do have a pretty concrete idea as to what the purpose of that operation was. but it's open in march of 2016 and he's murdered in september of 2016. so just taking that as a back, it is pretty stunning when you realize that this care is matic. famous black active is murdered. and during the final 6 months of this life, the federal government is surveilling. and yeah, and it's natural to ask, what were they up to, what did they, they hope to to get to and it wasn't just them, but they let a fusion team that included the st. louis county and city police and mike, german from the run in center consulted on looking at this heavily redacted

document as a former f b i agent and an i'm sure you're well aware of him. he's got an illustrious reputation and you know, he was looking at uh the specifics of a police pull over and felt that there was an obvious, missing an expedition going on to try to find a gun in his vehicle because darren was, you know, had been convicted of a felony and therefore couldn't have it. so it seems like they were trying to turn screws on him and one form or another. they were not being terribly subtle. when you know they, they seem to be almost the opposite. they seem to be sending a signal that darren's the people around there and with know that he was either cooperating or that they wanted him to be cooperating. and we think that serve to endangered animals, maria, when darren was killed. and we'll get more into that in a, in a minute, an f b i agent allegedly said, quote, a conspiracy theory is already forming that seals was killed by the police because

of his black lives matter affiliations and quote, that is ridiculous, of course, seals was an opponent of black lives matter, but the statement seems odd to me, it seems like a deflection. i'd like to get your thoughts on that as well as on the statement that i mentioned a moment ago that the f b, i believe seals was, quote, a revolutionary with access to weapons. it all seriousness. everybody in america has access to weapons. so what do you think we should make of all that? well, if you listen to the high pass, you'll find that a lot of people were trying to deflect. and or some people who were unsure of which entity was responsible for darren staff. so in some sense, you know, it, we believe i personally believe that i, there were some who were in the law enforcement who wanted daring to,

to quite down. in fact, the loudest voices, they always wanted us to quiet down. and darren was one of those who was for rushes in his speech and he was militant in his speech and the status quote, whether it be the political establishment or law enforcement, want it to shut that down. so there is irony in, in all of this, but i would also say there's deflection from all sides. when you listen to this, and there are some stories that, that we don't discuss that we can discuss later on. that is not reflected in the pod cast in terms of this deflection, but i think we were confused and there were some who were just really wanting to know from which corner of the earth did this threat come from and, and, and that's what our 2 year journey was all about is figuring it out and getting

through the leads and, and all of the smoke as the young people say. thank you maria, and re we're going to take a short break. and when we come back, we're going to continue our conversation with filmmaker journalist, author, and podcast to reading over chelsea and former state senator maria ship. hell and the dog about the murder of darren seals. the 2 we have a lot more coming up the. 2 the russian states never as one of the most sense community best, most all sense and up the speed. the one else calls question about this. even though we will ben in the european union, the kremlin media mission, the state on russia to day and split the ortiz full neck, even our video agency,

roughly all the band on youtube tv services. for the question, did you say they requested the position, the deep sort of the west of the west on was death. there is the septic not to be brought the books to be the only the delegates of good and just the,

or the rapid collapse of the ottoman empire gave the arabs hope for independence. but the colonial power. so their future differently. great britain and france agreed on the seizure of the error of lands under the guise of the so called mandate of the league of nations. this bible play caused particular indignation in a rack, which was to get under the control of the british. in may 1921 rest with claim for independence broke out, both assuming and that she took part in it. soon the rallies turned into a real uprising against the invaders. more than 130000 people took up arms. britons urgently began to transfer reinforcements to a rack and used aircraft radius war. secretary winston churchill birds, the use of chemical weapons against the rebels. and general ser,

i own or heralding border, the destruction of any village where weapons were found. burning a village properly takes a long time. an hour or more according to sized paulding recalls cynically. in his memoirs, the media build girl d paid off. the result was crush. however, separate his empire had to make serious concessions. in 1921, it recognized the solve the 1st as the king of a rag time gave part of the power to representatives of the local population via racket. revolt marked the beginning of the national consolidation of the country and became an important milestone on the weight of final independence. the . what's the back from the whistle blowers. i'm john kerry echo. we're speaking

with renown, filmmaker, journalist, author and podcast to reign of a shell ski and was former missouri state senator maria chappelle and the dog about the murder of active as darren seals. welcome back to both of you. a. thank you. re i want to talk about the pod cast you've just completed the pod cast called after the uprising, the murder of darren seals. just as darren seals was hitting his stride, finding his voice, he was found dead. and it wasn't just that he was found dead. he was murdered, he was shot and then placed in a car and then the car was set on fire. tell us about the investigation into his murder. what did the public learn? well, it's interesting. we now know what the police did or didn't do. and we know the extent of their investigation because we only about 6 weeks ago, we had an episode attend the final episode of the season, cut,

ready to go. there were some of satisfied that we've gotten 2 answers and then we still don't know exactly how, but the entire police reported it there and seals. the investigative report fell under a lapse. our producer, john duffy, a co creator of the show, had made a request for things unrelated to is to seals. and somehow we don't know if there was a friendly party in the force or what somebody accidentally sits in the report. so we know, you know, we know what was looked at here and, but what i find striking is that the public and especially the act of this community, this is their own investigation into this because they felt they were forced to, uh, nope, nobody ever heard a peep from the police or the prosecutors about what it was that they found. it doesn't seem that the st. louis county police are a prosecutor spot. they own some duty to the public or to the act of this community to let them know what, what they had seen. and, and this is pretty,

a selling because, you know, i don't want a very believe we, we do believe we solve this and all set up a subs are out in any one who takes this journey. by the time they get to the end, you know, there's a lot of true crime out there. there's not a lot that solves it. and this if you take this journey, i think you will feel, you know, who did what and what happened did there? this is maria, i'm interested here in the police angle. many residents of ferguson believe that it was either the police or the f. b. i who killed darren seals. was there a police anywhere in the ferguson community that there was going to be an actual, legitimate investigation? did anybody really trust the process? absolutely not on nobody trusted the process. i don't think that there was one active is that we interviewed, that believe that the police were going to do their due diligence and investigating, as you will hear in the pod cast. there's a lot of speculation based on what they see at the scene when,

but when darren's body is found, and, you know, we go on to look at evidence in and here audio from other people about what they see at the time. and you could tell that they just, in fact, multiple in multiple cases in this pod cast, people don't have a belief that that police care about black investigations when there's someone who was murdered, generally speaking. and so that's concerning, that is an institutional problem that needs to be dealt with ongoing li, no matter where you live on that perception needs to be dealt with head on. because it, it, people who didn't even know each other or from different places in missouri or in kansas or the places that you know where we interview people. none of them had

a belief that that the police were going to do their due diligence. and if i may, to, because i'm a little in terms of my answer, i probably should have mentioned that, you know, part of the, what was driving this, this sense by active is, and people in darren's life. if the police weren't doing anything, was that when they got to the scene, the next day they found, you know, the door to his jeep was lying there in the parking lot. apparently, bullet casings, we're still sort of sitting there having not been collected. there was this sort of perception that the whole thing representative, big, middle finger that was clearly to be read by the community. know what you know, you, you protested us. we're not looking into, you know, your direct sales stuff at all, which may or may not have proven to be the case by the end of this series and re, one of the things that's fascinating to me is the fact that they're in seals murder, looked very much like the earlier unsolved murder of another fergus inactive as the

andre joshua, who was also found shot to death in a burning car. police say that they were unable to link the 2 killings, but the daily beast found 4 more cases of similar depths and st. louis county over the previous 2 years. that sounds like it could be either official murders. it could be a serial killer, or it could be somebody working to silence black voices. what do you make of all that? i think there were 2 primary threats that we looked at and we did come to an answer . but one of those threats is that there was someone who has now been called the serial killer. and there are very rare thing, a black serial killer named perez reed, who's m o was artisan. and it was also, you know, seemingly shooting through our window and had he had, he had murdered people allegedly, in the same location, for instance, as the andre joshua was killed. and we spoke with his brother and his brother. i

bought a pair as was a serious contender, as a candidate, or at least 2 adult, the andre, if not, if not daring, because uh, apparently, uh, the andre had taken uh, taking him in at dice game, taking him for some money that day. and when he seem similar, they happen to arrows, he says, a pair of locks them hand in a you know, in a room and him with an iron i believe was the quote. so we, we followed the trail of the serial killer to try to figure out if we could pin down whether he might be responsible for not only darren and the andre, his desk, but the series of the bodies found in car fires. but it's, there's another leave that these seem to connect to a particular part, sell back gang in saint louis, and the n m. o used by them as well. and as we look deeper that, that proved to be a police much as you know, john. i, we've been intimidated or attempted to be intimidated by the ca on our past

journalism by the police. but i don't think i've ever been more scared than when i sat with maria and looked at who we believe to be a part, sell back gang member in the eyes and told them that we had evidence that he may have committed murder. there wasn't moment to go through us. wow. wow. maria. the darren seals case officially is still open, although i'm sure the police are doing literally nothing about it right now. what is the future hold here? are darren seals, family members just supposed to move on with their lives? are ferguson's residents just supposed to forget about him? you expect any real justice to finally come out of this case? well, i honestly, i, i think the 200 page police report shows that they did a due diligence and the accountability is actually in the prosecuting attorney's office. at this point. as the pod cast will show all along this entire process

in the 2 plus years we've been doing this, we've been keeping the family up to date because we felt as though we needed to give them some resolve, but not just darren's family. also the other families that were part of this and as we were talking about, so some of the family, one family in kansas city, another family in ferguson. we want it to be part of their healing. but in terms of darren, the, the own is frankly, is on the prosecuting attorney's office. and when that case was delivered to present it to the prosecutor and attorney's office, and it was advised so by the police did such a great job. this is the irony of it all, and it took our team, our investigative team, our producers, re and myself,

to get the prosecuting attorney's office to even look at the case. and so i don't want to give the details out, but when you listen to the pod cast, you're going to hear some amazing things. and what usually people will want to say about police. they're saying about the prosecutor's office. amazing. i have to step to say, 1st of all, this is a public service. you've hit a home run on this. we should all download this podcast. thank you. rain over chelsea, journalist, author, and podcast are and thank you, maria chappelle in the del former states, and that are for being with us today to talk about this very important issue. the debris, doctor martin luther king junior once said quote, i refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality. unplugged every right thinking person would agree with that,

but that daybreak hasn't arrived for the people of friends in missouri. it hasn't arrived for the family of guarantee. in the meantime, it's up to the rest of us to keep up for fight. thanks for joining us for another episode of the whistle blowers. i'm john kerry onto please follow me on sub stack at john curiosity. we'll see you next time the. 2 2 2 2 the, the, the, on this monday that's just letting you think he said that then yes ma'am. so facade,

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