We Keep Us Safe: Inside the White Jeep

0:01Every episode of It's Been a Minute, NPR's What's Happening in Culture podcast starts by asking three questions. Who? How? Why now? If the culture's asking it, we're talking about it. At NPR, we stand for your right to be curious and indulge your cultural curiosity. Follow It's Been a Minute wherever you get your podcasts, and we'll break down the zeitgeisty topics that are filling your feed. Heads up, this episode contains explicit language and the sound of gun violence. Previously on We Keep Us Safe. Do not walk around in the dark. It is unsafe. It is a powder dick. Fear and paranoia take over CHOP.

0:41Can you tell me specifically, I'm not very familiar with firearms. AR-15. That's an AR-15. AR-15. More shots fired, more shots fired, more shots fired, more shots fired. The night Antonio was killed, protesters thought that CHOP was under attack. Cars have been circling around, shooting more shots into tents. People inside CHOP shot back. Our security team was not aiming to kill. As we combed through all of the videos we had to figure out what happened the night of the shooting, this one person kept popping up. Right there on the bike. Oh yeah, you see his long hair.

1:24One of the first things you notice about Colby Williams is his hair. It is a flowing mane of someone who looks like he could be in a hair metal band. And his apartment is clearly the home of a metalhead and specifically a Metallica fan. So you guys can have a seat here on the couch? Yeah, sure. I'm going to look at your guitars first, though. Oh, wow. Colby's got guitars. He's got amps. And he can shred.

1:58But along with all this heavy metal stuff are relics from another part of Colby's life. Oh, there's like a memory box? The months he spent at the center of Seattle's protests in 2020. This was, um... I know what that is. Yeah, this was shot at me. That's a rubber bullet. Can I see that? Yeah. Oh, I remember finding those all over the ground. Where'd this hit you? In my chest.

2:26Colby is from the indigenous Simshian people from a place called Metlakatla in Alaska. And he came to CHOP to show Native solidarity with Black protesters.

2:41My Simshian name, Sagaliplim Segex, translates to peaceful thunder. We're here to talk with Colby because he was there minutes after Antonio Mays Jr. was shot. He kept showing up on live streams. That night, it was just extremely chaotic. Colby says police have never talked to him about that night. But we want to know what he saw. So we pull up these videos on Colby's big screen TV to refresh his memory. Damn. What? Your nauseous? I'm in the fog. Who took this? Omari. This video, by the journalist Omari Salisbury, shows the aftermath of the shooting. Protesters have already driven off with Antonio and Robert to get them help, and a bunch of people still mill around in the dark.

3:37Omari walks up to the crashed white Jeep, and he struggles to take in what he sees. Damn. Then a voice responds from off camera. What, you're nauseous? I'm an emphobic. What, you're nauseous? I'm the one who killed him? When we first heard this, it was like, did somebody really say that? Is someone confessing? What, you're nauseous? I'm an emphobic. But maybe that's not what was said. It could have been a volunteer medic saying, I'm the one who pulled them. meaning pulled the boys out of the car. Right. We can't tell. When we asked Omari about this, he said he didn't remember seeing this person, but we thought Colby might have.

4:27That's my bike. Yeah. I'm standing right here. That's me. This video seems to trigger something in Colby. He gets very quiet, and his energy changes, and it almost becomes tense.

4:47He keeps stopping the video to rewind this moment. Over and over.

5:02Colby also isn't able to identify the person speaking on the tape. But it turns out that's not even what he's interested in. You're nauseous? Jesus fucking Christ. Colby hits pause. And he points at a corner of the screen. I'm fairly certain that these shadows, this is the third person. It's hard to trust my memory just because, like, this is big information for me to process right now. But I personally have always thought that there must have been a third person. He thinks there was a third person inside the white Jeep. Someone there with Antonio and Robert West. I've always felt like that was the most plausible explanation, was that there was a third person with them that was the one who had the guns or took the guns and got away.

6:19Protesters we've talked to really believe that the boys in the white Jeep were firing guns that night. This is a story that they've maintained since the shooting. But in all of our reporting, we've never seen anything that backs up this story. None of the videos we've watched show gunshots coming from the white jeep, and we've never heard of any guns being found inside it. Colby's theory that there was a third person in the car who ran away with the guns, it just seemed kind of out there to us. So we pretty much dismissed it and moved on.

7:04But a couple of months later, our team was re-watching old videos from CHOP. And in an offhand moment in one of them, we found a clue. It was the name of someone who may have witnessed the events of that night closer than almost anyone else. I managed to reach this person, and oh my God, Colby was actually onto something. Okay, it's recording. Tell me what you just told me. I found D***. I found him on Facebook. He's really afraid of sharing his full name. I got the okay to use his initials. He says police have never spoken to him about what happened at CHOP. He doesn't want to get involved with law enforcement, and he doesn't want to get dragged into a court case.

7:50And so we're not using this person's full name. We're using his real initials, which are DG. And I basically ask him if he knows or knew Antonio and if he was at CHOP. And he quickly tells me that not only did he know Antonio and not only was he at CHOP, He said that he was in the car with Robert and with Antonio. He was there. He is the third person in the car that Colby told us about. I ask him if he's available that afternoon. He says yes. I'm going right now to record it, to meet him in person. Oh, can I go? I don't know. He doesn't know about you. I think it would be weird if, like, there was another dude in the car.

8:41What do you think? Can I go? Fine, let's go. Okay.

8:49From NPR's Embedded with KUOW and the Seattle Times, this is We Keep Us Safe. I'm Sydney Brownstone. And I'm Will James. This is episode six.

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10:49I'm just kind of stunned. I don't think I really believe that there is a third person in the car. Yeah, I didn't believe it. we're on our way to a town outside Seattle and we start talking about what we want to get out of this interview with DG this might be a one-time chance to talk to somebody who was there in the car that night there is no better witness account imaginable than this one yeah I mean I also wonder how forthcoming he's going to be. Like, he's also the person who could answer, was someone shooting from the car? Was he shooting from the car? Does he know who killed Antonio? Of course we're hitting traffic.

11:38Oh yeah, I mean, it's... It's I-5.

11:46We finally pull into this labyrinthine housing complex, and I see someone walking down the hill towards us. It's a young man in his late teens or early 20s. We introduce ourselves to him and he seems a little like he's just been swept up in a whirlwind. Okay, so we're sitting here with DG and DG, you say that you were in the car with Antonio and Robert. Yeah, I was in the car from start to finish. From DG, we don't only get a new account of what happened the night Antonio was killed. We also get a vivid picture of what CHOP was like for these kids who ended up there. Can you just start out by telling us, like, how you came to CHOP?

12:37Like, what drew you there? Like, who wasn't at CHOP, you know? Like, genuinely, I was 16 years old. Like, everybody was there. It was something to do. I was a young kid, you know? When DG gets to CHOP, it was the middle of the pandemic. And for teenagers, CHOP was like the place to be. And are people there like to participate in the protest? Are they there to party? From my perspective, there was way more people there like just to be there. Like one just gigantic ass party. Some of his other friends from high school were there. DG knew Robert West very well. He knew his family. They were friends.

13:13I was at his house when we decided to go there. I was at his house. I was like, yo, I'm seeing all this stuff on social media. Like, we should go there. And he was like, OK. And we did. DG gets to CHOP around the same time as Antonio did from California, about two weeks after CHOP started. How did you meet Antonio? I met Antonio at the CHOP through Robert. They encountered each other just like how I'm saying. I encountered all these people. Together, they kind of become the three musketeers. Antonio and Robert and DG are basically living at CHOP. They're staying in a tent on the play field. And that tent was like me, Robert, and Pocket's tent.

13:52This was a nickname that Antonio had. He went by Lil Pocket or Pocket. We just become like real close. Like real close. Up all night, you know, just real close. It kind of sounds like summer camp where suddenly people you met a few days ago are now the closest friends in your life. What did you learn about Pocket's story, about, like, where he came from, why he was there, what he was into? He said that he came from California. He took some money from his parents, and, like, he said he left a note. It was about that George Floyd stuff. That's why he had came there. That kind of distinguished him from a lot of the other teenagers there.

14:32I just viewed it as one big party. But then DG experienced the party turning. Just bad people. What do you mean by that? Like, what kind of people? People wanting to cause trouble. They are teenagers surrounded by adults. DG tells a story about this one adult who they were particularly afraid of. There was this dude, he was like seven feet tall, you know, like genuinely seven feet tall. The biggest dude I've ever seen in my life. And people were saying, like, yeah, like, rape this girl. Supposedly. Everybody feared him. Genuinely. Everybody was scared of him, you know. I had got this, like, the biggest wine bottle I've ever seen, bro.

15:14And I just watched him beat up my friend. And I took the wine bottle and I went like this. I threw it. And it hit him in his head and he just dropped. Genuinely, he dropped. The biggest dude I've ever seen just dropped. The whole park starts coming up, like, praising us and all this. And then since then, we were the park security. you. Those boys in this kind of atmosphere of chaos, of violence and no police begin to feel like, well, maybe they're the police. So every time something happened in the park, people were coming from all over. Oh, this happened. We need you guys here this night. You know, we're just little ass kids, so it's fun.

15:48We're like, OK, go over there. Who in this zone is not security at this point. You've got the sentinels. You've got all these other overlapping groups and individuals declaring themselves security. And now you've got three teenagers describing this Lord of the Flies environment, and people are telling them their security too. And that is really how everything started off the trio of us. That's how we got so close. It's like, okay, there's no police or nothing, you know? So people are doing whatever they want, essentially. So we were like the only form of like justice in a way, you know, like, because there's no justice there at all.

16:31DG remembers that something just felt off the night Antonio was killed. That day, I don't really know what we did. It's all just blurry. Protesters remember hearing mysterious pops going off and wondering whether they were fireworks or maybe gunshots? Just an insane amount of stuff. One protester remembers three kids running around with knives that evening. Wow. Do you remember this? Oh, wow. I think I do know what you're talking about. Those three kids sound like us. Like, genuinely. Like, you know, there was no group of no other three kids. I'm surprised DG is willing to be so frank about something like this.

17:11It seems like he's being honest. I can promise you that there was no other group of no three kids. And we did have knives. That's why I said park security. Those knives were needed. Like, well, it wasn't safe out there for little kids at all.

17:29DG says he was with Antonio and Robert that whole night, except for about 10 minutes when he got into a fight with someone and accidentally maced himself. I, like, tried to mace him, but I maced myself. They were putting, like, milk or whatever in my eyes. Like, I was, like, going through it. In that moment, DG says he's frustrated and his eyes are stinging. And so I'm not feeling it. He just wants to go back to his tent, and he splits up with the other two boys, Robert West and Antonio. So yeah, we split up. He says he didn't know what they were up to until... Like 10 minutes later, the whole entire park I just hear gravitating towards one area.

18:08Towards the playfield, one of the central gathering points at CHOP. And the playfield itself is mostly empty, but there are tents around the edges of it. So I'm gravitating to it, too. Like, what's going on? And then boom, like this white Jeep's doing donuts on the turf and all this. He sees this white Jeep driving around. We know at one point it comes within 10 feet of a tent. It freaks the protesters out. DG does not sound like he was scared of this. he certainly doesn't see any gunshots being fired from the Jeep. I think he sees it as something people are doing for fun. Yeah, it makes him wonder, like, I'm like, who is that?

18:50Turns out, inside the Jeep are his friends, Antonio and Robert. They're on the window, so I get in, brother, I'm like, what, this is you guys in the Jeep doing all that? According to DG, while he and his friends had been separated for those 10 minutes, Robert and Antonio had somehow gotten this Jeep. DG says he didn't know it was stolen, and he has no idea if his friends were involved in stealing it. Who was driving? From my memory, Robert was driving. I remember it very well, too. The pocket was right in front of me, and Robert was driving. DG says once he's in the Jeep with his friends, there's a moment when the mood suddenly flips.

19:36Yeah, you know I'm laughing and shit. As soon as we get off of the turf, that we start getting shot at instantly. That's after the break.

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21:19DG tells us that bullets start flying at the boys pretty much the instant they drive off the playfield. So you go off the field. Like, do you remember where the car goes? It was one big-ass loop-de-loop. Like, we were driving like 120 miles per hour on downtown Seattle. Like, there's no police to being found in life. And I'm looking around for them, genuinely, because we're just getting shot at by assault rifle bullets. And I don't know why. Is someone chasing you? Oh, yeah, for sure. In a car chasing you? Yes, like multiple cars. Security videos we obtained from that night capture two cars chasing the boys.

21:58One is the silver Nissan Pathfinder whose passengers fired the first shots at them. The other is this white SUV covered in graffiti. That one drops out of the chase after a few seconds. DG couldn't have seen these videos because they were released after we talked with him. But his description matches the video we have from the start of the chase. Then for about three minutes, the cars disappear from any videos. So we can't corroborate all of DG's account. DG says he can hear the people chasing them talking to each other. They're treating it like it's a Call of Duty mission. I don't understand it.

22:36Giving out call-outs and all this. You hear them through the windows giving these call-outs? Yeah, literally through the windows. You can't imagine when I get out the car, I'm here and give it more call-outs. Oh, we got them, got them, we're right here, did it all, shit. Like, you know, oh, we're coming up right now. I'm like, yeah, I'm hearing all these call-outs. Were they on walkie-talkies? Yes, exactly, like that type of thing. What I heard is that they were ex-military, so these people are really advanced. They're treating this like a spec ops mission or something. It's an execution. There's no better word for it than an execution.

23:06They were shooting us to kill. Did you ever see who was shooting at you? Like, to put a face to it? No, I couldn't, because like I said, I'm laying on the ground. He says he was lying flat in the back of the Jeep. I'm laying there thinking I'm going to die. You know, these bullets are like whizzing over my head and going through these seats. You know, they're not hitting me, but they're hitting. While they're racing through the streets, the boys are apparently on the phone with Sierra Walker, the woman who described herself as Antonio's street sister. And Sierra says she tells them. Come back to chop your safe.

23:43Go by the two-seat. You will be safe there. Nothing will happen. Sierra recounts this in an interview with the Daily Mail. And the boys seem to listen to her. Instead of driving as far away as possible, they loop right back around to CHOP. But Sierra was wrong. The boys round the corner by the vacant police precinct. There are cement barricades, and these mark the border of CHOP. In the middle of these barricades is a section that protesters have described as the entrance to CHOP. It was usually guarded by security. The jeep heads straight for it and crashes. I remember smacking into the barricade.