Focus: Adults in the Room - We Keep Us Safe: Circles of Silence

Episode Date: October 15, 2026

As the lawsuit over Antonio Mays Jr.’s death goes to trial, more clues bring us closer to identifying the person who shot him at close range. Will Antonio’s father finally get answers, and will anyone be held accountable? We Keep Us Safe is part of Focus, a dedicated documentary channel from KUOW Puget Sound Public Radio in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR network. Get in touch with the team by email at [e-mail]. Support KUOW and projects like this by donating at kuow.org/donate/focus.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Why is health care so expensive in the U.S.? How is my credit score calculated? Does immigration enforcement actually reduce crime? We all have the big, complicated questions we're curious about, and that's why we made Control F. Control F is a podcast from KUOW that explains how the world works using data. Each episode, we break down the numbers driving culture, the economy, and politics. Join the search. Listen to Control F wherever you get podcasts.

Focus from KUOW in Seattle. Heads up, this episode contains explicit language, as well as the sound of gun violence. Previously on We Keep Us Safe. We're not here to sit here and control what happens in the zone. We're trying to keep the zone safe. How did a protest for black lives end up killing a black teenager? When you come in shooting, you got to.

shut back. The ambulance driver pulls away without a word. Please, guys, open! They didn't even give a damn about shooter. I always bristle at the fact that we gave up a precinct. It's way more nuanced than that. Arrest those people and get the answers out of each one as to who killed my son. I talked to him a couple times.

I only ever knew him as Steve. Who's this Steve? And is he the shooter? We don't have a connection with him. We don't know anything. about it. One of the first people we interviewed in our investigation was Antonio Mays Jr.'s dad.

When we first talked with Antonio Mays Sr. last year, it was like he was still stuck in 2020, searching for answers about his son's death. Who shot him? And how did this shooting happen at a protest for black lives? At first, Antonio Sr. believed the city and its police department would give him those answers. But he says the police went silent not long after the shooting. I couldn't get a hold of the detective.

Someone said that the case got reassigned and someone else told me that the case was closed. He thought maybe a lawsuit would shake loose some new information. Maybe it could force the city to reveal whatever it knew. I should know exactly what happened. I should have some answers. I should have some closure. Oh, this is what happened, Mr. Mays. I should be getting a report.

This is what these people did. This is what happened to your son. This is who was responsible for it. This is an action that we took. So Antonio Sr. sued the city of Seattle and its officials for the wrongful death of his son. It took years, but late last year, the trial began. Antonio Sr. flew from Southern California and settled. into a Seattle hotel less than a mile from the courthouse, his temporary home for however many

weeks the trial was going to last. Our colleague David Gutman was there on day one. This is David. I have just arrived at the King County Courthouse for the first day of the trial of Antonio Mays versus the city of Seattle. And this might be the closest we ever get to an airing of the events surrounding the killing of Antonio Mayes. All right. We are here on the maze matter, and our jurors are assembling, and just to give everyone a preview of the morning,

we'll spend the morning here for opening remarks in the presiding courtroom and then separate. What unfolded inside the courtroom was very different from what Antonio sees. senior had envisioned. He believed the city created the conditions that led to his son's killing because police abandoned their precinct and seated control of the eight-block zone around it to protesters, some of whom were armed. But before the trial even started, the judge whittled down the case to basically a single narrow question. Whether the city's emergency response

was negligent in the minutes after the shooting and whether that led to Antonio. And a big part of the defense was to put Antonio Jr. on trial. Was Antonio May Jr. committing a felony at the time of the shooting that led to his death? Under Washington state law, if the city could prove that Antonio was killed while committing a felony, then the city would not be liable for his death. So city attorneys tried to convince the jury that Antonio Jr. stole the white jeep before he was shot. If you find that he was committing such a time of his death, and that that was, proximate cause, that led to his death,

the law says the city cannot be held while for that. Instead of a trial that focused on how his son was killed, Antonio Sr. got a trial that focused a lot on whether or not his son stole a car. I sat in the courtroom almost every day, And as I watched Antonio Sr. at the plaintiff's table, it was hard not to think about the narratives about his son that had been out there for years. He was always quick to get in someone's face and try and start a fight. I heard a lot of rumors about gang involvement. You yaw and you got a weapon.

You play stupid games. You win stupid prizes. It was like these narratives followed Antonio Sr. into that courtroom. Like five years after they clashed into that courtroom. Like five years after they clashed in the streets, the city government and the protesters were actually on the same page. And what brought them together was a story that they weren't to blame for Antonio's death because at some level, the blame fell on Antonio himself. It seemed like the questions that haunted Antonio Sr. were again going to be ignored. By the time the trial got underway, we had been investigating Antonio's killing for, close to a year. And we'd found that CHOP security fired on Antonio and two friends who appeared

to have no guns and were joyriding around. That after the boys crashed into a barricade at the edge of CHOP, someone ran right up to the passenger side door and fired multiple shots at close range. Most importantly, we've gotten a description of that shooter and a name, Steve. And now we were staring down a set of questions that the trial wasn't really going to answer. Who bears responsibility for Antonio's death? And why is there still no accountability for it? From NPR's Embedded, with KOWW in the Seattle Times, this is the final episode of We Keep Us Safe. I'm Sydney Brownstone.

I'm Will James. This is episode eight. I'm Chris Morgan, and I'm thrilled to welcome you back to the wild. Join me for all new episodes as we explore the surprising ways people are coexisting with wild creatures. We'll encounter bears swimming in backyard pools in Los Angeles and meet the volunteers working to revitalize Olympia Oyster populations. New episodes available every Tuesday. Listen to the Wild on the K-U-O-W app or wherever you get podcasts. When it comes to whose response, for Antonio's death, the answer clearly starts with the person who fired the shots that killed him.

More than a year of reporting led us to Steve. Steve was the name given to us by Slate, a self-described founder of the CHOP security group known as the Sentinels. Slate said Steve was the man who fired those shots. Slate also told us that Steve was a rando, that he wasn't really. part of CHOP security and he was mentally unstable. So we needed to find out more about who Steve was and why he was there. And then we caught a break. While we worked on this investigation, we published messages in the Seattle Times asking people to share any tips about Antonio's death. We got almost 200 responses and a handful of the people who wrote to us had volunteered as

CHOP security or medics. One of those people had held on to a batch of secret encrypted chats that CHOP security had used to communicate. They shared these chats with us. We're going to keep this source anonymous because they're concerned about the personal and professional repercussions of sharing this information. Some of those secret messages were from the night Antonio was killed. This chat includes a mix of security volunteers.

and it starts a couple of hours after the shooting. You'll hear voice actors reading some of these texts to make the conversation easier to follow. Someone who is apparently at the scene posts an update. Around 233-ish, I was stationed at 12th. A white SUV drove through the entry-slash-weekpoint of the barricade. I think the passenger side was firing shots into the air. Today, we know a video analyst hired by the city of Seattle

found multiple gunshots fired that night, but didn't identify any coming from the white sheet. We also know some people on the ground thought the boys in the Jeep were shooting. The security check goes on. An armed guard started unloading into the people who were in the vehicle that drove through the barricade. Of the assailants, I heard that one was possibly dead, another was critically injured and that the other ran. Someone with the handle Fay of the Wilds replies with a question. People are saying our security shot the car? Do we have confirmation it was even us who shot back?

And the person who's giving the report replies. It was one of the security who was stationed at 12th South. White man, likely in his 50s. It was one of the security. That's different from the impression Slate gave us. It felt like we were finally getting a fuller picture of who killed Antonio. and it was coming from people who were apparently there, on the ground with Steve on the night of the shooting.

The source who leaked the first set of messages also gave us another chat. Three days after Antonio was killed, someone called Canada guy posts a photo. It shows a man standing in profile. Based on the background, it looks like it was taken at chop. He looks like a heavyset white guy. He's standing with a copper-colored dog that's wearing a jacket.

This guy's wearing a mask. Something on his head may be a bandana and a hood over that. He's got what looks like a leather jacket on, tan cargo pants, boots. And this guy, according to the person who posted the photo, is the suspected shooter. A sentinel named Rebel responds. Steve? Steve. The same name that Slate gave us.

More sentinels chime in and agree. accurate so far as I've heard. How looks like Steve? That's Steve. Same boots. That's definitely Steve. He's the dumb ass who kept leaving his gun on my van and kept grabbing it when anyone approached the barrier that night.

This is a breakthrough because suddenly a bunch of the descriptions we've gotten of the shooter seemed to be coming together. Austin Sharp, a self-described medic known as Joker, told us he saw a man with a biker look rifling through the jeep after the shooter. ended. The way this guy in the photo is dressed, it could easily be the biker guy Austin described. Ashley Dorellis, a live streamer, seemed to have caught that same person on video after the shooting saying, pick up my shells. The guy in Ashley's live stream seems to be wearing the same jacket and pants as the guy in the photo. It's looking like this guy really was there that

night. Maybe he really is that close-range shooter. Using this photo and these scraps of information, we searched for Steve. And this search led us down some bizarre social media rabbit holes. We looked into a Steve who was a fire commissioner in a Seattle suburb, and a Steve who's a welder in Indiana, and possible steves in a motorcycle club in Kentucky. They were all dead ends. We also reached out to people from the CHOP Security chats who say they saw Steve or interacted with him, but they wouldn't talk with us.

We went back and forth with the person who posted the photo of Steve, but he eventually stopped responding. In the end, we didn't find Steve. What we're left with is a description, cobbled together from the photo and witness accounts. As best we can tell, most have described Steve as short, maybe around 250 pounds. It's worth saying at least one witness said, as he saw a tall, built guy shooting at close range, so there might be some discrepancies in terms of his size.

Steve is white, maybe in his 50s, kind of grizzled looking with a gray beard. He may be local to the Pacific Northwest and have kind of a biker look. At least in 2020, he had what protesters described as a service dog that looks kind of like a pit bull mix, and he drove a van. And he sounds like this. Unless you see any shells on the ground, pick those up, pocket them. Take them home. Hell yeah, no evidence.

Pick that shit up, yep. I don't want to get the fuck out of here. So if we've been able to find all this, why does it seem like the Seattle Police investigation has stalled? Do they view Steve as a suspect? Are they looking for him? We don't know. We tried to speak with Seattle Police about this case. They declined.

We sent them a list of 51 questions. and they didn't answer them. What we do know is that police have known about Steve from the very beginning. A couple of days after Antonio was killed, a top city official got a text. Mommy Hara ran Seattle Public Utilities. She became an unofficial liaison between protesters and the city. For a city official, Mommy seemed to develop pretty close relationships with protesters at CHOP. She texted with them a lot, asking about their well-being, complimenting them for doing a good job.

One member of the Sentinels even asked her for a job in city government. But this text that Mommy got, it was a photo, that photo of Steve. We got a hold of all these texts from a public records request. The one with Steve's photo came with a message from a Sentinel known as Cove. This is the guy that shot that kid. This Sentinel, Cove, added that Steve wasn't a part of their group. Cove seemed intent on making sure Sentinels didn't get in trouble for Antonio's death. In the chop security chats that were leaked to us,

we see Sentinels worrying about being charged in connection to Antonio's killing. They make a game plan for how to get out their story that Steve wasn't one of them. Cove texted as much to Mommy. My people are really scared of getting accessory, even the ones including myself, who weren't even there. Mommy Hara then sent the photo of Steve to assistant police chief Adrian Diaz, who texted back, quote, this is a good picture. We reached out to Mommy about these messages.

She never responded. So now we know that three days after Antonio was killed, someone in the highest ranks of the Seattle Police Department had a photo and a description of Steve. And that wasn't the only thing police had. We found out that in addition to that photo of a suspect, they also had the closest view of the shooting that anyone could get short of standing right there.

I went to see it for myself. Okay, so we're outside the East Precinct. I see one security camera on the Seattle Police Precinct, two security cameras, three, four. When the White Cheap crashed into the... the barricade at Chop. It crashed right outside the precinct police had abandoned, literally a few feet from the precinct wall. At least four security cameras on the East precinct, looking out onto the block, looking out directly onto the scene where the shooting happened. Those cameras were there in

2020. I mean, you got to imagine one of these cameras was in a position to see a bunch of stuff. We put in a request for all the video from around when the shooting happened. The police confirmed they have footage, but they wouldn't release it because their investigation is still open. There's a chance police have even more. We got records showing that the Seattle police and FBI had confidential informants inside CHOP feeding them information. And at least one of those informants offered to be recruited by CHOP security. We don't know if that ever actually happened. But despite all these possible leads, we also found a reason why this case has been so hard to solve.

It turns out the police investigation was compromised from the very start. Can you see this white SUV that is involved in this incident? Through court records, we got body camera footage that shows a group of police, maybe three or four officers, approaching the scene not long after the shooting. Charlie 70, myself and a team are moving down with a pair of an aquar. We just see if we can get our eyes on this vehicle and see if there's still a crime scene. A couple of the officers hold rifles as they make their way through the quiet, pre-dawn streets of Capitol Hill. This area is not safe, folks.

Until they're right at the edge of chop. Then they peek around the corner of a building and watch as people mill around the crashed Jeep. Yes, sir. I can see the vehicle with binoculars. It made it through the barricades. It's inside the borders, and it is surrounded by folks inside there, and it looks like they're digging through the vehicle. But when an officer radios his superior to report this,

he's told, you can leave. Before the officers walk away, a protester actually approaches them and asks if they're going to come to the crime scene. Leave the car alone. Leave the car load. Quit digging around in it. Okay.

When the sun comes up, you'll hear from homicide detectives. Okay. And they'll come in attempt to process that scene. Okay. So wait until the morning? Yep. And I saw you guys all digging in it. Yeah, yeah.

Like, there's people telling them not to, but then there's people trying to case it themselves. Okay. I can go down there and do that. The guy makes it sound like protesters are processing the scene themselves. Let them know this, that we will eventually have control of that vehicle. And when we do, it'll be comprehensively fingerprinting. I don't think any of those people want their fingerprints inside the view. That's what we told her.

Do you buy gloves on? The officer tells him everyone's fingerprints are going to show up on the Jeep. But the protester says, don't worry, they've got gloves on. Tell them to close it up and leave it B. So wait until the morning. Yep. Thank you very much, sir. An officer says that detectives will be there once the sun comes up,

And that's what happens. Hours later, they show up. Police never answered our questions about why they didn't process the scene right away. That decision could have allowed important evidence to be ruined or go missing. We'll never know. All the police will tell us is that the case remains active and ongoing. We don't know exactly what that means. They won't say how many officers are investigating or how often.

We did hear once from a records. officer in response to a request that the lead detective in the case works on it several times a month. There's another potential reason why police haven't closed this case. When I talked with former assistant police chief Tom Mahaffey, who oversaw the department's response to the 2020 protests, I asked him why this case hasn't been solved. He says that in homicide cases like these, detectives need witnesses. And these investigations stall when not enough people. speak up. Somebody has to come forward and be willing to testify to say, I saw this person do this act that led to this person's death, right? Because there's even cases we have a lot of

circumstantial evidence, but it's not enough where it's felt that we could prosecute and get a conviction. So Antonio Sr. continues to be haunted by this question of who killed his son. But it's not the only question he has. He's not just looking for an arrest. Antonio Sr. told us he's also looking for a broader explanation. He's trying to make sense of how his son ended up shot and killed at a protest against police violence by people acting as police. I'm not a legal professional, but it's not legal to allow vigilantes to police their own zone.

None of this should have happened. And none of those officials that were in power at that time should have allowed to let that to happen. That's coming up. Why is health care so expensive in the U.S.? How is my credit score calculated? Does immigration enforcement actually reduce crime? We all have the big, complicated questions we're curious about. And that's why we made Control F.

Control F is a podcast from KUOW that explains how the world works using data. Each episode, we break down the numbers driving culture, the economy, and politics. Join the search. Listen to Control F wherever you get podcasts. When Antonio Mays Sr. says he wants an explanation for how his son was killed, there's a question that comes to mind right away for Sydney, for me, and for our reporting partner, David Gutman. It's a question that's hung over our entire investigation. It's about the role. of armed security at this protest against police violence. It was David who finally got a chance to ask this question,

to someone central to setting up chop security, the sentinel known as Slate. Have you thought about kind of how closely this shooting kind of mirrored a police shooting? That was something I very quickly became aware of, like even before the shootings really started happening. It's that, like, we are chopped, police, essentially. Right away, Slate acknowledges the irony of how Antonio was killed. How this happened, they essentially say some of the same stuff police departments say when they

face criticism. We don't have enough resources. We don't have enough training. We don't have enough manpower. And when you look at how that shooting happened, I think the difference is that if you had somebody who had been adequately trained, there was an expectation of professionalism, if there was an expectation of being monitored, I don't think that shooting would have happened. So, I mean, you just made a pretty good case for the police, I think. I would say that there are aspects of what we did that law enforcement could have could adopt the way that we managed interactions that enabled us to have a lot less escalatory situations.

But, you know, just to kind of step back for a second, this whole protest is against police shootings. And a bunch of the stuff you just said is what police say, right? If we had more resources, if we had better training. No, exactly. I was aware of the entire time. And I get into arguments a lot. with people that are left-leaning that are like abolished the police.

I'm like, all right, so what are you going to replace them with? And then they're like, we're going to get social services. Okay, then what happens when someone starts shooting? Slate seems to be saying that in the absence of police, there are going to be people who step up to fill that role. And there are certainly no guarantees that they're going to be any better at it than the regular police. Regardless of your political belief,

if you're in a position where you have a gun in your hand and there's somebody else who might have a gun in their hand, there's a pretty reasonable expectation that you're going to fucking shoot the wrong person. Is that what happened to Antonio? Was he a person who didn't have a gun but was seen as a threat, just like so many victims of killings by police?

If so, what does it mean that this happened at a movement fighting to prevent that very thing? We knew someone who might have the perspective to answer that. No one experienced the highs and lows of that summer in Seattle like Rishaila Levin. She was a breakout voice for the movement, and she stuck with Chop from beginning to end. Rishilah was there when police dismantled Chop three weeks after it started. She was one of about four dozen people who were arrested as police swept through. And she witnessed some of the events.

Antonio's final moments. It's hard to look past the irony that Antonio's death ends up looking a lot like a police shooting or the very shootings that the movement was protesting against. You're not wrong, but it ends up looking like exactly what we were trying to prevent what we're fighting against. It's absolutely ironic. that it happened the way that it happened and it looks the way that it looks. And it's sad.

It's really sad. Does the movement bear any responsibility for what happened to him? I think it's such a hard question. I think in part that yes, I think that anybody that's involved in a movement such as the one that we all experienced that summer that year. You know, I think we all bear, you know, some shoulder of responsibility. Roshaila recognizes the irony of how Antonio was killed.

She says protesters have some responsibility for it in a vague way, but she can't name a single thing protesters might have done differently. I don't know if there's anything specific that anybody could have done. leading up to that evening. That would have changed anything. Rishail is not alone. We talked to nearly 100 people connected with the protests in Seattle that summer,

and this was the most common outlook we heard. That what happened to Antonio was tragic, but unavoidable. That there's nothing to be learned from examining protesters' decisions. Decisions. like the one to form an occupation in the first place and stay there for weeks as conditions deteriorated. Even as one teenager, Lorenzo Anderson,

was killed on Juneteenth, even as Antonio was killed and Robert West was permanently disabled 10 days later. Or the decision by some to think of the camp as a war zone, to put so much emphasis on defending it from attacks, and to put that defense in the hands of people who claim they had military experience. and carried guns.

To Rishila, and a lot of other protesters we spoke with, none of these choices are responsible for Antonio's death. To them, it was the city that was supposed to protect Antonio and failed. Rishaila even flew in from Texas, where she lives now, to make this argument at the trial in Antonio Sr.'s wrongful death case. She says she wanted to help get justice for Antonio. You're part of the shop. You're part of the shop.

You do this? Did your role involve communicating the city of the city of day? Yes. So she took the stand to give her version of what happened the night Antonio was killed, watching the ambulance drive away while Antonio lay dying in the back of a silver Nissan Pathfinder. But then the city's lawyers questioned her about her role that night. Were you aware there was a gun battle between the Nissan Pathfinder and the white chief charity? No.

Were you armed when you got into the car? No. Was anyone else in the car armed? Definitely not. The city's attorney pressed Roshayla on whether she was in the Pathfinder while people inside were shooting at Antonio and his friends. Roshila maintained, as she has with me, that she was not. But you could see what the attorney might be trying to do.

Send a signal to the jury that here's a person demanding accountability from the city while not taking any herself. Antonio Sr. had a lot of questions about the city's role in his son's death that never got aired at trial. He had imagined the former mayor and police chief taking the stand. Why were the mayor and the chief of police, why were they not brought forward to answer for what they did wrong? They didn't have to testify because the judge threw out the arguments that the city was responsible for the creation of CHOP, and that the creation of CHOP was responsible for Antonio's death.

City officials have avoided having to answer for the events surrounding CHOP in other ways. In the summer of 2020, tens of thousands of text messages from the phones of the mayor at that time, Jenny Durkin, her police chief and other officials were deleted. Included in those lost texts, potentially, was a record of their internal communications about CHOP. prosecutors concluded that the messages were lost because of a perfect storm of errors and outdated, confusing policies around retaining texts. The city had to pay almost $200,000 after the Seattle Times sued over the missing texts.

Our colleague David spent months going back and forth with Durkan over whether she'd talk with us about the decision she made while leading the city through that summer. Durkan told us she wasn't able to sit down for an interview. Instead, she sent us an email. In the email, she wrote that the fires and the looting in the earliest days of the protests really set a tone and police were freaked out. They were scared that their precinct was going to burn down.

And then she said those fears led to kind of a tunnel vision that set off this chain of events that ended up leading to chop. She said police didn't have any plan at all for what to do if protesters tried to occupy the area. It wasn't, in her words, in their threat. matrix. So without city officials appearing at trial or speaking with us, this one email may be all the reflection we're going to get from Seattle's government. A spokesperson for Seattle's current mayor did not respond to our request to talk. Earlier this year, as the wrongful death case against the

city went on, I felt like I was watching this trial and whatever closure it might bring, slipping away from Antonio Sr. The city's attorneys kept presenting, evidence that Antonio may have stolen the white Jeep. They also made a pretty strong argument that Antonio had been shot in the head and probably would have died no matter how quickly he got help from emergency responders. If they convinced the jury of this, Antonio Sr. would lose. But then, the judge ruled that whether Antonio stole the Jeep wasn't relevant. Even if Antonio was involved in the car theft, the judge said. There's no proof he was killed because of that. As the trial wrapped up, that whole argument just got thrown out.

All right. Thank you, everyone. Please be seated. I understand that the jury has reached a verdict. Please deliver the verdict form to my bailiff. After nearly three weeks of deliberation. Question number one was the defendant of Seattle, negligent. Answer, yes. A jury agreed that the city's emergency response was negligent and delays in Antonio getting care contributed to his death. Question number two, was it a definite city's negligence

paid approximately cost of the death of Antonio Mays Jr.? The answer is yes. Jurors awarded Antonio Sr. and Antonio Jr.'s estate more than $30 million. The city is appealing. When the verdict was announced, there was a moment when Antonio Sr. just collapsed in relief.

He doubled over at his table. It was like watching more than five years of tension drain out of his body. But a little while later, speaking at a press conference, it was like some of that relief had faded. I'm thankful for the verdict. I'm thankful for the success, but I can't say that it feels good.

I can't say that it feels complete because it doesn't. Antonio Sr. seemed a little stunned, like he didn't know how to feel. So I asked him, what answers are he still waiting for? I'm in the same darkness that I was in when we filed this in 23.

I don't know anything more, I don't know anything less. doesn't appear that they're doing anything more. They're still having arrested the guy. Antonio Sr. couldn't shake this feeling that his son had been the one on trial. My son's name was unfortunately drug through the mud for five years. I don't wish anybody to ever have to fight for their kids the way that I had to fight for mine. Antonio Sr. could have been talking about any of it.

Protesters who have said his son was a mass shooter, a gang member, doing a gang initiation, the ones who celebrated Antonio's death online, the city spending a significant part of the trial on the question of whether his son stole a car. Omaris Salisbury, the journalist who chronicled chop more extensively than anyone else, and who was born and raised in this city, said he'd seen versions of this story before. Imagine being a young kid here. under the circumstances that he died in. The narrative is this guy just ran away from home.

He was hanging out with the thugs. He came for a good time. You feel me? Just another nigga dead, another whatever and everything else, man. And how Seattle would his humanity switch? I don't know. Do we show some humanity or not? Omari thinks about this in terms of what he calls Seattle's humanity switch.

He says when someone black is killed, people in the city look for reasons to turn away, to not have to care. And in this case, blaming Antonio might be how people who know something about his death justify their silence. Blaming Antonio could be the very thing protecting his killer. But that meant who Antonio really was got erased. That's why it was a big deal. When we got a glimpse of who Antonio was during the handful of days he was in Seattle,

You've heard some of this tape before. It was nestled in dozens of hours of footage that Omari Salisbury shared with us from his coverage of the protests in 2020. A video of Antonio speaking to a small crowd of protesters three days before he was killed. The police, their purpose is to serve and protect, right? And we agree with their purpose,

but we do not agree with them because of what they've been doing. They have not been serving the protection. Antonio is standing shoulder to shoulder with a leading activist at Chob, talking about police reform. The clip of Antonio talking is only about a minute long. But it's the only recording we have of Antonio in Seattle before the night of his death. And I'm tired of this. And at some point, we're going to fight back. But you're pushing us to the edge.

And as you can see, as a black people, as a whole, we have been wrong. We felt we needed to show Antonio Sr. this video before we put it out. out in the world for everyone else to see. And we also wanted to be completely sure that it really was Antonio Jr. on the screen. So we call Antonio Sr. on Zoom. He's at home in California, taking care of his youngest son, a one-year-old. And let me know if you can hear sound. Yeah, I can hear that.

We start playing the video, and then we stop. Do you want to pause it for a sec? That's what we wanted to ask you. Antonio Sr. overwhelmed, moves off screen and asks for a break. He calls us back later. When Antonio came on the screen earlier today, you recognized him in a second. We didn't tell you Antonio was on the screen. You recognize him instantly, but he's all covered up.

He's got the surgical mask on. He's got some baseball cap. He's got that. What about him did you, what about him did you recognize? I saw his hand and I see his neck, you know, I see his skin tone. I see, I see these features that I know because I raised him. I've watched these hands grow. You know, I've watched my son. I raised him. I know him. I don't care what he, you know, all covered up. You know, that's, that's my boy. this is the first time we've been able to see video of Antonio at the protest itself.

It's like a, it's like a gift from God just cracking the heavens wide open and letting the son come gaping through. You know, that, you know, he's speaking his own testimony right there. You know, anything that anybody will ever tell you that knew my son will, will, tell you he is exactly that he's respectable you know he's caring you know and he's supportive and he says

loud and clear we're protesting peacefully you know that's his stance he's got a peaceful stance and look who he's surrounded by he went up there and identified with professionals and intellectuals

at 16 years old with your testosterone pumping out your ears you know, to identify with intellectuals like that and present yourself in a respectful way, you know, in a zone full of chaos and anarchy. And that's how he resurfaces? Oh, that's my boy. At some point during the summer of 2020 in Seattle,

a switch got turned off. And this, this life with all of its complexity and all of its potential, was lost. In his letter to you, he said that he wanted to make you proud, and it seems like as you watched this video, you felt pride. An overwhelming amount. An overwhelming amount.

Couldn't even talk to you guys earlier. An overwhelming amount, just like a bucket, just poured on me. It's a sport, knock, a handle. Automatically, it's not even close to, you put your hands out there. Your hands ain't going to hold that. Your arms ain't going to hold it. Just straight in it.

proud. And his letter CSA is going to make me proud. I was already proud. I was already proud. We Keep Us Safe from NPR's Embedded is a collaboration with the Seattle Times and KUOW. You can see new police body cam footage from the night of the shooting on our series page.

Visit npr.org slash chop to watch. The series is reported and written by me, Sidney Brownstone, David Gutman and Will James. This episode was edited by Luis Traeus and Laura Grenius, with support from Katie Simon. This episode was produced by Dan Germa, additional production support from Sarah Wyman and Abby Wendell. Our senior producer is Adelina Lansianese.

Additional reporting by Omari Salisbury and David Goodhirts. Research and fact-checking by Danya Solomon and Miyoko Wolf. Jimmy Keely mastered the episode. Music in this episode by Audio Network, Audio Socket, Blue Dot Sessions, Jonathan Barlow, Romteen Arablewee, and Universal Music Production. Voice acting by Danny Hensel, Charlotte Isidore, Dan Germa, Ben Rappaport, Bree Sealy, Adelina Lansianese, and Louise Traus. Our managing editor of Standards and Practices is Tony Kavan, the deputy editor for editorial review is Nadia Lancy. Johannes Durgy and Micah Ratner

provided legal support. Special thanks to Matt Canem, Gigi Dubon, Phyllis Fletcher, and Ravenna Kainig for all your invaluable feedback, as well as attorney Kathy George. Thanks to Omari Salisbury and Converge Media for video recordings

and crucial insights about the timeline of events surrounding the Seattle protests of 2020. The showrunner and senior supervising editor of Embedded is Katie Simon. Leanna Simstrom is senior supervising producer. Irene Noguchi is executive producer. Yolanda Sangueni is NPR's vice president for content, and Tommy Evans is NPR's editor-in-chief.

For KUOW, Brandon Sweeney is director of new content. Our chief content officer is Marshall Eisen. For the Seattle Times, Laura Grennius leads our investigations team. Michelle Matassa Flores is our executive. executive editor. Thank you to our video team, Sam Melbourne Weaver, Nick Michael, John Poole, and Serring Bista, all at NPR, as well as Megan Farmer at KUOW. Our website design is courtesy of Allison Hurt and Brent Jones at NPR. Thank you to the digital team at the Seattle Times, Sean Martin and Frank Minna for their support. Thanks also to Michaela Giannati Boyle at KOWW,

as well as Adam Zissman, June Jennings, Kristen Hume, Jordan Postima, Sergio Romano, and Russell Gossett at NPR. The Embedded team also includes Raina Cohen and Damiano Marquetti. We Keep Us Safe was made with our friends at NPR's Embedded Podcast. Like KUW Focus, Embedded specializes in deeply reported audio documentaries. So go subscribe to them as well. Why is health care so expensive in the U.S.? How is my credit score calculated? Does immigration enforcement actually reduce crime?

We all have big, complicated questions we're curious about, and that's why we made Control F. Control F is a podcast from KUOW that explains how the world works using data. Each episode, we break down the numbers driving culture, the economy, and politics. Join the search. Listen to Control F wherever you get podcast. podcasts.