Because this story has to start somewhere, let’s begin on any given night in early 2009. It’s probably drizzling, and a cluster of people is standing outside the wooden apartment building on the corner of 11th Avenue and Pike Street, the one with motel-style exterior hallways and severely chipped paint. A lightbulb above one door is glowing green, a signal that visitors are welcome. When the lightbulb glows yellow, visitors are supposed to come back later. When the lightbulb glows red, they are supposed to keep away.
Sometimes when visitors enter the apartment, they’re asked to hand over any weapons they might be carrying—hardly anybody ever is—and sometimes there’s a cursory pat-down. Inside the apartment are a lot of artists, plus a military guy or two on a night away from the base. Some are sitting around a card table playing poker. Others are sitting on couches and chairs, smoking and drinking.
They’re all being watched, but only one of them knows it.
There’s Mia Brown, in the corner, who is into scuba diving and spends her days working with the homeless. There’s Jake, a musician. There’s Jimmy the Dwarf, an actor and model who works with a local circus troupe. There’s Brady McGarry, who has devoted his free time over the years to political and environmental causes. There’s DK Pan, a Butoh dancer, performance artist, and curator. There’s Jaybird, a skinny kid in leather quietly trying to peddle small bags of cocaine. There’s Thoren Honeycutt, who has a few priors for theft, including theft of a firearm. And there’s Rick Wilson—tall, broad-shouldered, wearing a suit. This is Rick’s apartment, called Rick’s Cafe (un)American during Rick’s after-hours parties.
For a time, some members of this crowd threw these after-hours parties at a place called the Cthulhu Building, just three blocks uphill from Rick’s. Later, some members of this crowd will throw after-hours parties at a place in Belltown called Cafe Corsair. Attendees often referred to them as speakeasies, although the people running them merely thought of them as private parties in private places. Court documents would later call them “underground illegal gambling enterprises (concurrent with illegal liquor sales).” A lot of people went to these parties—they were big events with bands and burlesque dancers. Guests were encouraged to dress up and usually did. Sometimes it seemed like half the city was there in suits and vintage dresses: artists, activists, politicians, cultural bigwigs, musicians, computer programmers, soldiers, criminals.
A lot of these parties happened because Rick’s good friend Bryan T. Owens had money and connections. Not everyone liked Bryan, but because he was Rick’s good friend he was often around—drinking Maker’s and Coke after-hours, playing poker, telling stories. He had a bald head and a goatee and a blustery bro-dude personality—one of the party regulars described him as a “mini–Fred Durst”—but he was a trust-fund baby and he was generous with his cash.
One day, Brady McGarry showed up at the Belltown space. The day before had been a long, weird day for him, and he and Bryan got to talking. Brady had been helping stage a protest at the Weyerhaeuser headquarters in Federal Way—a “lockdown” some friends from California had come up for. “It was mostly a symbolic protest,” Brady remembers. “We blocked an entrance for an hour or so, just long enough to make the papers.”
Brady had driven down in a car he’d borrowed from a friend, and on his way home, he got pulled over. “It was a state patrol officer, and he told me: ‘I have a warrant for your arrest.’ I said: ‘Um, you haven’t even asked for my ID—you don’t know who I am yet.’ Plus, I was driving my friend’s car. It was weird.” But the officer seemed to know exactly who Brady was and took him into custody. (This was not Brady’s first time in jail. He had been hauled into custody a few times during his protest career. He also says it might have had something to do with some unpaid traffic tickets.) Brady bailed himself out for $1,500, which made him short on rent.
“Man, that sucks,” Bryan said, according to Brady. “Cops fucking suck.” Bryan offered to pay Brady’s rent that month. After that, they started going to dinner together and became friends. Bryan kept pushing Brady toward more radical “real militant action,” asked Brady to teach him how to make Molotov cocktails, and hinted that he wanted to “make explosives” and do some “property damage” at Weyerhaeuser or at CEOs’ houses, Brady remembers. He wanted to talk about the Earth Liberation Front. Brady remembers telling Bryan to take it easy. “It weirded me out,” Brady says. He gave Bryan some books to read and documentaries to watch.
On July 11, 2008, Brady and Bryan drove to Tacoma to meet some “young, stinky, and disorganized” punk-rock protesters—Brady’s description—at a meet and greet for people going to protest at the 2008 Republican National Convention. Bryan ended up buying plane tickets for Brady, DK Pan, and himself to get to Minneapolis–St. Paul for the convention. But on the day of the flight, shortly after they’d boarded the plane and just before taxiing, Bryan was escorted off the plane by the authorities. The reason wasn’t immediately clear: He had a pot pipe on him or a warrant out or something. (Several people remember Bryan bragging that he had a record and had been arrested for political action.) So Brady and DK went to the convention without the guy who was supposed to be paying for everything. While they were there, Bryan wired them $400 for food and expenses.
And it was Bryan who, after the Cafe (un)American and Cthulhu Building parties had run their course, pushed Rick and DK and Brady into renting a space in Belltown so they could throw more speakeasy parties. “At that point, everybody walked away—except Bryan,” says Junior, another regular at the parties. “He kept saying, ‘Let’s do it again, let’s do it again.'”
Bryan said he had some family connection with Martin Selig’s real-estate company and that he could get a cheap space in Belltown, down on Third Avenue and Battery Street—the space that came to be called Cafe Corsair. Bryan would sign the lease and put up the money so they could build out one section for parties and another section for DK’s art group, called the Free Sheep Foundation. “Bryan said, ‘I can pay for it as long as I get paid back,'” Junior remembers. “Rent, paint, locks, lumber, drywall, new plumbing—it all came out of Bryan’s pocket.”
Junior shakes his head as he’s remembering all this. Junior has met a lot of criminals in his life. Criminals who have double-crossed him, stabbed him, shot him—he shows me his scars, impressive burls of flesh—but he says he’s never met a con artist like Bryan. “Bryan looked big and dumb, but he was a fucking grifter,” Junior concludes, half admiringly and half begrudgingly. “Dude lived parallel lives,” he says, and he did it well enough to keep up with a “large, shrewd” roomful of people.
Mia Brown, the scuba diver and DK’s then girlfriend, remembers Bryan as a guy who “always ranted about how he hates cops” and who tried to talk an enlisted friend of hers—who was on his way to a tour in Afghanistan—into stealing weapons from Fort Lewis. But it wasn’t until she visited Bryan at his apartment one night and found it nearly empty that she knew something was up. “When I went to the bathroom, there was nothing in there,” she says. “You’d expect some soap or towels or something. I started asking how long he’d been living there, and he got all aggravated.”
After that incident at the apartment, Mia told DK to stop talking to Bryan. When DK stopped answering Bryan’s calls, Bryan tried to wheedle his way into her life by talking about scuba diving. Then Mia mentioned that one of her current dive partners was in the Seattle Police Department (SPD). “And he avoided me forevermore,” she says. This only ratcheted up her suspicions. Bryan’s no-show act at the Republican National Convention struck her as odd. Bryan’s agitation about starting up a new speakeasy and insisting that it turn a profit (when everyone in the group had been taking losses for the parties) struck her as odd. And the thing about Bryan asking a friend of hers to steal weapons from Fort Lewis struck her as odd and dangerous.
Meanwhile, Bryan had been pushing Rick—and everyone in their social set—for years to help him buy ever-larger amounts of cocaine. Bryan started buying a gram here, a gram there. Then he tried to play on people’s greed. “He’s like, ‘I can make you a millionaire,'” Rick remembers. “‘I’ve got this inheritance, and you’ve got credibility with this underground economy of parties.’ He said he would pay for the drugs and I would take no financial risk. I told him to go fuck himself. He kept pestering me. I did, to my eternal shame, help him out,” Rick says. “I asked around to some people who asked around to some people who eventually gave him some.”
One night, Mia tried to tell Rick she had a funny feeling about Bryan, but Rick wasn’t having it. When Rick told Mia he’d just agreed to help Bryan out with a favor, they got into a fight. “Rick was going on about how he had to help Bryan,” Mia remembers. “He was all, ‘I know a lot of you guys don’t like Bryan, but you don’t know him like I do.'”
Bryan’s brother out in Eastern Washington was under serious physical threat—life, limb, family—as Rick understood it. He’d been dealing drugs and doing it wrong, and he’d gotten himself into trouble. The only way out was for Bryan to complete a drug transaction here in Seattle to bail out his brother. Bryan said he didn’t know these guys and he needed someone he knew and trusted to come along, to watch the deal from a distance and be on hand in case things went sideways. Could Rick just show up—just to get Bryan’s back in case something bad happened? “At first I told him not to do the drug deal at all,” Rick says. “He comes to me a dozen times with this ‘I’ve got to stand with my family, I’ve got to stand with my brother.’ Finally, he cracks me.”
Bryan offered Rick $500 in cash for his help. Rick handed back $300, saying he’d just take $200 to help with his rent. Mostly he just thought of it as a favor for his good friend.
Mia remembers Rick justifying his helping Bryan by telling her: “We’ve become like brothers, and he’s in a predicament and can’t get out. And when it comes to brothers, you sink or swim together.”
Mia shot back, “Your brother doesn’t grab you by your ankles and pull you down! He doesn’t drag you into trouble. What the hell is this guy getting you involved in?”
The following day, June 10, 2009, around noon, Rick is driving through Seattle in a borrowed car, thinking he’s going to protect his best friend. The next thing he knows, he’s swarmed by a SWAT team. They smash out the windows on both sides of the car and drag Rick onto the pavement. Rick has two loaded handguns in his possession, a .38 Special and a .357 revolver—both legal.
He is arrested, held for a while in a detention facility in SeaTac, and brought into an interrogation room to be questioned by detectives and FBI agents. At some point during the conversation, the revelation hits him: His close friend of two years, the friend he was risking his own life to protect, isn’t who he said he is. He isn’t a trust-fund baby. He isn’t an activist.
He’s an undercover SPD detective named Bryan Van Brunt.
“So Bryan’s a cop,” Rick says aloud in a grainy DVD of the interrogation, looking stunned and heartbroken while he recalibrates his understanding of his world. “Okay.”
Rick Wilson sits in a chair, looking exhausted. During breaks in the interrogation room, he leans his head against a wall or rests it on the table. SPD officers and FBI agents come and go, trying to get him to talk.
I got to see (and take notes on) the DVD of the interrogation only once. It begins at 11:13 p.m., almost 12 hours after the arrest and after, according to Rick, extensive questioning about ecoterrorism.
At 11:13 p.m., the police read him his rights and tell him he can talk to a lawyer.
“Do you understand that right?” one of the officers asks.
“You’re aware I’ve previously asked for an attorney,” Rick says.
“You haven’t technically asked for an attorney,” the officer says. “Are you asking for one at this time? If you choose to do so—and you have that right—we can no longer speak to you.”
It’s clear that Rick and the officers are in the middle of a long discussion about Rick’s long-term future. Rick grew up with a defense attorney for a father, who always told him not to talk to police without a lawyer present. (“Never miss a chance to shut the fuck up,” Rick remembers him saying. “You give me four complete sentences from an innocent man, and I’ll give you a conviction.”)
But Rick is talking—carefully, but he’s still talking. The officers want Rick to tell them about things (poker, drugs, corrupt city politicians) without calling for a lawyer. Rick clearly wants to call a lawyer, but he is intimidated by the officers’ claim that he’s looking at 35 to 40 years for showing up to a drug deal at Bryan’s request. Rick’s interrogators say that if he tells them the things they want to know, the law will go easy on him. But, they hint darkly, if he calls a lawyer, he’s fucked—even though they keep mentioning that he has every right to call a lawyer. At some moments, the exchanges are almost comically contradictory. Officers reiterate that if he asks for a lawyer, they can’t talk to him. “Aren’t you already talking to me?” Rick mutters. “This is like a Kafka play.”
FBI agent Dan Simmons says to Rick, “We talked about rash decisions, and I’m being put in a position where I’m gonna have to make a rash decision, whether to take these charges”—Simmons taps an imaginary stack of papers on the table—”and put them away, or whether to have the US Attorney’s Office file them. I don’t wanna do that. You don’t wanna spend the next 40 years in prison.”
“Are you telling me straight-up that tonight—and tonight only—is my only chance?” Rick asks haltingly, with a faint hint of panic in his voice. “And that any desire to negotiate cooperation through an attorney would void your willingness to cooperate, and that I’d be maliciously punished for seeking an attorney?”
“No, not at all,” the agent says, exasperated. “I’m not gonna punish you. You’re punishing yourself. You don’t talk to me, I can’t help you. This is mandatory federal time. There’s no parole. We cut a deal, you’ll probably get a little less than 35 years…”
“I’d consider cooperating,” Rick says, “and I’d like to negotiate that through an attorney… You guys are professionals in here, and I’m an amateur. I’m underqualified… People mess up the first time they do anything—if you build a cabinet for the first time, you’re going to mess up.”
And so it goes, for hours and hours on the grainy DVD, while Rick tries to figure out just how fucked he actually is. His interrogators, Rick later remembers, were unusually interested in environmental groups and the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), which totally bewildered him. Here he was getting hauled in for trying to cover a friend, and the police want to talk about radical politics?
Years earlier, Rick had been the singer for a protest band called ¡Tchkung!, which toured to places like El Salvador and had ties to radical, revolutionary causes with an emphasis on indigenous rights. In the ¡Tchkung! song “Solidarity,” Rick sings: “Wealth and justice, great disparity/Stand together, answer the call/What we need is solidarity/Injury to one is an injury to all… What part of ‘fuck you’ didn’t you understand?/There ain’t no compromise, it ain’t your land!”
Rick points out that even if the FBI had gotten to him eight years earlier, when he was closer to that world, he wouldn’t have been much help. ELF operates in a fundamentally nonhierarchical, cell-based way so that nobody can flip anybody else whom he or she hasn’t directly worked with on an action. A person doesn’t join ELF with any kind of process or ceremony. A person commits an action (burning down a McMansion, spray-painting slogans on Weyerhaeuser headquarters, whatever) and then attributes that action to ELF (via a letter or graffiti), and boom—it’s an ELF action. But the FBI, despite years of experience, tries to investigate, infiltrate, and bring down the group like it’s an old-time mob.
“I wish I could say I was surprised,” says Seattle attorney Amanda Lee when I explain this years-long investigation and all the futile effort that went into it. Lee is familiar with this kind of case, having argued several entrapment and radical- environmentalist cases during her career, representing defendants from Operation Backfire (a notorious FBI investigation against people associated with ELF by putting the screws to a guy facing narcotics charges) and a detainee at Guantánamo Bay accused of being involved with the 9/11 hijacking. But, she says, the FBI keeps trying to hammer at ELF through whatever tangential, specious means it can, following weak leads that cost it—and taxpayers—much time and expense.
“FBI domestic terrorism investigations,” she says, “are frequently out of proportion to the danger of the crime involved.”
The heart of the investigation, the search for terrorists and corrupt politicians, was a flop—a very intense, expensive, invasive flop.
Nevertheless, during Rick’s interrogation, SPD officers and FBI agents reiterate that if Rick asks for a lawyer, he’s facing certain decades in prison. “It’s real simple: If you don’t talk tonight, we don’t negotiate, and discussions are closed,” one interrogator says. Watching the video is like a 101 course in intimidation and interrogation tactics. In the background, another man in another cell is audibly weeping.
“You’re it!” one of the officers says to Rick. “You’re big-time tagged! I’ve got a lot more questions, and it will be obvious I’m giving you the opportunity to tag someone else… You ever hear the saying that the first to talk is the first to walk?”
The officers ask about other people who’ve been to the speakeasies. “Peter Steinbrueck?” someone asks eagerly, referring to the former Seattle City Council president. “Nick Licata?” someone asks, referring to a current city council member.
“This is undignified,” Rick sniffs. “This is witch-hunting. This is undignified for you and me both.”
And then the SPD officer and Rick have an unusually candid exchange, one that shows how costly and futile this whole investigation has been.
“The degree of surveillance and monitoring has been extremely expensive,” the officer tells Rick, sounding equal parts intimidating and frustrated. “When you’ve gone to the QFC and Corsair and Tubs. Think over the last two years—everything you’ve done in private and on the streets, people you’ve talked to, what you’ve had in your possession, conversations, intentions, plans… I have to emphasize the level of surveillance we’ve run over the last two years. Tell us about all the drug deals in The Yard. You want me to tell you about the red cabinet where you keep the drugs? The cocaine? We have hundreds of hours of surveillance, wire, video…”
“That would seem to be an absurd waste of state financing and funding,” Rick says. “And that actually scares me more than the charges… You guys aren’t after anything bigger than this? This is it?”
Later, Rick asks them pointedly: “Didn’t it, at some point in this investigation, get frustrating to discover that there’s nothing?”
“We have enough to charge you with multiple crimes that could put you away for 30 to 40 years,” the officer snaps back. Later, FBI agent Simmons says, “I hate to keep beating a dead horse, man, but we’ve been looking at you for a year at least.”
“Well,” Rick replies, “that must have been pretty unsatisfying for you.”
The FBI agent doesn’t answer.
The Seattle police seem to think that Rick’s guns point toward some kind of guilt.
“Why the need to have so many weapons on the premises?” one of the officers asks.
“My home?” Rick asks, sounding flabbergasted. “That’s my home. I own a small amount of firearms legally, most of which are locked in an extremely secure gun safe in an unloaded manner. I’m a man from Oklahoma,” he continues, “and there’s no such thing as a man from Oklahoma who doesn’t own a firearm or two. Even the hippies own guns.”
The agents sit silent, seemingly flummoxed. They’ve pursued this target for years, luring him into a bust that they hoped would scare him into giving up some valuable intelligence about domestic terrorists, or city politicians, or at least some drug dealers. But they’ve fundamentally misunderstood their own investigation.
This story fits into a national pattern of law enforcement going to great lengths to prosecute people who are perceived as serious threats to national security, but who are (for the most part) just people with big mouths and weird lifestyles.
Former Chicago Tribune reporter Will Potter, author of Green Is the New Red (just published by City Lights), says that after years of looking into these kinds of cases, he’s never figured out exactly why the FBI is doing this: “The best explanation I ever heard was from a former FBI agent. She said: ‘In the 1980s, it was drugs; in the ’90s, it was gangs; and post-9/11, the institutional focus of law enforcement is terrorism.'”
Potter says, “This case you’re looking into sounds like one of the extremes among the extremes.” The Bryan/Rick investigation isn’t an anomaly—not just a couple of crazy cops on a tear—and Seattle isn’t the only community where the FBI and local law enforcement have teamed up to investigate people for what DK Pan’s attorney David Whedbee calls “their beliefs and expressive conduct.”
“This has happened quite a bit,” Potter says. “I don’t mean to be too glib, but if it can’t find people committing so-called ecoterrorism, the FBI seems willing to create ecoterrorism and then arrest people for it. It sucks to put it in those terms because it sounds so conspiracy theorist, and I don’t want it to sound that way. It’s not the norm but it’s increasing that the FBI is clamoring for these arrests and is willing to break the law in the process.”
For example?
“At the very top of my list is the Eric McDavid case out of California,” Potter says. After an FBI investigation of at least three years (from 2004 to 2007), during which McDavid developed a romantic attachment to “Anna,” the alter ego of an FBI agent, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for “conspiring to damage or destroy property by fire and an explosive.” Potter describes the sentence as “mind-bogglingly insane.”
“The guy didn’t do anything,” he says. “At the worst, he hung around with a group of people who talked tough. In court, Anna actually complained that the group spent too much time hanging around and smoking pot.” All the while, Anna was on the FBI payroll and was “supplying the group with bomb-making materials and supplies and traveling around on the FBI’s dime.”
The FBI, Potter says, has been playing this make-believe game with “domestic terrorists” off and on since 9/11, even though it has been directly criticized for it by the US Department of Justice.
The DOJ’s 95-page audit report from 2003 opens and closes with the inspector general basically saying that the FBI has been doing a crappy job of protecting American citizens from terrorism because it’s not good at sharing information with other agencies, and it’s been too busy busting the likes of vegans, hippies, artists, anarchists, and other low-risk dissident American subcultures.
From page 63 of the DOJ report: “Frequently, the information being shared on terrorism could be described as background; often the subject of the FBI’s communications is not the high risk of radical Islamic fundamentalist terrorism but social protests or the criminal activities of environmental or animal activists.”
On the 11th page of the report’s introduction, the DOJ suggests that the FBI concentrate on “actionable information on the high risk of international terrorism and any domestic terrorist activities aimed at creating mass casualties or destroying critical infrastructure, rather than information on social protests and domestic radicals’ criminal activities.”
In other words, the DOJ is telling the FBI to stop wasting its time with the vegans, the hippies, and the anarchists. They’re fine—people are allowed to be weird in America. Those people aren’t a threat, anyway. The FBI should spend its time looking for murder- minded international terrorists instead.
Colleen Rowley, who was an FBI agent for 24 years, says she saw a dramatic change in the agency after 9/11. “It’s a repeat of the COINTELPRO programs at the end of the Vietnam War,” she says. “They are targeting groups just for political dissent. It’s history repeating.” When she saw this shift after 9/11, Rowley became a whistle-blower—and very unpopular at the bureau. She retired in 2004.
She lives in the Twin Cities now and says she saw an incredible concentration of agents trying to infiltrate and target protest groups around the time of the 2008 Republican National Convention.
In retrospect, the plane incident with Bryan makes sense. The SPD was hoping those plane tickets to protest at the RNC would bolster its undercover officer’s street cred among presumed radicals. Bryan said he’d go with them, but he had authorities stage an incident on the airplane that resulted in him being “detained” and unable to go. That was just one of the many bizarre (and expensive) stunts that local and federal law-enforcement officials put together to infiltrate their target of wild-eyed, drug-crazed, bomb-throwing terrorists with heavy connections at city hall.
But that target was a figment of their imagination.
A Cafe Corsair regular remembers Bryan asking him one night if a certain security guy was armed. “I said yes. He said, ‘Good, we should encourage that,'” the regular remembers. “Now you have this cop who built this place, condoning and encouraging sales of drugs to an uncontrolled demographic of people and that they be policed with guns.”
“Every person Bryan had friendships with, he had an agenda,” Brady McGarry says now, adding, “I fell for it. In a way, I’m the luckiest guy in the world—if I had been a little more stupid or a little more weak, I might have actually done some of the shit he was trying to talk me into.”
“Bryan was trying to get people to do shit they wouldn’t normally do, things that were more dangerous, just to make his case,” says Junior, who started sending me cryptic, urgent-sounding messages after Rick’s arrest. A few people immediately flip out when Rick is arrested and insist it’s unjust, but nobody offers specifics. Junior is the first to offer specifics.
He says he’s hiding out in South Seattle. I agree to drive down and meet him in a public place (and to change a few identifying details about him). We move locations during our hours-long conversation because Junior is worried about who might be watching. He says he split town for some family business just a few days before the big bust went down and that he had nothing to do with anything, but he’s worried because he’s not sure who’s suspecting him of what. Nevertheless, he thinks this whole thing stinks and he wants somebody to know it.
He hopes talking to me will help Rick out. “Rick likes to think he’s a cross between Don King and Rick from Casablanca, but he really isn’t,” Junior says. “He’s just a 38-year-old guy who used to be in a band… but he’ll try to show off in front of the jury, and I’m here to keep him from shooting himself in the dick.”
Junior tells me a little about himself. He says he began doing speed at the age of 8, when he started stealing his mom’s asthma medication. By 11, he was scoring speed off the street, though he says he’s been clean for a while. He says the authorities are trying to set Rick up as a drug kingpin. “A drug kingpin Rick was not. I don’t care what the cops say. Look, here’s what happened with the Hondurans…”
I will paraphrase Junior’s version of what happened, since it took him many hours (and many digressions) to tell: His friend Rick likes a little coke and a little meth in a small-scale, personal way but has never shown any interest in serious dealing. Junior and Rick’s mutual friend Bryan—some trust-fund kid who’s always instigating bigger parties, more drugs, more everything—wants to make some big score. Bryan spends at least a year stymied by the limitations of his friends, because the drug users in Rick’s social group are all pretty small-time. But then Bryan finally gets what he’s looking for: Rick knows a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who might be able to help Bryan out.
This third-removed guy is named Marshall. And Marshall suddenly becomes the keyhole, the pot of gold, the one who justifies Bryan’s whole card-playing, protester-haranguing, Maker’s-and-Coke-drinking ruse—because Marshall happens to know some Honduran dudes who can sell a lot of drugs.
Marshall’s part in this story is crazy and sad, Junior warns me. Marshall used to be an ace drug dealer. “What people say about being a drug dealer is all bullshit,” Junior says. “With selling drugs, either you’re born with it or not. It’s not how good you are with money or how scary you are or how much of your own supply you do. That doesn’t really matter. All that shit is a skill set that can be developed—but you need the DNA. And part of this DNA is the Jesse James factor, this Spidey-sense. Believe it or not, the most important thing is to be an empath, to know what other people are feeling.”
Junior takes a look around the bar we’re in. “And three things above all: Be on time, be polite, and have good product. You do that and you’ll go far.”
Marshall did those things, street lore says. He was careful. He got raided a few times, got chased a few times, but he always got away. According to one story, Marshall got to know some local Honduran drug traffickers simply because he had the guts to go straight to a crack house in the Central District and insist he could move kilos of cocaine very quickly. Another story says Marshall placed an order with the Hondurans for a quarter ounce of cocaine and got four ounces instead. When he told the Hondurans he couldn’t move four ounces, the Hondurans said he’d better learn to move four ounces, and suddenly Marshall was a big-league drug dealer.
Either way, something unlucky happened, the story goes, and an unrelated drug bust interrupted Marshall’s flow of cash and product. He went to the Hondurans and said he needed some time to get himself sorted out. The Hondurans said no. They had a schedule and a payment plan, and Marshall would meet it or face the consequences.
So Marshall, the legendarily canny drug dealer, starts putting together sloppy deals with people he doesn’t necessarily know all that well. He hears that some guy named Bryan is desperate to buy. Marshall is desperate to sell.
This is the part of the story most people are familiar with, the cinematic moment: Having arranged to buy seven kilos of cocaine, three pounds of meth, and a Honda Accord tricked out with secret compartments for smuggling contraband—for a total of $217,000—Bryan meets Marshall (an Anglo) and the three other sellers, Carlos, Cesar, and Edwan (Hondurans), in the parking lot of a restaurant in South Lake Union. It’s a moment that Bryan and his superiors have been anticipating for years. For them, all the trouble and expense of this investigation are about to pay off. They’re about to catch Rick being party to a drug deal of such magnitude, he’ll have no choice but to give up whatever he knows about the Earth Liberation Front, whatever he knows about getting guns, whatever he knows about the guys on the city council—everything.
All of the players tied to the day’s drug deal (except for one, who thinks he’s there to help his friend) seem to understand how serious the stakes are. At one point during the sale, the undercover detective makes a joke about not wanting the car to “die” on him. According to a police report, Carlos “did not laugh but said, fairly sternly, that he doesn’t mess around.”
Soon it’s flashing lights, drawn guns, shouting, handcuffs. Once he’s in custody, Carlos refuses to talk about the people he works for, saying that if he does, “they will kill me.” He is sentenced to 10 years in prison. Cesar and Edwan are sentenced to five years in prison. Marshall gets three years and six months.
This drug bust will get spun successfully by the cops and the media—including a story in the June 18, 2009, issue of The Stranger—as a major accomplishment, but Rick had almost nothing to do with it. Marshall was several degrees removed from Rick. Bryan was lucky to meet Marshall and lucky that Marshall was desperate to sell and lucky that he had known Rick for so long that all he had to do was offer Rick a little cash to cajole him to show up. I haven’t been able to find the documents that show how many agents and officers were listening in on the conversation when Bryan asked Rick for his big favor, but the amount of resources (that we know of) that went into tracking Rick’s life and his friends’ lives for two years is staggering.
We may never know exactly how much money the police and the FBI spent on Operation Big Slick, as they called their two-year surveillance of Rick and Cafe (un)American and the Cthulhu Building and Cafe Corsair, from at least August 2007 to June 2009, but the expenses include multiple SWAT teams, surveillance teams, two years of Bryan Van Brunt’s salary (in 2009, he made $134,657 and $46,829 of overtime pay), Bryan’s fake apartment that made Mia Brown suspicious, DK Pan and Brady McGarry’s plane tickets to protest at the Republican National Convention, the speakeasy costs (rent and tenant improvements at the Cafe Corsair space), and meals (people say Bryan bought them a lot of dinners in those two years, sometimes at expensive steak houses).
On July 11, 2008, for example, when Bryan went with Brady McGarry to Tacoma to meet the “young, stinky, and disorganized” protest kids, at least seven other officers—plus a SWAT team, according to a vice-unit surveillance log acquired by The Stranger—monitored the situation. The officers named in the police report are Sergeant Ryan Long (who made $133,339 in 2009, with $28,805 in overtime), Sergeant Jim Kelly ($120,503, with $14,196 in overtime), Detective Todd Novisedlak ($109,888, with $15,158 in overtime), Detective Dale Williams (there are two detectives identified as “Williams, D” in city salary records, one who made $111,638 and $2,151 in overtime and one who made $115,086, with $17,748 in overtime), Detective Ron Brundage Jr. ($109,974, with $13,371 in overtime), Detective Trent Bergman ($137,274, with $44,296 in overtime), and Detective Rick Hall ($112,659, with $20,822 in overtime).
“Oh wow, oh my god,” Brady says when I tell him how many police officers had been trailing him that day. “That’s terrifying. That’s terrifying. That was such a nothing day, such a disorganized, nothing meeting. Did you say the SWAT team was there? Why the hell was the SWAT team there? That’s insane.”
By the end of this investigation, Bryan Van Brunt will have won SPD’s Distinguished Service Award, even though his investigation was largely a flop. The SPD was investigating the political-corruption side of the case, looking into city council members Peter Steinbrueck and Nick Licata, according to FBI special agent David Gomez, who runs the counterterrorism program from Seattle’s field office. “With us,” he says, “it was a domestic terrorism case.” The FBI seemed to believe that Rick’s apartment and speakeasy parties were in fact linked to radical environmentalists, including the Earth Liberation Front. “There was a sense that there was information that would’ve helped us, if it had worked out,” Gomez says. “But I don’t believe that it did.”
The SPD thought it had a big corruption case, the FBI thought it had a big counterterrorism case, and a few folks in Seattle thought they had a friend in Bryan T. Owens.
Nobody got what they wanted—not the SPD, not the FBI, not the taxpayers, not Rick Wilson or his friends. But we have to give credit where it’s due: Bryan did get the Honduran cocaine dealers, even though they didn’t have anything to do with anything he’d been investigating. The Hondurans fell into Bryan’s lap—they were his lucky break. Without them, this case would have been a total embarrassment.
Here’s a little more math about the public resources that this investigation sucked up. According to documents acquired by The Stranger, during May and June of 2008, Bryan showed up to play cards at Rick’s apartment eight times. For those eight card games (i.e., eight police shifts for Bryan), the investigation paid for 112 shifts by supporting officers: 9 officers one night, 5 officers another night, 11 officers another night, etc. One night, an FBI agent came out. Another night, a SWAT team was there. And that’s just in a two-month window.
According to a source, SPD surveillance logs show that police were following the families of suspects, their sisters and mothers, and that some family members’ homes (like the West Seattle home of Rick’s sister, a veterinarian) were raided and turned upside down for evidence.
Some detectives, such as Sergeant Long and Detective Novisedlak, show up in the surveillance reports on dozens of occasions over the years, waiting and watching while Bryan played cards. In an interview, Rick told me about a friend of his who was paranoid that he was being followed. Rick says he sat the friend down and explained that he was being unrealistic, that he wasn’t in the middle of a big government conspiracy that was investigating him. “But it was true!” Rick laughs. “This is the worst-case scenario for this guy’s mental health.”
During the interrogation following his arrest, Rick tried to put the parties he’d hosted in perspective. “Nobody’s ever been hurt or harmed or mistreated or roofied,” he said. “Women have never had hands laid on them, like at other clubs. There’s never been anyone underage, to my knowledge, which you guys would know if you’ve been watching me as closely as you say you have.”
“We do know that. Now let’s focus on city officials,” one of his interrogators said, turning to the topic of Council Members Steinbrueck and Licata.
Former city council member Peter Steinbrueck says he knew nothing about any of this. “The police were looking for what?” he says when I ask about the investigation into corruption and gambling and environmental terrorism. “It was just an after-hours party.” He says he had been to some of the parties, but that was it.
Detectives got in touch with current city council member Nick Licata before I did, first dropping his name as a person of interest to a friend of his on the Allied Arts Foundation board. The detectives had come to warn this friend that DK Pan may have laundered money through the foundation. (The allegation is demonstrably false, as his group Free Sheep never got any money from Allied Arts but merely asked them if they’d be fiscal sponsors while they were considering nonprofit status. If this story teaches us anything, it’s to never underestimate the misguided zeal of the SPD.)
The Allied Arts board member called Licata, who called then–acting police chief John Diaz. “Diaz said, ‘This is really bad form, I don’t know what’s going on with these detectives,'” Licata remembers. Diaz told Licata he’d find out and call him back. Then two detectives dropped by Licata’s office to question him. “They said, ‘Well, you know, your name came up and we feel obligated to follow through,'” Licata says. “They ask me if I’ve ever been there, and I said, ‘No, but it sounded kinda cool!'”
The Stranger filed a public records request with the department, asking for information about the length and breadth of the investigation, but SPD has not been very forthcoming about the resources it devoted to the case. The thin stack of documents the SPD sent back begins in September 2008, at least a full year after the investigation actually began—according to SPD spokesperson Sean Whitcomb, Operation Big Slick began in the summer of 2007—and includes information about only a handful of the officers shown on department surveillance logs.
Around 8:40 a.m. on March 30, 2011, four years after the investigation began, four men show up at the King County Courthouse to face charges for violating RCW 9.46.220, the state law regulating “professional gambling in the first degree.” A few reporters are taking notes and tweeting the proceedings. They are here to see the “speakeasy defendants” who’ve been all over the local papers and blogs, guys arrested for throwing parties where people drank after-hours and played cards.
In the past 10 years, according to the prosecutor’s office, King County has pressed charges against only one other person for violating RCW 9.46.220. It’s a law that the government doesn’t seem to care that much about. After all, from Seattle you can drive 20 miles south to Tukwila or 10 miles north to the Drift On Inn Roadhouse Casino on Aurora Avenue and gamble legally.
But these four men (all of them, I later learn, poor—if they really were “professional gamblers,” they were lousy at it) are being prosecuted for the crime of playing poker somewhere between Tukwila and Shoreline with the wrong guy, an undercover cop.
The defendants are quiet, well dressed, and bewildered by the charges. One of them told me that the poker stakes were so low, he would lose or win $100 at most in the course of a night. (“All those guys were broke, broke as a joke,” Mia Brown agrees. “They’d borrow five dollars from someone to go put on the card table. It was small and it was stupid.”)
The defense lawyers will be bewildered by what they find in the discovery process—all the paperwork and evidence and audio and video surveillance accumulated by the two-year investigation that involved the FBI, SPD, SWAT teams, and federal firearms and immigration and customs agents. One defendant’s discovery request turned up nearly 2,000 pages of documentation and over 100 CDs and DVDs, and even that defendant’s attorney had to file extra requests because he said there were big gaps of time missing.
Why did law enforcement dedicate such massive resources to bust some penny-ante card players for charges that only one person has faced in the past 10 years?
One of the defendants, Brady McGarry, had a simple explanation: “If you spend that much time and money, you have to put somebody up on that cross.”
In a prepared statement, David Whedbee, the defense attorney representing DK Pan, wrote:
It’s puzzling that the Seattle Police Department would commit such law enforcement resources to punish people for playing poker. Our investigation is yet in its early stages, but our preliminary review of the records indicates, for instance, that from October 2007 to November 2008, Officer Van Brunt made more than 70 outings to these establishments. And each time, he was assisted by on average five or six other officers. We believe Officer Van Brunt continued to have such outings from November 2008 through June 2009, but documentation is incomplete. We have made a public records request to the SPD to figure out how extensive the investigation was in terms of money and man-hours, so we’ll see what those records show.
It’s also astonishing the number of days (and hence public resources) Officer Van Brunt dedicated to keeping tabs on the defendants and many, many others who were political activists, journalists, and established artists, and that he did so largely on account of their beliefs and expressive conduct.
Whatever the FBI and the SPD and Van Brunt were looking for—and whatever lengths they went to in order to find it—they’ve probably handed King County prosecutors the biggest pile of surveillance for gambling charges in state history. A few days ago, I asked an officer at the SPD about the extremes of the investigation and the paltriness of the charges.
“Yeah,” he sighed. “This case was pretty low-yield.”
The “journalists” in the “political activists, journalists, and established artists” part of Whedbee’s prepared statement piqued my curiosity. What “journalists”? It turns out that my colleague Jen Graves, The Stranger‘s art critic, made the investigation reports (they mistakenly name her as “Jenna”) because she wrote a profile of the Free Sheep Foundation in The Stranger. Free Sheep is a two-man arts organization (run by DK Pan and the painter NKO) that began curating arts events in 2007, starting with the Bridge Motel project, a collection of site-specific performances and installations in a soon-to-be-demolished motel on Aurora. Free Sheep has since worked for years with all kinds of legitimate arts institutions, including the Moore Theatre and 4Culture.
According to police reports and court charging papers, Free Sheep is nothing more than “a front” for a gambling operation that was “created only to generate plausible deniability to law enforcement, should suspicion arise.”
But that’s just not true.
I ask Graves if she had written about Free Sheep in The Stranger in order to “provide legitimacy” to a “front” for a criminal operation.
“How do I even answer that question?” she says. “It is completely absurd. Free Sheep was interesting and important artists in the city doing projects that really meant something to a lot of people. My first time experiencing them was the Bridge Motel project which was totally poignant and, frankly, one of the more meaningful public art projects I have ever seen.”
I had also entered the investigation for my work covering the 2008 Republican National Convention in Minneapolis–St. Paul for The Stranger. According to the investigation reports, I was “a reporter covering the RNC during the day” so I could be “a protester at night.” Which is so untrue that it’s funny. I’m not the protesting type. I’m more of the stand-nearby-and-take-notes type. (But I do appreciate the robustness of the officer’s imagination.)
The attorney Whedbee got a little shy about communicating with me when I wanted to talk to him about being in the police reports myself. “Is it possible,” he asked, “that the police might be watching you?”
So. Here we have a local, small-stakes gambling case that involves just shy of two years of surveillance by multiple federal agencies profiling all kinds of people, including artists and journalists, for their social contacts—sometimes in ways that are sinister-sounding but in fact untrue, leading authorities to all kinds of dead ends about environmental activists, terrorists, and corrupt politicians.
“Look, I am not anti-cop,” Rick Wilson tells me while sitting on a porch in West Seattle, a few days before leaving to begin his four-year prison sentence in Colorado. Rick, the main target in the two-year investigation, wound up sentenced to prison for an unrelated crime he committed years before the investigation began: buying guns (which is legal) to get them into the hands of Zapatista revolutionaries in Chiapas (which is illegal).
During the activist phase of his life, Rick sent aid to the Zapatistas, starting with medical supplies. He says it was “stupid” of him to buy guns for them but that he was moved to do so after hearing stories of government paramilitary soldiers killing women and children in Zapatista villages and men marching into combat with wooden facsimiles of guns. They didn’t have the guns to defend themselves.
During Rick’s sentencing hearing, even the prosecuting lawyer—US Attorney Andrew Friedman—pointed out that Rick “was not trying to make money” but was moved to help out of a sense of altruism. “In fact, he spent money doing this.”
After Bryan’s investigation, Rick says, the government needed something to charge him with. “We had to go charge shopping!” Rick says, laughing. “My lawyer was like, ‘What have you done?’ And I said: ‘In my life, I’ve sold some untaxed cigarettes.’ My lawyer was like, ‘Good! That’s great! How many?’ I told him I’d sold a few packs and he was like, ‘Boring, boring. That’s not enough. Do you know about any unsolved murders?'”
Rick was eventually sentenced to 40 months in prison for agreeing to show up to that drug deal and for the Zapatista guns—”conspiracy to export firearms without a license.” Conspiracy, says attorney Amanda Lee, is what the state charges you with when it doesn’t have anything more robust. “Conspiracy law makes it very easy to rope in people on the periphery,” she says, “and put them on the hook for something happening at the center.”
In Rick’s opinion: “Laws exist to protect people or communal things. If the state says, ‘Don’t dump toxic waste in that river,’ I’m like, ‘Go state!'” But, he asks, “is this what we want our government doing? Creating criminals to charge? Spending millions of dollars and years of officers’ time to pressure someone to do something he’d never normally do?”
In a letter to a probation officer, prosecuting attorney Friedman admits that the government spent years trying to pressure Rick into doing something he’d never normally do. That letter is sealed by the court, but Rick’s lawyer, Peter Offenbecher, summarizes its argument in the transcript of Rick’s sentencing hearing: “In a real sense, and as Mr. Friedman accurately points out… Mr. Wilson had no role at all in negotiating the size of these transactions. He was simply an add-on, an extra person added to the sting… there are elements of entrapment… the local government spent two years insinuating a false friend to Mr. Wilson to the point where by the time he was arrested, Mr. Wilson actually thought this was his best friend, or one of his best friends… He had no clue. He was clueless.”
“Bryan wanted me to go do radical stuff,” Rick says. “He said, ‘I’ve got the fire in my belly and my eyes are opened about how horrible the police are.’ He wanted to do radical action. I sat him down and told him to cool his jets, gave him some books to read. I told him—in no uncertain terms—the pointlessness of indiscriminate environmental action. But he wanted me to burn things down.”
Rick is smoking a pipe. He sets it down on the deck table and stares out at Puget Sound. “I’d like to line up all the people involved in this investigation,” he says, “line them up in front of parents of missing children—of people who actually need law enforcement—and explain to them why they wasted years of officers’ time on this when their kids are still missing. I want them to look them in the eye and see how good they feel about their fucking lives. I’m not that important. I’m really not. Society is no safer with me in prison.”
Then he says something I’ve heard him (and DK and Brady and Junior and several others) say variations of before: “I didn’t realize I was playing a chess game for my life with the FBI. They were playing chess, and I was off finger-painting in the corner.” 
The list of people who declined to comment for the record, either directly or through an intermediary, includes Detective Bryan Van Brunt and Sergeant Ryan Long as well as all the other police officers involved in the investigation; defendants DK Pan, Eric Sun, and Thoren Honeycutt; the soldier Bryan tried to convince to steal weapons from Fort Lewis; Rick Wilson’s sister; real-estate mogul Martin Selig; Rick’s attorney Peter Offenbecher; US Attorney Andrew Friedman; and Rick’s sentencing judge, the Honorable Richard A. Jones, brother of internationally renowned jazz musician Quincy Jones.
This is just one ridiculously huge face-palm… And doesn’t really help my on-the-fence position of SPD…
I have a feeling this is happening in more cities than Seattle.
I wonder what sort of actual services the city could provide for the amount of money that was spent on this bullshit.
Absolutely great and scary read, BK. What a waste of resources…
This kind of stuff is why I read the Stranger, even after moving out of Seattle. Good article.
SPD just can’t do a damn thing right lately it seems.
Thriller was awesome
TL;DR, not an interesting topic.
Jesus this is heart breaking. What a waste.
I took a lot of pictures of Free Sheep installations and art shows. I wonder if MY name is in the investigation reports too. We need to start over with a new police force.
Also Brendan, this article pretty much wins as the best thing The Stranger has ever written in my book.
Outstanding and heartbreaking article. Good show, Mr. Kiley.
Detective Rick Hall (listed as one of the cops who accompanied on the trip to Tacoma) is Joint Terrorism Task Force. “Joint” meaning he works for both SPD and the FBI. This is indicative of how different branches of law enforcement nationally are synthesizing to repress social movements in the name of the “war on terror.” See also: Fusion Centers and John Towery.
http://johntowery.com/
http://www.seattleweekly.com/content/pri…
A beautiful piece
This is why The Stranger is the only Seattle news media I read.
Reads like a missing chapter from ‘A Scanner Darkly.’ Except more surveillance and deception in response to less significant “crimes.”
It really hits home when you think of all the good things that law enforcement could’ve been doing rather than this kind of wasteful adventurism. Good job Stranger and Mr. Kiley for the investigative journalism.
@15: Yeah, I kept seeing rotoscoped images in my head as I read this.
I’ll stand by my opinion that the Seattle Police Department needs a major shakedown before things have any chance of getting better. I had to look at the date on the article to make sure it wasn’t something from the 80s, and well before my time here. Nope, it’s current.
Officer Bryan should not only not be commended for his work, he and his co-workers on this project should be fired and jailed for all of these tax-wasting, illegal actions. They’re looking into activists who find this exact type of thing to be wrong, under the assumption that that’s weird, and they’re causing more people to think that the police are highly misguided and not worthy of trust. Well, at least they can find more people to look into now.
You know, I take that back. It’s the bosses up the line that should be fired.
Mr. Kiley,
Please sign up for rapid human cloning experimentation. We need one of you in *every* city, town, and village in the world. I have not seen a more significant ‘who watches the watchers’ story in a long… long time.
Brendan, can you get a ballpark estimate of the total monetary cost for this “operation”? You hint at it, but can you come up with a total?
This article is very well researched, but would have benefited from some historical context. There is nothing surprising about the amount of resources the FBI will dump into an investigation of constitutionally protected activities, or its attempt to intimidate people who break the law to turn in “bigger fish” in ways that seem a lot more like entrapment than law enforcement.
Pulitzer Fucking Prize
@7 What. Too long to read? Not interesting? Is a feature where zoo animals listen to a record more your speed?
The FBI sent some undercover guy to a vegan bake sale my friend and I had a while ago. A BAKE SALE. He was a sketchy bald cop-mustached guy with a camera who kept getting in everyone’s faces and taking photos of them, and trying to get everyone to talk about ELF and asking us how we knew some of the people mentioned in this article and a few other local punks. We all thought he was just an insane homeless man who somehow found an expensive camera, but afterwards we figured out that the SPD or FBI had actually legitimately thought we were terrorists for selling cupcakes to make money for an animal shelter.
Plus, motherfucker didn’t even buy any cupcakes. Fucking cops.
This piece is absolutely incredible and illuminating.
outstanding article. it is beyond totally heartbreaking that THIS is where our money went.
Fucking horrifying. Why can’t Rick sue the city entrapment?
@25,
This is a great piece, no doubt, but you are high on cocaine and have never read a Pulitzer award-winning piece of journalism if you think it’s Pulitzer worthy.
Thank you so much for telling the truth. I hope the world listens.
It is ridiculous, truly absurd, that The Stranger, our local indy weekly, routinely trumps most national media in investigative journalism. This is not where I should have heard about this, but I’m glad I heard about it. Thank you, Mr. Kiley.
Half this article is bullshit. The way this spiraled into other people for simply attending games is overkill, but I don’t believe half the poor me quality of Ricks defense.
“Rick likes to think he’s a cross between Don King and Rick from Casablanca, but he really isn’t,” Junior says. “He’s just a 38-year-old guy who used to be in a band… but he’ll try to show off in front of the jury, and I’m here to keep him from shooting himself in the dick.” is dead fucking on. Rick was all about ego, money, and showmanship.
There were more than a few people who knew it was only a matter of time before he got himself caught. Was the amount spent here overkill? Absolutely. Should they have been able to assess the size of the situation earlier? Of course. But this article downplays the situation–he made a living off these games and parties, he showed off the drugs, the guns, the books. If you’d been there you would have seen it had you cared to look.
Here’s a pretty good article about the Eric McDavid case, which was referred to in the article. An 18 year old community college student was paid to follow some kids around who she met at the RNC protests (including a 19 year old from Monroe), and she had a very passionate, teenagery demeanor. She talked them into practicing making bombs in a field by her cabin. This was enough to get her boyfriend sentenced to 20 years for conspiracy to commit arson – even though the conspiracy was with her, and she was the one with the plan and target. A group trying to put together a documentary has the FBI surveillance video from her cabin, and the young activists keep making statements telling her to calm down, while she insists they name targets and commit to more action
http://worcester.indymedia.org/files/200…
Meanwhile, the pussies are shooting and killing innocent Native American woodcarvers etc. just to make themselves feel better. Useless bullies.
And I don’t want to hear a damned word about the “good cops”. They don’t freakin’ exist. If you stand idly by and say or do nothing about this, and other examples of their monstrosities, you are equally guilty, if not MORE guilty. Abuse of authority should be punished more harshly, by many orders of magnitude beyond any punishment we would dole out to civilians committing the same crimes. And hey, after a couple of cops got the death penalty etc., I guarantee the rate of such incidences would drop through the floor.
They used to be called “Brownshirts”. Now their just called “The Boys In Blue”. Ultimately, not much difference between the two besides the color scheme. And then they wonder why they’re hated by all….
It would be great to see Marty Scorsese film a quick-cut masterpiece of this story, with a small cash register in the lower left ringing up the money.
@37 If the setting were only NYC, he probably would.
thank you, thank you, thank you
I’m sitting here looking at a painting my wife did of DK a couple years ago. It’s on the front of a magazine. All those years we spent socially and financially supporting the Capitol Hill arts culture – makes me realize that it wasn’t “if” these creeps crashed our scene, but “when” and how often. Our thing broke up largely when I blew up one night because some people started putting things on meetup and trying to charge money. My point was artistic integrity. But, the way things were going, it makes me realize we absolutely had to have been on their radar. No doubt we’re living in a fascist police culture. Maybe it’s time to bet back to work
This is probably one of the most thoroughly researched pieces I have EVER read in The Stranger, and I’m not even a fan. I’m guessing the hundreds of man-hours spent investigating this investigation are second only to the hours spent the original investigation. But I bet the Stranger’s author didn’t get paid as much..(hehhe- slight burn intended). But, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was nominated for some type of journalistic award.
Will it die on the vine? With Councilman Licata and Steinbrueck riding the peripheral, it’s got potential to do otherwise.
Det Brunt is obviously an excellent undercover cop. Probably one of the best in his region. I’m certain his colleagues would agree. The author would have you believe he is a little “too good”. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t possess Jedi mind control. These people made choices of their own free will. I’m also fairly certain he didn’t enjoy sending some of the guilty to prison. Spending that much time with anybody will undoubtedly create some type of kinship. Bet he couldn’t even get that kind of loyalty from his brothers in blue.
You can’t really blame him for the direction of this case or man hours spent on the investigation. I’m sure he has little authority in governing the FBI’s budget or agenda.
The Stranger lost some credibility by giving up the cops true identity and undercover name. Where’s the objectivity? Seems as if you are trying to place the undercover cop in harms way or thwart future undercover operations. Felt a little spiteful. Maybe I’m wrong, but food for thought none the less. If the mainstream media does pick this story up, the cops identity will undoubtedly be side-lined. Has no bearing on the case or story.
I’m sitting here looking at a painting my wife did of DK a couple years ago. It’s on the front of a magazine. All those years we spent socially and financially supporting the Capitol Hill arts culture – makes me realize that it wasn’t “if” these creeps crashed our scene, but “when” and how often. Our thing broke up largely when I blew up one night because some people started putting things on meetup and trying to charge money. My point was artistic integrity. But, the way things were going, it makes me realize we absolutely had to have been on their radar. No doubt we’re living in a fascist police culture.
Got this on the main page of Fark!
Brendan, you’re a hell of a writer and journalist. I’ve yet to read something by you that didn’t suck me in and make me think. Keep up the good work!
Great article Brendan, this is indeed happening all over the place.
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index…
Great article Brendan, this is happening all over the place.
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index…
God, great article, great research. I’ve heard of similar things happening and personally witnessed lesser wastes of police resources (five squad cars and guns drawn for a kid out past his curfew is the best example), but it never ceases to shock me. Moreover, when I hear conservatives harp on ‘wasteful governnment spending’ without mentioning law enforcement, intelligence and military spending as areas deserving of cuts – it just blows my mind. Last thing, as eager as cops are to bust an underage smoker or drinker, or a guy smoking a joint in his own home playing videogames, I once tried to report credit card fraud and waited for two hours in the police station without anyone so much as taking a report, let alone an investigation. If cops would investigate real crimes and help people the way they’re supposed to, our lives would be much improved. Instead, they harass people who pose ZERO threat to anyone. Disgusting.
HOLY SHIT.
This is a great article, I’m so glad someone is finally bringing all of this to light and giving Rick a voice – instead of just relying on the Police reports for information. The Seattle police should definitely be held accountable for the waste and harassment/entrapment.
“Former Chicago Tribune reporter Will Potter, author of Green Is the New Red (just published by City Lights), says that after years of looking into these kinds of cases, he’s never figured out exactly why the FBI is doing this”
Why would the FBI manufacture a need for their services? Job security. Louder: JOB SECURITY.
Where do I collect my prize?
Possibly the best thing I’ve read from The Stranger. More like this, please!
Also, I wonder how many people in Cap Hill who went to those parties has been investigated. Kind of scary…
Great article. Not at all surprising, though. But well-researched. Reads like a true-life thriller.
A year ago Brendan wrote the amazing piece on Suicide in Seattle, now he writes this incredible investigative piece—I’d say Kiley is easily the best journalist The Stranger, and probably THE CITY, has got.
Great stuff. The good news is bringing Licata and Steinbrueck into the case. They’re the ones who can call Chief Diaz and try to get answers. They won’t get any, of course, because Diaz is a robot remote-controlled by his men. What a godawful choice that was. And it’s sickening to me that these creeps make $120,000 a year for doing this crap.
Here’s hoping for a sustained investigation like the one that cleaned out the department in 1970.
Wow, I was in an early FSF show at that location and had no idea. I remember meeting the undercover cop (didn’t know at the time) dude, and he seemed overly “bro-ish” and out of place. What a total failure of a sting….and a complete waste of tax money. The spd sucks ass.
Great article. Kiley is really killing it with long form investigative journalism. This article is eerily similar to the recent New Yorker piece about a current Congressman, Michael Grimm, who was an undercover FBI agent. Same shit, spinning crimes out of thin air, spending huge amounts of tax-payer money.
Whoa…
Bravo. Excellent reporting.
It’s a well funded culture war, as is obvious from SPD statements. The largely conservative law enforcement agencies, with limitless funds and resources, and bent on picking on the harmless weirdos in their political opposition. This story needs to be told and understood by everyone. Very scary real Police State stuff.
Personally, I have always though Rick was a pompous jackass, but nobody deserves this kind of shit.
“Dude lived parallel lives,” he says, and he did it well enough to keep up with a “large, shrewd” roomful of people.”
None of whom seem to be featured in this story. Christ, it’s like a race to the bottom between these ‘shrewd’ hipsters and the SPD. What a bunch of muppets on either side.
It’s amazing how much trouble you avoid in life by leaving the room whenever cocaine appears, or plans to procure it start to be discussed.
Thank you for a detailed, in-depth article I’ll never see anywhere else. Keep it up, Stranger staff. You might be the last real journalists in the country.
As for the subject matter … Jebus. All I can think of is the closing lines of Burn After Reading:
“What did we learn, Palmer?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“I don’t fucking know either. I guess we learned not to do it again.”
Just amazing.
I wonder how many SPD and FBI officers have gone cruising by Brendan’s house since this came out. Since they can’t be bothered to go out and do anything actually useful they might as well try to harass their critics.
When Brendan gets back he might want to make sure his brake lights still work, tabs are up to date, etc, or he might find himself pulled over with a lot more regularity.
The one thing I don’t understand is how almost all of this isn’t entrapment. Bryan says he wants to go burn stuff, Rick actually tries to talk him out of it, and so Bryan…Keeps trying to talk him into it? This is what police do? Pressure people into to commit crimes they ordinarily would have no intention of committing? So are the police going to start following me around now too? Are they going to open files on everyone who leaves a comment? What a waste.
Excellent work, Mr. Kiley. Thanks for this.
Somebody ought to compare the amount of funds spent on this investigation compared to the funds lost to the Urban League scandal. I bet they are comparable. I doubt this one gets full Seattle Times front page treatment though.
“You can’t really blame him [SPD detective] for the direction of this case or man hours spent on the investigation. I’m sure he has little authority in governing the FBI’s budget or agenda.”
I think that’s where you’re wrong. The detective could have gone to his superiors and the FBI and told the truth that there is nothing big going on there. The most they could have done is roll in and do the petty drug bust and move on. Why would he not do that? Because hanging out with a bunch of weird people drinking and playing cards (while collecting a paycheck) is way more fun than patrolling the streets for car prowlers and muggers.
How many crimes on real people would have been solved or even prevented had all these officers and FBI agents been out working real cases? I understand the way these things are supposed to work, in that they start small and then move up to the big fish, but that’s only when you’re working a lake and not a fishbowl. These cops and especially the FBI should have realized this was a half gallon fishbowl after the first week.
One part of this generally good piece struck me as woefully shallow: the bit on SPD’s claim that Free Sheep was a front. Kiley dismisses this but his only refutation is that Jen Graves wasn’t knowingly part of building up that front and that Free Sheep did a lot of good for the Seattle art scene. But Graves’ motivation for her piece and whether or not Free Sheep was “interesting and important” in the Seattle art scene isn’t relevant at all. The question is, was Free Sheep set up as and/or function as a front?
Prosecutors claim they’ve got recordings of names like “Don’t Arrest Us, Incorporated” and “Legal Front” being jokingly floated before settling on Free Sheep. Did Kiley talk to any of the people recorded? What did they have to say about those jokes? Prosecutors also claim Free Sheep existed not simply to provide plausible deniability, but to launder money. Did Kiley try looking into the finances to see if there was anything to those claims?
The money-laundering allegations are at the top of SPD’s list of allegations and they’re being strongly echoed by the media, and all Kiley gives us is “but that’s just not true”? The lack of depth on that critical point kinda soured me on the whole article.
@55 That investigation had the impetus of a public boogeyman, Frank Colacurcio, behind it. Since he is apparently the only mobster in Seattle’s history (the subject is almost comically avoided in recent decades), we’re going to have to scare up another scapegoat with which to pubicly taint the SPD.
I don’t know that Chief Diaz or the FBI/DEA cabal will fit that bill.
Awesome awesome article. between this and the series on Levamisole and the cocaine trade, it’s a wonder some real publication hasn’t paid Brendan Kiley some real money to write for them.
Excellent article.
This is literally something out of Catch-22: when somebody fucks up big-time, you give them a medal.
Were they hoping for more? Absolutely. I have to imagine in these types of investigations you don’t know where it may lead. In this case it lead to a major drug deal. It would have been nice to get some of those ELF SOBs but it wasn’t to be… It’s unfortunate we only have the one side of this story: those who were caught, or associated with those caught.
Sounds like SPD has been watching too many shitty 80’s cop movies.
@35: Thanks for that amazing link.
They should have just let Rick go. Four years in prison for something he did years ago and that they weren’t even investigating? Going to prison is a life-ruining event that makes it almost impossible to get a legitimate job. Why did his lawyer tell him to let the police get him for something just so they could save face? How was that in the interest of his client, when the police clearly didn’t have a real case against him?
Thank you for the excellent reporting on this ridiculous case.
Tim Lohraff
This really could go on and on. There are still so many questions. @68, interesting point, though I doubt it’s as sinister as it is made to sound. But it would be very interesting to know more. This whole thing is sickening. More more
Wow. Nicely done, Brendan et al.
If we are to trust the 2006 Snohomish County Assessors report, easily found online, we might speculate that Detective Van Brunt is slumming into our mean streets from that lily-white suburb. How quaint. And how reminiscent of the noted racist Officer Steve “social justice iz the enemy” Pomper.
I would feel safer with local cops who know and respect the community that pays their salary. Enough already with the self-serving cowboys.
(And could it be that I’m posting anonymously because I’m paranoid? Yes it could.)
The local authoritays have had it in for Rick since his ¡Tchkung! days.
Behold this fine piece of law enforcement alarmism, in which they describe Rick & crew as a “radical, menacing group.”
Unrelatedly, a friend of mine recently had his home burgled and several thousand dollars’ worth of electronics were stolen. The SPD officer who showed up to investigate did nothing at all to investigate.
Meanwhile they’re making out harmless activists and hippies to be the next terror front. If I’ve learned anything about cops, it’s that they’re selling the public a bill of goods: they’ll spend untold sums on a two-year undercover investigation into what could just as well be a frat party, they’ll paint harmless people with the brush of terrorism, they’ll twist an activist’s arm to get him involved in crimes he wants nothing to do with, and then they’ll parade the arrestees around like the Worst of the Worst, but when real crime happens, they can’t be bothered.
hey bren thanks man… sincerely. as the first person to contact you and one of the catalysts for a good bit of this. not to mention one of the co defendants. I must say you did this story the same way and in the same spirit as we did the parties. you brought the motherf**KER. it was never to disrupt or profit. harm or hinder. it was to desperatly try to triage a city whose culture and nightlife and very vitality was no longer tactile and pure to us as it once had been. well played my brother you sir are part of the disfunctional family of sinners
addicts
hustlers
saints
rebels
outlaws
that we are….
you are one of the very few left.
thankyou
82
hey bren thanks man… sincerely. as the first person to contact you and one of the catalysts for a good bit of this. not to mention one of the co defendants. I must say you did this story the same way and in the same spirit as we did the parties. you brought the motherf**KER. it was never to disrupt or profit. harm or hinder. it was to desperatly try to triage a city whose culture and nightlife and very vitality was no longer tactile and pure to us as it once had been. well played my brother you sir are part of the disfunctional family of sinners
addicts
hustlers
saints
rebels
outlaws
that we are….
you are one of the very few left.
thankyou
This reminds me of The Wire, if anyone reading this hasn’t seen this HBO series I’d highly recommend, this is a near text book case as far as the feds are concerned. It’s like that scene where the local cops want federal help cause their targets might be doing business in other states, and they want to give drug kingpins who have ordered the killing of children less jail time if they can help uncover political corruption. Clearly an exaggeration, but I think the point the writers made is clear. While the real criminals who are killing innocent people for money are out…killing innocent people for money, the feds are more concerned about how they can make their office look better on the TV box. They NEVER throw in the towel, someone’s going down for something at some point even if they’re innocent, because it’s their reputation on the line, they need to justify the waste of resources in any way possible, or they lose their job.
It’s like what they did with the Cidital a while back, round up all the drugs and do a nice photo op. It doesn’t stop the drugs from being sold, it doesn’t stop the crimes from being committed, it doesn’t bring to justice anyone who’s wronged anyone else, it just created an opportunity for the police to use a single case and say “I told you so, now increase our budget”. I used to think police officers actually worked for the betterment of society, and while I understand that there are many who do, this minority of officers who get off entrapping people because of their political beliefs put entire departments to shame. Worst of all? They don’t even give a shit, THEY REWARDED THE FAILURE (much like the last scene in The Wire where the newspaper reporter who made up stories gets a medal for his work, while the reporters telling truth get fired), they don’t even see themselves as doing a bad job. But those officers who do work for the betterment of society? They’d laugh at the idea of getting a medal, they were “just doing their job, like they’ve been trained to do”. The real heroes in this world will never get the credit they deserve, because of undercover operatives like Brian. Thank you for this piece, and while we can all hope that the FBI will finally LEARN from this mistake, I wouldn’t play any bets on it (cause the FBI is likely reading this comment).
I wish this level of effort would be put into stopping the gangs that are taking over our state.
@ 68 I think you’re protesting Brendan’s unpacking the charges a bit strongly, considering the lack of actual proof in this case. It’s very possible he doesn’t have much to write about the “money laundering” and other “crimes” because there isn’t enough evidence for them. This case was mostly a fraudulent sham, an absolute waste of taxpayer’s resources, and a sign that some authorities want to push us around to justify their fat paychecks. But somehow you want these bogus charges to mean something, even if Brendan found little to back them up. Guilty before proven innocent — which is not how we should feel when dealing with the law in this country. This sort of entrapment is a complete perversion of the system.
Junior/Thoren shut up.
Just for reference, undercover detectives are used as a way to accomplish an investigation. They are not THE investigation. They are directed where to go and who to go after. They do not choose the individuals to investigate or how to investigate them. they aren’t even given all the informatoin regarding the investigation. that said, i believe this was a huge over-reach of government power and should not be allowed as individual opinions, popular or not, are what make this country great.
Brendan, did you see Evan Ratliff’s piece in The New Yorker last week?
This is so messed up! How does the SPD get away with this crap? Really, spending my taxpayer money so you can hang out and try to convince people to break the law? Have you no conscience? I say fire the whole lot, all the officers and detectives that were involved. Is there a photo of the undercover officer, Bryan? I hope he never works in this city or state or country again! Can we get the hard numbers of how much the city spent on this? How can we make it happen? Who’s accountable and who’s going follow up with it?
Dear god. It makes me want to become one of those “constitutional” tax protesters just so I don’t keep dumping my taxes into useless shit like this while my girlfriend teaching in the CD can’t get enough help to teach poor kids math.
Wow. Fascinating article.
This is one for the books. Seattle history being written. Great job Brendan Kiley.
Wow. Brendan you have produced the best journalism I’ve read in years between this and the levamisole (sp?) articles.
Bravo, Sir.
Hey all. Thanks for the nice comments. I am out of town at the moment, but to answer a few of the questions…
1. Entrapment is a hard case to prove for a variety of reasons. The accused has to prove, among other things, that s/he had no prior inclination towards the crimes being alleged. If you have used or sold drugs, even in small amounts, it’s hard to argue that you would NEVER show up to a big drug deal. Even if you wouldn’t have.
2. Regarding the Free Sheep/front/money laundering claims, they are so ridiculous and baseless, as far as I can tell, that I didn’t get too far into them. I’m very excited to see whether and how the prosecutor’s office tries to substantiate the accusations. That should be a gas.
And now I’ve got a beer and a hammock to attend to.
Probably one of the most interesting, thorough, relevant, insightful, effective, well written pieces of investigative journalism I’ve read in all my life (and I’ve always loved reading journalism). Big thumbs up, and also a thank you, I’ll be following your work as long as you continue to produce it!
We had a real similar thing happen in Austin. Just go google “Brandon Darby” and read about the kids he put in jail.
Everyone who believes this is a miscarriage of justice and a waste of our taxes should write letters to our congressman, city council, and the SPD. It goes a long way letting them know how we, tax payers and their constituents, feel.
Absolutely phenomenal feature. Woah! I’d put off reading this because the topic didn’t initially grab me, but after hearing enough about it from friends, I finally dove in. SO glad to have read it, and so frustrated right now.
Seems like a variation of the stories that regularly come out in national news media. You’ve probably heard it many times before. First it’s reported the FBI busts a dangerous terrorist cell and soon after it turns out the FBI actually manipulated and supported mentally unstable/poor/gullible dupes of middle-eastern ethnicity into carrying out terrorist attacks, even giving them the fake bombs to do it. And people wonder why conspiracy theories and distrust of government are so common and widespread.
Really great feature. Our band Dark State Lines has a song called “Cafe Unamerican”. Thought we’d share our take. live video: http://vimeo.com/23343824
Great feature! Our band Dark State Lines has a song called “Cafe Unamerican”. Thought we’d share our take. live video: http://vimeo.com/23343824
I can’t believe the SPD. “Someone has to go on the cross…,” is exactly what I was thinking! The SPD and FBI should all be ashamed of themselves for all the money, time and energy they waste on this small-time gig. I hear/read stories like this all the time. I love how my taxes are paying for this crap and our state is sinking in deficit thanks to these idiots. Hey, let’s cut UW’s funding, but give it to the SPD to do survallience for years on a small time crook. Yeah. Thanks.
@Beenthere “he showed off the drugs, the guns, the books. If you’d been there you would have seen it had you cared to look.”
Really which scared you more the books or the legal registered guns he kept in a locked cabinet?
If you knew Rick at all well enough to loan him cash you would know he wasn’t making much of a living of any of this.
Great great article Brendan I have just finished sending it to Rick I know he was really anxious to read it.
j?
I spent a few evenings at Cafe Corsair so at least I got something for the millions(?) of our tax dollars these tards wasted on this mess. Thanks SPD.
By the way, what can we do to get rid of John Diaz. Like the article says, “you have to put somebody up on that cross” and I think we should start with the Police Chief.
http://www.myspace.com/pimpdynasty/music…
King Dro (who performed many nights at Cafe Unamerican) has a song called Shhh-Speakeasy that does it justice.
Finally got a chance to read the article Brendan. Very well written. Its not only a very good piece of investigative reporting, but as I state, it moves very well and held my interest right from the start. Obviously, we have both a police and FBI that are out of control, willing and eager to waste taxpayer dollars on frivolous “lifestyle” investigations, rather than chasing real crooks. Its scary to see the depths and entrapments they are willing to stoop to, in desperate attempts to arrest someone, anyone, for the crimes that the police and FBI manufactured for them.
At the very least we need to clean house with our local police force. Hopefully this article can help with that movement.
check out
http://www.metafilter.com/103227/The-Lon…
for more discussions on the case.
Awesome job on this piece, one of the best researched yet by any local journalist. However, I want to dispose of the confusion over illegal gambling laws: Both the state and Seattle have laws that apply to playing poker, but neither outlaw “friendly” games of poker, no matter the stakes. The difference is weather the host of the game collects a fee. If you collect a rake or charge a door fee, you’ve crossed the line. The caption on the photo is obviously wrong- Unless we’re talking play money, everyone needs a state license to deal blackjack- The drift on inn and other outside-of-Seattle casinos, and tribes like the Muckleshoot alike. If you don’t have one, or if you do and you cheat players out of their money, you can go to prison. The defendants are quoted as describing how small-stakes the game was (which is a lie from my perspective, as a player in these games), but this is immaterial. The law is black and white on this issue. If you want to host a poker game, you are free and clear to do so at any stakes. There’s at least a half dozen going on each weekend, just search on craigslist for a game with an open seat.
Does anyone else wonder if this kind of operation is necessary for the FBI to justify part of its existence because the CIA/whoever nearly totally controls the REST of the drug trade?
excellent article. thank you.
“This story fits into a national pattern of law enforcement going to great lengths to prosecute people who are perceived as serious threats to national security, but who are (for the most part) just people with big mouths and weird lifestyles.” No doubt about it!
Government is the source of most societal problems but w/o enforcers – the ones in this report with legal authority to use physical force – all the regulations/edicts/mandates/laws/etc are merely words spouted verbally or written down.
Persuade enforcers to get truly productive jobs while using shame and shun on those who continue to be agents of force, government. Without enforcers, politicians words are just that and nothing more.
you know… it finally occurred to me, what if this Bryan guy was actually subtly on the side of the hipsters. He went two years, and apparently only found a few people to arrest for drugs. Maybe he realized the police were going to send in an undercover officer, so it might as well be him. But then perhaps he chose to overlook or not report some other people he spotted doing drugs (or whatever they were after) out of some sense of sympathy, and in the end he picked this Rick guy because he had to produce some sort of arrest and Rick irritated him? I mean, when the Redmond police send undercover officers into their high school, they are always arresting at least 7-10 students. Of course, the anecdotes of him trying to bait people into violence or vandalism would run counter to this idea.
Mechthild, I think you may be on to something. I have been told that Brian was very manipulated and abused by the FBI supervisor and others during the investigation. Of course once he saw, recorded (or whatever), certain things he couldn’t turn his back to it so…
Instead of wailing into the ether, write to the city council.
To everyone posting personal anecdotes as to whether anyone was a drug dealer or if the games were actually much higher stakes than the defendants are claiming based on their own alleged personal knowledge, I’d like to request that you refrain from doing so.
These kind of statements can only harm the defendants as they (possibly) will be used by the prosecution against them.
The SPD & LEIU both did their jobs. Too many of these underground gatherings will draw attention to real gang bangers who will go in with automatic weapons, shoot everybody and take the loot. It’s understandable people want to cut loose and have fun, but they haven’t seen the other side with the bodies on the ground. It’s really a matter of protecting people from themselves.
US foreign policy in Central and South America has been a morbid disaster considering our government officially sanctioned SOA / WHINSEC and the CIA-backed Contras. Then it’s doubly confusing seeing Catholic priests teaching the natives revolutionary Marxism and then also seeing Father Roy protesting SOA. Figure that one out … Rick sounds like a good-hearted guy who made some bad choices. Sad story all around. The SPD budget is the biggest line-item for the City of Seattle. It’s like 500 million dollars a year — and they only clear a small fraction of reported crimes. In many instances I think they aid and abet organized crime.
Gotham Seattle.
Well thank god they are cutting education to help pay for future operations like this…
Justice?
Nope; sorry; not here…
Thoren/Jumior, you’re a jackass.
Thoren/Junior, you’re a jackass. You’re an idiot and you’re making everyone look bad.
PLEASE CONTACT:
City Councilmember, Bruce Harrell
*Civil Rights Committee
Phone: 206-684-8804
Email: bruce.harrell@seattle.gov
Fax: 206-684-8587
PLEASE CONTACT:
City Councilmember, Bruce Harrell
*Civil Rights Committee
Phone: 206-684-8804
Email: bruce.harrell@seattle.gov
Fax: 206-684-8587
“The Stranger lost some credibility by giving up the cops true identity and undercover name. Where’s the objectivity? Seems as if you are trying to place the undercover cop in harms way or thwart future undercover operations. Felt a little spiteful. Maybe I’m wrong, but food for thought none the less. If the mainstream media does pick this story up, the cops identity will undoubtedly be side-lined. Has no bearing on the case or story.”
How does this affect credibility? You find this story less believable because it tells the facts you don’t like told?
“or thwart future undercover operations.” If this is in the least bit indicative of SPD and/or FBI undercover operations, thwarting future undercover operations would be a good thing. Put the clowns responsible for this clusterfuck back on the beat, hopefully doing something productive. Police departments around the country are pretty much not even responding to reports of crimes because they claim lack of funding, and yet it sounds like several million dollars went into this sting.
As for this guy Rick, it’s hard to feel sorry for someone when you want to hit them for being so fucking stupid.
I don’t think most people in the country have a CLUE about the extent of corruption in this country. The take away from this story is assume the cops and the criminals are pretty much the same. Assume anyone involved in any crime, no matter how petty, may be a cop or someone working with the cops. And assume any cop is crooked and possibly has ties to organized crime. Because the cops have demonstrated time and again that they cannot or will not discipline bad cops who break the law and kill innocent people out of their roid rage. And once you have a system that cannot correct itself, it doesn’t take long for it to be corrupted to the core.
Thanks to BK. Much braver than I am. I worry for your safety and the reprisals that you and the Stranger will surely be the target of one day.
Sweet jesus, I wonder how much time and money was spent sifting through all of the Slog comments, what with the Stranger operating as a front/propaganda organization for… well, I’m not even sure for whom. Still, cover for FBI agents would go a long way toward explaining the tenacity of some of the trolls here, but perhaps I’m being too kind to our troll population.
Is the Period Hive Mind really an FBI surveillance operation? If the levels of intelligence and analytical depth displayed are characteristic of the FBI as an institution or its individual agents, then all of this makes a lot more sense.
I am hoping some of you may be able to use your public position, your connections, your voice, and your actions to help shed a light on something big brewing right here in Seattle between SPD, the FBI anti-terrorism objectives, and the local artists, creative, and activist communities in this city and other cities across the country.
I am no activist and I can hardly be called an artist, but I feel so strongly that what is being done here in this report is so wrong and is against our rights that I am willing to reach out to those who have bigger voices than I do so it can be heard and so there can be change.
This article is probably the most truthful of all the articles and reports out there about the case of a “speakeasy” and illegal gambling ring right here in Seattle that took almost 3 years and tons of tax payer money to investigate. I am an honest citizen, I pay my taxes, I know these people, and this is an ENTRAPMENT case like none other and yet there are cases and cases like this towards activists and artists all over the country!
Some of the people in the story are my close friends. Not criminals but artists, dreamers, musicians, and adults with big imaginations. People who were bold enough to live life outside of this ever confining box.
The bottom line is, FBI is stuck in a world that is better left for the movies but our art community is at risk of being silenced forever if we do not act on this today. I think it would be good for a community of artists, friends, and dreamers to share their frustrations over stories like this in a loud, open, and public way. If we do not speak out now about it, we may find that we will not be able to speak later and I do not want to lose my right to be different.
I respect police and detectives for the hard work they do everyday, (my father was a detective, my grandfather was a sheriff) but when they fuck-up and go the wrong way in a case….like in this case….they should own it and not find a way to “fix” it by putting good people away. Why do these people get the highest penalties under the law when the violent criminals get put back on the street? This is their job (SPD & FBI) to protect and serve the community, but they are forgetting who the “community” is and once a cop looks at everyone like an enemy, it creates a bigger problem.
I don’t want to just sit back and let this happen to someone else. FBI should focus on serious dangers, not artists.This is their job, this is what they get paid (LOTS) of money to do. There needs to be standards like in any other job and it is time we demanded this.
I am not a violent person and I don’t want people to start a riot, but I do want people to express their disappointment over where this case went, what our FBI agents are focusing on, how our tax money is wasted every day on stuff like this, and hopefully get the FBI to stop watching bad cop movies and start supporting the beautiful art communities and rich culture we bring to this city and others everyday.
Post this article everywhere you possibly can!
I like the way that Stranger writers & editors see fit to wait until they’re about 90% of the way through a 9,000 word article before they casually mention that the subject of their story has an “unrelated” track record of smuggling guns for foreign revolutionaries. Other than that, he’s totally harmless. Totally innocent. Totally harmless. Just another international arms smuggler with ties to domestic terrorist organizations. Like you and me. Totally harmless.
Oh: and members of The Stranger staff may or may not be coke buddies with the accused.
Other than that, well done. It’s a fascinating story and a relatively well-researched article that was totally fucked up by the The Stranger’s complete lack of journalistic ethics.
Please write/email these Councilmen:
*Bruce Harrell: bruce.harrell@seattle.gov
Tim Burgess: tim.burgess@seattle.gov
Sally Bagshaw: sally.bagshaw@seattle.gov
Committee Staff member, Betsy Graef: betsy.graef@seattle.gov
http://www.seattle.gov/council/
The Police State ain’t cheap,is it?!?Pfft!
All those high-paid coppigs were White men?Did they vote for McStain in ’08?
@132: It WAS an unrelated crime; he committed it years before the investigation started, you silly bint. Further, at no point does the article suggest that he’s totally innocent. The point is that the level of effort and amount of money spent on the investigation totally disproportionate to the criminal merit of the suspect(s). That’s even ignoring the entrapment issues. And, further, “international arms smuggler with ties to domestic terrorist organizations” is an incredibly childish and obtuse way to describe this guy. His crimes were far more nuanced than that, son.
@137:
I believe that the heading for the article describes the police actions as: “…Investigating People for Their Social Habits and Political Beliefs.”
Did law enforcement officials know that this guy had previously been involved in supplying firearms to revolutionaries? Did they have evidence that he interacted with individuals who identified themselves as the Earth Liberation Front (or other self-identified “eco-terrorsits”)? These would be pretty-fucking-important questions to address right off the bat if you’re going to try to make the case that the government was persecuting him simply because he didn’t like George Bush and threw a lot of parties.
Now – did the police go too far? Did their investigation turn out to be a waste of time? These are darn good questions that are worth answering, but they’re difficult to answer when the person providing us information has ruined his own credibility by going to such silly lengths to intentionally obfuscate the facts that would have initially justified an investigation.
PS – Are you retarded? Do you need me to explain to you why counter-terrorism investigators might look at a person who has supplied weapons to revolutionaries and think: what else might this dude be up to?
@138… Um so if law enforcement knew this guy, rick, donated guns to the zapastistas, why didn’t they prosecute him then and there? If they had evidence that rick performed acts of ‘domestic terrorism’, why not charge him and get it over with? Most likely, as the reporting points out, law enforcement probably wasn’t aware that rick had performed such actions but was targeted and set-up because of his beliefs and not actions. Is it debatable that rick and his attorney went ‘charge shopping’ to relieve themselves of the minimum mandatory federal sentencing guildlines? If it is, do the research. Otherwise, it seems like what you’re saying are assumptions and you know what they say about that…
@138: I don’t see how saving that information for the end ruins credibility. It’s there. You know this, because you read it, there, in the story. Obfuscation would have been, say, not mentioning those facts. You realize that was an option, right?
@ 138. No. Nobody on the law-enforcement side seemed to have any idea that Rick had been involved with sending medical supplies and a small number of firearms (at his own expense—dude was donating them, not playing arms dealer) to Mexico several years ago.
Rick and his lawyer had to TELL them that during the “charge shopping” stage of the negotiations, as it says in the transcript of Rick’s sentencing hearing: The prosecutor admits that he never would have charged Rick with that crime if Rick and his lawyer hadn’t deliberately told him about it.
Great article. My highest compliment is that it made me write on my blog commondebate.blogspot.com
“Simple career self interest of FBI agents mandates that they try to create terrorists in places that are good places to live and work for them and their families. If there aren’t any terrorists in Seattle, then they risk being transferred to someplace like Pakistan where there really are terrorists. Good luck convincing the wifey that its good news that you are being transferred to Pakistan. Thus, better find some terrorists in Seattle.”
Yes, this is a good article, but if anyone is surprised it is b/c he or she has not worked in/on/around the so-called justice system. I suggest that all of you read “The New Jim Crow” by Michelle Alexander. Best new book on what the USA is, at home and abroad, in the 21st century.
Hey, great article, but what blew me away is that the average detective is paid over a $100K ? i.e
“The officers named in the police report are Sergeant Ryan Long (who made $133,339 in 2009, with $28,805 in overtime), Sergeant Jim Kelly ($120,503, with $14,196 in overtime)” and so on…
Have a look at: http://www.worldsalaries.org/usa.shtml
for US salaries. The police seem to be earning wages at the level of the second highest paid workers in the US — Dentists.(would you believe doctors are 1st ? No !)
Some will say “what about overtime?” & yes that does put it up, yet most of them are still over a $100K.
Anyway, the price of malicious incompetence sure seems high in the great state of Washington.
animalogic
None of those cops in the article would dare take on a criminal like those in the gang that brought us the attacks of 9/11. Read Christopher Bollyn’s book ‘Solving 9-11: The Deception That Changed The World’ and you’ll see who this police farce, along with the CIA, FBI et al, is truly committed to protect and serve.
http://www.bollyn.com/solving-9-11-the-b…
This is painful to read. I how much damage two years and millions of dollars worth of police resources could have done to a real criminal enterprise. Of course that would require police to do police work, which requires a man who isn’t a coward. A coward doesn’t hunt down bloods and crips, a coward hunts down hippies playing cards at after parties. Detective Bryant please turn in your man card, you can pick your panties up on the way out.
Carl,
Although I may not agree with the merits of the investigation, I find your post rather childish. This is the same detective that purchased the 9 Kilos of drugs from ranking Honduran cartel leaders. Also, rumor has it that this detective has purcahsed assault rifles and other stolen weapons from Mexican Mafia members and skinheads.
Thank you for this article. Its obvious to me that this SPD investigation was a fumbled ideological hit job by the right wing against the arts and environmental communities and two of our most out-spoken progressive city councilmen. It is unnerving that in ultra-liberal Seattle, we are paying the salaries of a police force that holds the majority political beliefs of their community in such contempt. No more complacency. Whomever authorized and engaged in this pernicious use of our tax dollars needs to go. I am calling the Mayor’s office first thing Monday morning to register my disgust over this incident and I’m willing to agitate and march in the streets to make sure no right wing jackass fascists ever think they can pull a stunt like this again in our city. Please keep us informed about any planned protests or plans of action.
I don’t believe any Radical evironmentalists artists or leftist were responsible for 9/11. Doesn’t the FBI have a clue?
I will commend this to others. Well done and infuriating.
The only thing I could think about as I read this was of the multiple books, pamphlets, and newspapers I bought or received for free, at ¡TCHKUNG! shows, where Rick was performing, that said how to spot a narc (a narc would do pretty much exactly what the narc in Rick’s case did), and what NOT to do in the event that you ran into a narc (pretty much everything that Rick did). It’s textbook — literally. Ecodefense has a whole chapter on this.
I mean, bummer that he got set up and popped, and bummer that he fucked his whole social circle in the process, but Jesus. He really should have known better. He did know better. Fuck sake.
I was actually one of the people being unwittingly tailed during this two year long operation, and the thing that makes me shake my head the most is, the money in the pot, in any given game, cost less than the salary of the guy watching us play poker. It’s ridiculous-ness on the highest scale.
And to the guy above saying Rick should have noticed it, I say… they are probably watching you for something too. just wait.
This story could make a good movie if done right
It is an absolute shame that Brendan chose the LEAST credible and most criminal of Cafe (Un)American contacts to interview. As someone who was at the Cafe every single week, I know exactly who “Junior” is: an attention hungry, desperate for recognition, and pathetic methhead. He’s an addict. His brain doesn’t function correctly. He’s wasn’t even around for most of the project until he forced himself in during the last few months. The story was grand, but you chose the one rotten apple out of the bunch.
Meth heads are people, too.
And Brendan interviewed a ton of people for this story. Junior was one voice in a chorus.
I read a lot of comments saying how this was a complete waste of taxpayer money, but didn’t they take something like 20 pounds of drugs off the streets of Seattle? Didn’t this Rick guy, by his own admission, buy guns for a revolutionary group that has declared war on it’s own government?
I don’t think i would call that a complete waste.
By the way, the name of that undercover cop—whose shit poker-playing is not even mentioned in the article, (losses undoubtedly coming from taxpayer dollars) is a matter of public record and can be found all over the charging documents. They can be found here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/51835633/Speak…
@158: They were being hyperbolic, yes. It wasn’t a complete waste, but, to put this in economic terms, the return-on-investment is pretty obviously dismal, to such a degree that you could reasonably call this mission a waste of taxpayer money.
Regarding the FBI’s raids on activists…this article was just published in City Pages (Minneapolis):
http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2011/…
It is a sad irony that Rick sent guns to Zapatista revolutionaries in Chiapas to aid them against the same type of authoritarian police state that he would eventually fall victim to.
Why are cops paid so well? This is because the primary role of police is to protect the rich and prevent the poor from organizing, whether it’s in Central or North America. Capitalist goons for hire. Everything else they do is just Brownie points. Well, after reading this article I’m afraid, so I guess they must be doing their job.
What is an appropriate level of government resources to spend on investigating someone who illegally runs guns to terrorists?
@ 163.
a) That is a mischaracterization of the situation. To repeat myself:
b) The government spent zero resources investigating Rick for that Zapatista moment. The government didn’t even know about it until Rick told them in a charge-shopping deal after the investigation was finished. What the government spent its resources on was investigating people who appeared to be odd and threw parties.
And the appropriate level of government resources to spend on that is: zero. Not a single damned dime.
DEA Bend Post of Duty: 63333 Highway 20 West, Bend, OR 97701
541-385-8798
DEA Blaine Resident Office: 165 Second Street, PO. Box 1680, Blaine, WA 98231-1680
360-332-8692
DEA Boise Resident Office: 607 N. Eighth Street, Suite 400, Boise, ID 83702-5518
208-334-1620
DEA Eugene Resident Office: Federal Building, 211 E. Seventh Avenue, Room 420, Eugene, OR 97401
541-465-6861
DEA Fairbanks Post of Duty: Box 18, 101 12th Avenue, Room 330, Fairbanks, AK 99570
907-455-1818
DEA Medford Resident Office: 1225 Crater Lake Avenue, Suite 201, Medford, OR 97504
541-776-4260
DEA Portland District Office: 1220 S.W Third Avenue, Room 1525, Portland, OR 97204
503-326-3371
DEA Salem Post of Duty: P.O. Box 2201, Salem, OR 97308-2201
503-399-5902
DEA Seattle Airport Group: 2800 S. 192nd Street, Suite 204, SeaTac Airport, WA 98188
206-764-3640
DEA Spokane Resident Office: 1124 W. Riverside Street, Suite L300, Spokane, WA 99201
509-353-2964
DEA Tacoma Resident Office: 733 Market Street, 4th Floor, Tacoma, WA 98402
253-383-7901
DEA Tri-Cities Post of Duty: P.O. Box 6477, Pasco, WA 99302
509-545-6010
DEA Yakima Resident Office: 402 E. Yakima Avenue. Suit.: 900. Yakima, WA 98901
509-454-4407
The “good news” is we won’t be seeing such a waste of tax money on fruitless investigations from now on thanks to the NDAA 2012 signed by Obama on 12/31/2011. Indefinite military detention for suspected terrorists makes detectives, judges, and public defenders a thing of the past. Guilty until proven innocent (and no means to do the latter) has been codified into US law. Murray and Cantwell both voted for it. I suggest you contact their offices and request an explanation.
http://www.aclu.org/blog/tag/National%20…