We Keep Us Safe: The Sentinels

Summary

Podcast Summary: Embedded - "We Keep Us Safe: The Sentinels"

Podcast: Embedded (NPR)
Episode: We Keep Us Safe: The Sentinels
Date: July 16, 2026
Reporting Team: Sydney Brownstone, Will James, David Gutman

Overview

In this gripping episode of Embedded, the reporting team delves deep into the mystery surrounding the fatal shooting of Antonio during Seattle’s 2020 CHOP (Capitol Hill Organized Protest). The focus is on a shadowy volunteer security group known as the "Sentinels"—their identities, motives, and possible involvement in the killing. The episode weaves together video evidence, anonymous sources, and frank interviews in the quest to uncover what really happened that night, who fired the deadly shots, and what role the Sentinels played in CHOP's tumultuous final days.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Unseen Shooting and Elusive Evidence

• The story opens with the team examining a widely circulated but inconclusive 90-second video of the shooting ([01:21-02:10]). The shooter is obscured; only gunfire and a mysterious voice are picked up.
• Notable moment: “You watch it, and you can't help but wonder, is this the same person that witnesses were talking about? The one who was shooting right into the Jeep? Is that the shooter's voice?”
  — Will James ([02:10])

Discovery of Extended Video Footage

• The team discovers there is a much longer, two-hour video of that night, previously unseen by police or the public ([02:35-03:09]). They obtain the footage after persistent follow-ups.

Piecing Together the Sentinels’ Identities

• Scrutiny of the extended footage reveals two key figures near the crime scene an hour before the shooting: “James Madison” and “Joker” (real name Austin Sharp).
  — “Here in this video is someone we've heard is one of their leaders yards away from the shooting scene about an hour before it happened.”
  — Sydney Brownstone ([04:55])
• The team uses facial recognition, blog posts, and signal group logs to identify real names and contact details for the Sentinels ([06:21-06:47]).

Attempting to Contact the Sentinels

• The hosts systematically call suspected Sentinels with mixed results; some pick up, most don’t, and some express alarm at being contacted ([14:31-16:12]).
• James Madison initially agrees to talk, then backs out, citing risks tied to public activism ([13:05-14:10]).
  — “I wish you luck in recording your episode and getting to the bottom of this and figuring out who murdered Antonio.” — (Message from James Madison, paraphrased by Sydney Brownstone [13:37])

Inside the Sentinels: Philosophy and Paranoia

• Leaked audio from a Sentinels’ meeting after the shooting shows James Madison’s tactical, militaristic approach to protest defense and image management ([09:13-11:02]):

  “We are on the world stage. We need to mind our P's and Q's. Hi. Hello. How are you? … Smile and wait.”
  — James Madison ([10:49-11:01])

Interview with “Slate” – An Anonymous Sentinel Lieutenant

• Slate, the Sentinels' presumed second-in-command, agrees to talk anonymously, giving a rare look inside CHOP Security’s often-chaotic structure:

  • Most “CHOP Security” only knew each other by code names; many came from diverse subcultures—LARPers, club kids, circus performers—but Slate emphasizes most labels were just stereotypes ([17:47-19:10]).
  • The reality inside CHOP grew increasingly disconnected from the outside world, with people adopting fabricated personas for the duration ([19:10-19:50]).
  • On James Madison:

    “They could supervise things and I could trust them not to burn everything down. But I knew that if I, like, just handed the reins to them for a couple of days, it could go downhill.”
    — Slate ([20:39-20:55])

• Slate asserts the Sentinels’ main goal was to protect CHOP from “violent threats” like white supremacists—not to act as police ([21:05-21:13]).

The Night of the Shooting – Who is “Steve”?

• Slate says the shooter wasn’t James Madison or a Sentinel, but a man only known to them as “Steve”—a white, bald, goateed outsider to the Sentinels ([23:06-24:15]).

  • “He was kind of giving me the... mentally not...the door wasn’t closed in the house. Right. Like he was there. Lights were on a lot of the time. But there was something else going on. We don’t have a connection with him because he was never part of our apparatus.”
    — Slate ([24:15])

• The team is left wondering if “Steve” is a real person or a convenient scapegoat ([24:49-25:02]).

Face-to-Face with Austin Sharp ("Joker")

• Will James travels to rural Washington to meet “Joker” in person, who candidly describes his background as a Juggalo (ICP fan) and purported Air Force veteran—but official records for his service cannot be found ([28:26-30:39]).

  • “Juggalos aren’t a gang. It’s just a music group following.” — Austin Sharp ([30:12])

• Austin's role at CHOP centered on providing water and support to security outposts; he claims he wasn't armed with a real gun, only a pepper ball gun due to his felony record ([31:16-32:19]).

• On the night of the shooting, he tried to block the stolen Jeep with his own SUV, then took cover as the shooting erupted ([33:18-35:26]).

  “Anybody that came there with a gun, you knew was going to be trigger happy about any situation that goes down.”
  — Austin Sharp ([35:51-36:04])

• Austin blames “the biker guy” seen picking up shell casings at the scene, possibly linking to the mystery “Steve” ([38:17-39:00]).

• Austin is traced through videos at the scene, with his account broadly matching the available footage ([37:38]).

• He later segues into his passion for LARPing, illustrating how CHOP allowed people to assume new identities ([40:12-41:10]).

Reflections on Identity and Escapism

• The reporters note that many at CHOP adopted new, sometimes fantastical identities—combat medic, revolutionary, soldier, or even cop ([41:21-41:36]):

  “For some people, these CHOP identities became real, maybe more real and more important than what they came to fight for.”
  — Sydney Brownstone ([41:36])

New Possible Lead: The Photograph of “Steve”

• The team receives a photograph, sent by a Sentinel to city officials, matching Slate’s description of "Steve"—suggesting he’s a real person and potential shooter ([41:54-42:12]).

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Memorable Quotes & Notable Moments

• On the elusive nature of truth:
  “Was whoever shot Antonio really protecting the protest? And why do we still not know who they are or their motives all these years later?” — Will James ([00:45])

• On the psychological toll:
  “If you stay in the zone full time and you don't leave the zone, you will start to think that this is real life and that we don't have to integrate the world around us.”
  — Slate ([19:26])

• Regarding CHOP as a space for reinvention:
  “You could show up there, leave your old identity behind and become someone new.”
  — Sydney Brownstone ([41:10])

• Terse summary of the era’s chaos:
  “It kind of became an open air, like, festival of, like, anarchist festival… People would be like, hey, can we get help? There’s a guy that’s really drunk… and yet people are coming here…taking LSD, doing all these drugs, and treating it like it’s a music festival is fucking insane.”
  — Slate ([21:18])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:21-02:10] — Analysis of crucial night-of-shooting video
• [03:43-05:06] — Visual identification of Sentinels an hour before shooting
• [09:10-11:02] — Audio from secret Sentinels meeting
• [12:00-12:46] — Revealing James Madison's contested military record
• [16:12-17:02] — Connecting with anonymous Sentinel "Slate"
• [20:02-21:13] — Slate’s account of leadership and group mission
• [23:06-24:15] — Introduction of “Steve” as possible shooter
• [28:26-41:10] — Austin “Joker” Sharp interview and account of the shooting
• [41:54-42:12] — Reveal of photograph of “Steve” as new lead

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Tone & Language

The episode balances investigative rigor with empathy, unflinching in portraying confusion, paranoia, and pain but also providing moments of levity and introspection as the hosts reflect on their journey and CHOP’s legacy of self-reinvention.

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Conclusion

This episode peels back the veil on the Sentinels and the fractured, chaotic nights at CHOP, capturing both the complexity of activism in crisis and the human urge for identity and meaning amid upheaval. While the shooter’s identity remains just out of reach, a new lead—“Steve"—suggests there may be more answers ahead, teased for the next/final episode.

Listen to the full series and view the video evidence at npr.org/chop.

Transcript

[Narrator/Advertiser]

This message comes from Schwab. At Schwab, you can get everything from self directed investing to full service wealth management all in one place. No matter your investing goal, life stage amount to invest, or know how you can invest your way with Schwab.

[Sydney Brownstone]

Heads up. This episode contains explicit language and the sound of gun violence.

[Will James]

Previously on We Keep Us safe.

[David Gutman]

It's an execution. There's no better word for it than an execution.

[Austin Sharp (Joker)]

So somebody's lighting up the fucking block right now.

[David Gutman]

These bullets are, like, whizzing over my

[Slate]

head and going through these seats. And that's when I see someone approach the Jupiter Cherokee, like point blank and

[David Gutman]

just unload his clip.

[Will James]

Was whoever shot Antonio really protecting the protest? And why do we still not know who they are or their motives all these years later?

[Sydney Brownstone]

He was a big white man.

[David Gutman]

See any shells on the ground? Pick those up, Pocket them. What I heard is that they were ex military.

[Slate]

So these people are, like, really advanced.

[Will James]

We'd heard about shop security before.

[Sydney Brownstone]

I found a blog post saying they're

[Will James]

members of this group called Sentinels.

[Slate]

I did door kicker things.

[Sydney Brownstone]

Most people were introduced to the Sentinels through its most famous member, James Madison.

[David Gutman]

I did the stuff that our government doesn't speak of.

[Sydney Brownstone]

Throughout our investigation, there's been one video that we've watched over and over. Our colleague David Gutman was the first one to take a really close look at it back in 2020.

[David Gutman]

It's a 90 second clip, and it's been online since the night of the shooting. You can hear the Jeep that Antonio and his two friends were in crashing into barricades, but it's right at the edge of the frame. You can only really see its headlights.

[Sydney Brownstone]

You can hear gunshots, but you can't see who's firing them because the view is blocked by a tree. And afterward, you see a shadow hovering near the passenger side of the Jeep as a mystery voice says, you're not dead. Huh?

[David Gutman]

Oh, you're not dead. Huh?

[Slate]

Yo, you want to get.

[David Gutman]

And then the video pretty much ends. And you watch it, and you can't help but wonder, is this the same person that witnesses were talking about? The one who was shooting right into the Jeep? Is that the shooter's voice?

[Sydney Brownstone]

We contacted the person who made that video. He lived on the fourth floor of an apartment building overlooking Chop.

[David Gutman]

It turns out that video, it was just a sample this whole time. There was a much longer version that wasn't online. The guy who recorded it had two full hours of footage he'd never shared with anyone before. He Said he'd never given it to police, but he said he'd share it with us.

[Sydney Brownstone]

We had to follow up a few times, but months later we got it.

[David Gutman]

We were hoping this new footage could tell us something, give us a clue, help us understand who was there at the barricades when the shooting happened.

[Sydney Brownstone]

All right, am I okay with this mic here, Will, and sitting, or do you want me to move?

[Will James]

I was the first one to watch this extended two hour video from the beginning. And I noticed something that I am dying to show Sydney and David. So I get us all together.

[David Gutman]

There are 1000 Google Docs open on your computer right now.

[Sydney Brownstone]

You need to get rid of some of them. It's like stressing me out.

[Will James]

The video starts at 1:37am just over an hour before the shooting that killed Antonio.

[David Gutman]

I see you, motherfucker. Dipshit.

[Will James]

There are two people in the the intersection near where the white Jeep will crash an hour later. They seem to be CHOP security and they're trying to get someone who's throwing bottles from a nearby building to stop

[David Gutman]

being a little shit. Come out here.

[Slate]

Lean over. We can talk like this.

[Will James]

One of the security people on the ground is instantly familiar. Who does this look like to you?

[Sydney Brownstone]

You're showing us someone wearing like a black long sleeve shirt, a tan kind

[David Gutman]

of vest, bulletproof like tactical vest and

[Sydney Brownstone]

tan pants and a tan hat and

[David Gutman]

appear to have like a black mask as well, although it's hard to tell.

[Sydney Brownstone]

Oh, James Madison.

[Will James]

That's a code name. We've heard that James Madison was a leader of the Sentinels.

[Sydney Brownstone]

I found an old blog post online from an anonymous writer introducing us to the Sentinels. It said they were a prominent faction of CHOP's Volunteer Security.

[Will James]

The blog post alleged that the Sentinels played some kind of role in Antonio's death and then kept quiet about the shooting ever since.

[Sydney Brownstone]

And here in this video is someone we've heard is one of their leaders yards away from the shooting scene about an hour before it happened.

[Will James]

James Madison isn't the only one there. Look who walks onto screen.

[Sydney Brownstone]

Is that Joker? Joker is another codename from that blog post. There were photos of him in it and the anonymous writer implied he was somehow involved in the shooting.

[Will James]

This is a big heavy guy, has something strapped to him that may be a long gun. I'm not sure.

[David Gutman]

Looks like a rifle to me.

[Will James]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure this is Joker.

[Sydney Brownstone]

Yeah, that looks like Joker.

[Will James]

He's white dressed head to toe in army fatigues with a cap and everything. He looks like he's in a war movie. James Madison walks over to Joker. Looks like Joker to me, hands him his gun and James Madison is whoa. And James Madison walks away with the gun. James Madison keeps walking all the way off screen, right toward the spot where the boys in the white jeep will be shot. Less than an hour later. And that's the last we see of James Madison.

[Sydney Brownstone]

From the very beginning of our investigation, the three of us had been on a journey to figure out who the Sentinels were behind their code names and their masks.

[Will James]

We reached out to every source we could think of. We filed public records requests connecting these code names to real names.

[Sydney Brownstone]

We used off the shelf facial recognition technology to link their faces to other parts of the Internet.

[Will James]

And gradually over the course of months, we pieced together this picture of who made up this group. Names, phone numbers.

[Sydney Brownstone]

Now it was time to call the Sentinels to find out where they were when Antonio was shot and if they know who did it. From NPR is embedded with KUOW in the Seattle Times. This is We Keep Us Safe. I'm Sydney Brownstone.

[Will James]

And I'm Will James. This is episode seven.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

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[Sydney Brownstone]

When we decided to reach out to the Sentinels and it made sense to start with the person we thought of as their leader, James Madison.

[Will James]

And as we got ready to make this call, we were leaked a piece of audio that fleshed out our understanding of who this figure was. It was recorded secretly at a Sentinels meeting. This meeting happens a few days after Antonio was killed. And the Sentinels are planning to take over the mayor's house later that night.

[David Gutman]

Going to occupy her house for as long as possible.

[Will James]

If she's not there, good. We want to make her feel unsafe to come back. The city has dismantled CHOP and some protesters are mad. They want to retaliate. You can hear James Madison preparing everyone.

[David Gutman]

At this point moving forward, we know SPD is going to blatantly defy the law.

[Will James]

In this speech, James Madison is saying they use flashbangs.

[David Gutman]

They had tear gas at the rain. They can and they will use it

[Slate]

and they give zero.

[Will James]

Police are going to use flashbangs. Police are going to use tear gas.

[David Gutman]

They do not feel safe doing this. That is 100% up to you.

[Will James]

If you don't feel comfortable being a part of this, there's no shame in backing out.

[David Gutman]

I commend you for stepping up and saying that and stepping back. That takes a lot of balls.

[Will James]

Someone says they're worried about getting shot at.

[Sydney Brownstone]

I am afraid that somebody's going to come out with like an army who's not a friendly and target us because of that high ground situation. Okay, that's someone saying, there are a few of us who can neutralize that kind of a threat. They go on to discuss acceptable use of force. Just really keep in mind proportional responses to proportional threats. Okay, that's it.

[Will James]

Then someone brings up this more strategic point that the Sentinels need to be conscious of the image they're projecting. Be ready to get violent, but let's not look like we're ready to be violent. And James Madison chimes in what I

[David Gutman]

was telling everyone from day one up on the barricades. We are on the world stage. We need to mind our P's and Q's. Hi. Hello. How are you?

[Slate]

We're.

[David Gutman]

I hope we're not in convincing you. If we are in convincing you, what

[Slate]

can we do to help?

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

Smile away.

[David Gutman]

Smile and wait.

[Slate]

Exactly.

[Will James]

That is ends in a locked up.

[Sydney Brownstone]

We're not sure what happened to this plan, but protesters never actually did occupy the mayor's house after this meeting. What it does show, however, is James Madison acting like someone who had military experience.

[Will James]

You'll hear us use she her pronouns for James Madison because she came out as trans since 2020. And at CHOP, she often took charge of these stressful, dangerous situations.

[Sydney Brownstone]

And we know that at CHOP, she would tell people she saw combat that she'd been deployed overseas.

[David Gutman]

I've got three combat deployments under my belt. I have a rules of engagement.

[Sydney Brownstone]

Here's a live streamer. Talking with James Madison in 2020, where she brags about her deployments.

[David Gutman]

You're military.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Yeah.

[David Gutman]

CIPD doesn't have rules and engagement. You probably have more training, like, in combat and. And that kind of stuff than they do.

[Sydney Brownstone]

I wanted to find out more about these combat deployments James Madison was talking about, so I put in a request for her military records, specifically for something called a DD214 form. It's a piece of paperwork that details her military experience. But according to James Madison's DD214, there's no proof of any deployments, let alone to a combat zone. She was a Marine reservist for about four years, and the only time she was ever on active duty was the year she spent training. She was assigned to a supply unit. James Madison separated from the marine reserves on June 1, 2020, a week before chop began.

[Will James]

So we have a lot we want to ask James Madison about. What kind of experience did she bring to chop? Did she see it as a combat mission? And she's on video walking toward the barricades less than an hour before the shooting. What happened after she walked off screen?

[Sydney Brownstone]

After tracking down her contact information, I gave her a call. And to my surprise, she was totally open to talking. And in fact, she told me that she had a video of herself that apparently exonerated her from being involved in the shooting. She was at work, though, and couldn't talk, so we agreed to follow up. But a few days later, I got a message from James Madison. She said she'd changed her mind about speaking to us. Her message read, this decision is based almost entirely on the current geopolitical climate in the states and the risks associated with speaking publicly about past activism and potential retribution for doing so. And she added something else. I wish you luck in recording your episode and getting to the bottom of this and figuring out who murdered Antonio. I tell James Madison we're sensitive to her concerns, but she appears on a video from the night Antonio was killed, and I want to hear her side of the story, but she tells me, no, she doesn't want to talk and to stop contacting her.

[Will James]

So James Madison went from one of our most tantalizing leads to a dead end. But she wasn't the only sentinel we tracked down. So David, Sidney, and I meet up.

[David Gutman]

We're all sitting there in front of microphones, and we kind of just take turns going through the list, one of us calls someone. Hi, my name's David Gutman.

[Sydney Brownstone]

I'm a reporter calling from the Seattle.

[Austin Sharp (Joker)]

Hey there.

[Will James]

My name is Will James.

[David Gutman]

The other two hold their breath and cross their fingers.

[Sydney Brownstone]

We're really interested in speaking to some

[Will James]

of the people who shop security.

[David Gutman]

You get a lot of voicemails.

[Will James]

If you give me a call back, I could tell you more about the problem.

[David Gutman]

And then every once in a while, someone answers the phone and the air in the room switches a little bit and you're like, oh, is someone going to talk to us? I don't know if you could hear it, but she said, how in the hell did you get my name?

[Sydney Brownstone]

I did hear that. You did a great job. You kept your cool.

[David Gutman]

And so, yeah, we're just taking turns crossing people off the list.

[Will James]

We're leaving some great voicemails.

[David Gutman]

We are crushing these voicemails. Let's bang out the next one.

[Will James]

David is calling Slate. This is a high up Sentinel.

[David Gutman]

Slade is someone we really wanted to talk to. We'd thought of them as James Madison's lieutenant, maybe a second in command of the Sentinels. And so they might be someone who would know what James Madison was up to the night Antonio was killed. Hello, My name's David Gutman. I'm a reporter with the Seattle Times. I call and someone picks up, and I think they said something like, I'll think about it. Okay, well, I appreciate it. Thanks for considering. Take care.

[Will James]

So what just happened?

[David Gutman]

Someone answered the phone and it was a really deep voice. Like, so deep, it sounded like it was being altered.

[Will James]

I could hear, like, a rumbling coming from your phone. It sounded like, yeah, like when. When TV news interviews someone with a

[David Gutman]

voice distorter on, it is Slate. They think it over for a couple hours and then they agree to talk on the phone. I'd like to ask you about the night of June 29th. When they pick up again, their voice sounds normal. Are you amenable to that? We do know Slate's real name. Slate uses they. Them pronouns. But what Slate basically said to us was, look, I'm worried about being doxxed. I'm worried about losing my job. I'm worried about my life being blown up online. And so we granted them anonymity. Is it okay if I start recording now? And. And so I kind of just want to keep them talking to learn as much as we can learn about this whole operation. So before we get to the night of the shooting, we start there. Tell me how you first got involved with the protests in 2020.

[Slate]

I was there as, like, just covering everything.

[David Gutman]

Slate says they first showed up to the protests as a journalist. They were there to document the standoff with police. But then they saw protesters arming themselves, and they say they got worried about where everything was headed.

[Slate]

This is gonna end really badly.

[David Gutman]

So they tried to get some sort of organization going among all the people who were showing up to defend chop. And what Slate did was they got all these security volunteers on the same encrypted chat on the messaging app Signal.

[Slate]

It was just a way to be like, hey, look out for this thing. Hey, look out for that thing. We're rotating the signal group every day. So if you're not there, right, you can't show up for one day, get added to the signal group, and then be able to see everything that's going on.

[David Gutman]

Basically, CHOP security is just whoever shows up and gets handed a walkie talkie on that day. I tell Slate that we'd heard that a lot of sentinels came from these very specific subcultures around Seattle. Club kids, furries, people who did circus tricks, live action role players who, you know, dress up and act out these dungeons and dragons type scenarios.

[Slate]

Give me that list again.

[David Gutman]

The LARPing community, the circus community, the furry community.

[Slate]

Here's the thing, right? From my position, I can't say no to anybody. Like, this is functional anarchy. The LARPing community is because there were people that were showing up in full suits of armor for a while, and they could fight, let me tell you. The circus community, sure, I believe that. The furry community. And here's the other thing, is that, like, when they're using these terms, they're using them as weapons, right? They're trying to use the mental image that you get from them to detract from what was actually happening. Like, you think furry, like, ew, furries. Until you realize that, like, there is no such thing as the furry community, you don't get a membership, right? There is no, like, furry agenda. None of these things are very real.

[David Gutman]

So many people used code names. Most of them didn't seem to know each other outside of chop. And Slate said that after a while, some of them started to believe that Chop was the real world and that these Personas they'd created were the real thing and they were kind of all consuming.

[Slate]

If you stay in the zone full time and you don't leave the zone, you will start to think that this is real life and that we don't have to integrate the world around us.

[David Gutman]

Slate said they kept their CHOP Identity really separate from their real identity. They have Slate on one side and real life on the other, so that they could leave chop, leave that identity behind and just go on with their life in the real world.

[Slate]

Because Slate doesn't exist. They don't have to exist anymore. Maybe someday they will again.

[David Gutman]

I asked Slate about James Madison. What was your impression when you met them?

[Slate]

That they're probably a narc. And that was very much the vibe I got from them.

[David Gutman]

Initially, Slate might have thought James Madison was a narc or an informant because she claimed to be military. We'd been thinking of James Madison as the leader of the Sentinels.

[Slate]

James Madison got involved to a degree.

[David Gutman]

But Slate says James Madison was just the public face.

[Slate]

This is somebody that I can, like, maybe I can put my trust into that. And I very quickly realized that, like, they don't have what I'm looking for.

[David Gutman]

James Madison was, in Slate's words, not the politician that I was.

[Slate]

They could supervise things and I could trust them not to burn everything down. But I knew that if I, like, just handed the reins to them for a couple of days, it could go downhill.

[David Gutman]

The role Slate saw the Sentinels playing at chop, at least in the beginning, was protecting the protests from violent threats, things like Proud Boys or white supremacists.

[Slate]

We're not here to sit here and try to, like, control what happens in the zone. We're trying to keep the zone safe.

[David Gutman]

And then Slate tells us essentially that the vibes inside CHOP started to shift.

[Slate]

It kind of became an open air, like, festival of, like, anarchist festival. People would be like, hey, can we get help? There's a guy that's really drunk. He's trying to start fights with blah, blah, blah, and yet people are coming here. You know, taking lsd, doing all these drugs, and treating it like it's a music festival is fucking insane.

[David Gutman]

Slate says when CHOPS started getting more violent and people started asking them for more help, the Sentinels stepped back and they let other security groups take the lead.

[Slate]

We're not here to be your personal army. We were here because the movement necessitated it. And now you're going to try to turn us into your, like, little, like, junior police force.

[David Gutman]

But the Sentinels kept showing up, including Slate. So maybe Slate is telling me all this to distance the Sentinels from what came next. On the night Antonio died, Slate says they were driving home from CHOP and their phone started blowing up.

[Slate]

And I was in the process of taking my kit off and getting ready to just go to bed, basically. And then I started getting this flood of messages about stuff.

[David Gutman]

Reports of a Jeep driving around, reports of shots. Are there reports saying it's, you know, chop security? That because. Because a lot of what we've heard is that people thought there was. They were stopping a mass shooting.

[Slate]

The reports I got from the ground was that there's an individual that had been there the last week, at least the last week. I talked to him a couple times. I only ever knew him as Steve.

[David Gutman]

Slate tells us it wasn't James Madison who walked up to the Jeep and shot at close range. It wasn't even a Sentinel. Slate says it was a guy named Steve. What's Steve look like? You know, race, hair,

[Slate]

shorter than 6 foot, bald, like a goatee in facial hair. White guy. And the reports were that these kids had hit the barricade and this guy comes up and, you know, yelled something. I couldn't tell you exactly what was said. And then fired twice into the passenger side of the Jeep.

[David Gutman]

This sounds an awful lot like what the two neighbors, the ones who called 911, said they saw that someone shot into the front passenger seat of the Jeep at close range. Did. Did police ever interview you about this?

[Slate]

No.

[David Gutman]

Slate says they can't tell us who Steve is or how to find him. They dismiss Steve as just a guy who wasn't all there.

[Slate]

He was kind of giving me the. Mentally not. The door wasn't closed in the house. Right. Like he was there. Lights were on a lot of the time. But there was something else going on. We don't have a connection with him because he was never part of our apparatus.

[David Gutman]

Slade is convinced the Sentinels had nothing to do with Antonio's death.

[Slate]

I didn't respond to it. None of my people responded to it. I didn't have to answer for it. We don't know anything about it. Right.

[David Gutman]

It did kind of leave us wondering, though. Who's this Steve? And. And is he the shooter? Or could he be some sort of COVID story to deflect suspicion from the Sentinels?

[Will James]

And the next person we talked to led us to some answers.

[David Gutman]

I've been looking to talk to you

[Will James]

for a long time.

[Austin Sharp (Joker)]

Yeah, I wasn't trying to stay hidden.

[Will James]

That's coming up.

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[Will James]

after hanging up with Slate, we turn back to our long list of Sentinels. It's late in the day, we've been calling for hours and we've burned through almost all of the names. We're not sure if we're any closer to figuring out who killed Antonio, so we have messages out to almost everyone on our list. Except what I would suggest is that I give Joker a ring. We want to talk to Joker for a few reasons.

[Sydney Brownstone]

He was one of the most heavily identified Sentinels in that blog post I found.

[Will James]

We also now know that he shows up in that video shot from that fourth floor apartment, the one where he seems to hand James Madison a gun about an hour before the shooting. Hey there, Is this Austin? Joker's real name is Austin Sharp? Hey, my name is Will. Will James. I'm a journalist with KoW, so I give him the spiel. I explained the podcast we're working on and to my shock, he just starts talking right there. How often were you there at chop? How often were you going down there?

[Slate]

I spent six months there.

[Will James]

Well, CHOP was there for about three weeks.

[Slate]

Oh, it was only three weeks. That was a long three weeks.

[Will James]

Austin tells me he's willing to meet up and talk. So I get ready to meet a Sentinel face to face for the first time. This is Will, and I'm here to meet Joker. In a few minutes, I drive a couple hours outside Seattle to a rural part of Washington state where Austin lives.

[Austin Sharp (Joker)]

Hey.

[David Gutman]

Howdy, Austin.

[Austin Sharp (Joker)]

Yes, sir.

[David Gutman]

Hey, I'm Will.

[Will James]

There's not a lot of meeting places around there, so we end up meeting at the local library amid the stacks of books and people walking around. I've been looking to talk to you for a long time.

[Austin Sharp (Joker)]

Yeah, I wasn't trying to stay hidden. I was just. I went with the flow of things.

[Will James]

He's a heavyset guy, probably around my age, maybe 30s or early 40s. And he's chill, disarming the most open sentinel we've reached out to at the same time. We'd seen him on camera the night of the shooting, dressed head to toe in camo, carrying a gun. And so I can't help but wonder if there's another side to him.

[Austin Sharp (Joker)]

This is the reason they called me Joker out there. Whoa.

[Will James]

You have a tattoo in like stylized lettering that says Joker all down your forehead forearm. The J has like a little jester hat kind of. Austin says his entire journey to Washington state and ultimately to Chop comes by way of the Juggalos. These are fans of the hip hop group Insane Clown Posse, or icp.

[Austin Sharp (Joker)]

I met up with some people on like an ICP website and he offered me a room and I've been here ever since.

[Will James]

The Juggalos are a subculture of self described outsiders, misfits mostly from working class America. The federal government has classified them as a criminal gang, a description Juggalos like Austin push back on.

[Austin Sharp (Joker)]

Juggalos aren't a gang. It's just a music group following.

[Will James]

He's originally from small town Florida. Florida, where he got into trouble with the law a few times. He has a felony on his record.

[Austin Sharp (Joker)]

The police know who the troublemakers are

[Will James]

and they will target you like James Madison. Austin says he's former military. Can I ask what. What branch you were in briefly?

[Austin Sharp (Joker)]

Air Force.

[Will James]

We asked the Air Force about Austin and a spokesperson told us they couldn't find any record of him. Austin says he can't explain why they can't find these records. In any case, he ended up out in the Pacific Northwest to kind of try and start fresh. When the protest movement of 2020 erupted, Austin went straight to Seattle to be part of it. He says he volunteered to be a medic, not security. I stayed in Chop and he spent a lot of time at Chop inside his white suv.

[Austin Sharp (Joker)]

I slept in my vehicle.

[Will James]

He let pretty much anyone tag it with graffiti, write things on it, and very quickly this white SUV becomes covered end to end in writing and symbols and drawings. I want to ask Austin about that video. We see of him at Chop passing what looks like a gun to James Madison about an hour before the shooting. Austin says he can't legally own a gun because he has a felony record. So he says he was not Armed at chop. And if he was carrying anything, it was a pepper ball gun. What are pepper balls?

[Austin Sharp (Joker)]

So it's a paintball that's filled with capuchin and it's used for self defense.

[Will James]

He says that's what we see him handing to James Madison in that video. Not a real gun, a pepper ball gun. And when I mention the Sentinels, Austin says he doesn't even recognize that name. It's not a term he knew. When he was at chop.

[Austin Sharp (Joker)]

I pretty much stayed around James and Slate. When I was interacting with CHOP Security, I just randomly went to the different. I call them outposts, but they're like guard stations and made sure that they had water and they were staying hydrated.

[Will James]

It sounds like Austin was kind of at the fringes of CHOP Security. After this interview, I checked with some sources and they said, yeah, that's true. He was kind of a peripheral figure. But it turns out, fringe figure or not, Austin had a front row seat to the shooting. Austin says he's in his suv, the one covered in graffiti, when he sees some teenagers driving off in the white Jeep that had been stolen minutes before. So he tries to box them in with his suv, but they push past him in the Jeep and escape.

[Austin Sharp (Joker)]

They drove off, and I spent my time trying to find where they went.

[Will James]

Maybe 10 minutes pass.

[Austin Sharp (Joker)]

Then I heard they were milling down inside of Cal Anderson Field.

[Will James]

So Austin heads toward the playfield, and suddenly the white Jeep zips past him. We now know at this point Antonio and his friends are inside.

[Austin Sharp (Joker)]

And as I got to the main strip from that side road is when they drove past me.

[Will James]

He starts to pursue it, and then another car joins the chase. It's the silver Pathfinder, the one we saw on video with people shooting at the white Jeep. All three cars pull out onto the road in front of the park, and Austin hears gunshots.

[Austin Sharp (Joker)]

I never saw a muzzle flash.

[Will James]

Austin later found two bullet holes in his suv, and he doesn't know where they came from. But now we know. A video analyst hired by the City of Seattle foundation found that shots were coming from the Pathfinder, but not from the white Jeep Antonio was in. The Jeep drives away with the Pathfinder on its tail, leaving Austin behind. He says he thinks, where should I be if the Jeep comes back? He's trying to be part of Chop's defense. So he parks by the barricades outside the abandoned precinct and waits. Austin has no idea, but he has just parked his vehicle right near where Antonio and his friends would crash the Jeep. Moments later, The kid's car comes around the corner. Do you see it coming around the corner?

[Austin Sharp (Joker)]

As soon as it swings around the corner, he forwards it. Like his intention intentions were to hit that barricade as hard as possible. Because I didn't foresee it stopping at the speed that it was going. My fighter flight kicked in and I already knew what was going to happen. I hid behind my. I hid in the front of my car.

[Will James]

You ducked down?

[Austin Sharp (Joker)]

Oh, yeah.

[Will James]

He braces himself for a shooting because that Jeep doesn't look like it's stopping. And armed. Chop security members assembling at the barricade are not going to let it get inside Chop without a fight.

[Austin Sharp (Joker)]

And you can hear people that are sitting down at the barricade. It's coming around the corner. Get ready.

[Will James]

So you're thinking.

[Austin Sharp (Joker)]

I'm thinking they were prepared. Let's be real about it. Anybody that came there with a gun you knew was going to be trigger happy about any situation that goes down.

[Will James]

He's pointing to something real, something we've heard from other interviews that for weeks at that point, people in Chop had believed an attack was imminent. There'd been other shootings at Chop, and protesters had already lived through a car driving toward them early in the protests. Austin says Chop security saw their purpose as preventing anything like this from happening again.

[Austin Sharp (Joker)]

I feel bad for the kids and they didn't deserve what they got, but I. I don't want to sound heartless saying it, though. Some. It's like my dad would say, you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes. And unfortunately, them wanting a joyride around the place ultimately cost them their lives.

[Will James]

For Austin, this was not an attack on Chop. He says the boys were joyriding. But at the same time, he does share the basic narrative of a lot of protesters, that what happened to the boys was their own fault. We can track Austin and his SUV covered in graffiti through a lot of the videos we have from that night. And as best we can tell, they match his story about the shooting.

[Austin Sharp (Joker)]

I emerge after the gunfire was done. I'm not about to. I'm not Superman. I'm not about to step in front of all that.

[Will James]

Austin says he wasn't really a part of what came next. Pulling the boys out of the Jeep, treating them, driving them to medical care. And he says while medics worked on the boys, people started rifling through the crashed Jeep.

[Austin Sharp (Joker)]

Quite a few people were inside and outside of the vehicle. And from all my time watching, like, law shows, I'm like, oh, man, this is going to be so, so much More work for the police to figure out what happened.

[Will James]

He noticed one guy in particular, a big guy who seemed to have kind of a biker look.

[Austin Sharp (Joker)]

He was wearing the leather vest jacket.

[Will James]

In fact, Austin brings up a photo on his phone of a video game character he said reminds him of this guy. A game called Gears of War. And this video game character is like a kind of very classic looking tough biker guy.

[Austin Sharp (Joker)]

I'm pretty sure it's the guy, the biker guy who tells them to start picking up all the rounds and all the casings.

[Will James]

This sounds like the same guy captured on camera by Ashley Durellis, that first live streamer we talked to in our investigation.

[David Gutman]

Unless you see any shells on the ground, pick those up, pocket them.

[Will James]

In Ashley's video, this guy is wearing the same kind of leather jacket, telling people to pick up his shells.

[David Gutman]

I want to get the fuck out of here.

[Sydney Brownstone]

Well, thank you.

[David Gutman]

Yeah. Hey, I'm sorry I gotta take off, but I don't trust the cops. I don't.

[Sydney Brownstone]

But you needed to be here.

[David Gutman]

Yeah, y' all don't know who I am.

[Will James]

Austin says he never got a good look at who was shooting, but he really believes the biker guy he saw picking up shells was involved. Could this guy be the shooting suspect Slate described as Steve? Did you know his name at all?

[Austin Sharp (Joker)]

I try not to learn anybody's names out there.

[Will James]

Unlike what we've heard from Slate and lots of other people. Austin says he did talk to police in 2020 and he gave them his description of the biker guy.

[Austin Sharp (Joker)]

When I talked to investigators, they said that they may have found one or two gun shells.

[Will James]

And that's all I get from Austin about the shooting suspect. Great, Austin. Anything we didn't talk about that is on your mind. As I wrap up my interview with Austin, he starts telling me about LARPing, live action role playing.

[Austin Sharp (Joker)]

These are all the parks right here that are within the Washington area.

[Will James]

The park that I reside, it turns out this is a huge part of his life. He's about to leave town for a big meetup.

[Austin Sharp (Joker)]

In our kingdom alone, there's 11 parks or lands that are all scattered throughout Washington.

[Will James]

He tells me about how everyone plays a role in their kingdom.

[Austin Sharp (Joker)]

Play wizard, healer, paladin, anti paladin, warrior, barbarian, bard, archer, scout, assassin, druid.

[Will James]

When I sat down to talk to Austin, I only knew him as Joker. Someone suspicious, maybe even dangerous. But after meeting him, I walk away with a completely different understanding. Austin came to chop, to play a role, to feel like he was part of something, that he had skills that made him valuable.

[Sydney Brownstone]

And that's true for a lot of people we talked to who gravitated to chop. You could show up there, leave your old identity behind and become someone new.

[Will James]

In Austin's case, yeah, a combat medic. For others, a revolutionary, a soldier, even a cop.

[David Gutman]

And like Slate said, for some people, these CHOP identities became real, maybe more

[Sydney Brownstone]

real and more important than what they came to fight for.

[Will James]

Another thing we walk away with after these conversations with Austin and Slate is a description of someone who might have shot Antonio.

[Sydney Brownstone]

We keep running down this lead about

[Will James]

Steve and we discover that there's a photo of him sent by someone in the Sentinels to someone in the upper reaches of Seattle government.

[David Gutman]

So do we have the picture?

[Sydney Brownstone]

We do.

[David Gutman]

And does it look like Slate's description?

[Sydney Brownstone]

Hold on, let me see. Steve is starting to sound less like a cover story and more like a real suspect. Coming up on the final episode of We Keep Us Safe.

[Will James]

You can see new video evidence from the night of the shooting on our series page. Visit npr.org chop to watch.

[Sydney Brownstone]

We Keep US Safe from NPR's Embedded is a collaboration with the Seattle Times and KUOW. The series is reported and written by me, Sydney Brownstone, David Gutman and Will James.

[Will James]

This episode was edited by Luis Trus and Laura Grenius with support from Katie Simon.

[Sydney Brownstone]

It was produced by our senior producer, Adelina Lanciannis.

[Will James]

Special thanks to Tom Bowman and Mick Wagoner and to Marcus Kulik for giving us his live stream video from the night of the shooting. Research and fact checking by Danya Solomon and Miyoko Wolf.

[Sydney Brownstone]

Robert Rodriguez mastered the episode music by

[Will James]

audiosocket Connor Moore from Seymour Sound, Ramtin Arablouei and Universal Music Production.

[Sydney Brownstone]

And a big thanks to our NPR supporters. Embedded is where we do ambitious long form journalism at npr and NPR helps keep that work going. Supporters also get to listen to every Embedded episode early. Find out [e-mail] if you'd like to email the show, you can reach [e-mail] I'm Sydney Brownstone and this is embedded from NPR. Thanks for listening.

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[Will James]

every episode of

[Sydney Brownstone]

it's been a minute, NPR's what's Happening in Culture podcast starts by asking three questions.

[Slate]

Who?

[Austin Sharp (Joker)]

How?

[Slate]

Why?

[David Gutman]

Now?

[Sydney Brownstone]

If the culture's asking it, we're talking about it. At npr, we stand for your right

[Will James]

to be curious and indulge your cultural care.

[Sydney Brownstone]

Curiosity.

[Will James]

Follow It's Been a Minute wherever you

[Sydney Brownstone]

get your podcasts and we'll break down

[Will James]

the zeitgeisty topics that are filling your feed.