Code Name: Pale Horse — Scott Payne vs. the American Reich

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Gist – "Code Name: Pale Horse — Scott Payne vs. the American Reich"

Podcast Information:

• Title: The Gist
• Host/Author: Peach Fish Productions (Mike Pesca)
• Episode: Code Name: Pale Horse — Scott Payne vs. the American Reich
• Release Date: March 27, 2025

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1. Introduction and Episode Overview

In this compelling episode of The Gist, host Mike Pesca delves into the intricate world of undercover operations against extremist groups in America. The episode intertwines discussions on economic policies, specifically Donald Trump's 25% tariffs on autos, with an in-depth interview featuring Michelle Shepherd, co-author of Scott Payne’s book, Code Name: Pale Horse. The episode also critically examines media coverage of a subway shooting incident, highlighting discrepancies and biases.

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2. Economic Policies: Trump's Tariffs on Autos

The episode opens with a discussion on Donald Trump's 25% tariffs on automobiles. Scott Payne provides a critical analysis of these tariffs, emphasizing their broader economic repercussions beyond immediate inflationary effects.

Notable Quotes:

• Donald Trump [01:37]:

  "So we'll effectively be charging a 25% tariff. But if you build your car in the United States, there is no tariff."

• Scott Payne [02:00]:

  "Tariffs will raise prices for consumers who still regard inflation as one of their number one issues."

Payne argues that while tariffs might incentivize domestic production, they inadvertently displace more efficient economic activities. Citing a Purdue paper, he illustrates how shifting production from highly efficient industries (like airplane manufacturing) to less efficient ones (like shoe manufacturing) can lead to a decline in overall productivity.

Key Insights:

• Second and Third Order Effects: Tariffs may benefit specific sectors but can disrupt the optimal allocation of resources across the economy.
• Long-Term Economic Impact: Payne expresses skepticism about the long-term benefits of tariffs, suggesting that the economic downturn caused by tariffs outweighs the short-term gains for certain industries.

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3. In-Depth Interview with Michelle Shepherd (Scott Payne’s Co-Author)

The heart of the episode features an extensive interview with Michelle Shepherd, Scott Payne’s co-author and a retired FBI special agent. Shepherd provides a firsthand account of her experiences infiltrating Neo-Nazi groups, offering profound insights into the psychological and operational challenges of undercover work.

a. Motivation and Background

Shepherd discusses her personal motivations for joining law enforcement, highlighting a combination of ideological commitment and inherent personality traits.

Notable Quotes:

• Michelle Shepherd [08:21]:

  "South Carolina. Greenville, South Carolina. At the sheriff's office there."

• Shepherd [08:57]:

  "It's definitely my personality. Not saying you're be all end all or I'm some tough guy, but I have that kind of... a calling."

b. Transition from Law Enforcement Roles

Shepherd elaborates on her transition from roles such as a strip club bouncer to becoming an FBI agent, emphasizing the similarities in managing high-stress environments and utilizing soft power to de-escalate potential conflicts.

Notable Quotes:

• Shepherd [11:11]:

  "You really start working on that kind of verbal judo."

• Shepherd [12:51]:

  "When there's nobody naked running around the place... what you really have to do is manage the situation verbally."

c. Psychological Impact and Ethical Dilemmas

A significant portion of the interview delves into the psychological toll of undercover operations, particularly the ethical dilemma of forming genuine bonds with individuals who are eventually exposed as threats.

Notable Quotes:

• Shepherd [17:38]:

  "The true definition of undercover work is you're building relationships that you're going to betray."

• Shepherd [19:33]:

  "Every part of the United States, there's different districts... we need to figure out what they do want."

d. Strategies and Techniques

Shepherd discusses the strategies employed to maintain cover and effectively gather intelligence without crossing legal or ethical boundaries. She emphasizes the importance of mirroring behaviors and language to gain trust within extremist groups.

Notable Quotes:

• Shepherd [22:21]:

  "If you look at it that way, it paints a pretty dim picture, and it's not great."

• Shepherd [22:58]:

  "Generally, undercover work is about making the bad guys think it's a normal day."

e. Balancing Personal Identity with Undercover Persona

Addressing the challenge of maintaining personal identity while adopting an undercover persona, Shepherd reveals how she aligns her real-life personality traits with her undercover roles to avoid slipping up or becoming someone she’s not.

Notable Quotes:

• Shepherd [20:17]:

  "I've been lying my whole life. But that doesn't mean you can't trust me."

• Shepherd [21:50]:

  "I pull on real life experiences and use those in those stories."

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4. Critical Analysis of Media Coverage: The Subway Shooting Incident

Beyond the interview, Mike Pesca investigates a subway shooting incident involving Darrell Nichols, critiquing how major media outlets, particularly WNYC, misrepresented the facts surrounding the event.

a. Incident Overview

The incident involved Nichols entering a subway station with a knife, multiple fare evasions, and a subsequent shooting that resulted in the deaths of Nichols and two bystanders, as well as injuries to a police officer.

Notable Quotes:

• Mike Pesca [27:02]:

  "He was tased. That didn't work. Still brandishing the knife, he charged at police. Then he was shot."

b. Media Misrepresentation

Pesca highlights inaccuracies in media reporting, such as WNYC's misinformation regarding the legality of carrying knives on the subway and the actual cause of the shooting.

Notable Quotes:

• Mike Pesca [28:17]:

  "Mickels likely won't face charges of criminal possession of a weapon because the knife he had was legal to carry."

• Scott Payne [29:33]:

  "It's not true that it is legal to carry."

c. Implications of Inaccurate Reporting

Pesca argues that such inaccuracies hinder the public's ability to accurately assess safety versus over-policing, thereby affecting informed voting and public opinion.

Notable Quotes:

• Mike Pesca [34:19]:

  "We won't and can't easily know how to navigate that."

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5. Conclusion and Final Thoughts

In wrapping up, Mike Pesca underscores the complexities of tackling right-wing extremism and the challenges posed by misleading media narratives. He emphasizes the importance of accurate reporting and informed public discourse to effectively address both economic policies and extremist threats.

Final Quotes:

• Mike Pesca [34:27]:

  "Good luck to him and to all of us."

• Mike Pesca [34:27]:

  "You could go there. You go on my Substack where I probably will put some of this up and engage with some of the commentary."

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Key Takeaways:

1. Economic Implications of Tariffs: Tariffs, while beneficial to specific industries, can disrupt overall economic efficiency and lead to unintended negative consequences.

2. Undercover Operations' Complexity: Infiltrating extremist groups requires a delicate balance of maintaining personal identity, ethical considerations, and psychological resilience.

3. Media Accountability: Accurate and objective reporting is crucial for public understanding of safety issues and policy impacts. Misrepresentation can distort public perception and hinder effective solutions.

4. Informed Public Discourse: For citizens to make informed decisions, especially in voting and policy support, access to accurate information and critical analysis is essential.

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Conclusion: This episode of The Gist offers a multifaceted exploration of economic policies, undercover law enforcement operations, and media responsibility. Through insightful interviews and critical analysis, Mike Pesca provides listeners with a deeper understanding of the intricate challenges facing American society today.

Transcript

[Mike Pesca]

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[Scott Payne]

Hilarity will ensue for the second season of Funny youy Should Mention, debuting both in this here channel on the Gist and and as its own feed on Funny youy Should Mention. Funny you should mention. Season 2 features my conversations with such comedians as Rose, Bud Baker, Michelle Bouteau, Alex Edelman, TJ Miller where we sit down and I ask them, do you really believe that? Is that why you said it? Is it the funniest way to say it? Is it the truest way to say it? Sometimes we describe it as a unpacking the profundities and punchlines. Yeah, I know that's alliterative, but what I'm trying to get at is comedians are like the modern philosophers of our time, so I asked them about their philosophy. Funny you should mention like I said has its own feed. Subscribing there will give you bonus materials and make sure you never miss an episode or every other week in the gist, starting on April 4th. It's Thursday, March 27th, 2025. From peach fish Product the Gist, I'm Mike Pesca. Donald Trump announced 25% tariffs on autos. He claims it's going to be great, just great for the economy.

[Donald Trump]

So we'll effectively be charging a 25% tariff. But if you build your car in the United States, there is no tariff. And what that means is a lot of foreign car companies, a lot of companies are going to be in great shape because they've already built their plant. But their plants are underutilized, so they'll be able to expand them inexpensively and quickly. So this is a very simple system. And the Beauty of the 25?

[Scott Payne]

It's one number the economy, or at least the stock market, immediately disagreed. Tariffs will raise prices for consumers who still regard inflation as one of their number one issues. But there's another cost to tariffs that go beyond the immediate. Trump has stated that in the long term, tariffs will be good because they'll bring jobs back to America. Auto plants will be established in the United States, he said. The same thing is already happening with steel.

[Donald Trump]

Same thing with the steel industry industry. Steel industry is now paying a 25% tariff, as you know, I put it on last week and the business is roaring in the United States and we can't.

[Scott Payne]

But here's the thing that tariff supporters and sometimes even Trump's opponents on tariffs don't understand. And by the way, I think there are a lot of people, even smart people, who don't really get down to the second or third order effects of economic policy. I get it. But you know, there are a lot of smart political talkers who don't go beyond the fact that this is inflationary, will cause a stock market downturn, already has and doesn't seem seem good for the American people or Trump's political chances. I recently talked to someone who's regarded as fairly smart on politics, a political commentator. He did not know the basics of budgeting or stimulus economics. And I guess not everyone could know everything. I certainly do not know everything. But I'm going to tell you now a long term bad thing about tariffs, because we don't even get to that because the short term bad things are right in our face. It's this. When tariffs cause industry to invest in the country that is proposing and imposing the tariff, that could look good, but what's really going on is the displacement of other economic activity that could be better. So this whole thing about Trump saying they'll build manufacturing plants, they'll bring back jobs, that also has an effect of taking away manufacturing and maybe even jobs for industries that can better use the capital. Let me read from a Purdue paper. It doesn't talk about steel and cars, but two other industries. Here we go. We export goods that we produce more efficiently and we import goods that our trading partners produce more efficiently. If we import less, we must replace these goods with our own production. So we shift production away from more efficient industries. To illustrate, we could give up producing an airplane and shift those workers to making shoes. We could make a lot of shoes, but we can get even more shoes trading an airplane for them. That's because while we're good at making shoes, we are very, very good at making airplanes. If we shift our production from airplanes to shoes, overall productivity declines. So US Output grows more slowly. By the way, the US is in fact excellent at producing airplanes. That Purdue paper was written before the whole doors flying off the Boeing thing. But we're really good at plan. Not too many countries can produce planes like the US can, whereas almost all the world's countries can produce shoes. Replace shoes with steel, and this is almost 100% what's going on. Cars are a little more complicated, but overall the economic activity from a manufacturing sector induced by tariffs is less productive than what the capital could be allocated for if the market were to decide the best use of that capital. And yes, sure, specific people who are in the car or shoe producing states and cities will like the production of cars and shoes, but it is better for people elsewhere, for those workers themselves if they could have worked in the airplane manufacturing sector. It's better for everyone to produce what you're most efficient at. Then you churn out the valuable stuff and sell that stuff for the less valuable stuff and keep the difference. I actually do not know how the tariff policy will play out. Not specifically. I don't see that there's any chance of it being short term or long term good for more than a few specific people. I do, however, recognize the sentiment May you live in interesting times as being a Chinese curse, a trade policy that the Chinese are not cursing. Are these tariffs on the show today, it is spiel number three about the knife in the subway. I could tell you it's about the fare evasion in the subway, but that is my point. It's not about the fare evasion in the subway. It's about the knife in the subway. I, by the way, wrote about this for the Free Press. And in that Free Press essay I got more into the non New York Times dereliction of journalistic duty, specifically npr, wnyc. They survived and did pretty well at a hearing yesterday in front of Congress. But when it came time to accurately report on why a subway shooting went down, well, you will hear in part three of my spiel, it wasn't good. And then we have an interview with one of the more interesting people and conversationalists I've ever dealt with. Because what he does and did for a living is converse. He was Scott Payne. He was an FBI agent and he's written the book code name Pale Horse. How He Went Undercover to Expose America's Nazis. Yep, he did. Big Biker Dude Scott Payne, former FBI agent, former fake Nazi. Up next, Scott Payne is a retired FBI special agent who spent 28 years in law enforcement and it culminated with him taking down, well, let's call it a neo Nazi cell. His new book is Codename Pale Horse. That was indeed what he was known as among the members of the base that Neo Nazis sell. How I Went Undercover to Expose America's Nazis. And I have to say, I feel like I know Scott not just because of the book, but also there is an excellent podcast, the CBC podcast, where you get to know Scott and you get to know his stories. And it's narrated by Scott's coauthor, Michelle shepherd, who does a great job. But, Scott, welcome to the gist. Thanks for coming on.

[Michelle Shepherd]

Thanks for having me.

[Scott Payne]

So before you joined the FBI and when. 98.

[Michelle Shepherd]

Yes.

[Scott Payne]

Okay. Before then you were in local law enforcement in, you tell me.

[Michelle Shepherd]

South Carolina. Greenville, South Carolina. At the sheriff's office there.

[Scott Payne]

So the book, the podcast deals a lot about what drove you or inspired you to go into law enforcement. And there are formative experiences, essentially going undercover trying to figure out who defaced your principal's car. But what I really want to know is how much of you wanting to be in law enforcement, and specifically the FBI, do you think was ideological and how much was personality based? Because they're interwoven. But I wonder if you ever have thought about that.

[Michelle Shepherd]

No, that's a good question. It's definitely my personality. Not saying you're be all end all or I'm some tough guy, but I have that kind of. I have that first responder that what we all have, and it's, it's a calling and. And you were there to protect and serve. Kind of that shepherd mentality. You know, we'll go in there and we'll go after the one, you know, that got away.

[Scott Payne]

Right.

[Michelle Shepherd]

Kind of thing.

[Scott Payne]

Right. So it's like wolves or sheepdogs. And you were a member of the canine family, but you were the sheepdog. The big burly sheepdog tried to protect the sheeps from the wolves.

[Michelle Shepherd]

I love them. We have a Great Pyrenees. We're on our second Great Pyrenees. And that is definitely a kindred spirit.

[Scott Payne]

That's who you are. Yeah. And when you said, I'm not a tough guy, I mean, you weren't. Not, not a tough guy. You definitely look like a tough guy during those periods. Right. And I think you acted like one, as I glean for the book.

[Michelle Shepherd]

Yes. That. That's sometimes the role I play. Yeah.

[Scott Payne]

Yeah. So what for? Before you joined law enforcement, you were a bouncer.

[Michelle Shepherd]

Yes.

[Scott Payne]

Right. What else did you do? What other jobs?

[Michelle Shepherd]

That's pretty much it. Okay. I grew up in a landscaping company. So the, you know, the older and the bigger and stronger I got, the more stuff I had to do. And that's really where I, my parents instilled in me my work ethic. And that's. I developed that even more out there on the landscaping cruise because, you know, if your dad is the owner of the company and then you get dropped off with a group of grown men who are putting whiskey in their Coffee and drinking. I mean, smoking filterless cigarettes. If they're looking at you like, oh, you're the. You're the daddy's boy. I didn't. The way I did it is I just tried to outwork everybody.

[Scott Payne]

So you're. So you're a strip club bouncer. What are the similarities or what are the overlaps between that and what you did in law enforcement? And where did the similarities end?

[Michelle Shepherd]

Similarities in. When there's nobody naked running around the place, I guess. But to state the obvious, when there's not polls everywhere in the. In the. In the place you're in.

[Scott Payne]

So I.

[Michelle Shepherd]

When I started bouncing, I was at the. And I make fun of it in the. In the. In the book, the gentleman's clubs. I'm like, I've never seen a gentleman in there. Even me back then.

[Scott Payne]

I'm like, basically wanting to go in strips your status as a gentleman to some extent.

[Michelle Shepherd]

Yeah. And so I didn't just bounce there later on. I moved on to, like, legit large country bars and stuff like that. But that's really where I started honing. I don't want to say I honed it. I was always a gift, a gab kind of person. The. But when I was bouncing, you really start working on that kind of verbal judo. In other words, if there's two bachelor parties of 15 people a party, well, that's 30 people right there. You've only got two bouncers. Are you going to go up and start pushing people and lighting a fire or pouring gas on a fire that's already lit, or are you going to. If you have the ability to play the little baseball game, you know, strike one, strike two, strike three, you're out. Maybe do that and just kind of talk and get people laughing and use that. I also, as a bouncer, was beginning to get certified in certain fight techniques and strikes and pressure points and stuff like that by law enforcement. So it kind of transitioned over when I. When I became a cop.

[Scott Payne]

Yeah. As you describe it, it seems to me that the very good kind of bouncer, like the very good member of law enforcement, will have the ability to exert force or be dangerous, but the real skill is never to have to use it, to use the soft power to get. Have your will exerted without even the threat of force. But do you think the fact that it's back there, the fact that you look big and tough and actually were trained in this fighting, was that necessary for your persuasive skills otherwise?

[Michelle Shepherd]

That's hard to answer because it's me only, you know, I only know me. And that's. I was always a bigger kid. Like Even at like 10 and 11 years old, you're hanging out with 13, 14 year olds because you're sprouting up. But it's been my mentality for sure.

[Scott Payne]

Yeah. And also when you're undercover with these guys, does the fact that, well, what burnishes your status, your reputation, the backstory, the legend as undercovers call it, about how dangerous you are or more how you act in the moment and how you present.

[Michelle Shepherd]

As far as being dangerous, I'd be careful. I'm trying to think of it's going to be a case by case basis, but it's how you hold yourself and it's how they respect you and trust you. So in, in a 1%er biker club, if there's fights breaking out everywhere and you got to get in one, how do you articulate being in that fight when you're doing your report later, how do you articulate being in a fight where it looks like you're fighting but you're actually helping the other people? You know, maybe there you've got to prove yourself. But I was always careful about saying, hey, I've killed, I've never done that. Like I've killed a bunch of people. I never said that. I will say something and just leave it, you know, and then there, then the, maybe the targets mine makes me way worse than I ever said I was thinking.

[Scott Payne]

Right, okay, so you did infiltrate a few of these biker gangs before you got to the online Neo Nazis. But a lot of these biker gangs are white nationalists and extremists. What was the overlap between them and the Neo Nazis of the base?

[Michelle Shepherd]

So bikers for the most part. The 1 percenter clubs, the big ones like Hell's Angels, outlaw.

[Scott Payne]

What does 1 percenter refer to, by the way?

[Michelle Shepherd]

It goes back to a time when biker clubs were starting to be formed in the States by veterans returning from war. And they, they didn't have anything to do, you know, so they start forming biker clubs. And some of them were raucous and rowdy and loud and breaking the law. And it was the president of, I believe it was called the American Motorcycle association. And he said he put out a statement. Basically they put out a statement saying, Hey, 99% of all motorcycle riders are good law abiding citizens. It's only 1% this bad. Well, the one, those biker clubs took that 1 percenter as a badge of honor and made a patch and now they're 1 percenters.

[Scott Payne]

So you're with the bikers. You are. You've been around Harleys and bikes your whole life. There is another car. Your undercover Persona was a guy named Scott. And you bond. You really bond with another guy named Scott. I think you said something like both, that you really love the guy, but also you liked him as much as you could under the circumstances. Was it hard to keep the two separated?

[Michelle Shepherd]

Separated in the fact of. It's my job. No. It's not like I was going to go to the dark side and.

[Scott Payne]

Right.

[Michelle Shepherd]

You know, and now all of a sudden, I'm telling them I'm an FBI agent, I'm helping them get away or I'm breaking the law. Nothing like that. But even with the training and you. We get it at training, we might. I might even have put it on, but you're still human. At least my personality is. I love connecting with people. So you spend all this time with somebody, and we really bonded. And yeah, that guy Scott, I don't know if he'd care, that he would feel the same way about Scott Payne, the FBI agent, but he definitely loved Scott Calloway. And I loved him. You know, I mean, it was. It was a true bond. I mean, he would have fought for me, and I would fight for him. So that does make it tough when you're undercover, especially if you're gathering evidence of crimes being committed, because now, you know you're going to be taking them down at some point, and. And then that betrayal will be outed.

[Scott Payne]

Well, is it a betrayal? I guess. I mean, is it really a betrayal in an undercover?

[Michelle Shepherd]

That's what we call it. That's the essential definition. When I go and speak or teach or whatever, it's like, what do you think undercover is? And I'll point at people in the class and they'll be like, oh, lying. Or you're acting or you're being something you're not. The true definition of undercover work is you're building relationships that you're going to betray. And if you look at it that way, it. It paints a pretty dim picture, and it's not great. But you need to figure out how you're gonna do that and rationalize in your mind how you're gonna deal with that, and it not have an adverse impact on your psyche. So, yeah, at the end of the day, yeah, I think it's a betrayal because they believe. They believe I'm somebody I'm not.

[Scott Payne]

And like, a good actor will tell you, when you do the bonding, do you have to believe it to some or a large extent in the moment. So actors who play the greatest villains always see things from their point of view. And I'm wondering, this isn't you not acting as part of the job, but it's not the job. How much of that goes on with an undercover?

[Michelle Shepherd]

I'm mirror. So, you know, if you're. If I don't say if you're violent, I'm going to be violent, but I'm kind of mirroring what's going on. But then again, that's what my skill set leads me to. The FBI undercover cadre is extremely diverse, and sometimes I'm not the right guy for the case. Sometimes it might be somebody else. I didn't get called for Wall street undercover operations or yacht. Yacht clubs and stuff like that. If I got close to it, generally I was just muscle for the other undercover who was the primary doing all the stuff, and I just stood in the back looking mean or something. But, yeah, that's my skill set leads me to those. Those. The dark places that are in the book and those kind of people.

[Scott Payne]

It must be very hard psychologically to keep up a lie for so long to be convincing in a lie. What about taking that or taking the fact you bonded with this guy who you're going to take down and betray, taking that back to your home life? Are undercovers notorious, or is it common that they have trouble? Well, it must be a relief to go back to people you don't have to lie around, but it also must strain the psyche and perhaps strain relationships. Not just the fact that you're under so much stress, but I don't know, maybe your wife or one's partner could turn around and saying, you're doing it to me. You're mirroring me. You're just essentially acting a role with me, that sort of thing.

[Michelle Shepherd]

Yeah, that's a. That brings up. There was a. It was a. It was a jovial argument between me and my wife one time, and she's like, I can't even trust you. And I'm like, what do you mean you can't trust me? She's like, you've been trained by the FBI. You've been trained to lie. Because I'm an undercover. And I'm like, we don't teach you how to lie at the undercover school. I've been lying my whole life. We all lie, you know, I said, but that don't mean you can't trust me. Me?

[Scott Payne]

Yeah.

[Michelle Shepherd]

As far as. As for me, the way I was taught and the way that I Did it is I was never too far of who I really far off of who I really am. I'm still the joking loudmouth, boisterous Scott. I may or may not have kids, may or may not be married, may or may not have played college ball, be a musician or a singer. But you can probably bet I lift weights and work out and ride motorcycles. Most likely, I would change that for murder for hire. If somebody's hiring me to kill somebody or somebody was hiring me to, you know, hey, I'm, I'm providing them the bomb so they can go blow up said family or business or a gun to shoot up a synagogue. Those I didn't really get to friendly because I'm supposed to be a stone cold killer. But for me, I was never really far off of who, who I am in real life as far as the way I'm acting. Now, granted, I'm not a white supremacist, but I'm in there with them. So my jokes might still be the same. And I pull on real life experiences and use those in those stories. Because in the undercover world, the way I've taught and the way we teach a lot of times is if you are deep undercover and you are pretending to be something that is completely opposite of what you really are, generally one or two things is going to happen. You're either going to slip up and get caught because it's not who you really are, or you're going to become it. And both of those are bad.

[Scott Payne]

When you're undercover with neo Nazis, do you try to toe the line? So you talked about in a fight, you're not really cracking skulls. You're actually trying to save people. What about just the language there? You're wired. Do they train you to go up to the line of real racism, but not to because I don't know, maybe they could use those recordings in court and try to smear you as something like that. What is the standard procedure on how verbally racist or what even what words to use with these guys?

[Michelle Shepherd]

Well, again, you're mirroring. Right. I can't come in there and lead the whole thing. That would be entrapment.

[Scott Payne]

Right.

[Michelle Shepherd]

And generally undercovers when you're going to trial. I think I've only, I never went to trial while I was employed by the FBI for an undercover role. I had everybody pled guilty because the, if the case is done correctly, the evidence is so overwhelming, the only thing that the defense can really do is either claim entrapment or try to make me as the undercover look Like a piece of trash on the stand. So really it's a case by case basis and wherever I'm at, because I mean, every, every part of the United States, there's different districts, there's. You're still working for the United States, working with the United States Attorney's office. We're the investigators. We build the case, we do the investigation. But to prosecute it, you've got to have that marriage with Whether it's the DA's office, the process solicitor's office, the United States Attorney's office. And you need to be in a very early stage having open conversations with that prosecutor about what they don't want, what they do want, and if there's a disagreement when we need to work that out. Because can you imagine being undercover for a year plus with white supremacists and you never use a racial slur. Right. That look a little suspect, wouldn't it?

[Scott Payne]

Right.

[Michelle Shepherd]

So when you say it, is it believable when you say it? You know those kind of things? If not, you're gonna, you're gonna come off as fake. Yeah. And I had a very good buddy of mine who's an undercover and he coined it, and I was like, dude, I'm going to permanently borrow that. But it's, we just want the bad guys. We want our targets going to bed at night thinking it was a normal day. You know, you don't want them laying in bed going, something about that Scott guy, I don't know, you want it to be as real as possible. And again, if, if I've been in cases 5, 6 months, 7 months, and we never gathered anything. I've befriended everybody, I'm in the group, we've got together, we've trained, and they're not doing anything really illegal. It's all protected under the United States Constitution. So that's it. We just pull away, pull chalks. That may, that may mean the case team goes and pulls a car over, or maybe goes and approaches the person and says, hey, we've been looking at you and we'd like you to let us know if you ever see anybody in danger kind of thing, or we just disappear.

[Scott Payne]

Great conversation. Scott's a fascinating guy. And tomorrow we talk maybe a little bit bigger picture about where he sees the actual threat of right wing extremism within the U.S. scott Payne, Part 2. Tomorrow on the gist and now the spiel. A couple of weeks ago, I told the story in two parts about a shooting by police officers in the New York City subway of an armed man, Darrell Nichols also caught in the crossfire, literally crossfire, which was a tactical problem with the shooting, were two innocent bystanders and one of the two police officers who had asked commanded Nichols to drop his knife. The reason why this became a huge story or all the innocent victims, but also mostly how Mickels entered the subway station by evading the fair. Actually evading the fair twice. The first time he was kicked out by officers. As he left, he had the knife in his hand, blade out in the open. He entered again. He was observed with the knife and refused multiple orders to drop the weapon.

[Michelle Shepherd]

The next man.

[Mike Pesca]

Put the knife down.

[Michelle Shepherd]

Put the knife down.

[Donald Trump]

Put it down.

[Scott Payne]

Put the knife down.

[Donald Trump]

Put it down.

[Scott Payne]

All right, show me your hands. Don't touch me.

[Mike Pesca]

On a train.

[Scott Payne]

He was tased. That didn't work. Still brandishing the knife, he charged at police. Then he was shot. All over the media the narrative painted by anti police activists took hold. Man shot for Evading fair Nowhere was worse than the New York Times. There and seven stories on the incident. None had the word knife in the headline. Other news outlets also portrayed it as a consequence of over policing. The fair Evaders BBC Protests Over New York Subway Fair Evasion Shooting Lead to Arrests AM New York Brooklyn Subway Shooting Linked to Fare Evasion but right after the New York Times, the most consistent outlet to get facts backwards was wnyc, the public radio affiliate of npr. WNYC had city council member Tiffany Caban on their flagship program the Brian Lair Show. Caban's a proponent of the defunding the police and a self described police abolitionist. That doesn't mean she's dishonest, but in explaining the law and events, she was dishonest. Here is Caban explaining those events.

[Mike Pesca]

They, they observed a knife and I want to, I want to focus in and talk about this knife for a minute. So what they observed was a legal knife, that knife is, is legal to carry in New York now.

[Scott Payne]

It is not legal to carry knives in the subway. This is from the FAQ page on the NYPD website. Can I carry a knife in the NYC transit system? Answer no. Weapons, dangerous instruments or any other items intended for use as a weapon may not be carried anywhere within the New York City transit system. Also, and this is addressed in the faq, New York City prohibits the possession in public of a knife with a blade that is 4 inches or more, regardless of whether any part of the knife, including the blade is concealed or carried. Now workers such as on duty ambulance drivers can carry knives regular citizens cannot. Not the length of Mickels Knives. Not visibly, as was the case with Mickels knife and not with Mickels, who's not in one of those professions authorized to carry a knife. Caban spun out her inaccurate tale saying, quote, when they observe, meaning the police, when they observe it in the beginning moments, it is either in his pocket or by his side. It never comes up above his waistline. Untrue. Untrue. She then critiques the response as non de escalatory.

[Mike Pesca]

There were barked orders, there were. There wasn't a remaining calm. There wasn't a changing of the setting. There wasn't a respecting of personal space. All of these things that are the cornerstones to de escalation training and, and techniques and.

[Scott Payne]

All right, I'll play the audio. Once again, a little of when the officers first tell Mickels to drop the knife. Hear that? That's an ongoing subway train. To communicate this very important public safety message, drop the knife. The officers needed to be loud enough. Change of setting. There aren't too many choices on a narrow subway platform. But when the train came, Mickels actually entered it. I guess he changed the setting. But it was anything but de escalatory. It increased the danger for citizens on the train. No respecting of personal space. The officers did in fact keep their distance because they didn't want to get stabbed. There is nothing about the de escalation critique other than a feeling that the magical incantation of de escalation would make things better. But okay, that is, I suppose, the subjective opinion of a guest. What was worse than a committed police abolitionist given the space to falsely claim that it was legal for Darrell Nichols to carry a knife in the subway? Was the reporting put forward by wnyc. His own reporter. I'll read from Brooklyn DA plans to charge in fare evasion case that ended in police shooting Source by Bahar Ostedon Quote, Mickels likely won't face charges of criminal possession of a weapon because the knife he had was legal to carry. According to the law enforcement source, that is not true. It's not true that it is legal to carry. And it's also untrue that he wouldn't face charges because a few days later, as Fox 5 reported, 37 year old Darrell Nichols was arraigned via zoom from a hospital bed. Charged with criminal assault, possession of a weapon and menacing. Charged with possession of a weapon because of course it's against the law to have an exposed knife on the subway. How could it be otherwise? Why would you take the word of an unnamed source incorrectly predicting the charges that it is legal to have an exposed knife that is over 4 inches long on the subway. WNYC, by the way, did not issue a correction to that incorrect assessment or that incorrect prediction. And when the same reporter, Bahar ostedon, went on NPR's national show All Things Considered, here's how that program presented the coverage of a police shooting of an armed man. Two people are in critical condition today after a chaotic police shooting inside a New York City subway station Sunday. It began after officers pursued a man who did not pay his fair and a warning that the details of this incident are graphic. No mention of the knife in the intro. Bar Osadan, who had previously reported that knives are illegal to carry on the subway, then took us through what she said was the police version of the timeline of events.

[Mike Pesca]

Police officers saw a man entering a subway station in Brooklyn without paying his fare. They say the officers followed him through the station, up three flights of stairs onto a train platform, where they say he muttered, threatening to kill the officers if they didn't stop following him. Then they asked him to take his hands out from his pockets. According to police, he said, no, you'll have to shoot me first. Two officers then tried to use tasers on the man. That didn't work, though. We don't know why. He then pulled out a knife, according to police, and they shot him several times.

[Scott Payne]

No, he did not then pull the knife. That is not how it happened. It's also not how the police at the time were saying it happened. The local TV affiliates, who are all there at the same press conference, did not report events in this way. The knife was seen much earlier in the encounter. He was tased after police saw the knife. The knife was in view, which is why police were telling him, you heard the tape with their very first instruction for Mickels to drop it. To drop the knife. So with this downplaying of the actual cause of the shooting, perhaps it's easy, although dispiriting, to hear NPR host Juana Summers just dropping all pretenses of objectivity and opining mid interview. Well, I mean, I just have to say that this does seem like quite an outsized outcome for a person who didn't pay a $2.90 subway fare. That's because it wasn't about a subway fare. It was about a knife, though maybe the host was just relying on the reporter who framed the incident similarly.

[Mike Pesca]

So we're asking questions, you know, why did enforcing fair evasion result in four people getting shot, including a police officer?

[Scott Payne]

Same answer I just gave. Because it wasn't about fair evasion. It was about a knife. It was also in policing terms, about poor positioning and very poor luck. Strays and ricochets happen when guns are fired, which the police do not do lightly and they certainly do not do just over fair evasion. My concern isn't the credibility of supposedly prestigious news outlets. By the way, I read the New York Times every day and they actually do have very good policing coverage on occasion. WNYC does on a national level. They are getting better at that. But when local anti policing activists protests, they often afford the protesters complaints undue. Credence. My concern, my despair, as I have said, is for the hope of ever achieving accuracy on fundamental questions like how to evaluate the tradeoff of safety versus the risk of over policing. How can the public accurately assess? How can citizens cast informed votes? How can New Yorkers know what to think when this is the quality of coverage, especially among outlets that pride themselves on being of the highest journalistic standards. We won't and can't easily know how to navigate that. Gregory Del Pesci, I believe is how he pronounces his last name. He's the subway rider who is most seriously injured. Friends say that he will live. He has a long recovery ahead of him. Good luck to him and to all of us. And that's it for today's show. Cory Wara has done all three parts of my three part over several days spiel. By the way, a written version with a lot of this is in the Free Press if I haven't mentioned that before. You could go there you go on my sub stack where I probably will put some of this up and engage with some of the commentary that has been rendered about my three part series. So thank you Cory Wara. Thank you as always, Michelle Pesca, CBSO of Peach Fish Productions and Peru. Thanks for listening.