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- [00:00]
Matthew Shearer
Wondery subscribers can binge all episodes of We Came to the Forest ad free. Join Wondery in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Campsite Media On a nameless stretch of beach somewhere near Sebastian, Florida, a young black pastor named Matthew Johnson reclines in the sand and watches the tide roll towards his feet. The year is 2020, and for the past few weeks, ever since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Matthew has been involved with the Black Lives Matter protests in Atlanta, organizing, coordinating with local and national activist groups, marching in the streets. It's been exhausting. It's been a grind. At the same time, it seems to actually be working.
- [01:06]
Matthew Johnson
That was one of the first times where I was like, okay, maybe people are really starting to get it. Like, this country is screwed unless we have like some real systemic change. Things are actually possible now. I mean, I think that we had all hit a point where a lot of folks that I would have just considered, at best Blue Dog Democrats were saying, I don't know what's up or what's going on, but whatever you kids need here, take it. So we had an amount of goodwill in the wider populace.
- [01:39]
Matthew Shearer
This trip to the beach, which he's taking with his longtime partner, is a much needed breather, a reward for the frenzy of the past few months.
- [01:48]
Matthew Johnson
I had done some shrooms on the beach and had some kind of kooky visions of seeing us like, kind of like stepping into a new age with the movement now in the way of radicals that we just hadn't seen before, Right?
- [02:08]
Matthew Shearer
That night in Florida, Matthew goes back to the Airbnb, kicks up his feet and pulls out his phone.
- [02:14]
Matthew Johnson
My partner had gone to sleep and I was just touching base with a couple of friends and really just feeling optimistic about everything. Felt a bit rested, felt a bit at ease for the first time. Then it was not like that at all. A friend post something with a whole bunch of blue flashing lights and I just kind of like looked at it. It seemed like he was yelling at a cop. I was like, oh yeah, more of the same. Then just like flick past it. Another friend, like 30 minutes later, they say, holy shit, do you see what Doran just posted? I said, no. What? The cops just killed the guy. Hey.
- [02:58]
Unknown
Hey man, you're parked in the middle.
- [03:00]
Of the drive through line here.
- [03:03]
Matthew Shearer
The guy in question is Rayshard Brooks, a 27 year old Atlanta. How much have you drink tonight?
- [03:10]
Unknown
Not much.
- [03:11]
Matthew Shearer
How much is not much? Early that evening, Brooks had fallen asleep in a Wendy's drive thru on the south side of the City. Can you step out with me, please?
- [03:19]
Matthew Johnson
Yes, sir.
- [03:20]
Matthew Shearer
When police had run his info, they discovered he was on probation. They then administered a sobriety test which Brooks had failed. All right, I want you to focus on the tip of my finger and follow it with your eyes without moving your head. Do you understand? They moved to arrest him. Put your hands on your butt. In the ensuing struggle, Brooks grabbed one of the cop's tasers and ran, turning as he did to fire them device. At which point one of the officers opened fire.
- [03:53]
Matthew Johnson
Tom Brooks.
- [03:57]
Matthew Shearer
Shit. Matthew. Thanks.
- [03:59]
Matthew Johnson
I went to that Wendy's frequently. It just hit me how incredibly loud and incredibly close everything was.
- [04:10]
Matthew Shearer
And just as clearly, it also hits him that, yeah, his vacation is over.
- [04:15]
Matthew Johnson
I really didn't feel I had an option because the police terror had just come so close to home. So close to home.
- [04:24]
Matthew Shearer
None of which he says to his partner. At least not right away. All night he tosses and turns, thinking, planning. Then the next day he announces it's time to get on the road. Like right away. In the car, he turns on the music, stares out the window.
- [04:44]
Matthew Johnson
I started to ask myself a couple of questions, right? What I was wondering is if this partner had the constitution to deal with me getting much more involved than I was at that time and me not being willing at that point to make any more compromises about where I would be and what I would be doing. And so as we were driving back, I pretty much realized that that relationship needed to end then. I was, you know, very much in love with that partner. But I needed to be free to do whatever I saw was necessary at that point because the violence was inescapable. I think that she was deeply hurt and she had every right to be. But I had business Foreign.
- [05:51]
Unknown
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- [06:43]
Matthew Shearer
From Wondery Campside Media and Tenderfoot tv. I'm Matthew Shearer and this is We Came to the Forest. This is episode two, Nino Brown. Sometimes a moment matches a person Brings out something in them that has been building, roiling under the surface. So it is with Matthew Johnson and the death of Rayshard Brooks, an ordained minister who studied sociology at Morehouse College and grew up reading the Communist Manifesto. Matthew's got a pretty unique set of skills. He can speak the language of the young street protestor and the language of the church, and he can speak both fluently. Soon he's in touch with friends from all sorts of different activist groups around Atlanta, asking basically, how can I help?
- [07:41]
Matthew Johnson
Like, what support will people need, you know, for this protest? Like, what's, what happens next? I guess that was how I channeled the anger or, I don't know, maybe just stowed it away for it to explode at some later date. What do we want?
- [07:58]
Matthew Shearer
On June 13, the night after Brooks death, protesters set fire to the Wendy's and a coalition of different activist groups builds a headquarters in the park parking lot, a sort of rallying point for the growing movement.
- [08:12]
Matthew Johnson
The Rayshard Brooks Peace Center.
- [08:14]
Matthew Shearer
Were you part of the occupation?
- [08:15]
Matthew Johnson
Yes, heavily.
- [08:17]
Matthew Shearer
What was that like?
- [08:18]
Matthew Johnson
It was a very intense time, but also a time that was filled with joy because people made it. So there were some really cool things that happened there. Black lives matter. Black lives matter.
- [08:31]
Matthew Shearer
For three weeks, activists from all over Atlanta providers tents and food for the local homeless population and canvassed the surrounding neighborhood. Petitions in hand calling for the city to make the center a permanent fixture. Community gardens and a memorial to Brooks, as the Forest Defenders will later do in the South River Forest. The activists dubbed the place an autonomous zone. No outside laws apply. They set up surveillance and arm checkpoints around the parking lot to stave off infiltration from law enforcement, which works until it doesn't. One evening in early July, a car unwittingly drives through a grouping of barriers near the Wendy's and two men allegedly point weapons at the passing vehicle. One of them opens fire, killing an 8 year old girl sitting in the backseat of the car. By the next day, news of the shooting is everywhere.
- [09:30]
Keisha Lance Bottoms
Shootings over the weekend killed 8 year old Sequoria Turner.
- [09:34]
Matthew Shearer
Her parents called the shooting senseless.
- [09:36]
Matthew Johnson
They say black lives matter. You killed your home.
- [09:40]
Matthew Shearer
Which to Matthew is devastating. All the good work that had been done at the peace center has been instantly overshadowed. Later, police will accuse the alleged shooter of being gang affiliated. And the girl's parents will sue the city for, quote, surrendering a block, a neighborhood, to what has now been described as a gang, end quote. Even before the shooting, some protest leaders say that they'd asked the two men to Leave the area.
- [10:08]
Unknown
While the unfortunate death occurred near the.
- [10:11]
Matthew Shearer
Memorial site, none of our activists, community members, or neighbors were involved in this shooting. Still, none of this matters in the short term for the future of the rayshard brooks peace center. That was the end of dispatch.
- [10:27]
Matthew Johnson
After that, the occupation, the police actively disbanded. They came in after that weekend and shut things down.
- [10:43]
Matthew Shearer
In the months after the occupation ends, Matthew returns to his ministry, doing his best to focus on what had been achieved in those chaotic, hopeful weeks in june. Then one afternoon, he hears a rumor. The city is planning to announce the construction of a massive new police training center on the outskirts of atlanta. It's been percolating without much traction for more than a decade, driven by the members of the atlanta police foundation, a nonprofit that funnels private dollars into expanding the local police force. But now city leaders seem to have figured history is finally on their side. Crime around the city is spiking. Not in all categories, but in the ones that matter to a lot of residents, like aggravated assaults and murder.
- [11:34]
Keisha Lance Bottoms
2020 will go down as a year. Violent crime ravaged atlanta. We are shooting each other up on our streets.
- [11:42]
Matthew Shearer
Meanwhile, members of the atlanta police department, still furious over calls to defund the police and feeling unsupported by local leaders, begin calling in sick to work. Entire precincts find themselves shorthanded.
- [11:57]
Matthew Johnson
We're talking about the reports of police.
- [11:59]
Keisha Lance Bottoms
Walkouts, the blue flu in atlanta.
- [12:02]
Matthew Shearer
The blue flu, it's called. Many residents of buckhead, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in atlanta, threaten to secede. Matthew, a student of history, a student of sociology, a black man living in the south, does not need a crystal ball to see what's coming next.
- [12:22]
Matthew Johnson
The uprising scared the shit out of rich people. And when they felt or smelled like a wave of crime in the air rather than do something to improve the conditions people that were suffering, Seems that the only solution that we have for anything regarding public safety among those that have the influence and finances for politics, the only thing that they'll invest in is more policing. And so that's what they did.
- [13:03]
Keisha Lance Bottoms
Atlanta is not alone in the rise in gun crimes that we've seen seen over the last year. That's not an excuse. It is a fact. But just as we have overcome challenges in the past, Atlanta will get to the other side of this Covid crime wave, and we will get this violence under control.
- [13:24]
Matthew Shearer
In early 2021. At her state of the city speech, Keisha lance bottoms, the mayor of atlanta, voices her support for a new police training center, a move that will assure the city at large that she's serious about law and order.
- [13:40]
Keisha Lance Bottoms
We are committed to working with our philanthropic and corporate partners to build a new public safety training facility for our police officers and our fire department. Right now our public safety personnel are training in spaces that are too small, too old and not up to technological standards. A top notch city should have a top notch training facility.
- [14:05]
Matthew Shearer
That September, Matthew watches from home as the Atlanta City Council holds a vote on whether or not to lease the Atlanta Police Foundation a parcel of land in the South River Forest because of COVID restrictions. The meeting is online only on Zoom. More than 1,000 people have responded to the call for public comment. 1,000 messages and the council is required to play them all. We are against COP City.
- [14:35]
Keisha Lance Bottoms
It's complete embarrassment.
- [14:36]
Matthew Shearer
Please, please, please, please, please, please vote now on COP City. And ignoring this, it's inappropriate, it's repulsive, it's despicable.
- [14:46]
Matthew Johnson
It went about 70, 30 against Copsity.
- [14:49]
Matthew Shearer
I'm concerned with the dramatic increase in crime, something has to be done. I believe his training center will tell Golly, are we just hitting the gas pedals towards total self annihilation as a country and a people? Get your head straight. This is ridiculous.
- [15:07]
Matthew Johnson
I believe that this was a record, maybe like 17 hours of public comment.
- [15:12]
Matthew Shearer
Still, despite the public outcry, the vote passes 10 to 4. The lease is approved. The facility will move forward. At a press conference the next day, Mayor Bottom strikes a defiant note, heaping praise on the council and doubling down on the tough on crime rhetoric.
- [15:32]
Keisha Lance Bottoms
People have said we need to abolish the police and defund the police. Well, I don't know how you do that unless somebody is going to abolish crime. This notion that we somehow can exist in society without public safety is simply ludicrous. And I truly believe that the creation of this public safety training facility where we can train with the expectations that people will treat our communities with respect.
- [16:08]
Matthew Shearer
Matthew watches this speech in the presence of a bunch of fellow activists and his takeaway is politics. Legislative efforts. They seem to be meeting a dead end. If a gazillion people can call into press for a no vote on the facility, if half the city can be plastered and stop COP City signs, if all these different factions are united in their hatred of the idea of a new training facility and the thing still passes, well, what exactly are we doing here?
- [16:38]
Matthew Johnson
We decided to operate knowing that the legislative thing wasn't going to work again and shortly thereafter starts the forest occupation.
- [17:02]
Unknown
In October 2008, the residents of the Valley View apartment complex in Redmond, Washington held a Halloween party. Dozens of people in costumes mingled, drank and danced. But before the night was over, one of them was murdered. The police had a suspect. His story kept changing. His DNA was at the crime scene. But when he finally came in for questioning, the detectives felt like they were a breath away from confession. But it didn't happen. And so the police focused their attention on another man, a man with a criminal record whose DNA was also found at the crime scene and who happened to be the only black man at the party. Suspect is a new true crime miniseries about cutting edge forensic science and mislaid justice, about race and policing, and ultimately about the kind of weighty decisions that cops and prosecutors make every day. Decisions that once made change lives forever and are almost impossible to reverse. Follow Suspect on Apple Podcasts Amazon Music, where you can binge all nine episodes ad free right now by subscribing to Wondery in Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app.
- [18:12]
Matthew Shearer
Later that spring, Matthew Johnson begins traveling regularly to the activist camp in the South River Forest, the same camp that affected Vienna so deeply on her first visit. A marvel of engineering that Matthew cannot help but admire.
- [18:28]
Matthew Johnson
Like, there was some amazing stuff. There was a suspension bridge that ended up connecting the two sides of the forest. There had been significant infrastructure, brilliant tree houses built. I mean, the place was alive. Like, folks had really made a home in that forest and we were holding the assholes back.
- [18:51]
Matthew Shearer
Matthew, for what it's worth, is not a camper, not an outdoorsy person.
- [18:56]
Matthew Johnson
So I'm just like all power to these people that are staying here. You know, dropped everything to stay here. And like, anything that I can do for them, I'm down.
- [19:06]
Matthew Shearer
He hauls water, clears mold from structures, and he teaches yoga sometimes on the front lines, on the side of the park, near the construction site and the old prison farm.
- [19:17]
Matthew Johnson
No mats, just pale moonlight, people surrounding you and completely covered in camo. Being in those tree sits can be really isolating and also probably not good for your, you know, back and stuff. So I figured it could be kind of rejuvenating. I mean, essentially I was just. And as I've kind of been throughout my time here doing pastoral care in another form.
- [19:49]
Matthew Shearer
The forest defenders like to say that when it comes to newcomers, they move at the speed of trust. Matthew, for his part, earns it quite quickly from activists who have been in the camp for months, and from relative newcomers like Vienna. Insofar as there is an inner circle in the forest defender community, he's in it. He's taught the customs and traditions of the camp from the sharing of food and resources to the creation of forest names.
- [20:18]
Matthew Johnson
I remember that my favorite code name ever, somebody had named their self Chevy truck month.
- [20:29]
Matthew Shearer
How did you introduce yourself? Did you have a forest name?
- [20:33]
Matthew Johnson
Yes, my name was Nino Brown. And I'm not sure if you all are familiar with that name exactly. Nino Brown is from a late kind of neo blaxploitation in the late 80s, early 90s in a movie called New Jack City. Wesley snipes is a infamous crack dealer, and he essentially doesn't trust anybody. Ain't no Uzis made in Harlem. I mean, not one of us in here owns a poppy fee. This thing is bigger than Nino Brown. This is big business. This is the American way. I started to use this name when I was doing a lot of work with the houseless community in 2021 in Atlanta, which is majority black. And it was kind of funny because they're of the age where they all recognize that reference and know that it's a goofy name. Right. But I'm working with a lot of, like, young and predominantly white people that are, you know, within the radical circle, doing mutual ape. And so they don't get the gag.
- [21:55]
Matthew Shearer
And we didn't get it either.
- [21:56]
Matthew Johnson
Right, right, right. That's kind of the thing. So that was the forest name that I went with. And then just, you know, rarely I would meet other, you know, black people that would recognize the name.
- [22:07]
Matthew Shearer
It's like 11 of stars.
- [22:08]
Matthew Johnson
It was like a joke. Oh, yeah, who are you, Nino Brown? Really?
- [22:13]
Matthew Shearer
For Matthew, not getting the joke is emblematic of an important issue. The neighborhood in which Cop City will be constructed is historically majority black. The activists, on the other hand, are largely white, and many, like Vienna, come from relatively privileged backgrounds.
- [22:31]
Matthew Johnson
We had a hard time getting a lot of people outside of white radicals with extra time or resources because there are so many more immediate things kicking the average black person's ass in Atlanta. That is kind of a privilege to choose to individually be poor that a lot of people, especially black families, just simply cannot afford to do.
- [23:12]
Matthew Shearer
Also, this activism is taking place in a historically black neighborhood as well.
- [23:18]
Matthew Johnson
Right.
- [23:18]
Matthew Shearer
Is that what kind of brought it into relief in this situation and made it feel more pronounced? The overrepresentation, for sure.
- [23:26]
Matthew Johnson
I mean, that's going to be attention no matter how well meaning people are.
- [23:32]
Matthew Shearer
Those same tensions and frustrations, by the way, are a recurrent theme in a diary kept by Torte, Vienna's partner. Most of the time, Torte writes, white anarchists do not know that they are being racist. They unknowingly uphold white supremacy and then get upset when you call them out on it. They put people of color in potentially life threatening situations and then get upset when people of color decide to not raise work with them. They talk a lot about solidarity and security culture, and then they fail at both. This sentiment is something that Matthew and Tort bond over.
- [24:11]
Matthew Johnson
I like them. They had good energy. And then, as you know, time rolled on. I realized they could, they could reflexively just give you shit for no reason. I remember running into Tort one day and they were like, so what do you do? Where do you live? I was like, oh, yeah, I live in Grove Park. They were like, wait, you live in a house? I live for free in a forest. You pay for that, right? And I was like, yes, I pay for that. And they were like, how do you get food? And I was like, I get food at a grocery store. Yeah, yeah. You know, they're like, ha, you pay for food, you're bringing me food. Food here. And you know, that was just. That was kind of the vibe. Always a little trickster, which I very much appreciated.
- [25:00]
Matthew Shearer
Tort is a complicated human being. Funny, obstinate, very intense, quick to needle those around them, but full of passion.
- [25:10]
Torte
I. I think it's delusional to think that, that we can get any meaningful change from a system that is designed to be oppressive and that is built on oppression and built on slavery and genocide of indigenous people.
- [25:25]
Matthew Shearer
This clip was recorded around the time Matthew's friendship with Tord began to deepen. They're talking to a local journalist, the magazine writer, David.
- [25:34]
Torte
The abolitionist mission isn't done until every prison is empty and shut down. Until there's no more cops, right?
- [25:41]
Matthew Johnson
I think we should just.
- [25:42]
Torte
Just get rid of the whole system, just scrap the whole thing and build a new world. A better world, better society, a better way of life, really.
- [25:52]
Matthew Shearer
To the residents of the forest defender camp, these ideas are not outlandish after all. Look at what they'd accomplished already. This small group of anarchists and activists. They'd built a community governed by its own rules and customs and bylaws. A better place, they believed, than the one outside the boundaries of the forest.
- [26:13]
Matthew Johnson
This place was in full swing, right? It had attracted a lot of international attention. A lot of people from different networks of organizers, like, really around the world, had started to, like, think about this project. A lot of people coming from everywhere to check out what was going on and support, in their way, we were building something. We were building a community. And it felt alive. And anything Seemed possible.
- [26:42]
Matthew Shearer
And yet now I look back at this moment in time and see only harbingers of what was to come. I don't know what else to call them. Lengthening shadows, bad omens. Clear signals from the city and state that the forest defenders would not be allowed to stay forever. That eventually they'd be forced out one way or another.
- [27:07]
Matthew Johnson
They have emergency 911.
- [27:08]
Matthew Shearer
What is the address of the emergency? One of those omens involves an incident with an auto mechanic named Richard Porter. Porter's driving near the South River Forest when he sees what appears to him initially to be a pile of scrap metal. And being a bit of a scrap collector himself, he decides maybe he can take some of it home in his trailer. But before he does that, he'll have to call the police to report an abandoned vehicle.
- [27:35]
Richard Porter
There's a burnout truck over here at this park, all completely burned up with a trailer hooked to it. And I've been looking for a trailer like this for about six months.
- [27:45]
Matthew Shearer
He stops, puts his own vehicle in park, and as he does, Vienna and a few other forest defenders emerge from the woods. The stuff that Porter thinks is burnt out junk, Vienna attempts to explain, is part of the infrastructure of the camp. It's a barrier.
- [28:01]
Unknown
It was like, hey, people are gonna get mad at you if you try to take this.
- [28:05]
Richard Porter
One girl stopped when she was coming in going, what are you doing here? I said, waiting for the police. He's like, what now? Here comes two more over here to my truck.
- [28:12]
Matthew Shearer
From Porter's perspective, things go south from there.
- [28:16]
Richard Porter
There's about 10 or 12 of them out here. Can I help you?
- [28:20]
Torte
10 seconds to leave before the barricades goes up.
- [28:23]
Unknown
We just wanted him to leave. We didn't want cops to come in. And it was once the barricade was put up and there was police at the corner.
- [28:33]
Richard Porter
There was one behind my trailer. He was taking the tag off. I tried to back over him.
- [28:39]
Unknown
That's when he started driving around like crazy in the parking lot and then actually crashed into the gazebo multiple times.
- [28:46]
Richard Porter
Every time he'd get close to me, I'd haul ass and try to get away from him.
- [28:50]
Unknown
Eventually, he totally destroyed his trailer, trying to ram his trailer into the barricade.
- [28:56]
Richard Porter
I rammed it like five or six.
- [28:58]
Unknown
Times and gave up and hopped across the barricade. And then the forest spirits did their gremlinly thing.
- [29:06]
Richard Porter
I was keeping an eye on my truck. There it goes down the hill. They got in it, backed it down the hill and never saw it again.
- [29:15]
Matthew Shearer
Vienna and other Forest defenders are worried about how the police might respond, how they might use this incident as grounds to infiltrate the forest. Torte, though, remains reliably optimistic. Over and over again they strike a familiar note. We've got this. We can handle this.
- [29:33]
Torte
It's like this is a game of cat and mouse where they're not very good cats even. They're not very good at playing cat in woods. And they know that because they don't have their equipment in the woods and they have to rely on their legs to carry them around, right? And you know, they're not used to it. That's what we do every day. So they really stand no chance.
- [30:17]
Matthew Shearer
As fall turns to early winter, the camp winnows in size. People who have their own beds to sleep in, like Matthew, visit less frequently. And a hardened core of a couple dozen remains, among which are torture.
- [30:32]
Unknown
In Vienna, only the most wingnuts of wingnuts stayed out in the winter were people who didn't have anywhere else to go.
- [30:39]
Matthew Shearer
Myself, what did you do during all that time?
- [30:43]
Unknown
Huddle around a fire, run from the fire to your tent and bundle under 20 blankets to stay warm? Mainly just hunkering down.
- [30:54]
Matthew Shearer
Torte and Vienna spent hours and hours together, escaping into a private world that only the two of them inhabit.
- [31:01]
Unknown
There was a few nights where they would stay with me and everything, we would curl up together.
- [31:06]
Matthew Shearer
They occasionally venture out too, as a couple, sometimes to do laundry, to take showers, more rarely. Since Torte seems to prefer the comforts of the forest camp, they go out and eat real food at real restaurants like Slutty Vegan, a boisterous and very popular and very immersive Atlanta establishment.
- [31:26]
Unknown
Torte was so overstimulated because they're like living in the forest and then they come into Slutty Vegan and I'll just be like, hey, slut. Oh, you're new. Oh, we got a virgin. They're just like, I need to get out of here. So I waited inside for the food and they waited outside.
- [31:47]
Matthew Shearer
What Torte feels, it wouldn't have made sense to Vienna just a few months earlier, but it makes sense to her now. She's able to see the non forest world as Torte does, as a place populated by strangers with which she now shares very little in common.
- [32:04]
Unknown
Being in the woods and being in such a tight knit community, then getting all gross and dirty forest grime all over you, and then you go out into the world and everyone's off to their job, everyone's spending money on things and just a totally different Vibe. And it's really hard to describe unless you've actually been in that situation.
- [32:30]
Matthew Shearer
One mild morning in mid December, Vienna shrugs off her sleeping bag and turning in her tent, reaches for her phone. For weeks she's been serving as a kind of early warning system for the camp, monitoring scanner traffic for news of a possible raid.
- [32:47]
Unknown
Got word that there was police on the other side of the creek. And so being probably one of the earliest risers on the park side, I did my usual task of running around waking everyone up, making sure people were an alert and helped make sure they were not like, coming towards the park or anything like that. And that's when we started hearing word about losing contact with tree sitters.
- [33:14]
Matthew Shearer
This in of itself isn't necessarily apocalyptic. Maybe the tree sitters have fled and are making their way back towards the main camp. But Vienna gets dressed anyway, rouses Ellie, her dog, and steps out to look around. A police helicopter sweeps overhead, close enough to the canopy to rustle the branches. Vienna is getting worried. A friend of hers she knows is in the parking lot. She has to warn them that something bad is happening. She gets to the lot, no friend.
- [33:45]
Unknown
So I start walking back to the tree line and then that's when I get approached by two middle aged plainclothes officers. And they identified themselves as police as they surrounded me and put me in cuffs.
- [33:57]
Matthew Shearer
Vienna has made a point of staying on the public park side of the forest, far from the front line, from the tree sits and private property, where forest defenders are committing a crime with their very presence and where one could be arrested for trespassing.
- [34:13]
Unknown
I assumed that they were just going to detain me and ask me questions, but then they told me I was under arrest. I was like, what for? And that's when they were like, I don't know, probably criminal trespass. Like it's a public park, though.
- [34:29]
Matthew Shearer
The cops load Vienna into their vehicle and take her around the outside of the park down the winding empty roads. They're silent, but they're clearly trying to send her a message.
- [34:40]
Unknown
They drove me to a parking lot of closed Dollar General nearby on Boulder Crest. And there was probably like 20, 30 police cruisers there. And then it took me over to Gresham park where they had probably like 50 cruisers and two armored vehicles. And they're just trying to show off what all they had. I'm like, I'm well aware of how militarized the police force is. Heard some horrible things being said by the major. He very obviously had a grudge against the protesters. I overheard him talking with another officer saying, I'm not gonna be happy until they're all in J.
- [35:27]
Matthew Shearer
When they do finally address her, Vienna says the officers are curt and dismissive and it gets worse when she meets the man in charge of the operation.
- [35:36]
Unknown
When I told the officers that were driving me around that I used she her pronouns, those officers tried to correct the major when talking about my pronoun usage and the major just gave them a blank stare and was just like, all right, so take him to the south precinct. That's when I was taken to the south precinct. I was put in foot shackles and handcuffs and brought into an interview room.
- [36:03]
Matthew Shearer
Vienna says nothing. She just sits there in the empty room all alone. She's stone faced, but panic has started to set in. Her mouth is dry. She's shaking a little. When an officer comes in, Vienna begs for a drink.
- [36:20]
Unknown
I'm given water. Sat there for hours. Had to pee. They wouldn't let me out to go pee. Had to pee in the cup.
- [36:27]
Matthew Shearer
Were you scared then?
- [36:29]
Unknown
I think I was still in shock and still a bit of a denial. I didn't really understand what was going on when I was in the interview room. I was still hoping to get out the same day. An hour after that, that's when Homeland Security came in and attempted to interview me. They hand me a piece of paper that stated my memoranda rights and I signed the paper saying no, I'm not going to talk to you. And then it was an hour or two after that that they finally took me to the jail. I was brought in at the same time as two of my co defendants and they gave us this sheet that has the list of bondsmen and the bottom, bottom and they wrote my charge which they wrote it as terroristic acts, no bond. That was the first time I knew what they were charging me with.
- [37:16]
Matthew Shearer
That's next time on episode three. We came to the fore if you like we came to the Forest. You can binge all episodes ad free right now by joining Wondery in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey@wondery.com survey. If you have a tip about a story you think we should investigate, please write to us@wondery.com tips. We came to the Forest as a production of Wondery, Campside Media and Tenderfoot tv. The series is hosted by me, Matthew Scher and is written and reported by me and Tommy Andres for Campside Media. Our producers are Abacara Don and Henry Lavoie. Additional production assistance from Timothy Pratt, John Rusch, Aaliyah Papes, Johnny Kaufman and Jamie Albright. Sound design and mix by Garrett Tiedemann. Our theme is by Mondo Boys Original music by Makeup and Vanity Set and Garrett Tiedemann. Our studio engineers are Jimmy Guthrie at Arcade 160 and Seth Cohen at Sethcoe Sound Fact checking by Aaliyah Papes. Tommy Andres is the Executive Producer. Special thanks to David Peisner. For Wondery, our Senior producer is Lata Pandya. Coordinating producer is Sierra Franco. Development Producer is Olivia Weber. Consulting by Cassius Adair of Sylveon Consulting. Executive producers are Vanessa Gregoriadis, Josh Dean, Adam Hoff and me, Matthew Scher for Campside Media. Executive producers are Donald Albright and Payne Lindsey for Tenderfoot tv. Executive producers are Nidri Eaton, George Lavender, Marshall Louis and Jen Sargent. For Wondery, Daphne Galicia was a household name for her fearless reporting on government corruption in the Panama Papers. Nothing got in the way of her search for the truth until she was suddenly murdered by a car bomb explosion right outside of her home. Disturbed by police inaction, her son Matthew turns to the international journalism community to find answ and what they find is a shocking trail of government corruption, covered up crimes and deception that rises all the way to the top. From Wondery. Who Killed Daphne? Is a six part podcast series hosted by investigative reporter Stephen Gray about the mysterious assassination of a blogger and investigative journalist who exposed some of the most scandalous secrets of the rich and powerful. You can binge all episodes of who Killed Daphne exclusively and ad free on Wondery. Start your free trial in the Wondery app app, Apple Podcasts or on Spotify.