Inside the FBI Hunt for “Black Identity Extremists”

[Music] there was a big ram through my door which woke me and my sign up they had Kevlar helmets with night vision ar-15 so with a full body armor there was military Humvees with machine gun mounts I saw ATF out here FBI terrorist task force local Dallas police hands a bit between 50 and 70 agents federal agent come and explain to me that the reason why they're arresting me was due to weapons and I'm thinking like weapons of mass destruction with type of weapons are you looking for in the early morning hours of December 12 2017 former Marine and black activist Christopher Daniels aka Rock'em Bala goon was arrested at his home for unlawful gun possession so what would warrant such a dramatic arrest and a possible jail sentence of 10 years according to a leaked FBI document there's a new group of domestic terrorists black identity extremists [Music] in May of 2018 a judge rejected to firearms charge and Rock em was released we're currently at the prison where Rakeem was held for the past six months but he's just been freed so we're gonna link up with him and learn more about what's going on man yeah welcome welcome back man you know it's good to be out out here in the free world you're the first potential case of a black identity extremist how do you feel about that this when I found out on the terrorist watchlist my thing was like wow I would never know that I was gonna be the first person to be targeted I deal with mainly activists and people in the community who were regular working-class people I have this a threat to the government I don't know what's going on through your mind now you know people in your community been calling you a political prisoner there is a little bit of frustration you know that's five or six months of my life that I can't give back you know our loss of apartment I had a newborn daughter as well as I have a 15 year old son 11 year old son and it's been a big impact on my family and finances [Applause] good see how I cam was greeted at home by family and members of gorilla mainframe the black act of his group that Rock'em co-founded on their website gorilla mainframe describes themselves as a community-based political organization their activities include food drives self-defense classes weapons training and open carry neighborhood patrols it was these kinds of activities which are visible across trilla mainframe and Rock'em social media accounts that Rock'em believes made him a target of the FBI considering the politicized nature in which Rakim has been absent came guys speak about what's been going on within the organization we knew what we wanted to do in terms of making sure that he knows that people in the outside supportive and also getting his story out and exposed to contradictions as best as we could I'm just so happy being that they offered him a plea bargain and he didn't take the plea but that just shows dedication he was able to endure with a lot of us myself clearly would have been broken I mean he's the warrior Rakim was living in this apartment complex when he was raided by the FBI in the middle of the night in December of 2017 looking around it's incredibly residential so I can see that it would definitely make a scene and people would question why the FBI Terror Squad would be here in the middle of the night we were forced to walk from this door out here he'll come out like this you know stop turn around walk backwards and once we got here put our hands behind our backs they snatched me right out of the way like forcefully and handcuffed all guns and your aim gnawed on me the FBI seized two firearms along with a book called Negroes with guns a famous nonfiction work by civil rights activist Robert F Franklin the book was said to be a huge influence on Huey P Newton the founder of the Black Panthers as events unfolded Rock M discovered that he'd been under FBI surveillance for two years and that he'd be held without bond they said I couldn't receive bond due to the fact that I was on social media not empathizing with police officers who have been killed while I'm in duty and also due to a protest I did in Austin pretty much that as a whole that that makes me a threat to the community rock mfb I surveillance began in March of 2015 after he participated in the protest against police brutality the FBI learned about the protest from a video that was posted on the YouTube page for Infowars the far-right conspiracy theorist site run by Alex Jones people were saying that the Black Panthers are out here doing an open-carry March so obviously we gotta go try and find these guys and of course see what the people out here at South by Southwest think about a bunch of guns in their face then separately on July 7th 2016 micah x johnson opened fire on a group of police in dallas and killed five officers on the one-year anniversary of the shootings rockin posted multiple times to facebook expressing solidarity with mike axe it baffles me you know to be including the same characterization as people who run planes into the Twin Towers considering that you admire the tactics that Michael Johnson took against the police would that would you say that's anything that gorillas mainframe or yourself would actively do or pursue no gorillas mainframe our goal is to educate the people and we educate the people through political education we believe in self-defense but we don't believe in attacking the state because we feel that that's what the state wants you to do those statements that you put on Facebook do you recognize why the police would take that as a threat against the state no I don't because there have not been anything that I've done physically to say that I posed as a threat my political opinion does not affect one law enforcement agent or police officer on August 3rd 2017 the FBI created the black identity extremists assessment using the Dallas 2016 shooting and five other unrelated attacks on police as justification that this movement exists the extremeness now considered a domestic terror threat by the FBI according to the FBI assessment it was very likely that these terrorists would target law enforcement officers in retaliation for perceived police violence against African Americans due to the assessment classifying the group as a domestic terror organization the FBI is able to justify any invasive surveillance tactics used in monitoring these targeted individuals why is there an attack on black activists versus any reports dealing with Albright and the white nationalists can you answer that question quickly I'm not investigating that when was that report completed in August of 2017 I'm not aware of I have not studied that report there's this perception that the government promotes that we are in a stage of critical emergency because of terrorism and that's because they get more power and in order to retain the power they need to find more terrorists one of the most outspoken critics of the black identity extremists assessment is Michael German a former FBI agent who did undercover work on white supremacists and right-wing militias in the 90s he's now a fellow for the Brennan Center for Justice what incentive do you believe that the FBI has to make a label like black identity extremists a person cannot be targeted for investigation based solely on First Amendment activity so by creating this black identity extremism movement they can use that as the justification to then target any activists who or any black person who is protesting police violence one of my problems with this kind of intelligence report is these are six disparate acts of violence that they try to mold into a movement there was really nothing connecting them except the fact that they killed police officers and the fact that they were black they don't have shared ideologies they are not associated with one another they weren't part of the same groups they weren't even in the same state and City and for the most part there is no such thing as the black identity move and there's I mean I've never heard that black lives matter activists refer to themselves as a black identity extremists right it's sort of a made-up term that is used as an umbrella to cover anyone who is black if an an activist and really anyone who is black and has concerns about police violence or discrimination they know that if they use this broad label the police agencies receiving it will know who it applies to and can make it basically apply to anyone they want why is this extremism being pushed throughout the FBI on these minority groups any government sees protests against its own policies as threatening right that's a political threat but it has a incentive to present that political threat as a security threat to the nation this is a persistent problem this is something that's happening now and has pretty much happened all along critics of the black identity extremist label have drawn comparisons to Cohen's Oprah COINTELPRO was a series of covert and at times illegal actions carried out by the FBI from 1956 to 1971 it was aimed at surveilling and disrupting domestic political organizations they targeted the civil rights movement Martin Luther King jr. and the Black Panther Party one day I was in the city of Minneapolis library and I happen to be studying something called Malcolm X and I noticed that there was always this man that was behind me so I just jumped up and I saw it going in and out of the library you know and he was trying to follow me but you know I was a little too fast for him one day the same man came by my apartment where I live it knocked on the door and said mr. Crenshaw would like to talk to I would like to talk to you and that's when I sort of realized the that the FBI was targeting me and others in December 1969 a COINTELPRO operation by the FBI broke into the headquarters of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party the arms raid culminated with the assassination of Fred Hampton the group's deputy chairman the FBI's tactics and subsequent cover-up were seen as proof that they tried to silence a prominent black leader if it Hampton was drugged by an informant and was assassinated corn tail Pro is not over is just on a different name now VI e weathers black eyed and the extremists will be able to label coincidentally rock em even posted about the leaked assessment on his Facebook page on October 20th come be surprised when I'm homeland security van spore life eight weeks later his home was raided but now that he's out rockin was ready to resume gorilla mainframes objectives including open-carry patrols [Music] so that's the ar-15 pretty notorious weapon yeah yeah it has a lot history to it so we're in Dallas Texas right now which is of course open carry why is that so important and as a part of your organization and gorilla mainframe to open carry this is just really a tool to use against protests against police brutality and getting attention of the masses to uh promote this culture of self-defense do you believe that these guns could provide any more autonomy for African Americans to not be brutalized by police it's definitely a deterrent you know somebody who an aggressor of looks for victims they're not looking for a fight so if you own you have a better chance if you if you weren't on so that's why we want to tell everybody everybody to get on you have a right to defend yourself do you believe that actually building relationships with police could benefit the community no working with police it does very little you know their job is to be reactionary it's not Pro action aerials you know and that's what we do we we believe in being proactive for the community I feel like we need to be self serving people to patrol our own communities and set up institutions where we can serve our people without the policing interference so it looks like the cops are pulling up even down the street right now what is your initial reaction when you see police officers I just saw a pine forest or not community you know I can tell you this by the numbers decaying so we got three cop cars currently they let they come this direction so how many cops one two three four five six seven eight good I'm far oh yeah we're good to go how you guys doing okay all right good to go well now we are secured yes sir we just got a call from some neighbors saying that y'all out here with guns nobody's checking about you guys are being out here for a while probably just another 10 minutes or so a minute okay there's people around the neighborhood it's just well you know you guys can post up nearby and you know just foot there mine okay not wrong what you guys are doing we just have to look into everything you know oh yeah you know and so I hope you guys understand that you know yeah we definitely understand okay I appreciate your thanks definitely intimidating not gonna lie I can say that we were lucky day you know Cameron was around because if the cameras was around probably them with a little bit different as a result of exercising his First and Second Amendment rights rock em has become the unwitting poster child for black identity extremists and although the charges were dropped Rock hems arrests and jail time have thrown his life into a people I have to take into consideration any and everything that I do that somebody is watching in one moment you know my life was turned upside down I lost you know my job I lost my apartment most important you know I lost the innocence of my name I can be easily Google and I'll be be seen as a potential terrorist we reached out to the FBI about rockem's case and they issued the following statement the FBI may only initiate an investigation based upon information or allegations that an activity constitutes a federal crime or a threat to national security the FBI cannot initiate an investigation based solely on an individual's race ethnicity national origin religion or the exercise of their constitutional rights and we remain committed to protecting those rights for all Americans but perhaps the most damaging effect of the FBI's black identity extremist assessment is what it could mean for any black activist does this essentially justify the violation of First Amendment rights if this report is taken seriously that it comes from the premier law enforcement agency in the land but not only implicates your rights it makes your exercise of your rights the indicator that they need to justify taking suppressive action against you it's not just that we're disrupting him but we're letting his group of protesters know that their honor the microscope and that what put them under the microscope was there political activity [Music]

Channel: VICE

Views: 1,498,596

Rating: 4.2882771 out of 5

Keywords: documentary, documentaries, docs, interview, culture, lifestyle, world, exclusive, independent, underground, videos, journalism, vice guide, vice.com, vice, vice magazine, vice mag, vice videos, film, short films, movies, black, police, racism, cops, who's streets, our streets, black identity extremism, bie, terrorism, FBI, government, law, texas, dallas, guerilla mainframe, Cointelpro, black lives matter, activism, first ammendment, threat, legal, federal bureau of investigation, united states, usa

Id: F1jvAsoa7HA

Length: 18min 44sec (1124 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 27 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/An_Unlucky_man]

Mean while the Ku Klux Klan and many other racist predominantly white groups whom are beyond extremists are allowed to promote hate speech against blacks and other minorities (sometimes even killing them out right); but hey let's focus on people who are peacefully protesting by holding hands and marching with banners and flags.

[u/Chumbolex]

I heard y’all was looking for me... - me, in my mind to the FBI (in real life I’d be scared as shit)