Listen to "We Keep Us Safe" on NPR's Embedded podcast

In the summer of 2020, teenager Antonio Mays Jr. traveled a thousand miles to join a racial justice movement after the killing of George Floyd. Less than a week after he arrived in Seattle, he was shot and killed there. The case remains unsolved. In this eight-part series, hosts Sydney Brownstone of The Seattle Times and Will James of KUOW team up with NPR's Embedded to investigate Antonio's death, surfacing crucial evidence and eyewitness accounts. Find "We Keep Us Safe" in the Embedded podcast feed. Listen to Embedded wherever you get your podcasts, including the NPR App https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510311/embedded, Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1091709555?mt=2&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory, Pocket Casts https://pca.st/embd, Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/4uGM0HtHF1DPR4LHNlfvwm, and via RSS https://feeds.npr.org/510311/podcast.xml. See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Rund Abdelfatah?

  Hey Throughline listeners. Rand here to let you know about a new investigative series from Embedded, NPR's award-winning documentary podcast. Here's the trailer.

• 0:11Speaker 01

  Back in 2020, a remarkable experiment took place. After an intense standoff with anti-police brutality protesters, police abandoned their own precinct.

• 0:22Speaker 02

  Protesters stayed and started occupying about eight city blocks in the middle of Seattle.

• 0:29Speaker 03

  There's several hundred people being completely peaceful. It's like a block party.

• 0:34Speaker 02

  They set up tents. There was free food, a mutual aid station, a stage for speeches and music.

• 0:40Speaker 04

  I want my world to change. I want my world to change. It evolved into this community.

• 0:47Speaker 01

  They called it CHOP.

• 0:48Speaker 05

  The Capitol Hill Organized Protest.

• 0:52Speaker 02

  A place with no police. It was their attempt to build a better world.

• 0:57Speaker 06

  For a moment there, it was utopia.

• 1:01Speaker 02

  But protesters feared an attack from right-wing activists.

• 1:05Speaker 01

  Taking my group down around City Hall to monitor the group of the Proud Boys. Some protesters appointed themselves CHOP security, began walking around in tactical gear, carrying guns. I'm not very familiar with firearms. AR-50. That's an AR-50. AR-50. And then one night, a Jeep drove into the camp. Shots are fired. Shots are fired, Joe. Shots are fired. Protesters thought they were under attack and shot at the Jeep.

• 1:29Speaker 02

  Move out the way!

• 1:30Speaker 01

  Oh, Jesus.

• 1:31Speaker 02

  Oh, Jesus. Out the way! Out the way! After the shooting ended, one of the Jeep's passengers was dead, 16-year-old Antonio Mays Jr. That night, protesters saw him as a threat, but his dad, who taught him what it means to be Black in America, says his son was there for the cause.

• 1:50Speaker 07

  To be honest, if it meant that I'd have my son back, I wouldn't teach my son Black history, because I want to have him back right now. That's the man they have with Black history.

• 2:00Speaker 01

  Six years later, the case remains unsolved.

• 2:03Speaker 02

  And no one has been able to explain how this place built to protect Black life ended up killing a Black teenager.

• 2:15Speaker 02

  I'm Will James.

• 2:16Speaker 01

  And I'm Sydney Brownstone. For more than a year, we've been investigating what happened that night, sifting through rumors.

• 2:23Speaker 04

  He put in work for the streets, I guess. That's what they were saying. That's why he got killed.

• 2:28Speaker 02

  Digging up new witnesses. Is someone chasing you?

• 2:31Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, for sure.

• 2:32Speaker 02

  In a car chasing you?

• 2:34Speaker 03

  Yes, like multiple cars.

• 2:35Speaker 02

  And uncovering never-before-seen evidence.

• 2:38Speaker 05

  See this right here? That's a long gun out of the front seat.

• 2:42Speaker 02

  Oh, holy.

• 2:46Speaker 01

  Listen to We Keep Us Safe, a new true crime series from NPR's Embedded podcast, The Seattle Times, and KUOW.

• 2:56Rund Abdelfatah?

  Find Embedded wherever you get your podcasts or at npr.org/embedded.