Podbit · Up First from NPR
Sydney Brownstone lived blocks from CHOP and was sent to report on the shooting the morning of June 29, 2020. Crossing onto 12th Avenue, the ordinary Capitol Hill neighborhood gave way to screaming protesters, blood-smeared cars, and clergy praying in the street — a crime scene dressed up as a protest.
Where this was said
At 1:55 · chapter starts 0:00
Ayesha Rascoe opens by transporting listeners back to the summer of 2020, when the murder of George Floyd sent protest movements rippling across America. In Seattle, something extraordinary happened: a standoff with protesters escalated until police simply walked away from their own precinct, and protesters filled the vacuum by building CHOP — an Occupy-style autonomous zone complete with medical teams, art installations, and armed security. The experiment lasted three weeks before ending in gunfire. The victim was Antonio Mays Jr., a 16-year-old Black teenager from Southern California. The gunfire, Rascoe notes pointedly, came from people inside CHOP itself — the same people who had come to protest police violence. Six years later, nobody has been charged. Rascoe introduces the series as the work of NPR Embedded reporters Will James and Sydney Brownstone, who spent over a year investigating the case, and warns listeners the episode contains explicit language and the sound of gun violence.
Antonio Mays Jr. was 16 years old when he traveled from Southern California to Seattle to join the racial justice movement. He arrived at CHOP — the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest — and was shot dead less than a week later by the protest's own armed security. Six years on, nobody has been charged.
Antonio Mays Jr.'s murder at CHOP remains unsolved six years after the shooting, with no arrests made.
The Capitol Hill Occupied Protest occupied approximately 8 square blocks of Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood around an abandoned police precinct.
After a tabloid savaged him for months over his broken engagement, Kierkegaard turned his personal humiliation into devastating philosophical critique. He argued that mass media creates a phantom 'public opinion,' incentivizes people to suppress their individuality, and produces the leveling effect — a culture where standing out is a liability.
Ten years ago, 90% of tech media coverage was relentlessly negative and Kalanick felt he couldn't speak freely. Today, the rise of independent podcasters and Elon Musk buying Twitter has fundamentally changed the game — and it's why he's finally willing to talk.
Kay Classman, 28, was arrested for repeatedly posing as a 16-year-old and enrolling in Bronx high schools across multiple districts. She wasn't a predator — just someone so sad and lonely she wanted her lost childhood back. That's somehow sadder.
Disney, Meta, and Paramount have collectively paid Trump roughly $60 million to settle what Galloway calls nuisance lawsuits — all routed to his presidential library. Newsrooms are folding. The White House is handpicking press pool participants. This is what the end of a free press looks like.
One cheap fake documentary made by a teenager in his mother's basement convinced 16% of Americans that 9/11 was an inside job. Social media didn't invent conspiracy — it just gave it a rocket engine.
A progressive organization with a stated mission to destroy Turning Point USA received millions from ActBlue and is now publicly pushing the narrative that TPUSA insiders and Israel murdered Charlie Kirk. Andrew Wilson traced the network of accounts all amplifying the same conspiracy in perfect unison.
The microphone-bomb theory fails on every physical front: no smoke, no ignition, mic on the wrong side of the wound. And the .30-06 rifle round used is extensively documented by the US Army — it does not always produce a through-and-through wound. Wilson argues this is a well-studied projectile with well-understood behavior.
Andrew Wilson publicly offered Candace Owens $300,000 to debate her theory that Israel and TPUSA murdered Charlie Kirk. She refused. He argues that flat-earthers will debate anyone, but Kirk conspiracy theorists won't defend their claims under scrutiny.
Erika Kirk became the CEO of TPUSA while grieving her husband's murder in public, and now faces tens of thousands accusing her of conspiring to kill him. Andrew Wilson calls it mind-boggling psychological torture. The sparklers at the memorial weren't suspicious — they were a grieving widow doing her best in an impossible situation.
We use essential and analytics cookies to run Vuci. To understand how the site is used: Privacy Policy.
Install Vuci on your phone
Add it to your home screen for a faster, app-like experience.
Install Vuci on your phone
Tap the Share button, then “Add to Home Screen”.
A new version is available
Reload to get the latest Vuci.