{"id":229211,"date":"2023-02-13T12:00:56","date_gmt":"2023-02-13T12:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=229211"},"modified":"2023-02-10T05:01:28","modified_gmt":"2023-02-10T05:01:28","slug":"the-fbi-paid-a-violent-felon-to-infiltrate-denvers-racial-justice-movement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/02\/the-fbi-paid-a-violent-felon-to-infiltrate-denvers-racial-justice-movement\/","title":{"rendered":"The FBI Paid a Violent Felon to Infiltrate Denver\u2019s Racial Justice Movement"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Snitch in the Silver Hearse<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Illustration: Clay Rodery for The Intercept<\/p><\/div>\n

7 Feb 2023 – <\/em>A<\/span>s racial justice protests broke out nationwide in the summer of 2020, a man driving a silver hearse became a regular at the demonstrations in Denver.<\/p>\n

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He was a paunchy 5-foot-7 with a ruddy complexion and wore military fatigues with patches on the sleeves. By activist standards, he was an old-timer: pushing 50 as he swaggered through crowds of teens and 20-something protesters, a cigar clamped in his lips.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know much about him, but he drove a hearse,\u201d said Zebbodios \u201cZebb\u201d Hall, a Black activist in Denver. \u201cInside this hearse was a lot of guns: AR-15s and all other kinds of shit.\u201d<\/p>\n

The driver of the hearse filled with guns was Michael Adam Windecker II. He went by the nickname Mickey and boasted of having been a soldier for the French Foreign Legion and the Peshmerga, the Kurdish fighting force known most recently for battling the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. He claimed to have traveled to those battlefields and trained antifascist activists there in weapons, hand-to-hand combat, and explosives.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was just this badass dude talking about how he worked in a foreign military and how he was for the Black Lives Matter movement,\u201d Hall remembered.<\/p>\n

Denver was a hot spot during the summer of 2020, with protesters enraged not just by George Floyd\u2019s killing in Minneapolis<\/a> but also by the senseless death of Elijah McClain, who was forcefully subdued by police in 2019 in Aurora, a Denver suburb, and injected with a lethal dose of ketamine<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Trey Quinn, a muscular Black activist with a beard and large-framed glasses, led some Denver protests. One night, after Quinn had addressed a group of demonstrators, several young activists introduced him to Windecker.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey, this guy\u2019s really, really dope. He\u2019s legit. He knows his shit,\u201d Quinn remembered being told by the fresh-faced activists. \u201cYou should let him sit in, and he could probably help you out.\u201d Windecker was \u201creally pushy,\u201d Quinn told me, \u201ctrying to put himself at the forefront.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bryce Shelby, another Black activist, remembered seeing Windecker walking around the protests. He had a GoPro camera strapped to his chest, which Shelby initially thought was suspicious. \u201cHe de-escalated any type of suspicion because he would start flashing his prison badge,\u201d Shelby said. \u201cSo yeah. You know what I mean? OK, he\u2019s not a fed.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Shelby and many other activists in Denver were wrong about the man behind the wheel of the silver hearse. Windecker was<\/em> a fed. The FBI paid him tens of thousands of dollars in cash to infiltrate and spy on racial justice groups during the summer of 2020.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"\"<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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For the last year, I\u2019ve been investigating Windecker and his work for the FBI. I tell that story in detail in a new 10-episode documentary podcast, \u201cAlphabet Boys<\/a>,\u201d from Western Sound and iHeartPodcasts. As part of this investigation, I reviewed more than 300 pages of FBI reports and hours of FBI undercover recordings, as well as publicly available videos recorded by Denver demonstrators and by Windecker himself. I also examined dozens of court files related to Windecker\u2019s past and interviewed more than three dozen racial justice activists who encountered Windecker during the summer of 2020.<\/p>\n

The FBI declined to comment on Windecker and the investigation in Denver and refused to respond in writing to a list of questions I sent.<\/p>\n

Windecker wouldn\u2019t tell me much either. After I left a note at his old apartment south of Denver explaining that I wanted to interview him about his work for the FBI, he called me. \u201cI do not work for the FBI,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve never worked for the FBI. If you get proof of me working for the FBI, then I\u2019ll say otherwise. But there\u2019s no proof, because I didn\u2019t work for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

I explained that I had FBI reports and recordings to the contrary.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t talk to the press, I don\u2019t talk to politicians, and I don\u2019t talk to police,\u201d Windecker told me, before hanging up.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Windecker became an organizer of Denver\u2019s racial justice demonstrations and ultimately undermined the social movement gaining momentum there.<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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FBI payment receipt records signed by Windecker show that he was paid more than $20,000 for his work during the summer of 2020, when the FBI aggressively pursued racial justice and left-wing activists based on nothing more than First Amendment-protected activities. The story of the bureau\u2019s infiltration of racial justice activist groups is particularly relevant now, as House Republicans launch a new committee chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio<\/a>,\u00a0that seems exclusively focused on the FBI\u2019s alleged targeting of right-wing groups.<\/p>\n

The FBI\u2019s work in Denver, with Windecker as its eyes and ears on the street, demonstrates the falsity of that narrative.<\/p>\n

While on the FBI payroll, Windecker became an organizer of Denver\u2019s racial justice demonstrations and ultimately undermined the social movement gaining momentum there by deploying the same controversial tactics the FBI used to devastating effect against Black political groups during the civil rights movement.<\/p>\n

Until now, little has been revealed about the FBI\u2019s actions in the summer of 2020. The Denver undercover probe involving Windecker provides the first look behind the scenes at how the FBI viewed and investigated racial justice groups during that turbulent summer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Mickey<\/p>\n

Mickey Windecker, sitting in his silver hearse in these stills from FBI undercover video footage, infiltrated racial justice groups in Denver. Credit: FBI<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI Got a Song for You Guys\u201d<\/h2>\n

Any accurate description of Windecker sounds like a cartoon. With tattoos all over his body, a scraggly goatee, garishly large rings on his fingers, and a soggy cigar in his mouth, Windecker was hard to miss as he drove the streets of the Mile High City in his silver hearse.<\/p>\n

One rainy summer afternoon after becoming a paid informant, Windecker met with his FBI handler, Special Agent Scott Dahlstrom. The federal agent clicked on a hidden camera device.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is August 28, 2020, at approximately 4:02 p.m.,\u201d Dahlstrom said into the FBI recorder before handing it to Windecker. The video is part of more than a dozen hours of FBI recordings I obtained documenting Windecker\u2019s work investigating racial justice activists.<\/p>\n

Dahlstrom asked Windecker if he remembered his tasking orders \u2014 which involved enticing a Black racial justice activist into committing a felony.<\/p>\n

\u201cYep, I got it,\u201d Windecker said. \u201cThanks, Mom. Thanks, Dad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Windecker walked to his silver hearse, placed the camera on the passenger seat, and started the ignition. Dahlstrom and his FBI colleagues watched the live feed from their black sedan.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got a song for you guys,\u201d Windecker said, looking into the camera lens and speaking directly to the FBI agents. He turned up the volume on the silver hearse\u2019s stereo and played \u201cAmerica (Fuck Yeah!)<\/a>,\u201d the theme song from the puppet comedy movie \u201cTeam America: World Police\u201d:<\/p>\n

America, America<\/em><\/p>\n

America, fuck yeah!<\/em><\/p>\n

Comin\u2019 again to save the motherfuckin\u2019 day, yeah<\/em><\/p>\n

America, fuck yeah!<\/em><\/p>\n

Freedom is the only way, yeah<\/em><\/p>\n

Terrorists, your game is through<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2019Cause now you have to answer to<\/em><\/p>\n

America, fuck yeah!<\/em><\/p>\n

As the song ended, Windecker turned to the camera again, as if on a stage, confident that the FBI agents were watching him.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmerica,\u201d Windecker said.<\/p>\n

The United States of America had become Windecker\u2019s new employer, and the FBI was paying him to spy on activists that summer day as he barreled down the road. According to internal FBI reports<\/a> I obtained, Windecker began attending demonstrations in May 2020. He witnessed firsthand what millions of Americans saw on their screens at home: protests turning violent<\/a>, clashes between left-wing and right-wing activists, demonstrators and instigators setting fires and vandalizing storefronts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Windecker offered to give the FBI information about protesters. In an internal report, the FBI claimed that Windecker\u2019s motivation for becoming an informant was \u201cto fight terrorists\u201d and that he believed \u201cpeople who participate in violent civil unrest are terrorists.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Bureau documents detailed Windecker\u2019s history as both an informant and a criminal, with prior arrests in Colorado, Nevada, Texas, and Florida.<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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In their report adding him to the bureau\u2019s more than 15,000 informants<\/a>, FBI agents described Windecker as something of a good Samaritan \u2014 a kind of volunteer Captain America. But that notion was undercut by other bureau documents, which detailed Windecker\u2019s history as both an informant and a criminal, with prior arrests in Colorado, Nevada, Texas, and Florida for crimes including sexual assault.<\/p>\n

When Windecker was 20, he had a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old he met at a roller skating rink. Windecker, who claimed he didn\u2019t know the girl was underage, pleaded the case down to a misdemeanor and was sentenced to 180 days in jail.<\/p>\n

In another case, for felony menacing with a weapon in 2001, Windecker stuck a gun in a woman\u2019s face and claimed to be a police officer looking for a suspect. That incident resulted in a felony conviction, and Windecker served two years. While he was in prison, according to FBI internal reports, another inmate tried to hire him to murder someone; instead of committing the crime, Windecker became a cooperating witness and helped convict the people who\u2019d sought to enlist him.<\/p>\n

In addition to criminal charges, Windecker has had four protection orders filed against him in Colorado, the most recent in 2021. In a petition for a protection order filed in 2016, a friend of Windecker\u2019s alleged that Windecker had presented a fake police badge and theatened to kill him and his family.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Windecker claimed to have been a fighter for the French Foreign Legion and the Peshmerga, the Kurdish fighting force in Iraq. He often said he had diplomatic immunity in the United States due to his association with the Kurds. In 2015, the Daily Beast reported that he was disliked by other volunteer Peshmerga fighters. One American fighter was reported to have described him as \u201ca compulsive liar<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

I spoke to several volunteers who were with Windecker in Iraq; few of them wanted to be publicly associated with him. One of those fighters told me that Windecker claimed to be a demolitions specialist. \u201cDude was going around literally cutting wires off of IEDs,\u201d he said, referring to improvised explosive devices, also known as roadside bombs. \u201cSo he could have gotten anybody killed in the vicinity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alan Duncan, a Scottish volunteer fighter with the Peshmerga, told me that he hadn\u2019t fought with Windecker but knew his reputation from the other fighters. Windecker was better known for taking pictures with dead bodies, long after the fighting was finished, than for engaging in combat, Duncan told me. \u201cHe was floating about taking a few photos with the Pesh,\u201d Duncan said. \u201cIt\u2019s easy to claim to be Peshmerga. But claiming to be Peshmerga and actually being Peshmerga are two different things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cassie Windecker, Mickey Windecker\u2019s third ex-wife, told me that during one of his tours with the Peshmerga, Kurdish fighters had contacted her online to say that he was vacationing more than fighting.<\/p>\n

When they first started dating, she recalled, Windecker sent her a picture of thousands of dollars in cash spread over a bed. \u201cDo you want to come home to this every day?\u201d Cassie remembered Windecker asking her. She said that she never knew Windecker to hold down a job during their marriage, but he often had a lot of cash in his pockets.<\/p>\n

Cassie had long suspected that her husband was secretly working for the police in some capacity. She said she\u2019d seen him visit local police stations to meet with cops. \u201cWhy do you have so much money?\u201d Cassie, who was an exotic dancer at the time, would ask him. \u201cI bust my ass, literally, on a pole. What are you<\/em> doing?\u201d She told me that Windecker would never give her a straight answer.<\/p>\n

In July 2017, after she and Windecker separated, Cassie went to the apartment they had once shared to pick up her mail. In the apartment, Windecker allegedly grabbed Cassie by the neck, slammed her down on a table, and stood over her holding a gun. Cassie screamed as she ran out of the apartment; police arrived and arrested Windecker. The responding officers were wearing body cameras, and I obtained those videos. \u201cHe slammed me on my back, on the table, like freaking WWE-style,\u201d Cassie told the cops, her voice breaking with fear.<\/p>\n

While in jail following that arrest, Windecker revealed his talents as an informant, according to the police body camera footage.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the officers said that you had to speak to me about a murder?\u201d the arresting officer\u00a0said to Windecker, speaking through the jail cell door about two hours after the arrest.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, here\u2019s the thing,\u201d Windecker replied matter-of-factly. He then offered information about a murder, and the arresting officer told him he\u2019d have to\u00a0talk to a detective.<\/p>\n

\u201cHang tight, all right?\u201d the officer said as he walked away. The body camera footage then ended.<\/p>\n

While in the hospital for her injuries, Cassie said she received a text from Windecker: \u201cHey bitch, I\u2019m out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cassie said police officers were still taking her statement in the hospital when the text arrived. \u201cAnd I showed them the text, and they were just like, \u2018We don\u2019t know how he\u2019s out,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

There is no record in Colorado court files of Windecker being charged, and Cassie said she was not contacted by police or prosecutors following her discharge from the hospital.<\/p>\n

Three years later, in the summer of 2020, Windecker approached the FBI, claiming to have unique information about racial justice activists.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Participants<\/p>\n

Participants stand on Lincoln Avenue facing Denver police during a protest outside the state Capitol over the death of George Floyd, on May 30, 2020, in Denver. Photo: David Zalubowski\/AP<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWe Don\u2019t Investigate Ideology\u201d<\/h2>\n

As protests broke out in cities like Minneapolis; Denver; and Portland, Oregon, the FBI\u2019s second-in-command, David L. Bowdich, compared the demonstrations to the 9\/11 attacks. \u201cWhen 9\/11 occurred, our folks did not quibble about whether there was danger ahead for them,\u201d Bowdich wrote in a memo<\/a> first obtained by the New York Times. \u201cThey ran head-on into peril.\u201d Bowdich described the racial justice demonstrations throughout the country as \u201ca national crisis\u201d whose \u201cviolent protesters\u201d were \u201chighly organized.\u201d<\/p>\n

Agents suspected these demonstrators could fit into a domestic terrorism ideology the bureau had defined during the first year of the Trump administration as \u201cBlack Identity Extremism<\/a>\u201d: a controversial, widely criticized catchall label for any domestic extremist ideology that drew a Black following<\/a>. (The FBI has since abandoned the term in favor of a new category called \u201cRacially Motivated Violent Extremism<\/a>,\u201d which combines white supremacist violence<\/a> with so-called Black Identity Extremism.)<\/p>\n

What\u2019s been publicly known about the federal government\u2019s activity during the summer of 2020 is astonishing: The Justice Department charged hundreds of people<\/a> for their roles in First Amendment-protected demonstrations; the Department of Homeland Security deployed more than 750 agents<\/a>, dressed in military-style uniforms, to Portland and abducted demonstrators<\/a> in unmarked vans; and the Drug Enforcement Administration, using surveillance powers intended to stop drug runners, spied on more than 50 racial justice groups nationwide<\/a>, among them a peaceful group that held a vigil on a public university campus in Florida.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The official position of the FBI, whose undercover activities during the summer of 2020 have been largely unknown until now, is that agents do not open investigations based on First Amendment-protected activities. \u201cWe don\u2019t investigate ideology. We don\u2019t investigate rhetoric,\u201d the FBI\u2019s director, Christopher Wray, told a Senate committee in 2019. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter how repugnant and how abhorrent or whatever it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

But internal reports I obtained suggest otherwise.\u00a0These documents show that Windecker\u2019s information was about speech, and this apparently justified hiring him as an informant and launching the undercover investigation. He reported that one local activist, Zebb Hall, used incendiary rhetoric in conversations with other demonstrators, claiming that Hall said: \u201cWe need to burn this motherfucker down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Windecker also secretly recorded a conversation in which Hall spoke vaguely of violent revolution and a desire to train for combat. Windecker encouraged Hall with fantastical claims of training antifascist activists in Iraq and Syria as part of what he called the \u201cRed Star Brigade.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy type of training that I do is anything from, like, I teach how to shoot a gun to, you know\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHand-to-hand combat?\u201d Hall interrupted.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, hand-to-hand combat all the way to blowing up fucking buildings and guerrilla warfare tactics and sabotage,\u201d Windecker replied.<\/p>\n

Windecker, secretly working for the FBI, quickly became well-known among Denver\u2019s most committed activists.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe came off as maybe being a [rookie], but really being into the movement,\u201d Brian Loma, who livestreamed many of the area\u2019s demonstrations that summer, told me.<\/p>\n

One of Loma\u2019s videos from July 2020 shows demonstrators marching down a street in Aurora. \u201cOur streets!\u201d they chant. \u201cOur streets!\u201d Windecker\u2019s slow-moving silver hearse can be seen upfront in the video, clearing the way for the demonstrators.<\/p>\n

By the next month, Windecker had become a leader of Denver\u2019s racial justice movement. The demonstrators had given him a nickname: Drill Sergeant.<\/p>\n

With his military-style jacket and trademark cigar, he\u2019d strut confidently in front of a line of demonstrators, some dressed in homemade armor.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t hear you!\u201d Windecker would yell.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo justice! No peace!\u201d the demonstrators would chant back loudly.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Trey<\/p>\n

Trey Quinn, one of the organizers of Denver\u2019s racial justice demonstrations, speaks on the steps of Denver City Hall on June 29, 2020. Mickey Windecker and the FBI targeted Quinn as part of the undercover probe. Photo: Kevin Mohatt\/Reuters<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThey\u2019re Preparing for a Genuine Battle\u201d<\/h2>\n

In 1975, a Senate committee led by the late Democratic Sen. Frank Church of Idaho investigated the FBI\u2019s civil rights-era domestic surveillance program known as COINTELPRO. Among the FBI abuses documented by the so-called Church Committee<\/a> was the practice of informants becoming leaders in the organizations they were surveilling, and then accusing the real leaders of being informants themselves \u2014 a subversive technique known as \u201csnitch-jacketing.\u201d<\/p>\n

While COINTELPRO no longer exists, some of its methods remain inside the FBI. This is clear from the bureau\u2019s investigation of racial justice activists in Denver during the summer of 2020.<\/p>\n

As Windecker gained prominence among the protesters, eventually rising to a leadership role, he was accusing real activists of being FBI informants. These baseless accusations sowed mistrust and undermined some of the most effective organizers in the community.<\/p>\n

Trey Quinn, the Black activist leading protests in Denver, was among the first to suspect that Windecker might be an informant. Quinn devised a way to test Windecker: Speaking in hypotheticals, he asked him about burning down a neighborhood. Could we get it done?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd he was like, \u2018Oh yeah, I got the right guy for the job,\u2019\u201d Quinn said. \u201cThis is how he\u2019s talking.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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While COINTELPRO no longer exists, some of its methods remain inside the FBI.<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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Windecker\u2019s enthusiastic response fueled Quinn\u2019s suspicions, but he didn\u2019t have proof, so he didn\u2019t warn other activists then. But Windecker, appearing to view Quinn as a threat to his cover, started telling activists that he suspected Quinn was working for the FBI.<\/p>\n

\u201cMickey seemed super concerned that Trey was an informant,\u201d Hall said. \u201cThen I started getting concerns about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Suddenly, Quinn found himself on the outside. His fellow activists stopped communicating with him. As Quinn was being marginalized, Windecker encouraged protesters to become more militant and go on the offensive against the police.<\/p>\n

In late August 2020, Hall went to an apartment that served as a base for Windecker and the young allies he\u2019d recruited. Inside, Hall saw a table covered with guns. \u201cI\u2019m like, \u2018Holy fuck,\u2019\u201d Hall recalled.<\/p>\n

Another activist, who was with Hall in the apartment but asked not to be named because she fears retribution for speaking publicly, confirmed Hall\u2019s account. \u201cThere are guns, weapons, medical supplies, literally looking like they\u2019re preparing for a genuine battle,\u201d she told me.<\/p>\n

From August 22 to August 29, 2020, a series<\/a> of demonstrations<\/a> in Denver morphed into assaults on police stations, with protesters carrying homemade shields and hurling rocks and fireworks at police. The demonstrators called one of these events \u201cGive \u2019Em Hell.\u201d More than 70 police officers were injured that week.<\/p>\n

The police response was ferocious. Officers in riot gear broke bones and fired pepper balls and rubber bullets. One man was hit in the head with a lead-filled bag fired from a police shotgun. A stingball grenade exploded next to a woman, knocking out her teeth. In the first civil judgment awarded at trial for police brutality<\/a> in response to protests triggered by the Floyd killing, Denver police were forced last spring to pay $14 million to 12 protesters.<\/p>\n

According to more than a dozen activists I spoke to in the Denver area, Windecker, the FBI\u2019s informant, helped organize and promote these protests, which quickly turned violent.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Denver<\/p>\n

Denver police officers fire canisters to disperse a protest outside the state Capitol, May 28, 2020, in Denver. Photo: David Zalubowski\/AP<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cYou Need to Have an Objective\u201d<\/h2>\n

A pervasive social media and cable news narrative<\/a> in the summer of 2020 was that racial justice and antifascist activists were becoming increasingly violent and destructive.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe violence and vandalism is being led by antifa and other radical left-wing groups,\u201d President Donald Trump said<\/a>. Right-wing news media reinforced and amplified that message. \u201cViolent young men with guns will be in charge,\u201d Tucker Carlson told<\/a> his large audience on Fox News, adding: \u201cYou will not want to live here when that happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael German, a former FBI agent, watched from his home in California as this narrative took hold. \u201cIt was frustrating for me to see how ably \u2014 usually that\u2019s not a term that you use when you\u2019re referencing former President Trump \u2014 but how ably he was able to make this boogeyman out of antifa,\u201d German, now a fellow with the Brennan Center for Justice\u2019s liberty and national security program, told me.<\/p>\n

According to FBI files and videos, Windecker\u2019s mandate from the FBI wasn\u2019t just to provide information about racial justice protesters \u2014 though his \u201cintelligence\u201d about activists filled dozens of reports \u2014 but also to try to set up protesters in a conspiracy that would have supported Trump\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n

On orders from the FBI, Windecker targeted two Black activists: Hall, whose incendiary rhetoric Windecker had first reported to his handlers; and Bryce Shelby, a slender man with a reputation for giving fiery speeches with a rifle slung over his shoulder. Windecker invited both men to lunch in late August 2020 at a barbecue restaurant. Windecker said he\u2019d brought them together because they were \u201ctalking about the same shit,\u201d by which Windecker meant the prospect of protests turning violent. Windecker told them he had a friend \u2014 \u201can outlaw biker buddy\u201d \u2014 who could supply whatever they needed, including weapons.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need to have an objective of what you\u2019re gonna do,\u201d Windecker told the two men. \u201cIf Bryce is planning on like, \u2018OK, I want to blow up a motherfuckin\u2019 courthouse,\u2019 I need to know what the game plans are.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Windecker\u2019s operation in Denver failed to generate a headline-grabbing conspiracy. Hall declined to participate in a violent plot. Windecker introduced Shelby to his supposed outlaw biker buddy \u2014 an FBI undercover agent who went by the nickname \u201cRed\u201d \u2014 and together they drove to Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser\u2019s home. As a hidden camera recorded them, the undercover agent encouraged Shelby to commit to a plot to assassinate Weiser, and even suggested they could hire a hitman for as little as $500. Still, Shelby refused to move forward with any plans and immediately cut off contact with Windecker and the undercover agent. Although Shelby was not charged with a crime, local prosecutors used the FBI\u2019s undercover recordings to convince a judge to seize Shelby\u2019s guns<\/a> under Colorado\u2019s red flag law.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"zebb-hall\"<\/p>\n

Zebbodios \u201cZebb\u201d Hall was among the Denver activists who became close to Mickey Windecker, not knowing he was a paid FBI informant. Photo: Trevor Aaronson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI Was Just Afraid of Him\u201d<\/h2>\n

A week after trying to rope Hall and Shelby into a violent plot, Windecker had drawn enough suspicion that an antifascist activist group in Colorado Springs, south of Denver, posted a Twitter thread detailing its concerns. \u201cBe careful around this dude,\u201d the group wrote on Twitter. \u201cProbably wise not to let him in your protest space.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the group didn\u2019t have evidence that Windecker was an informant, the public allegation threatened to damage his cover. Activists in Colorado took the claim seriously.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou heard through different groups: \u2018Kick his ass on sight.\u2019 \u2018Fuck him.\u2019 \u2018Don\u2019t let him around the groups,\u2019\u201d Hall remembered.<\/p>\n

Windecker gathered his allies, including Hall, at the apartment in Denver where activists had seen the table covered with guns. Windecker wanted to record a video and post it to YouTube in response to the allegations. He created a stage for the video<\/a>:\u00a0a flag for the Kurdistan Workers\u2019 Party and an AR-15-style assault rifle propped against the wall behind him, and, on the table before him, a ball-peen hammer and a bottle of Jack Daniel\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe had a cigar and was acting all tough,\u201d Hall said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"After<\/p>\n

After an antifascist group in Colorado accused him of being an informant, Mickey Windecker posted a video response to YouTube in which he denied the accusation. \u201cI will be polite and professional, but I have a plan to kill everybody in the fucking room if need to be,\u201d Windecker threatened.
\nCredit: YouTube<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Wearing a custom-made black Punisher T-shirt, Windecker stared into the camera.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis propaganda shit you guys posted doesn\u2019t mean fuck all to me,\u201d Windecker said in his gravelly voice, sounding furious. \u201cBut understand this: I will be polite and professional, but I have a plan to kill everybody in the fucking room if need to be \u2026 If you\u2019re trying to implicate that I\u2019m a fucking snitch, check this out. Three things I ain\u2019t: a punk, I ain\u2019t a bitch, and I ain\u2019t a fucking snitch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watching as Windecker recorded the video, Hall was struck by how defensive\u00a0he seemed. He finally accepted what he\u2019d long thought impossible: Windecker, the activist leader encouraging everyone to become more militant, must be a secret government informant.<\/p>\n

That created a problem for Hall. Windecker had given Hall money days earlier and asked him to buy a gun. Hall had agreed and bought a Smith & Wesson handgun for Windecker, despite knowing that Windecker was a convicted felon. Hall didn\u2019t think he had a choice in the transaction. He believed that Windecker, who made the looming prospect of violence part of his identity, would come after him if he refused. \u201cI was just afraid of him,\u201d Hall explained. \u201cI was fucking terrified of this guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

After he made the video, Windecker and his silver hearse disappeared. In July 2021, nearly a year after he\u2019d bought the gun for Windecker, federal agents arrested Hall. He pleaded guilty to a felony firearms violation \u2014 for buying a gun, with the government\u2019s money, for the government\u2019s informant \u2014 and received three years of probation. That was the extent of the plot Windecker and the FBI succeeded in engineering among the racial justice activists that summer.<\/p>\n

Many of the activist groups in Denver have splintered or disbanded. There was a lot of distrust. Activists there told me they suspected government agents had infiltrated the groups to encourage the violence that occurred, but until now, they\u2019d never had proof.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe FBI caused violence here,\u201d Hall said. \u201cThey don\u2019t want people to know that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

________________________________________________<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Trevor Aaronson – <\/a>trevor@\u200btrevoraaronson.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Research: Margot Williams<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\u00a0Go to Original – theintercept.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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