7. They Call Me Juice

nineties today in Denver. You see seven seven seventy five in Denver, Colorado. Today is August twenty five, approximately two fifty pm. The man you're hearing is an FBI undercover agent number seven seven seven five. U SEE is the FBI's acronym for undercover employee. This FBI guy, he's going by the nickname Red. I don't know his real name. What happened a few minutes into the recording, Mickey walks up to the Nissan Ultima. Red rolls down his window

and he notices Mickey's broken finger. Where'd you do that thing? I would to sturge you, some fucking drunk driver hid on his fucking wife, just cutting my handlebars. Mickey then walks over to his car and read sitting in the Ultima seems to think Mickey looks ridiculous. As he gets behind the wheel of a silver hearse ohly shit. Red then follows Mickey. He's listening to the radio as he drives. A few minutes later, Red pulls into the parking lot of a TGI Friday's. Mickey walks up to him again.

He's pretty laid back. He's trying to pump in. You'll see he's kind of mental in some fucking ways. Mickey means Bryce Shelby, the activist with the vague plot to assassinate Colorado as Attorney General. Mickey's about to introduce Bryce to Red, the friend he'd been talking about, the outlaw biker, the no fuck around guy. I'm Trevor Aaronson from Western Sound and I Heeart podcasts. This is Alphabet Boys, episode seven.

They call me Juice. Mickey Windecker, the FBI's informant, has his sights on two targets, zeb Hall and Bryce Shelby. He tried to roll them up over lunch at Famous Daves into a single conspiracy, but zeb had said he's not ready. So now in this episode, Mickey's going after Bryce, just Bryce. Before we get there. I just want to remind you of the timeline. It's a bit confusing since

so much happens over the span of one week. The attacks on the police buildings in Denver the ones Mickey hyped up, they happened from August twenty second to August twenty ninth, twenty twenty. At the beginning of that week, Mickey invited zeb Hall and Bryce Shelby to lunch at a famous Dave's Barbecue restaurant. That's when Bryce discusses with

Mickey an idea to target Colorado's Attorney general. So you're thinking for sure they're the eight gene Yeah right, and zeb offers crazy talk about navigating Denver sewers at the weeks before days happened, they're always by the always buy Yeah. After this meeting, Mickey had gone up to his FBI handler, agent Scott Dahlstrom, and suggested that Bryce was serious about an assassination plot. Trony generals your target. So that's the timeline.

Now it's August twenty fifth, a Tuesday, and we're at a TGI Friday's Mickey is planning to introduce Bryce to Red, the friend you'd been talking about, the no fuck around guy. Before Bryce arrives at the restaurant, Mickey and Red are there with another demonstrator named Mark, who knows Bryce from the protest scene, and Mickey is describing how he knows Red, which is of course a bullshit story no one read for like a decade. We met at seventy sturgeonies, because

it's ten years now, so it's like eighty. I saw him again, like a couple of weeks ago, and it was a girl, because like the Special Force community is like very small, even though like you know, Kurdish like that, you're still talking film and something that I hate to

say it, but I had to check on him. And a couple other guys from the Fifth were like, yeah, we know boot me as he's cool as a high pre and I just wanted to make sure because he's something that's a good qualtro, he's got something, He's got some top notch shit, So okay, I just want to highlight the absurdity here for a minute. Mickey the guy who got booted out of the Peshmerga, and I Rock for being a fraud and a liability to the fighters there.

It's claiming to have been in the Peshmerga's special forces, and that's where he met others in the special forces community, including apparently Rhett, a retired American soldier. Mickey says he's called around to his special Forces contacts and they all vouch for Rhet, who Mickey says, has quote some top notch shit, and what he means by top not shit is, of course weapons. Anything you guys are going to do. I mean, I know their price is like plans exactly,

but yeah, yeah, absolutely. But he's unfortunately I'm not in operational because the probably amputain motherfucker. Mickey's talking about his broken finger again. That'll suck. If you lose that, then, oh man, I'll be mad as fun because I gotta like I'm to be like one of the prosthetic three print ones on there. And it's not like shifting my little Captain book, but my nosepicker, my twat rab. A few minutes later, Bryce arrives, what's up. What's you up too? Fine?

It's good for me right on. So the dairy man Bryce, this is much red. This is Bryce Juice man, they call me Juice. Juice, right, yeah, Bryce tells the FBI undercover agent his nickname is Juice. They call me Juice. He says, yeah, let me get a strawberry lemonade. Mickey then starts telling Bryce about his friend Red and how his fellow members of the Special Forces community vouch for him. Leg all your ship you want to do, that's my boy, that's good. I'm just gonna help your drinking. I don't

even know what the fuck we're fighting. I just know that these people that run shit are not for us. I'm some regular Joe civilian, but if I need to see this coming, I'm not just gonna stand by my family. That could be next. I got the district attorney's address. This does an I keep voiceing the attorney. Bryce is still confusing the two positions, the two different elected officials,

the district attorney and the attorney general. Red and Mickey asked Bryce if he's been to the address, So you went check it out, so but have you have you? Have you been in it? Have? I just like neighborhood itself, like it looks pretty quiet. So it's really a matter of what time did this motherfucker get home because nobody's outside, or you just hear some pops, we're going, okay, neighborhood cheating neighborhood, like one of them in close kind of

in neighborhoods. You know a lot of the streets like not no gates, no gates help. So I'm just thinking, I don't know, like I would like to get multiple people at one time, but obvious, so you gotta keep this small, you know what I mean. So it's like, who's the who's somebody we can we can get this. This motherfucker is the one overseeing all these cases, you know what I mean. So this, my fucker is the one overseeing all these cases. Bryce says, again he's confusing

the two offices. The Attorney General isn't prosecuting demonstrators, that's the district attorney. Nobody knows they're here beside me and him. All right. None of my people from my circles, None of my people is circled that I know. I like, she tow somebody even I didn't know. I don't know about compartmentalize basis I ganged banks. You're like, that's what this is? Another mission me? But on this Red suggested Bryce that they take a drive to scout out the

Attorney General's house. All right, well, I think we got to roll by it. Okay, I got the hand crash. I mean, if you're good with it, you're called. But see what the options are at that point. Right. A few minutes later, Mickey leaves, saying he has somewhere else to be. Now Bryson Red can talk about Mickey without him hearing. Bryce asked Red if he and Mickey had serve together, not directly with them. No, we met here, but I spent twenty years in the military, spent eleven

years overseas. Thank you for your shirt? What bridge? Red then shift the conversation back to the plot to murder the Attorney general. I mean, I think what you were saying, I think you can accomplish that goal, whether than a man that would allow you to be somewhere the next day versus brine, and then you can continue to be who you want to be, not somebody's right, right exactly. That's my nickname. That's my nickname. They called me juid.

I didn't pull that on the pass. There's a way to pull this off, Red says, and not splatter your juice on the wall. Rice likes the joke anyway. Bryce is adamant that he's serious about all this, but he's still confusing the title of the guy he is supposedly plotting to assassinate. How is this going to change? Will people understand what happened? Well, they just hired another da back to the old ways, right. Red tells Bryce that he's here to help because Mickey asked him to help.

That's why he called me. Yeah right, that's why I'm here, Guessa. I am a favor here it is, but the favorite Bryce really wants. The reason it seems he even took this meeting is to find someone to fix his rifle, which has a bullet jammed in it. Would you mind looking at my rifle? Bro? That's what I do every day, alright, That's all. That's all I need to That's about here, bro, Hu, That's that's really it for me. I'm I'll go all try,

nobody try. That's really it for me. Bryce is telling Red that's all he wants, fix my rifle and I'll go kill the guy myself. Red, not wanting Bryce to go on his own, suggest instead that they plan this thing together. You gotta think about your like you gotta give it some thought, and not in terms of I'm not arguing with you in terms of your endgame. I'm saying you gotta give it some thought as to the how I think we ought to take a ride and

just go see there's no harm in that. Red suggests that he and Bryce drive to the Attorney General's house to scope it out more. After the break, he was basically asked me, like, would be my plan? How would I do it? And shit like that, and I was really just saying, like movie shit, cut his lights off, kicking the door. I'm not I don't got no real fucking plan to do this. Shit. This is Bryce Shelby.

I've asked him about his conversation with the FBI undercover agent Red and his supposed plot to kill Colorado as attorney general, whom Bryce kept getting mixed up with the district attorney. I'm not sitting in my fucking room writing up fucking a damn blueprint and what the fuck I'm I don't even know who the nigga was. So I think a listener would say, like, well, why did you talk about it? I guess I don't know. That's just how you feel at a moment like, I'm gonna kill

that motherfucker. You've said that about a lot of people that pisched you off in life listeners. You ain't never killed him for real, have you. This assassination plot, though, ends up being a little more than talk. Bryce had the Attorney General's home address. He said he got it from another demonstrator who, trying to be provocative, had read off a bunch of elected officials home addresses during a speech.

So Red, the undercover agent, suggest they drive out to the house, maybe come up with a more concrete plan. Bryce agrees to go on the right over. They keep talking and Bryce is acting like a tough guy. So what are you thinking? I guess. I mean, let's let's

just put it this way. If you could have it any way, you want just chest that motherfucker hopping out of his car, Because originally I was thinking set the power off and come through the window or something like that, and should you're talking about Rambo, Yeah, But then I got to thinking that's too much shit. I got a big gass rifle, I got a hold, I gotta you

know what I mean, And that's what I'm thinking. I think about back back to like forensics, tracing and shit like that, versus not getting none of that ship on you at all. Motherfucker, hop out the car, you know what I mean? Popping bam. I'm still talking about forensics right there. Yeah, but that's a lot less forensics. So I see what he's saying. The FBI agent is being

generous here for the sake of the undercover sting. Bryce is talking a bunch of nonsense as far as like, actually, just body niggas up, like nah, that that day in my phone. You're trying to hurt me though, while I would mind him my own business, all right, Yeah, now okay,

you're gonna see about you here in one second. Bryce then begins to describe to Red how he wasn't interested in any sort of violence when he first started protesting Mickey, he says, pushed him in that direction, and when I met Mickey, yeah, that was like that was like the first thing he said. He was like, He's like, we're at the impast. A lot of people like thought he was a complicate and they made him start talking. Then he pulled out his fucking prison. I d like, yeah,

there's that no cab for sure. Red then ass price what he knows about the guy whose house they're driving too. What do you know about this guy's attorney general? Because all this family M I think he has. I think he has one kid and a wife, but that might be his Those might just be relative, you know, like on voter registration it doesn't say who's what. Yeah, I think he has one kid and a wife. I don't know how all this kid is either healthy forty me

in too early forties, early to me and forties. Like I say, when's he granting office? About four years? I want to save about forty years. Okay, I want to pause for a minute, because Bryce he gets almost everything wrong about Colorado as attorney general at the time a guy named phil Wiser. Phil Weiser is married, that much

is true, but he has two children, not one. At the time Bryce and Red are having this conversation, Wiser is fifty two years old, not in his early to mid forties, and he was elected in twenty eighteen, and as this conversation is happening, has been in office for less than two years, not as Bryce says, four or five years. Anyway, back to the car ride, So the question I asked earlier, in a perfect situation, what happens

he hops out the car. I'd say maybe about huntey yards away if that, If we could park somewhere close to that, great If not. I ain't worried about this kind of neighborhood. Like I said, it's trees and shit like that. So you know what I mean, You could do a nice little sprint before anybody ever sees anything. Gotta figure everybody's got cameras. Yeah, yeah, But you know I'm saying a purposely joys in the mount up the car. He's getting his briefcase in the backseat or whatever. Light

him up a couple of times. Ain't for the head, God, damn it, Jesus Rice. This is about when they pull into the neighborhood. We pulled in front of it. We pulled in front of the school actually, and sat in the park a lot, I don't know, hundred hundred fifty yards away from the house. Bryceon Red are looking at the house. I don't know. You think I figure out

his schedule. I'm gonna have to come by here with um all right, with my home gro see if I think if you think you're gonna sit outside here catch him leaving. I don't know, bro about coming home. You gotta figure comes home. He does this, The garage door goes up, he drives inside, he does this, the garage door goes down. Mhm. I mean I think there's a better chance of accomplishing your goal with something else, right, I mean, not like here. Yeah, I just think you

can get the thing done and get out. Mick told me, and correct and maybe he's wrong, but he told me that one of your big concerns was making sure you did Yeah. Of course, So to fight another day. I want to see the results of if this worked or not, of course. Yeah. I'm about to figure out what car he what his car drives, and to see where he's you know, I mean where he goes from a day to day basis, you know what I mean. Trail him.

I'm at to trail him. I was. I wasn't gonna start doing any this until I got back in town from Kentucky. At this point, while he's talking like some hitman, Bryce is backing out. Ever so subtly. He says he can't do anything soon because he'll be traveling. So Red suggests another possibility. He's got connections. They could hire someone to kill the attorney general. You know, it's going to cause something to put it together, That's all I'm saying.

What are we looking at? Figure wise? Fix bucks? Yeah, I figured somewhere in there. Red and Bryce then drive back to the TGI Fridays where Bryce's cars parked. On the way back, Bryce confuses again the Attorney General with the district attorney DoD. I mean, do do attorney general self security? I'm sure it's at the building. I don't know if they got them, like personal protective details or anything. What Red didn't know at this point is Bryce is

onto him. Bryce doesn't know a lot of things, that's for sure. He certainly doesn't know much about his elected officials. But Bryce knows this five or six hundred bucks. No way you can find a hitman to kill an elected official for five or six hundred bucks. And I just kind of like, okay, like like yeah, I'll let you know. You know what I mean, Like when you hear the motherfuckers say some bullshit and you're like, yoh, okay, yeah, I'll get right on it. I got you. Yep. I'm

gonna call you yep, yep. H He's stupid, bro. I'm gonna hate you though, calling Bro Bryce. He knows something is very off. So Bryce, as you're probably figuring, doesn't assassinate Colorad as attorney general or even try to. But his rhetoric it's troubling. He did talk about killing a politician. Bryce said, just shoot him as he gets out of his car. It's on tape, secretly recorded by the FBI. Offer hope out the car. You know what I mean? Copy Man. Bryce seemed to have a kind of bloodlust

in his words. Same with zeb Hal. He was like Bryce talking big, talking about violence, talking about burning the whole motherfucker down. I've seen this kind of behavior a lot, and undercover stings, the targets of the investigation talking and acting like the undercovers, who are in turn acting like bad guys terrorists, drug dealers, money launderers, con men, whatever. Humans have a tendency to mimic the behavior of people

in their social groups. We all do this, some more than others, but in undercover stings there tends to be in amplifying effect. The targets of the sting either want to impress the undercovers or they're scared of the undercover agents, and so they talk and act more like bad guys. Bryce is doing this. For example, when Mickey and Red talked to Bryce about guns, he told him that his guns were illegal to bolster his image as a badass. But that isn't true. I was maintaining the image with them.

I bought my ship in the pot stores, so you know what I mean. I was floating to them. You know what I mean, I'm gang banging. Whoop whooo, I'm crips and you ain't got no tattoos, no where fucking worry, oh my goddamn body. And not that that means anything, because there's gang members that don't have no tattoos at all.

But I'm not in the gang book. I'm you've never been arrested like with you know what I mean with people, You know what I mean for them to profile me like that and much like that, But I was telling them that, you know what I mean, I'm thinking again, these are mercenaries and hit man, so you know I mean, we talked, We talk and killer talk more or less. Play Yeah, And then when the motherfucker was like, yeah,

tell me five hundred, I got you. Well, first off, running in the streets, you're killing a political figure for way more than that. I'm saying straight up. You know what I mean, You're killing them somebody big like that for way more than five hundred dollars, So you do it a suspicious right away, just because the price was still out of line, right, Yeah, grossly, you're selling yourself grossly. That's some MS for an m like that, that's some

MS just being real by ms, Bryce means millions. A murder like this would cost millions, not five hundred dollars. After they drive over to the Attorney General's house and discuss how they might kill him, Bryce never talks to Mickey or rad again. And they tried to call me and shit like that, But you know what I mean, he recognized the number. Shit like that. You just got to them at that point, bab I wasn't trying to funk with you to that the degree. In no way

you really trying to do this shit. I'm I'm not doing this. I know it's not gonna in the way I wanted to end. Okay, all right, you killed a couple of our people. All Right, we're gonna change all laws, give you all reparations. Where Yeah, no, that's not gonna change anything. That's gonna piss them off more. We're really gonna start killing black people more. Yeah. I asked Bryce if he thought what happened to him and what happened with Mickey's work in Denver, we're all a continuation of

the FBI's history of targeting black political activists. Bryce says, yeah, just read some history. There's a document you can find it on the end that you could google it. It's called the It's called Operation Black Messiah, and it's pretty much made to prevent the rise of any militant minded, charismatic black males, any heterosexual, stereotypical blackmails that rise to power, fame, glory, whatever. You know what I mean. Don't let him get to

the people, don't let them love him too much. They'll kill for that motherfucker, and therefore they'll turn on our white asses more or less. You might know what Bryce is referring to here. There is recently a movie called Judas and the Black Messiah about the government's involvement in the killing of Black panther leader Fred Hampton during a raid. Now,

there wasn't an Operation in Black Messiah, per se. What Bryce is referring to are the co Intel pro operations under FBI director j Edgar Hoover the ones that infiltrated and subverted black political groups like doctor Martin Luther King's organization and the Black Panthers. These programs were meant to prevent a black Messiah. This was Hoover's term from unifying black political groups in the United States. Bryce believes that the government is alt to destroy any increase in black

political action and power. They've done it before and they're doing it again. It pisses them off. I feel like America wants us to just be quiet and let it happen. But that's so Unamerican. Like this country was started by some motherfuckers who didn't want to pay ten cents, a thirteen cents or whatever on some tea. They started a whole fucking a war, separated from their country, their motherland, over some tea. I'm wrong for wanting I guess as

the government will put it. I'm wrong for wanting to go to war because you're killing us for no specifics. Over a twenty dollars tech, over a twenty dollars bill, over a kid walking, an autistic kid walking down the street dancing to his music with a mask on because he's weird like that, I'm wrong for wanting to go to war because you were killing us for small, egregious reasons. I think I'm more American than you, son of a bitches.

Then the FBI is far from done with Bryce, and they're going to find a new way to draw another protester into their trap, zeb Hal. At the same time, Mickey's work for the FBI is slowly metastasizing beyond the Denver area. Mickey provides the FBI with information about demonstrators in Colorado Springs. This sets off a whole series of events that will have big consequences for Mickey. The FBI launches a new separate investigation in Colorado Springs, where a

young cop is recruited to work with the FBI. She wears a long wig of pink hair. When you were marching in the housing march, were you doing that for Alora Springs Police Department? I was under the authority on how many other FBI agents were in that, marsh irrespectfully declined to answer. That's in the next episode, This is Trojan Hears Season one of Alphabet Boys. Alphabet Boys is a production of Western Sound and iHeart Podcasts. The show

is reported, written and hosted by me Trevor Aaronson. For more information about the series, or to drop us a tip, head to our website Alphabet Boys dot xyz. You can contact me on Twitter and Instagram at Trevor Aaronson. We believe this story is important and could result in changes to FBI oversight and public policy. But to have impact, people need to hear the story, so we need your help. First, tell your friends about the show. Personal recommendations are the

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