New NPR Series: "We Keep Us Safe" from the Embedded podcast

In the summer of 2020, after an intense standoff with anti-police brutality protesters, police in Seattle abandoned their own precinct. Protesters stayed and began occupying about eight city blocks in the middle of the city. They set up tents, a mutual aid station, a stage for speeches and music. For a moment, it felt like utopia. But then, one night, a Jeep drove into the camp. Protesters thought they were under attack and shot at the vehicle. When the shooting ended, one of the Jeep's passengers was dead: 16-year-old Antonio Mays Jr. Six years later, the case remains unsolved, and no one has been able to explain how a place built to protect black life ended up killing a black teenager.

This is the story at the heart of We Keep Us Safe, a new investigative true crime series from NPR's Embedded podcast, produced in collaboration with the Seattle Times and KUOW. The series is hosted by Will James and Sidney Brownstone, who spent more than a year investigating what happened that night, sifting through rumors, digging up new witnesses, and uncovering never-before-seen evidence.

The Experiment That Became a Standoff