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

July 19, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

In early summer 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 Capitol Hill neighborhood. They called it CHOP—the Capitol Hill Organized Protest. For a moment, it felt like a utopian experiment: tents, free food, a mutual aid station, a stage for speeches and music. "There's several hundred people being completely peaceful. It's like a block party," one witness recalled. The zone was built as an attempt to create a place with no police, a better world.

But protesters feared attack from right-wing activists. "Taking my group down around City Hall to monitor the group of the Proud Boys," one person said. Some protesters appointed themselves CHOP security, carrying AR-15s. 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.

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What you'll learn

1 (00:00) **Introduction to the Series** - Rund from Throughline introduces a new investigative series from NPR's Embedded podcast called "We Keep Us Safe."
2 (00:11) **The Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP) Begins** - After an intense standoff with anti-police brutality protesters, police abandoned their precinct in Seattle.
3 (00:57) **Utopia Turns to Fear** - For a moment it was utopia, but protesters feared attacks from right-wing activists, specifically the Proud Boys.
4 (01:19) **The Fatal Incident** - One night, a Jeep drove into the camp, and protesters, thinking they were under attack, shot at the vehicle.
5 (01:42) **The Victim's Story** - Antonio's father reflects on his son's presence at the protest and the tragedy.
6 (02:00) **The Central Mystery** - Six years later, the case remains unsolved.
7 (02:14) **The Investigation Begins** - Reporters Will James and Sidney Brownstone introduce their year-long investigation.

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Show Notes

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.

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