Informant

---

Newswoman:
We turn now to a

story out of Austin, Texas,

that's shocked social justice

activists nation wide.

Brandon Darby has admitted

to wearing recording devices

and wearing a transmitter

embedded in his belt.

He's expected to testify in the

trial of two Texas activists

who were arrested on charges of making

and possessing Molotov cocktails.

Newsman:
Two Texas men are charged with plotting

to attack police with Molotov cocktails.

Newswoman:
David McKay and Bradley Crowder

could face up to ten years in prison.

Man:
To say that Brandon Darby

didn't give those guys a fair chance

It's a travesty what he did.

It's a travesty what he did.

Where am I looking?

Interviewer:

Look straight into the camera.

It's not looking

straight at me.

You're looking

straight at it right now.

- Am I?

- Yep, yeah.

- Tell me when.

- We're ready. We're rolling.

I'm gonna start over.

I'm sorry, man.

I've received a lot

of direct death threats.

I've had to go to trial

and testify

against someone

sending me death threats.

People put images of me

with "kill him" on the Internet.

The U.S. Attorney's office

offered me

the witness protection program,

but this is my home.

This group, they use Molotov cocktails,

they threaten violence.

No it doesn't work, man.

Because it's not about them,

it's about the whole f***ing Left

and their support

of these f***ers.

Okay, let's just get you,

just talk, speak your mind.

- Okay...

- And just try to focus on this...

- and just tell it to us.

- Okay, go ahead, man.

This is my home.

I'm not going to leave.

(helicopter blades whirring)

as the founder of the New Orleans-based

group Common Ground Relief,

which he helped start after

Hurricane Katrina.

How's this?

- What is that?

- Interviewer:
Interview...

Where do I look?

- Always in the camera.

- Into that thing?

Strange.

One second for the focus.

All right,

I'm ready.

My name is Brandon Darby and I work

with the Common Ground Collective

in New Orleans, Louisiana.

We're in the Lower Ninth Ward.

We've been here between

four and five months,

working with... with people from

around the country, and with locals.

To get water and food

and medicine, medical care...

The people here

were left to die.

What I saw was awful.

You know?

If I'd had

an appropriate weapon

I would have,

I would have attacked my government

for what they were doing to people.

I honestly would have.

Newsman:
Much of New Orleans is flooded,

and now we're having to deal with it.

Newsman 2:

It's just this incredible misery.

We were at the New Orleans

Convention Center today...

You turn the TV

on and you see these images,

and you're like,

what's going on?

Newsman:
...with their babies,

literally living in raw sewage.

Brandon:
It was like wow,

this is f***ed up.

You know, this is wrong.

How could this happen?

Newsman:

Just a horrible scene down there.

And my friend's there, and I couldn't

get him to leave before the storm.

I had no idea

if he was alive or dead.

And it bothered me...

profoundly.

'Cause you can't really know the

guy and not, not care about...

you know not like the guy, you know,

like he's one of those people.

I began to call people,

and I said hey,

"You know, we should go get King,

you know?"

We're talking and he says,

man, let's go get him.

So we arrive.

We had gone through

what used to be a neighborhood.

And we saw

dead bodies everywhere.

I wasn't even

ready to deal with it.

Brandon:
Some people had returned,

to look for loved ones.

There was a guy whose dad

stayed in a yellow house.

A little ways up the road

we saw a part of a yellow house,

and we had this big debate

on whether we should go tell him

or let him find it

for himself?

And we decided that emotionally

we couldn't handle it.

So we let him

find it for himself.

And we had a lot

of those experiences,

going into the city

of New Orleans.

And it was really f***ing sad,

you know?

Scott:
So he gets in his truck

and he goes across the bridge.

Brandon:

I was just determined that,

there was no way in hell

that I was not go and get King,

or at least know if he was dead,

you know? There's no way.

That's it there.

So this was all underwater.

I parked my truck

and I started walking.

I ended up under an overpass.

The law enforcement on the overpass stopped

me and told me I couldn't be there.

And I said you're up there,

I'm down here.

Sorry.

Tough sh*t, you know?

And they talked and they were like,

let us call you an airboat.

I get in the airboat...

it's Army Rangers.

And they're like, well,

this is gonna take too long.

And I started getting this really weird

feeling that they weren't actually

trying to help me

go get my friend.

The one thing I had going for me was

everyone was afraid of the water.

And then I said, "You can get me at

my friend's house at this address."

I got on a fencepost. And I

think it's that fence post.

And I just held on to the fence post,

so I could stay up.

And they were saying things like,

"You're gonna get so sick from that water.

You need to get out the water now.

Come back."

And I was like, "No... Go get my friend,

and I'll get in your boat.

Sorry, go get him and

then I'll get in your boat."

And then I had

a cell phone call.

Cause I had my phone in my mouth

when I swam from here to over there.

And it was him.

He was like, "Brandon."

And I was like, "Oh sh*t,

where are you at?

You don't know what,

the situation I'm in.

Where are you?

Don't tell me you're in Texas."

And he was like, "No,

I'm in this boat with these Rangers."

And I was like, oh sh*t.

It was the Army Rangers who had

initially picked me up.

And they,

they went to his address and got him.

In a moment, in a, you know,

flash of an eye,

how the whole infrastructure

could just dissolve.

I had been surrounded by water by

this time about maybe ten days.

"Your friend sent us to get you.

Do you know Brandon?"

I said,

"Yeah" and I just laughed and said, "Wow."

Brandon calls. "I got King."

And man, I cried.

And I cried, like it was one of

the most joyous times of my life.

Cause I'd almost given up

hope that he would be alive.

You have all kind of signs

all over the community

saying that we kill looters,

but what constitutes a looter?

Scott:

They put all these really hateful signs.

But then they decided

to take it on themselves

to have armed militia patrols.

These guys were

policing their community,

and they identified

enemy as black.

And so they had in fact

become racist and because

they were armed and they were using that,

they were using force,

they had become

racist militias.

Scott:
We go and we cover up a

dead body that was bullet-riddled.

And the question is,

who killed this man?

And then there's

another one two streets over.

And I'm like,

who killed this man?

- Was it the vigilantes?

- We shot 'em!

Woman:
They were looters!

- You had to do what you had to do.

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