The United States of America v. Darren Seals

• In Event: Lightning Talk: Race/Ethnicity, Crime, and Systemic Injustice

Abstract

The United States of America has an insatiable appetite for the corpses of Black men the seat of the government labels as “revolutionaries.” Over the past 70 years, counterinsurgency (COIN) campaigns such as COINTELPRO, Project MERRIMACK, Operation CHAOS, Project RESISTANCE, and others, clearly demonstrated that Black men by their birthright, are considered insurgents and enemies of the state - what Leonard Harris calls the ultimate “necro-being.”

On September 6, 2016, 29-year-old grassroots activist Darren Seals, was found shot to death inside his burning vehicle. Police ruled his death a homicide and never publicly identified any suspects. However, rumors and reports circulated by countless social media platforms and news agencies suggested that Seals was being surveilled by federal law enforcement authorities at the time of his murder.

Based on a series of Freedom of Information Privacy Act (FOIPA) requests over a 12-month period, I received and analyzed nearly 10,000 pages of previously undisclosed pages of declassified FBI documents on Darren Seals. Based on primary source documents, this paper presentation will unearth the secret COIN campaign the United States of America waged against Darren Lashawn Seals Jr.

Author

• Tony Gaskew, University of Pittsburgh, Bradford