116. The Juggalos (ICP v. FBI)

This episode of Swindled may contain graphic descriptions or audio recordings of disturbing events which may not be suitable for all audiences.

Listener discretion is advised.

Quick warning.

This episode features what some might consider an excessive amount of profanity.

So be vigilant about where you listen.

Okay?

Okay.

Enjoy.

I just need your help finding this Monroe County man, 21-year-old Michael Gauscher, left his home a week ago to visit a friend and has not returned or called since.

His relatives and friends are concerned because Goucher kept in daily contact with them.

Anyone with information should contact the Monroe County Control Center.

21-year-old Michael Scott Goucher had not been seen since Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009.

Michael had left his apartment in his Navy Blue 2000 Buick Century around 11 p.m.

He said he was going to meet up with a friend, but he he never came home.

Almost a week had passed without a sign from Michael Goucher, which was completely out of character.

Michael was a good kid.

He routinely checked in with his aunt and uncle.

He never missed work without a legitimate reason.

Michael was on the right track.

He had recently returned to Pennsylvania after serving as a convoy driver and mechanic in the U.S.

Army.

He worked as a custodian at an East Stroudsburg High School, but wanted to become a police officer eventually.

In preparation, Michael had taken an active role with the East Stroudsburg Crime Watch organization.

His family and friends dreaded that something bad had happened for him to just disappear like this.

That fear only worsened when Michael's car was found on February 10th.

It was stuck in a ditch on Stony Run Lane in Price Township, Pennsylvania.

about 20 miles north of where he lived.

A resident of the neighborhood had stumbled upon it, but there was no trace of Michael.

The following day, a body was discovered 50 yards off a road about a quarter mile from where Michael Goucher's car was located.

His wallet and cell phone were missing.

A knife and a meat cleaver were found nearby.

Michael Goucher had been stabbed 45 times.

The body of 21-year-old Michael Goucher of Stroudsburg was found this afternoon in a wooded area off Snow Hill Road in Price Township.

Now state police are charging a 19-year-old Cresco man with his death.

Pennsylvania state police already had a suspect in custody that same evening, 19-year-old Sean Fremore, an unemployed drug addict with a lengthy criminal history.

The cops found Fremore sleeping in the back seat of his car on a road near his residence in Cresco.

Investigators never divulged exactly how they initially connected Sean Fremore to the murder.

but it probably had something to do with the fact that he was one of Michael Goucher's 13 MySpace friends.

Fremore was brought in for questioning.

He readily admitted to knowing Michael, who was openly gay.

Sean Fremore said they had met on MySpace and had hooked up sexually a month earlier.

Fremore claimed they planned to meet again on February 3rd, but Michael Goucher never showed.

When he was asked if he was willing to take a polygraph test, Sean Fremore refused and was allowed to return home.

But he called detectives later that night.

He was ready to talk again.

Sean changed his story.

He told them he had met up with Michael Goucher that night.

I didn't mean to kill him, Fremore confessed.

Sean Fremore said they tried to have sex in Michael's car that night, but stopped because it hurt.

Sean said Michael wouldn't take no for an answer, so he bailed from the car, and Michael followed.

Next thing you knew, Sean said, he was stabbing Michael in the stomach.

Goucher had collapsed and threatened to call the police.

So, Sean says, he stabbed him again and again and again before dragging him deeper into the woods where he buried the body in the snow.

Sean Fremore grabbed Michael's keys and moved his car to a more secluded spot before ditching his clothes and returning home.

Well, here is the man that police say killed Mike Goucher, 19-year-old Sean Fremore of Price Township.

He's in jail without bail.

Police say Fremore stabbed Goucher.

Goucher's family last saw him February 3rd.

Police found his car Tuesday.

His body was discovered in the woods Wednesday.

A week later, Sean Fremore changed his story again.

This time, he implicated an accomplice.

Sean told investigators that he enticed Goucher to meet him in the woods under the pretense of a sexual encounter.

The plan was to rob and murder him from the beginning, Sean said, completely premeditated.

Sean's friend, 17-year-old Ian Seagraves, was hiding underneath a nearby bridge with a knife.

When Fremore lured Goucher close enough, Fremore said Seagraves jumped out and plunged the blade into the unsuspecting victim's throat.

Code blew, Michael Goucher screamed into his East Stroudsburg Crime Watch-issued handheld radio as he ran back towards the road.

Sean Fremore and Ian Sea Graves caught up.

They snatched the radio, smashed it, and stabbed Michael repeatedly until he stopped making noise.

No one would ever find his body, the young murderers assured themselves.

They stole a DVD and a small digital voice recorder out of Michael's car on the way home.

Investigators believed this version of events to be the most plausible.

They'd found a roll of duct tape under the bridge in question that contained Ian Seagraves' fingerprints.

The stolen DVD and voice recorder from Michael's car had also been recovered from Seagraves' bedroom.

Unbelievably, the recorder's contents had been erased and replaced with an a cappella rap song.

It was Ian Seagraves' voice.

The lyrics amounted to what investigators believed was a detailed confession of the crime.

How he waded under the bridge, how his friend lured him in, how he stabbed Goucher in the neck, how he begged for his life.

Every single line was corroborated by physical evidence.

What could have possibly inspired this?

Ian Seagraves and Sean Fremore are part of the Juggalo subculture.

They listen to violent music by groups like the Insane Clown Posse.

Prosecutors say the pair brutally murdered 21-year-old Michael Goucher and then wrote poems poems and recorded a song about it in the Insane Clown Posse style.

Sean Fremore and Ian C.

Graves were self-described juggalos, the name given to fans of horror core Detroit rap group, the Insane Clown Posse.

The group's songs often contained depictions of extreme violence and murder.

ICP's record label logo even features a little cartoon man.

carrying a meat cleaver, like the one found at the murder scene.

It was all adding up.

The band's lyrics were featured on the MySpace profiles of Sean Fremore and Ian Seagraves.

There were photos of them wearing clown makeup, a Juggalo custom, and both of the suspects had Juggalo nicknames.

Fremore was known as Skippy.

Seagraves called himself Itso, but changed it to Throat Stabber shortly after he had stabbed a throat.

Also, Sean Fremore was wearing an insane clown posse t-shirt when he was arrested.

These are pictures from Fremore's MySpace page where he professes to be a member of the Juggalos.

Juggalos are fans of painted face rappers, insane clown posse, and some view them as a violent criminal gang.

ENC Graves' defense attorney, Joseph D'Andrea, agreed that the raps found on the digital recorder had everything to do with the suspects being Juggalos.

The lyrics were fantastical, fictional.

Not admissions to an actual murder, he argued.

He was a follower of ICP.

It's all about about violence and blood and death and stabbing and killing and shooting.

What Ian wrote is no different than what those songs were.

And that's what our case is about.

What he wrote was just a song.

It had nothing to do with an admission of his wrongdoing.

Those songs were played for the jury at Sean Fremore and Ian Seagraves' joint trial in September 2011.

Both young men had been charged with first-degree murder, aggravated assault, robbery, tampering with evidence, and conspiracy.

17-year-old Seagraves was tried as an adult.

They both testified.

Again, the stories had changed.

Sean Fremore said he was tripping on cough medicine at the time and didn't remember killing Michael Goucher, but knows he acted alone.

Ian Seagraves contradicted that tale.

Ian said he walked up on the scene during a nightly stroll, and when he realized it was his best friend murdering someone, he decided to join in and stab Goucher too, you know, out of impulse.

A A jury found them both guilty on all counts.

A Monroe County jury has found Sean Fremore and Ian C.

Graves guilty of first-degree murder in the killing of Michael Goucher.

This took the jury less than two hours to reach their verdict today.

Both Sean Fremore and Ian C.

Graves were sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Hopefully that sent a message.

Michael Goucher's murder was the first to go to trial of a rash of juggalo-related crimes across the United States in 2009.

The same month Goucher was killed, a bookstore owner in Salt Lake City named Sherry Black was murdered by a purported juggalo.

In September of that year, Tony Lacasio was also murdered in the woods of Pennsylvania, brutally beaten to death with baseball bats by self-proclaimed juggalos.

A month later, Kimberly Cates and her 11-year-old daughter Jamie were attacked by juggalos in their New Hampshire home.

Last month in New Hampshire, four teenagers were arrested for hacking a woman to death with a machete.

Was this a few bad apples?

Or was the whole bunch rotten?

Could it be that listeners of a certain musical group are more prone to crime and violence?

Or was this just good old-fashioned American hysteria at play once again?

Any juggalo knows it's never wise to paint your face with such a broad brush, lest there be unintended consequences.

The civil rights battle ignites when fans of the insane clown posse are officially classified as a street gang by the United States federal government on this episode of Swindled.

They bribed government officials to find accounting career violations of decades state law earlier in the universe.

records and hide.

Support for swindled comes from simply safe.

For the longest time, I thought home security meant an alarm going off after someone broke in.

But if the alarm is already blaring, it's too late.

The damage is done.

That's a reactive approach, and it leaves you with that awful feeling of violation, even if the intruder runs away.

That's why I switched to Simply Safe.

They've completely changed the game with Active Guard outdoor protection, designed to stop crime before it starts.

Their smart, AI-powered cameras don't just detect motion.

They can tell you when there's a person lurking on your property.

That instantly alerts Simply Safe's professional monitoring agents in real time.

And here's the game changer.

The agents can actually intervene while the intruder is still outside.

Talk to them through two-way audio, hit them with a loud siren and spotlight, and call 911 if needed.

It's proactive security, and that's real security.

I trust SimplySafe because there are no long-term contracts, no hidden fees, and a 60-day money-back guarantee.

They've been named best home security systems by U.S.

News and World Report for five years in a row.

And I can see why.

Get 50% off your new SimplySafe system at simplysafe.com safe.com/slash swindled.

That's 50% off your new SimplySafe system by visiting simplysafe.com/slash swindled.

There's no safe like simply safe.

This was something supernatural.

This was something magic.

This was meant to teach me something.

I don't know why me, I don't know why the clown even appeared in my dreams, but I'm telling you, it all started with this dream or panic attack.

As kids, Joe Bruce and Joey Usler were obsessed with professional wrestling.

The larger-than-life characters, the storylines, the escape from reality.

It was also appealing to the two best friends who didn't have much else.

They used to wait at the back entrance of Joe Lewis Arena in downtown Detroit.

to snag autographs from their favorites since they usually couldn't afford a ticket to get in.

Joe and Joey grew up in single-mother homes with multiple siblings on the city's outskirts.

They made up for what they lacked in financial stability with an untamed imagination and ruthless pursuit of their dreams.

Barely teenagers, the boys built their own wrestling ring in Joe's backyard using railroad ties and stretched out garden hoses.

They taught themselves to suplex each other safely, launched their own promotion, and invited the whole neighborhood to watch.

The kind of ingenuity and self-sufficiency that can only be derived from being poor.

But poverty was the least of the pair's worries growing up.

There were bad influences and dangerous environments around every corner, including physically and sexually abusive step parents.

Being poor and all that put the wickedness in our music, Joe Bruce later told M Live Detroit.

That's where I think a lot of our anger came from.

Ah, yes, the music.

By the late 80s, even though the duo had become accomplished enough wrestlers to participate in regional promotions, after becoming disillusioned with the realities of the industry, Joe and Joey's interest in the sport took a backseat to the emerging hip-hop scene.

Artists like Run DMC, the Beastie Boys, Sir Mixalot, the Ghetto Boys, and local Detroit legend Isham had truly inspired them.

Joe Bruce and Joey Usler picked up a mic and tried rapping for themselves, and they were naturally gifted.

Okay, that might be a stretch, but they were decent enough, you know, for two teenaged white kids with junior high school dropout vocabularies.

Joe had already quit school.

Joey, who was two years younger, wasn't far behind.

Unsurprisingly, they followed that common path from disaffected youth to want to be gangbangers.

It was like fucking catching the Holy Ghost.

We knew it.

We wanted to be rappers.

Failure was not an option.

It was like our calling.

It was like the key fucking finally unlocked the master bolt.

And we knew what we wanted to be.

Every question was finally answered.

We knew what we had to do.

We knew our purpose.

We knew our calling.

We were going to be the inner city posse for real.

Real, real, real.

The inner city posse was short-lived.

It turns out that pretending to be a street gang is offensive to real street gangs and rather dangerous.

Besides, the music that iteration of ICP released had only garnered minor traction locally, the group needed a new direction.

And like magic, it came to Joe Bruce one night in a dream.

Then it hit me all at once.

Let's all paint our faces like clowns and be the insane clown posse.

Clowns who murder and kill people who deserve to be murdered and killed.

The underclass of America is treated like carnival freaks, Joe pitched to Joey.

Why not embrace it?

Why not paint our faces like clowns, wicked clowns, and rap about the dredges of society, exacting vigilante justice in a cartoonishly horrific way?

It was a ridiculous idea, but inarguably a brilliant idea.

A vision that would completely alter the destinies of Joe Bruce and Joey Usler and earn them millions of dollars over the next 30 years and counting.

Without irony, the Insane Clown Posse is a masterclass in grassroots promotion and guerrilla marketing.

They created a self-contained fictional universe of their own called the Dark Carnival, which Mitchell Sunderland at Vice described as, quote, a kind of purgatory-themed amusement park where the bourgeois and the oppressors and the predators finally get what's coming to them.

That punishment is doled out in gory audio detail by two rapping clowns named Violent J, the alter ego of Joe Bruce, and Shaggy Too Dope, aka Joey Usler.

The concept encompassed all their favorite things, the gimmickery of pro-wrestling, the shock value of a horror movie, and old-school hip-hop music with a carny twist.

The music itself is violent, profane, comedic, and sometimes flat-out indefensible in its offensiveness.

Yet while apolitical, the underlying message is undeniably progressive.

The target of ICP's fictional audio violence typically consists of corrupt judges and preachers, rapists, child predators, and racists.

For instance, on the group's debut album, Carnival of Carnage, there's an anti-bigotry anthem called Your Rebel Flag that contains the not-so-subtle chorus of simply, fuck your rebel flag.

That album was released in 1992, almost 30 years before Confederate monuments across the United States began to topple.

Meet ICP, the insane clown posse, a dynamic duo driving their fans into a frenzy.

They use graphic violence in their act to get their message across, but these rappers from southwest Detroit say they are sending out a positive message, calling on on listeners to wipe out racism, bigotry, drugs, and careless sex.

We represent people that have been that were born without the silver spoon in their mouth, but instead with a rusty fork.

Those themes have persisted throughout ICP's career, which has both been hindered and propelled by controversy.

From having their fourth album pulled from record store shelves six hours after its release by their Disney-owned record company.

Disney denies that this sudden house cleaning has anything to do with a nationwide boycott instituted against the company last week by the Southern Baptist Church, which claimed that in sponsoring Gay Days at Disneyland and presiding over the newly gay-themed TV sitcom Ellen

to public beefs with the likes of Eminem, Ozzy Osborne's wife, and Marilyn Manson.

And Marilyn Manson got the $5 fake contact lens in his eyes.

You can't be scary when you're wearing your grandma's panties on stage.

The clowns maintained a presence in the public eye.

despite being irrelevant in the eyes of the popular music industry.

Regardless of artistic merit, you can't pay for that kind of promotion.

Disney's mistake made us millions of dollars,

which is why I'm fat because I can afford to eat all the double cheeseburgers I want.

It seems like every few years, Insane Clown Posse would resurface as a pop culture punchline, whether by being lampooned on Saturday Night Live, being named the worst rappers of all time by GQ magazine, or becoming the subject of ridicule and a widely shared internet meme.

Water, fire,

You know someone, somewhere, is probably still quoting that decade-old meme today.

Probably that funny guy you work with who's on his sixth rewatch of the office or something.

Violent J and Shaggy Too Dope do not care.

They can handle it.

Shut up.

The clowns are used to being the butt of the joke.

And what they do is probably not for you.

ICP were outcasts long before they ever put on the face paint.

That's kind of the whole point.

And in doing so, they made themselves at home in the figurative underground sewers of society.

And in turn, hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, found a home with them.

They call themselves Juggalos.

Juggalos is what we call our fans or whatever.

I don't call them fans.

I call them juggalos.

And once we have enough juggalos, we're going to make them all stand on one side of the planet at the same time, and then the world's going to flip upside down, and it's going to rain hell, all right?

It's going to rain Faygo in hell when you least expect it.

The average insane clown posse fan, or juggalo, describes themselves as a quote, scrub.

Just like the performers they look up to.

They're typically blue-collar, typically white, typically semi-rural, and often the alienated rejects of society, the products of a broken home.

Just like the performers they look up to, juggalos hold these truths to be self-evident and readily embraces them.

But they found solidarity in one another, which is why being a hardcore fan of ICP grew into something far more interesting than the music.

It's almost like watching a nature documentary.

The Juggalos paint their faces like clowns.

They give themselves dark, carnival-esque nicknames like Joker Boy, Sweet Nedenthis, or Brian.

And they go crazy as Violet J and Shaggy Too Dope spray up to 300 liters of a cheap Detroit-based soda on the crowd during their live shows.

Why?

I don't know why.

Some things are just better left unexplained.

And we bring Faygo Soda, which is a soda pop from Detroit.

It's not an American soda pop because it's not distributed all over America.

It's too cheap and too feeble to even make it out of Detroit.

But we're bringing it with us all over the world.

And it comes in multi-colors, multi-flavors, bubblegum grape.

And for some reason, we spray it all over the audience.

Nobody really knows why.

We do it because it's sheer stupidity.

And that's what we are.

Sheer stupidity.

Juggalos even have their own dialect.

There's the term juggalo, obviously, but there's also juggalette for the fair sex.

On less formal occasions, those terms can be used interchangeably with a ninja and a ninjette.

To describe something in terms of bad and good, a juggalo will often use fresh and stale.

They also use the word neddin in place of vagina for some reason.

Again, I'm not sure the origin.

I will continue to study the lore, but what is known is that the juggalos consider themselves one big, all-inclusive family.

I went homeless at 14.

It was Juggalo family that I ever experienced any aspect of a real family or what a family is supposed to be.

We all look the same when we we put the clown paint on, and it's just,

it's a community.

Juggalos are there for each other when no one else can be relied upon.

No discrimination, no questions asked.

Even if they're strangers, juggalos will greet each other in the wild with salutations of much clown love, or even more commonly, a simple whoop whoop.

And a whoop whoop to you as well, good sir.

And the juggalos, I think, are the last real subculture in America.

Most other subcultures that have been out

in the last hundred years or so, from punks to mods to rockers, they've all been absorbed by the mainstream.

Juggalos have it.

Thanks to the Juggalos, Insane Clown Posse has sold an estimated 8 million albums, including one platinum record, with no mainstream radio or television airplay.

They produced two straight-to-DVD movies, started a Juggalo-branded wrestling promotion.

They also host their own annual music festival called the Gathering of the Juggalos, with With almost no assistance from external sources, everything is kept in-house through Joe and Joey's company, Psychopathic Records, which is almost entirely staffed by lifelong friends and family.

Psychopathic Records logo, known as the Hatchet Man, is ubiquitous on the band's merchandise and a common choice of tattoo among the fans.

You've probably seen it.

In fact, Juggalo-related logos like the Hatchet Man made it easy to spot a developing trend.

A trend and a designation that would lead to ICP's most insurmountable career hurdle yet.

And this time, no one was laughing.

The following is a paid advertisement for the Swindled Valued Listener Rewards Program.

Are you tired of hearing advertisements in Swindled like this one?

Do you wish there was more swindled content to distract you from your miserable existence?

Don't settle for those other inferior podcasts with the annoying hosts who laugh at their own jokes.

Become a swindled valued listener today to receive easy access to new episodes and exclusive access to bonus episodes that are not available anywhere else.

Completely advertisement-free.

It's fun for the whole family, but don't take our word for it.

I used to spend so much time and energy on so-called improvements like exercise, eating healthy, and therapy.

But for just $5 a month, my swindled valued listener membership puts into perspective that it doesn't really matter.

We're all doomed.

Thanks, Swindled.

I guess.

Millions of Swindled fans have discovered the secret of becoming a valued listener.

Try it in your own home today.

Also, act now to receive the Valued News for Valued Listeners update show at no extra cost.

That's a $5,000 value for one easy monthly payment of $4.99.

Go to valued listener.com to sign up using Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Patreon.

No long-term commitments, satisfaction guaranteed, foreign currency accepted, canceled anytime.

Please, just give us your money.

Support for Swindled comes from Bombas.

Falls here.

The kids are back in school.

Vacations are done.

And cozy season has officially started.

Which means time to slide into some bombas.

You know bombas, the most comfortable socks, slippers, tees, and underwear out there.

All made from premium materials built for this time of year.

We're talking merino wool that keeps you warm when it's cold, but cool when it's warm.

Sapima cotton that's softer, stronger, and more breathable than the regular stuff.

And even rag wool, the thick, durable, classic, cozy sock that's practically made for fall.

And it's not just socks.

Bombas has slippers too.

The sharper lined Sunday slippers that make it hard to leave the house.

The gripper slippers, perfect for travel, even waterproof Friday slides.

But here's the best part.

For every item you buy, Bombas donates one to someone experiencing homelessness.

That's over 150 million items donated so far.

And with their happiness guarantee, if you're not 100% satisfied, they'll make it right.

No risk, all reward.

I've worn Bombas for years, and honestly, they've outlasted every pair of socks in my drawer.

They stay soft, they don't sag, and it feels good knowing my purchase helps someone else.

Head over to bombas.com audio and use code audio for 20% off your first purchase.

That's bombbas.com/slash audio.

Code audio at checkout.

There's a gang that authorities are keeping a close eye on in the North State.

Gang members follow a band called the Insane Clown Posse, and the followers are called the Juggalos.

The females are called Juggalettes.

This is the Juggalo's main symbol.

They call him the Hatchet Man.

In the early aughts, local law enforcement departments and media outlets started noticing and reporting on crimes perpetrated by self-identified juggalos.

Murders, petty thefts, assaults, and robberies.

The violent music of insane clown posse must have compelled these people to act in nefarious ways, they presumed.

The offenders would either be wearing juggalo apparel, have an ICP-related tattoo, or boast about their fandom online.

The media demanded Violent J and Shaggy Too Dope answer for these heinous crimes.

How do you write a line like, From Pluto to your anus, we are underground famous?

For doom, it 808 bass booms in your face.

That's dope, man.

Welcome to the world of rap.

Martin Bashir for Nightline sat down with the clowns in March 2010 to get a response to the reported recent uptick in Juggalo-related violence.

ICP, like everyone else who's been in that position before, denied having a direct influence on the actions of its fans.

If someone was inspired to kill because of their songs, that person was messed up way before they ever hit play on their album.

Come on, man.

Who else do they listen to?

Why don't you blame them?

What about February 2009?

Michael Gauch is stabbed 20 times by two self-proclaimed juggalos.

Well, you know, just the way you read these off is like

a brutal attack to try to make it sound like our fans are these dangerous people when it's

misconstrued.

Violent Jay, I didn't say that.

I'm just reporting the facts of these cases.

It was absurd to suggest: is Stephen King responsible for crimes committed by his readers?

Does the actor who played Michael Myers have blood on his hands?

Why should music be treated any differently?

Just because one pedophile listens to Drake, does that make Drake a never mind?

Bad example.

We have face paint on.

We are entertainers.

If any of our fans kill somebody, please don't buy any more of our f records.

Get out of our lives, you're a sicko.

ICP's defense was that they were no different than other forms of violent entertainment.

Anyone in their right mind could and should recognize that.

Blaming media consumption for the horrific acts of individuals is such a tired and lazy excuse.

What about the parents?

What about the school system?

What about a lack of mental health care and other socio-economic factors in America that may contribute to a young man's anger and hopelessness?

Nope.

Nope, it's the rapping clown duo from Detroit who shoulder the responsibility.

Unfortunately for Violent Jay and Shaggy Two Dope, that narrative would not be going away anytime soon.

Music fans or gang members, followers of the group Insane Clown Posse, call themselves Juggalos.

The lyrics are shockingly savage, but are they a blueprint for murder?

If your teenagers ever come home painted as clowns, they may be associated with a group that calls itself Juggalo.

Juggalo's gang members were once thought to be associated with white supremacists.

And there are certain phrases like whoop whoop used by Juggalo.

Some think it's just the latest teenage fad.

Others are convinced it's a bizarre clown cult.

If you see this CD in your kids' room, take notice.

Two high school dropouts from Detroit have formed a rap group called the Insane Clown Posse, ICP, to the kids.

And what they advocate makes some of the black rappers look like Shirley Temple.

Juggalos have been on the Federal Bureau of Investigations radar since at least 2008, probably earlier.

And in 2010, the National Gang Intelligence Center, a multi-agency organization that includes the FBI, made an effort to gain a national perspective on juggalos by reaching out to municipal and state police departments.

The NGIC asked those law enforcement organizations to supply them with cases and data of nefarious juggalo activity in their communities.

The responses trickled in.

Ultimately, the FBI and NGIC determined that the Juggalo threat to society was real.

The agency's 2011 National Gang Threat Assessment Report, which is intended to inform law enforcement agencies of emerging trends, included all the usual suspects, the Bloods, the Crips, MS-13, the Aryan Brotherhood.

But for the first time ever, Juggalos had its own section, complete with a photograph of a woman in clown paint pointing a gun gun at the camera.

Here's what it said.

The juggalos, a loosely organized hybrid gang, are rapidly expanding into many U.S.

communities.

Although recognized as a gang in only four states, many juggalos subsets exhibit gang-like behavior and engage in criminal activity and violence.

Law enforcement officials in at least 21 states have identified criminal juggalos subsets, according to NGIC reporting.

Many crimes committed by juggalos are sporadic, disorganized, individualistic, and often involve simple assault, personal drug use and possession, petty theft, and vandalism.

However, open source reporting suggests that a number of juggalos are forming more organized subsets and engaging in more gang-like criminal activity, such as felony assaults, thefts, robberies, and drug sales.

Two examples of such crimes were included.

In January 2011, a suspected Juggalo member shot and wounded a couple in King County, Washington.

And in January 2010, two suspected Juggalo associates were charged with beating and robbing an elderly homeless man.

Well, they may look like clowns, but feds are taking them seriously.

The FBI has identified fans of the rap group Insane Clown Posse as America's newest gang.

They're called Juggalos.

This was unprecedented.

Never before had the United States government targeted an artist's fan base in such an official manner.

Juggalos, fans of the Insane Clown Posse, according to the U.S.

Department of Justice, were now considered a non-traditional street gang.

It almost brought a smile to the faces of Violent Jay and Shaggy 2Dope.

Their whole career was a shining example of there being no such thing as bad press.

At first it was kind of like, ah, that's pretty dope, you know what I'm saying?

They're calling Juggalos a gang.

Sweet.

A tougher image, Shaggy told CT.com.

But then all of a sudden, as quick as we said that, we started seeing the repercussions with with it.

That shifted as soon as we started getting on the road, doing meet and greets in in-stores and talking to people, getting letters from people, you know what I'm saying, talking about how, what fucked up kind of experiences they've had with law enforcement, now being considered a gang member.

The most obvious consequence of the new label was that juggalos outfitted in gear, a sticker on their car, or a tattoo were being profiled by their local police.

Juggalos like 20-year-old Brandon Bradley in Citrus Heights, California, said he had been stopped, interrogated, and photographed on numerous occasions within one year.

Bradley had a spotless record.

He was a caregiver at a senior home and ultimately wanted to be a correctional officer.

But now he was in a database of known gangsters in the region for no other reason than his musical preference.

Bad taste is in the crime, but if it were, Juggalos would receive harsher punishments because of the gang designation.

Law enforcement could now track Brandon Bradley's whereabouts under the umbrella of monitoring gang activity.

If he is ever convicted of a felony, Bradley could receive an automatic 25-year sentence simply for having an ICP tattoo.

I can't do the main thing I want to do in life, Brandon Bradley told the Sacramento News and Review.

Everything that I really want to do that's big and good for me, I'm literally not able to do because of music.

Insane Clown Posse and Psychopathic Records were hearing hundreds of stories like this.

Juggalos were getting punished to the full extent of the law for minor drug offenses and misdemeanors.

Even if no violations had occurred, law enforcement noted their identities and tattoos and attached them to a street gang without having to inform anybody.

Wearing a hatchet man beanie could trigger a probation violation, a job termination, a child protective services investigation, denial of employment, denial of housing, denial of benefits, and more.

It's like some crazy communist shit.

I don't know what a communist is, is, but I know this feels like some big, powerful, scary government bullshit.

That quote comes from a documentary about this case called the United States of Insanity.

One of the film's subjects, 31-year-old Sean Wolfe in Cottonwood, Arizona, tells the story of how he was denied custody of his son, who was living in a boys' home at the time, after a social worker found ICP merchandise in Sean's house and deemed him unfit to parent.

Crystal Guerrero of Albuquerque, New Mexico, was also deemed unfit unfit to parent during a custody battle for her two children.

Why?

Because Crystal had attended one insane clown posse concert.

Another unnamed Juggalette was visited by Child Protective Services immediately after she was released home with her newborn.

An investigation had been triggered by the nurses at the hospital who had reported the woman for having ICP-related tattoos.

Speaking of which, there were multiple examples of Juggalos being denied enlistment or re-entry into the U.S.

Army because of tattoos.

One of them, Scott Gandy, even had his I Like ICP chest tattoo altered to read I like fish after a recommendation from the recruiting office.

Scott's application was denied anyway.

It's insane.

There was a woman who was a probation officer for 15 years and on her walking papers it said you're being let go because we found out on your Facebook you're a juggalo.

That was 34-year-old Jessica Bonametti of Woodbridge, Virginia.

She received a termination memo that read, quote, specifically, you are in violation of this policy due to your posting pictures, images, or information suggesting identification with a security threat group, Juggalos, or which portray security threat group in a positive and appealing manner.

What happened to us never happened to any band in the history of rock and roll that I know of, anything like that.

Nothing like it.

And the only reason nobody's up in arms about it, because we don't have no respect.

Juggalos, that's why.

Because we're clowns.

We're the most hated band in the world.

What's next?

Who else is next?

What if your favorite fucking band, you know, all of a sudden you're labeled as a gang member?

Our logos became an official gang fucking

sign.

They can't sell it at malls.

ICP's main concern was its fans, but there was no denying that their business had been negatively impacted by the NGIC report as well.

They claimed that all of their merchandise, which accounts for a massive chunk of their revenue, had been pulled out of retail stores like Spencer's Gifts and Hot Topic.

A year earlier, ICP had been invited to play Hot Topic's warehouse for a private corporate party.

Now, they were lepers because of the gang label.

Booking tours had become almost an impossibility.

No venue wants to host a gang rally.

even one that had been happening annually for 30 years like the Juggalo's Hallow Wicked Halloween show in Michigan.

In 2012, the Royal Oak Music Theater canceled its booking at the request of local police, citing the National Gang Threat Assessment Report.

Then, one of the headlining bands is the Insane Clown Posse, which is known for its fans, the Juggaloose, a group designated as a gang by the FBI.

Plus, there were all the employees of Psychopathic Records to consider, some of whom had been working for the clowns for almost three decades, an entire career.

Now, all of a sudden, they found themselves employed by a criminal organization.

Did that make them gang members too?

You know, because you fucked us up over here, man.

You fucked a lot of people.

A lot of people up, you know what I'm saying?

Like, with that dumbass statement, loosely organized hybrid gang.

Like,

what?

You want to call something?

Call us a family.

Because a lot of us don't have a family and all we got is each other.

And this shit is real for us, man.

It took a dark carnival miracle, but the insane clown posse found a willing location to host its 2012 gathering of the Juggaloos, which took place in August.

Every step of the process was painful.

For example, finding a company willing to rent porta potties took forever because of their infamy.

Attendance was way down relative to previous years.

Rumors that the campgrounds would be raided kept many Juggalos away.

The band reportedly lost $700,000 putting on the festival that year, but they wanted to make a statement.

Juggaloos' futures were at stake.

Everything that Joe Bruce and Joey Usler had built and accomplished over a 30-year career was at stake.

They couldn't just sit around and accept it.

This is the government's way of telling us what you can listen to, what you can wear, Violent Jay told the crowd at a gathering seminar while teasing a major announcement.

But telling you that if you listen to this music and you support this music, you're going to be committing a crime in our eyes.

It was unacceptable.

And here's my announcement.

And it might sound like nothing big, or it might be what you guys expected.

It might be nothing.

But to us, it's everything.

Our announcement is no matter what it costs or what it takes,

we are as of right now officially suing the FBI.

We're getting our fucking name back in this bitch.

We did a Freedom of Information Act request to the FBI.

We got so involved for a little while they didn't respond in time and they didn't respond with anything.

So what we did was we filed a lawsuit basically to force them to respond to the Freedom of Information Act request.

That's Ferris F.

Haddad, also known as the Juggalawi, an attorney from Troy, Michigan, and self-described juggalo since age 12.

Ferris agreed to represent Insane Clown Posse during its court battle with the United States Department of Justice.

In preparation for legal action, Team ICP launched a website to solicit anecdotes of personal harassment and discrimination from juggalos.

They launched a website called juggalosfightback.com that contained a questionnaire to report, quote, any negative consequence with an employer or governmental representative, including law enforcement, airline security, or other local, state, or federal government agency or employee, as a result of their status as a juggalo.

The legal team would review every submission for free.

ICP's second step was to file a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain the records on which the federal law enforcement agency based its designation of juggalos as a criminal gang.

The FBI never replied.

So, through Ferris Addad, ICP filed a FOIA lawsuit against the feds, forcing them to comply.

The dossier was handed over.

Its contents were almost laughable.

We were just astonished at what it was.

Internet news articles, local internet news articles,

where the suspect in the crime happened to

be wearing an ICP logo or a psychopathic records logo, which is their record label.

And that was it.

That was literally all it was.

It was basically a stack of online news stories submitted by local law enforcement agencies in which juggalos were the culprits.

One-off crimes, usually.

Some horrific, yes, but nothing organized or gang-related about it.

So what would the incentive be for a small-town police department to consider juggalos as such?

Well, as Violent Jay and Shaggy Two Dope would find out, at least part of the answer was money.

Federal and state funding.

One day, a park in middle of nowhere, Oklahoma has a problem with a group of juggalos loitering.

Call them a gang, And the next day, middle of nowhere, PD is driving a shiny new tank down the street.

So by claiming juggalos are a gang, you know, it creates a lot of funding for a lot of small-town police officers that don't normally get funding for that type of thing.

And they get to get, you know, new, new cushions on their cruisers for their butts.

On January 8th, 2014, The Insane Clown Posse officially filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S.

Department of Justice in the U.S.

District Court of Eastern Michigan.

The plaintiffs were Joe Violent J.

Bruce, Joey Shaggy Two Dope Usler, and four juggalos from different parts of the country who were personally affected by the gang label.

Mark Parsons, Robert Helen, Scott Gandhi, and Brandon Bradley.

The clowns were joined in their pursuit of justice by the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan.

who emphasized the importance of the effort, calling it a quintessential civil liberties case.

The juggalos are fighting for the basic American right to freely express who they are, to gather and share their appreciation of music, and to discuss issues that are important to them without fear of being unfairly targeted and harassed by police, said Michael J.

Steinberg, ACLU of Michigan's legal director.

Branding hundreds of thousands of music fans as gang members based on the acts of a few individuals defies logic and violates our most cherished of constitutional rights.

This morning, the ACLU filed a federal lawsuit against the Department of Justice and against the FBI

challenging the designation of a musical band base as a criminal gang.

It is a quintessential civil liberties case challenging government abuse and supporting the right of people to express themselves without fear of police persecution.

ICP and the ACLU held a joint press conference to announce their legal action.

The FBI's gang designation has caused real lasting harm to the lives of the jugglers.

Parents have lost custody of their kids.

They've been fired from jobs.

They've been denied housing.

They've been subjected to illegal searches and sometimes added to a gang database simply for walking down the street wearing an ICP t-shirt.

That, my friends, is punishing our fans for representing us.

That's like insane if you think about it.

The only relief ICP and the Juggalos were seeking was to be removed from the federal gang list.

They were not asking for any financial compensation.

They just wanted the federal government to admit that juggalos, by default, are not criminals.

Turning to the FBI, which is now facing a lawsuit after labeling fans of a rap group as a gang.

The ACOU of Michigan has now joined the group and four of its fans in suing the FBI and the Department of Justice, arguing that the gang label is unwarranted and that it's negatively affected the band's business and the lives of their fans.

Insane Clown Posse versus the U.S.

Department of Justice.

Sounds like a bad movie.

And an even worse podcast, but don't worry, we're almost done.

This was uncharted territory for everyone, especially for ICP.

For the first time in their careers, the band was receiving favorable media coverage.

Not for the music, that'll never happen, happen, but for the lawsuit.

Outlets like Rolling Stone, Veis, Jacobin, and even Time magazine were sympathetic to their cause.

Public opinion on the clowns was shifting positively, but that did them no favors in court.

In late June 2014, Judge Robert Cletland ruled that the band and its fans lacked standing to bring a lawsuit against the DOJ.

Any harm suffered by Juggalos was at the hands of local law enforcement agencies, not the FBI, he ruled.

ICP would have to sue each one of those individually.

Case dismissed.

This is Michael Steinberg of ACLU, Michigan.

They tried to wash their hands of it and they said, hey, it wasn't us who

stopped people or prevented them from going into the military.

It was somebody else.

Team ICP appealed the dismissal in November 2014.

There's no doubt that the FBI created this problem and the solution begins there as well, Steinberg said.

Otherwise, we'll be playing whack-a-mole to stop local law enforcement agencies from discriminating against our clients when the agencies are just following the FBI's lead.

We're not asking for a miracle here.

All we're asking is for the judges to follow the law and give the juggalos their day in court so that justice may be served.

In September 2015, the U.S.

Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati granted that wish.

The case was remanded to a lower court after an appellate judge ruled that the reputational injuries injuries are cognizable claims under the First Amendment.

Judge Robert Cleland, once again, disagreed.

In 2016, he dismissed ICP's lawsuit against the DOJ for a second time, holding that juggalos did not suffer any, quote, legal consequences as a result of the gang designation.

In the judge's 14-page opinion, he stated that his court does not recommend any particular course of action for local law enforcement to follow, and instead operates on a descriptive rather than prescriptive assessment of nationwide gang trends.

The ACLU planned a second appeal, but it didn't look like the case would ever be heard.

And just when you thought a juggalo's life couldn't get any worse, this happened.

We're talking about the wave of creepy clown sightings across the United States.

Creepy clown sightings are happening across the country, and it's no laughing matter.

It seems as if a new report of a threatening clown pops up by the hour.

Description's going to be a blue hat, blue curly hair, polka-dotted rainbow-colored outfit.

The great clown scare of 2016.

Remember that?

That was weird.

These guys can't catch a break.

Violet J actually pinned an op-ed in Time magazine as a response to the creepy clown trend in which he discounted the hysteria and used the opportunity to publicize the plight of the Juggalo.

Even though the possibility of a legal remedy seemed bleak, the Juggalos were not done fighting.

They were studying history and planned to follow in the footsteps of other marginalized groups.

What would anybody do?

How would anybody fight the gang label?

You know, obviously the FBI don't give a fuck.

They're not going to cave in as they see it.

You know what I mean?

So all we can do is hopefully reach the people of this country.

How are we going to legally, peacefully reach these people?

The way it's always been is you do a march on Washington.

Is this how you want to live?

Live?

No,

motherfuck no.

Is this what America is all about?

No, motherfuck no.

I'm just gonna let this bullshit happen.

The Juggalo March on Washington was planned for September 16th, 2017.

ICP called on Juggalos to gather at the National Mall as a publicity stunt to raise awareness to let the world know that they were not okay with being called a gang.

Violent Jay and Shaggy would give speeches.

Juggalos and non-Juggalos would provide testimonials.

Then, the day would end with a free concert by ICP and friends.

Fun for the whole family.

Psychopathic Records spent almost a year planning the event.

As usual, there were roadblocks at every turn.

They were denied permits, turned down by concert venues.

They even struggled to find other artists willing to perform.

My question is: where's the fucking Calvary?

Where's fucking Eddie Vetter?

Where's Neil Young?

Where's fucking all these guys with all these activists?

You know what I'm saying?

Where are they?

Ultimately, ICP was granted permission to perform in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

It would be one of the most surreal moments in recent American history.

Juggalos were encouraged to bring protest signs, chant, and sing.

But ICP pleaded, do not give them what they want.

Don't be drunk.

Don't be belligerent, fucked up on any kind of substances.

Don't fucking tag shit.

Don't vandalize nothing.

Don't fucking while out because they want you to.

What this day is about is showing our true form, our best juggalo form.

March proudly.

March with dignity.

Wear that shit with pride.

Fucking put on a flagpost and wave that bitch.

And with our crowd, our family, remember it all because what you're doing, ninjas, is making motherfucking history.

At least 1,500 demonstrators of all ages gathered around the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool with painted faces and funny signs.

They listened as these scheduled speakers relayed their horror stories of being a juggaloo.

Chants of fuck that shit reverberated through the Capitol.

Later that afternoon, Violent Jay and Shaggy Two Dope took the stage and delivered an impassioned speech like only they could.

Here's an abbreviated version.

We're the good guys.

We're actually in the right this time.

Good Americans are pissed about this America has come farther than I think they realized

a lot of people don't want discrimination in this country anymore man

they don't want bullshit racism

they don't want hate

I don't know about you

I'm not gay but I would fucking march for the right for two gay people to marry each other if they wanted

I would fucking actually march for a redneck's right for his neck to be red.

This may sound corny, but it's real shit.

Love always wins every time.

And we're marching for love.

Jungalow family love.

I don't know what the fuck they're marching for.

I don't know what they're talking about.

But we're out here fighting for freedom and juggalo love.

This is our day on our year.

Are you ready?

We're gonna be proud, we're gonna be loud.

And when you leave, DC, take this with you,

take this with you, ninjas,

The Juggalo family

and the wicked clowns will never die.

Let's march, Motherfuckers!

And with that, Violet J and Shaggy Two Dope of the Insane Clown Posse led the way with their nuclear and juggalo families by their side.

The march received widespread media attention, as intended, and as promised, the evening was punctuated with a vago-soaked performance.

Two months later, in December 2017, the U.S.

Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit dismissed ICP's lawsuit against the Department of Justice.

As predicted, the FBI would not have to defend its decision in court.

However, the ACLU of Michigan and ICP counted it as a win in their book.

The case and the march raised public awareness about about a significant civil rights issue.

It generated tons of positive publicity for those involved, and juggalos were quietly excluded from future National Gang Threat Assessment Reports before it was discontinued entirely.

Can I get a whoop whoop?

Swindled is written, researched, produced, and hosted by me, a concerned citizen, with original music by Trevor Howard, aka the former, aka The Hatchet Man.

For more information about Swindled, you can visit swindledpodcast.com

and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok at Swindled Podcast.

Or you can send us a postcard at P.O.

Box6044, Austin, Texas, 78762.

But please, no packages.

We do not trust you.

Swindled is a completely independent production, which means no network, no investors, no bosses, no shadowy moneymen, no rebel flags.

From Pluto to your anus, we are underground famous.

That's right.

And we plan to keep it that way, but we need your support to become a valued listener on Patreon, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify at valuedlistener.com.

For as little as five bucks a month, you will receive early access to new episodes and exclusive access to bonus episodes that you can't find anywhere else.

And everything is 100% commercial-free.

Become a valued listener at valued listener.com.

Or if you want to support the show and need something to wear to the gathering of the juggalos, please invite us and consider buying something you don't need at swindledpodcast.com slash shop.

There are t-shirts, patches, hats, hoodies, posters, coffee mugs, and more.

Swindledpodcast.com/slash shop.

And remember to use coupon code Capitalism to receive 10% off your order.

If you don't want anything in return for your support, you can always simply donate using the form on the home page.

That's it.

Thanks for listening.

Hello.

My name is Paramimic from Las Vegas.

My name is Kim, and I live in the once-great state of Texas.

Please help get me out of here.

Hi, my name is Ellie from Fornby in Wales, and I'm from Stern

and Van Miller.

Keep your stick on the ice.

I'm also autistic as all hell, and this show has become my special interest.

So, thank you.