8: The Hero We Deserve

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Speaker 17 Novel.

Speaker 10 On January 6th, of 2020, at 11.14 p.m., Ben Fodor got a text message from a number he didn't recognize. It was a single word.

Speaker 18 What's up?

Speaker 10 Ben replied with two question marks.

Speaker 10 And the stranger responded with a confusing series of messages about the weather and a pair of missing glasses until they seemed to realize that they were texting the wrong person.

Speaker 19 Wait, shit.

Speaker 20 Is this Tommy?

Speaker 10 And then things got strange.

Speaker 10 Instead of the conversation ending, Ben asked the stranger what they were doing later that night.

Speaker 20 And the stranger typed, Getting high and watching Netflix, Lol. How about you?

Speaker 10 To which Ben replied, nice. We're gonna get high and go to the arcade.
Wanna join? They continued chatting until late at night. The stranger eventually told Ben that her name was Laura.

Speaker 10 Ben told Laura that he and his girlfriend were polyamorous and suggested that they all meet up. And he sent Laura a photo of him and his girlfriend.

Speaker 20 Laura replied, Don't get me wrong, you are both hot AS, but I'm trying to make good decisions.

Speaker 10 But they kept texting over the next few days, and eventually, Laura agreed to meet up with Ben and his girlfriend Andrea at the Silver Cloud Hotel near downtown Seattle.

Speaker 10 Laura told Ben a few of her friends were in town visiting from Los Angeles. She'd been planning to pick up drugs for them, but her dealer stood her up.

Speaker 10 Ben offered to bring some to the hotel.

Speaker 20 That would make it even easier for pre-party, Laura replied.

Speaker 10 Then on January 9th at 5.56 p.m., Ben texted, Hey, so I was not able to get M, but I can get you C at 80G or a ball for 225.

Speaker 20 Laura replied, That's cool. We have money for a ball.

Speaker 10 Meaning an eight-ball or around 3.5 grams of cocaine.

Speaker 10 Four hours later, a Seattle Police Department detective held a meeting with members of her department along with some agents from the Homeland Security Investigation Unit.

Speaker 10 They were preparing for a narcotic takedown operation.

Speaker 10 At 10.50 p.m., officers observed Ben Fodor and his girlfriend Andrea Berenston park an orange smart car in front of the hotel and make their way into the lobby.

Speaker 10 According to court documents, Fodor had a shiny gold backpack and was carrying a blue tackle box. Andrea exited the south lobby door to smoke a cigarette.

Speaker 10 At that point, the police moved in and arrested Ben and Andrea.

Speaker 10 Back at the precinct, the officers searched Ben and Andrea's belongings. Inside the tackle box, they found seven separate bundles of suspected cocaine.
weighing a total of four grams.

Speaker 10 They also found a scale covered in what looked like drug residue and another unknown white powder substance weighing 31.7 grams.

Speaker 10 Also inside the tackle box were two passports belonging to Ben and Andrea.

Speaker 10 There was, of course, no Laura. It was a made-up name by an undercover cop.

Speaker 10 This whole sting operation seems like a lot of work. And it appeared to be a shift in Phoenix's relationship with the police.

Speaker 10 This time they seemed to be taking the initiative to come after him, unlike in the past, where they were reacting to his actions.

Speaker 10 According to Phoenix, he was under attack.

Speaker 10 In January of 2020, Phoenix was charged with two counts of violation of the Uniform Controlled Substances Act. And in March of 2021, he pled guilty to the lesser charges of conspiracy.

Speaker 10 The self-proclaimed guardian of Seattle was no longer standing his ground against armed crack dealers.

Speaker 10 He was himself a convicted drug dealer. The world would never see him the same way again.

Speaker 10 I'm David Weinberg, and from the teams at Novel and iHeartRadio, this is the final installment of the Superhero Complex, Episode 8, The Hero We Deserve.

Speaker 10 By 2020, when Phoenix got busted, the Rain City superhero movement was a distant memory to most people in Seattle. Their 15 minutes of fame had long been up.

Speaker 10 And then came the news of Phoenix's arrest for selling drugs to undercover cops. Phoenix was back in the spotlight.

Speaker 10 How have you dealt with the public perception of you as a drug dealer?

Speaker 6 Oh, it's been terrible.

Speaker 23 Walk me through how you've dealt with it.

Speaker 6 I mean, it's been really crazy, man. It's been really bad.
So, like, after the indictment, everyone just turned their backs on me and said that I was doing all this crazy stuff.

Speaker 6 I had people spit on me on the streets. I went through a weird little suicidal phase for a second where I was feeling like I should just end everything.

Speaker 6 And

Speaker 6 then I came to the same conclusion I always come to, you know?

Speaker 6 Fuck you guys.

Speaker 10 If you read the transcript of the text exchanges between the undercover cop and Phoenix, he does not come across as a drug dealer.

Speaker 10 He seems more like a guy who thinks he's about to have a threesome and is only bringing some drugs to the party as a favor.

Speaker 10 He does mention drugs, but it's the undercover officer who brings them up first.

Speaker 10 My takeaway from looking at the evidence provided by the Seattle Police Department is that in this instance with Laura, Phoenix looks a lot more like a middleman in a drug deal than some kind of big-time dealer himself.

Speaker 10 But there's more to the story, because this wasn't the first time Phoenix had been caught selling drugs to cops.

Speaker 10 On November 5th, 2019, two months before his arrest at the Silver Cloud Hotel, Phoenix got a text from Mike.

Speaker 10 Mike was actually two undercover police officers. According to court documents, Mike and Phoenix texted back and forth for a few days.

Speaker 10 And on November 20th, Mike texted Phoenix asking to buy some MDMA.

Speaker 10 The cops say Phoenix asked for payment up front and sent them his Venmo, which had a photo of him in profile.

Speaker 10 Also, fun fact I learned from reading the court documents, Phoenix's Venmo username was Booty Sweat Baby.

Speaker 10 Anyway, Mike and Phoenix agree to meet at a Starbucks in the Wells Fargo building downtown.

Speaker 10 Around noon the next day, a team of officers met for a briefing. Officer Amy Bronham was running the bust and she showed everyone a picture of Phoenix.

Speaker 10 By 12.45, an officer pretending to be Mike, along with four other undercover officers in plain clothes, were stationed inside the coffee shop. Officer Bronham was also there, watching from outside.

Speaker 10 At 1 p.m., Phoenix rolled up, dressed in a green tank top and jeans, carrying a brown paper bag. The whole exchange took less than a minute.

Speaker 10 Here's a condensed version version of the police report. Phoenix is referred to by his last name, Fodor.

Speaker 20 Fodor and the undercover agent made eye contact with each other, and the undercover agent gave him a head nod. Fodor walked towards the undercover agent.

Speaker 20 They shook hands, and the undercover agent asked Fodor if he was Ben. He replied, yes.
The undercover agent handed Fodor $200, and Fodor accepted the money.

Speaker 20 He placed the brown paper bag that he was carrying on the table in front of the undercover agent. Fodor stated that it was all there and packaged into separate baggies.

Speaker 20 He told the undercover agent he could check it if he wanted to. The undercover agent declined and told Fodor that he trusted him.

Speaker 20 The undercover agent asked Fodor if he could hit him up next week if he needed more. Fodor said he could.
Fodor exited the Starbucks and jogged northbound.

Speaker 10 The version of events laid out in the police report is a pretty straightforward drug deal. But according to Phoenix, the media weren't interested in his side of the story.

Speaker 6 I got indicted, and people would not take my interview to talk to them about my indictment. They didn't want to go into the gritty of what happened.

Speaker 6 They wanted to just basically slander my name, and they wrote all these articles that weren't accurate. Sure.
They wanted to go with a fallen hero line, and that's what they wanted to go with.

Speaker 10 So, if the story the rest of the world heard is all wrong, what is the real story?

Speaker 6 I think

Speaker 6 not holding my friends and people I hang out with to the same standards of accountability that I would hold myself to makes me guilty by association.

Speaker 10 In both the hotel and the Starbucks drug busts, Phoenix claims he was only facilitating other people's deals. He's basically saying he was nothing but a middleman.

Speaker 10 In the MDMA bust at the coffee shop, Phoenix says his friend was the dealer, not him. But Mike, the undercover cop, told this friend he'd only accept the drugs from Phoenix.

Speaker 10 So Phoenix agreed to deliver the drugs.

Speaker 6 And then he says, here's a $100 tip for being here. Gave me a tip.

Speaker 19 I was like, sweet.

Speaker 6 Took that money and then handed him the bag and I left. Like, did I know it was in the bag, though? For sure.
For sure. So am I still guilty? Definitely.

Speaker 6 But the person you texted, the person who showed up, the person who brought the drugs, the person who bought the drugs, all of that wasn't me.

Speaker 10 And as for the hotel bust, Phoenix says he was only near the drugs. not using or selling them.

Speaker 6 I wasn't on drugs the day they arrested us. I had no drugs in my system.
They checked my fingerprints. My fingerprints were not anywhere on the drug paraphernalia.

Speaker 6 The drug paraphernalia wasn't found on me or near me. But did I know they had it? For sure.
Just facts.

Speaker 19 Sure.

Speaker 6 Like, just yep. And that's a crime, which it is, conspiracy.

Speaker 10 Now, there's a lot to unpack here, but let's start with the Starbucks bust.

Speaker 10 I have a very hard time believing Phoenix's version of the story.

Speaker 22 Here's why.

Speaker 10 Phoenix is a guy who believes that the Seattle police are out to get him. He knows he has to be perfect in everything he does because he thinks the police are chomping at the bit to arrest him.

Speaker 10 And then, this drug dealer friend of his comes along and says, Hey, I'm about to sell some drugs to this random guy at a Starbucks, but for some reason, he says he will only accept the drugs if you deliver them.

Speaker 10 And Phoenix says, sure, no problem.

Speaker 6 I'm happy to help.

Speaker 10 This all seems totally normal.

Speaker 10 For Phoenix to agree to that, he would have to be incredibly stupid. And Phoenix may be many things, but stupid he is not.
Also, who tips a drug dealer $100?

Speaker 10 Now, as for the hotel bust, that one is a lot more complicated. Again, Phoenix makes the claim that he was merely the middleman.

Speaker 10 And I do think that the text exchange seems like he isn't some drug kingpin.

Speaker 10 But if he didn't have anything to do with supplying the cocaine, why were his and his girlfriend's passports inside the tackle box with the drugs? I still can't make sense of that detail.

Speaker 10 And on the other hand, if the cops had such a clear-cut case against him, why did Phoenix get off so easy?

Speaker 10 It seems odd to me that the police would put so much money and manpower into a sting operation to ultimately let him off with a slap on the wrist.

Speaker 10 Maybe it's proof of Phoenix's theory that their goal was simply to ruin his reputation by making his arrest public. Or maybe Phoenix's lawyer just did what lawyers do and got the charges reduced.

Speaker 10 Or maybe Phoenix snitched on his supplier in exchange for a lesser charge. Those all seem like plausible theories.

Speaker 10 What we do know for sure is that when the charges were first brought in January 2020, there was a count of cocaine possession with intent to distribute and one of feloniously delivering MDMA.

Speaker 10 But on March 22nd, 2021, they were dropped to conspiracy charges. And a conspiracy charge basically means that two or more people agree to commit a crime at some point in the future.

Speaker 6 I was with people who had drugs. I was aware that there were definitely drugs involved.

Speaker 6 And, you know, as far as a conspiracy goes, it's just knowing that someone was trying to do something illegal and not stopping them. And I'm definitely guilty of that.
So I mean, I believe in America.

Speaker 6 I believe in the Constitution. I'm going to plead guilty because I'm guilty of that.
But it's disingenuous the way that it was said.

Speaker 10 And Phoenix did plead guilty to two counts of conspiracy to commit violation of the Uniform Controlled Substances Act.

Speaker 10 One for the MDMA bust and one for the cocaine.

Speaker 10 He was sentenced to four days in jail, time served, and fined $500

Speaker 10 plus an additional $100 for the DNA test.

Speaker 10 I feel like that detail gets lost in the media narrative, though. Like, no one cares about what the charges.
It's like, oh, you're a drug dealer.

Speaker 6 Right, but they're not accusing me of being a drug dealer. Right, but like, what I'm saying is, like, I know that's the story is that I'm a drug dealer, but that's not what anyone's accusing me of.

Speaker 6 You know what I mean? How many days did you serve in jail? Zero. They said they wouldn't delete my charge, but if I pled guilty, which I had already done, they would give me zero days in jail.

Speaker 6 And in four years, they'll delete my felony, but they just want me to be guilty. Does that make sense?

Speaker 6 Like, if I'm a danger to society, why would you release me the day that you say that I'm guilty with no release conditions? There's literally nothing, but they wanted to give me like a felony tag.

Speaker 10 Phoenix claims that the Seattle Police deviated from their own policies in an effort to bring him down. So is what happened to Phoenix unusual for Seattle?

Speaker 25 We should probably start by saying that the Seattle Police Department is under a federal consent decree for their history of biased policing.

Speaker 10 This is Rich Smith, a journalist at The Stranger, a local paper in Seattle.

Speaker 25 The Seattle Police Department is a moribund institution that's overfunded. They spend a lot more of their time responding to nonviolent crimes than violent crimes.

Speaker 25 Lots of investment in new training strategies, new ways to get them to stop arresting black and brown people at higher rates than white people for the same crimes.

Speaker 25 There hasn't been a ton of progress on that bias. That's the reputation of the Seattle Police Department.

Speaker 10 The two main people in charge of prosecutions in Seattle at the time of Phoenix's arrest were King County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg and Phoenix's old arch nemesis, former Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes.

Speaker 25 Pete Holmes' progressive era as a prosecutor. He came in swinging a big bat and just stopped prosecuting a lot of marijuana arrests.

Speaker 10 Pete Holmes covered misdemeanors, and Dan Satterberg was in charge of felonies. When Phoenix talked to me, he directed a lot of his anger at Pete Holmes.

Speaker 10 But it was actually Satterberg who was in charge of his case.

Speaker 25 He first started making reforms in the the office related to drugs when he came on in 2008, where he reduced filing standards for people who are caught simply possessing a certain amount of drugs.

Speaker 10 So both prosecutors are viewed as being relatively liberal on drugs. But the Seattle police do have a track record of questionable sting operations.

Speaker 10 Pete Holmes and the SPD came under fire for sting operations they executed in massage parlors in an effort to catch people paying sex workers.

Speaker 25 Those stings were, at least among public defenders, considered pretty wasteful uses of city resources and pretty unsuccessful. A lot of the guys ended up getting off because of shoddy police work.

Speaker 25 They were pretty incompetently run.

Speaker 10 Examples like this lend credibility to Phoenix's claims that the Seattle police unnecessarily spent massive amounts of public money on his relatively small crime.

Speaker 25 If they're accusing him of being some kind of kingpin, then, you know, maybe some kind of sting operation would make sense like that. But would I put it past the Seattle Police Department?

Speaker 25 Not at all, putting too many resources into a dubious-sounding, let's say, a case like this.

Speaker 25 Would cops lie

Speaker 25 or waste a bunch of time and resources going after a group or a person who was a thorn in their side?

Speaker 18 I would not be surprised in the least.

Speaker 10 Pete Holmes declined an interview, and Dan Satterberg didn't respond to interview requests.

Speaker 10 The SPD also declined to put up a spokesperson, and the undercover officers we reached out to and former Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best all declined to comment as well.

Speaker 10 We put all of Phoenix's allegations to the SPD in writing and asked them about why so much time and money was spent on an investigation that ultimately resulted in two minor drug charges, $600 in fines, and four days in jail.

Speaker 10 The Seattle Police Communications Department responded that narcotics investigations routinely involve multiple officers and detectives, both for investigative and safety reasons, and are conducted over months and even years in some cases.

Speaker 10 Our department arrested Mr. Fodor for crimes he committed.

Speaker 10 Regardless of what is true, either that Phoenix is a small-time Coke and ecstasy dealer, or he simply has a soft spot for helping out his drug dealer friends and is the victim of an overzealous police force.

Speaker 10 At the end of the day, he got off with a very light punishment. And he knew very well the risks he was taking when he agreed to get involved in illegal drugs.

Speaker 10 So I don't have a lot of sympathy for him.

Speaker 6 Everybody hates me already. I got spit on on the street yesterday.
Someone called me a drug dealer, spit on me on the street yesterday in regular ass life. Because you think I sold drugs for real?

Speaker 23 Well, I didn't.

Speaker 6 And I don't care what you fucking think.

Speaker 10 Like, people don't like me. They've never liked me.

Speaker 19 That's not new.

Speaker 6 But we're going to talk about me showing up with literally 3.4 grams of cocaine in a bag I am not touching while completely sober at a hotel trying to meet a consenting adult to go play pinball.

Speaker 10 I mean,

Speaker 27 go fuck yourself.

Speaker 10 By 2020, when Phoenix landed in trouble with the police, he really wasn't in the superhero game much at all.

Speaker 10 And now that most people in the city were convinced that he was nothing but a drug-dealing hypocrite, It was starting to look like this was the end for Seattle's most famous costumed crime fighter.

Speaker 10 But the year 2020 brought unprecedented changes to the entire world.

Speaker 10 And in the midst of a global pandemic and a wave of social unrest in the streets, Phoenix would get his chance to rise from the ashes and don his mask one more time.

Speaker 10 That's coming up.

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Speaker 10 By May of 2020, Phoenix Jones had basically retired from being a superhero. No more shaky body cam videos, no more railing against the police like he had in the past.

Speaker 10 It looked as though Seattle police had finally convinced Phoenix to hang up his super suit and leave the crime fighting to the professionals.

Speaker 10 And then the world exploded.

Speaker 32 Waves of peaceful protests marched on, bigger than ever before.

Speaker 32 From Washington's newly named Black Lives Matter Plaza to Philadelphia, turning violent in Portland, Oregon, where police clashed with protesters.

Speaker 10 The world had spent months being locked down.

Speaker 10 And then people in cities all across America and beyond erupted in protests and clashes with police after a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, murdered George Floyd, a black man in Minneapolis.

Speaker 33 Rioters have taken over the shopping district in downtown Seattle. They've set fire to multiple police vehicles.

Speaker 33 They have broken into multiple businesses, including Nordstrom and Old Navy, and are starting to loot.

Speaker 10 On May 29th, four days after Floyd's death, protesters marched through Seattle and gathered at Hinghe Park in Seattle's international district to protest police brutality.

Speaker 10 Protesters laid down the roads, chanting George Floyd's name.

Speaker 10 The windows of a Ferrari dealership were smashed in, and some demonstrators hurled fireworks. By May 30th, the police were launching flashbangs, tear gas, and pepper spray at the crowds.

Speaker 10 Mayor Jenny Durkin instated a 5 p.m. to 5 a.m.
curfew.

Speaker 33 This is a statewide emergency alert. The city of Seattle is asking all residents to immediately disperse from downtown.

Speaker 10 And then on May 31st, Phoenix Jones resurfaced.

Speaker 10 In his first tweet in over six months, he posted in all caps the following message. If you're in downtown Seattle and have been injured, need medical assistance, or help evacuating, tweet me.

Speaker 10 See you in the streets. Perhaps inevitably, someone replies that they need help getting some MDMA.
But although Phoenix's reputation had taken a dent, it seemed like he was serious about his comeback.

Speaker 34 This is Phoenix Jones. I wanted to make a couple things straight before I start my patrol today.

Speaker 10 Later that day, Phoenix live-streamed from a car, decked out in his super suit, though he changed up his look a bit. Instead of his rubber Batman-style mask, he had on a helmet.

Speaker 10 He announced that he was heading into the fray. It was a full-blown relaunch.

Speaker 27 If you're injured and you need my help, give me a call, hit me up on Twitter, I'll come help you.

Speaker 27 If your building's on fire, you got something going on like that, you need help, and you haven't called 911 already.

Speaker 34 Give me a pause, I'll come put out that fire.

Speaker 10 He posts more videos that day and the next.

Speaker 34 Hey guys, this is Phoenix Jones, making sure everybody stays safe, doing medical attention, keeping everybody good.

Speaker 10 He live streams himself striding down the streets of Seattle carrying a fire extinguisher. And he claims he stopped to break it.

Speaker 34 I saw some people breaking into a bartel, so I stopped them from breaking into the bartel as much as I could. Otherwise, you know, the vandalism will just continue.

Speaker 10 Phoenix is back.

Speaker 10 Meanwhile, the protests are escalating.

Speaker 10 By June 6th, the police are firing blast balls into crowds of demonstrators.

Speaker 10 On June 7th, a man drives a car into protests at Capitol Hill

Speaker 10 and shoots a protester in the arm.

Speaker 10 The Seattle police use so much tear gas against protesters that people in the neighborhood say it's seeping into their homes.

Speaker 10 And then comes June 8th.

Speaker 19 We have to stand together and be one family for all of that.

Speaker 10 The birth of the CHOP, or CHAS.

Speaker 6 The push to defund and reform the Seattle Police Department and the Black Lives Matter movement is how six city blocks have been transformed, now called CHOP.

Speaker 29 Officers retreated from the area to de-escalate the tension, effectively abandoning their station.

Speaker 35 Protesters say they won't be intimidated by threats and say they plan to stay as long as it takes to bring about change.

Speaker 10 It started when the police boarded up the East Precinct and vacated the property following clashes with protesters.

Speaker 10 So the protesters rearranged the barricades and established a six-block area that included Cal Anderson Park, a seven-acre green space in Capitol Hill.

Speaker 10 Protesters pitched tents and dug out community gardens in the park.

Speaker 10 They called it the CHOP, an acronym that stands for Capitol Hill Occupied Protest,

Speaker 10 though some prefer the name Chaz, Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone.

Speaker 10 And depending on which news outlets you believe, The Chaz was either a giant block party and safe space for protesters and community activists to organize, or it's an anarchist stronghold full of criminals and delusional hippies.

Speaker 10 One of the more fascinating things about the chazz, for the purposes of this story, is that the chaz unintentionally became perhaps the largest test case for the work of real-life superheroes because cops were not allowed into the chazz, though I suspect the place was crawling with plainclothes officers.

Speaker 10 But you know who was allowed to patrol this newly founded urban experiment?

Speaker 27 Hey guys, this is Phoenix Jones doing a day patrol of Capitol Hill in downtown.

Speaker 19 boy's back.

Speaker 10 You guessed it. Phoenix Jones.

Speaker 10 On June 12th, four days after the birth of the Chaz, Phoenix makes his comeback official in a tweet. In all caps, of course, he proclaims, I'm out of retirement.
Streets need me.

Speaker 10 Seattle, hold it together.

Speaker 6 I'm on my way.

Speaker 10 Two days later, on Sunday, June 14th, he's back, live streaming from the Chaz. He starts to film what he says is going to be an interview with some of the chazz organizers.
Hey guys, what's up?

Speaker 34 I'm live inside the chaz zone, obviously.

Speaker 27 I'm just trying to find one of the other people that we're speaking with, so I should be right back on in the next five or so minutes.

Speaker 10 But as the night wears on, things take a turn.

Speaker 23 So, sorry about that. We're in the middle of trying to give an interview.

Speaker 23 And right in the process of giving this interview, we hear this person say that there's a guy with a gun breaking into a place on 12th Avenue.

Speaker 23 So we take off towards 12th and we get there and they have the suspect behind a car.

Speaker 10 There's a gathering of people outside an auto repair shop called Car Tender where Phoenix says he thwarted an attempted break-in.

Speaker 36 I took off on foot around the corner, jumped over the fence, and went into the actual building itself to make sure he didn't have any backup or friends inside.

Speaker 27 No one was in the building.

Speaker 36 I was able to locate the box that had all the keys that he was planning to steal to come back and steal the cars that were in the parking lot.

Speaker 27 So I was able to get the key, return the key to the owner, and then I hid in the parking lot while the mob decided to yell that I fucking suck.

Speaker 10 According to Phoenix, the crowd that has gathered is demanding that the owner of the business let the suspected thief go free.

Speaker 27 I'm at here. We're at the place.
There's probably 150 people.

Speaker 27 I'm going to stop them from getting violence, and this is going to get shitty.

Speaker 36 So

Speaker 10 I'll see you in the streets.

Speaker 10 Something clearly went down at the cartender, but from the videos that Phoenix posted, it's not clear what he was up to.

Speaker 10 We spoke to the owner of the store to get their account of what happened, and he said that Phoenix didn't jump the fence or save the car keys. He actually doesn't remember Phoenix being there at all.

Speaker 10 Anyway, despite the negative reaction that Phoenix says he received, he wasn't deterred. In fact, his ambitions seemed to be getting bolder.

Speaker 10 That same night, he posts a picture of Batman with the caption, Let's try and find a middle ground and I'm bringing great ideas and solutions to this problem.

Speaker 10 And the next day, Monday, June 15th, he gets interviewed on local radio by Jason Rance.

Speaker 37 Over the course of the last couple days, it sounds like you have this goal of trying to bring people together. Take us through how that's gone so far.

Speaker 24 Well, I mean, that's funny. Like the last couple of days, my goal has not been to bring people together.
My goal has been to bring people together my entire life.

Speaker 10 In spite of his recent run-in with the SPD, Phoenix expresses his frustration at what he sees as their lack of policing.

Speaker 24 It's been incredibly challenging because the Black Lives Matter movement is like a blanket word, right? Black Lives Matter, obviously. Everyone agrees with that.

Speaker 24 But there's a lot of other stuff in there that's kind of weird. And then there's the Antifa angle and all these other different things.

Speaker 36 But no matter what that is, taking over six city blocks is just illegal.

Speaker 24 And when the police decide to not respond to 911 calls in that area, that is like shame on you.

Speaker 10 And then, in one of the craziest turn of events in the Phoenix Jones storyline, Phoenix Phoenix shows up in the chazz that same night, claiming that the Seattle Police Department have contacted him and basically asked him to be a negotiator on their behalf with the people leading the protests.

Speaker 10 The response on social media is swift.

Speaker 20 How long has he been out of jail for?

Speaker 11 This shit is excruciatingly hilarious.

Speaker 18 I thought he hung up the tights.

Speaker 10 This just keeps getting weirder.

Speaker 1 If Seattle police actually set up Phoenix Jones to do this, I will fall over dead from laughter and I hope he will attend IT girl.

Speaker 17 He's a joke and a wannabe cop.

Speaker 10 Isn't his superpower selling ecstasy?

Speaker 10 It wasn't quite the glorious comeback Phoenix had hoped for.

Speaker 10 But while he was busy playing the Seattle Police Department's unofficial mediator, a few streets away, another band of superheroes had arrived to answer the call of their city in need.

Speaker 10 When are you guys out here?

Speaker 38 We're with the Seattle Superheroes. We're out here making sure everybody stays safe.

Speaker 39 We're here rendering aid or backpaying people who need it.

Speaker 19 Thank you guys.

Speaker 40 Thank you so much. Stay safe, okay.

Speaker 19 You guys.

Speaker 10 Red Ranger and Justin's service, who we met in the previous episode, were also hard at work in the chazz with their team Echo, the Emerald City Heroes organization.

Speaker 10 They were trying to represent a different kind of real-life superheroine.

Speaker 38 You're welcome, but please get to safety, okay?

Speaker 19 I'm for it.

Speaker 38 You guys gotta stay safe, okay?

Speaker 10 They were supportive of the protests and said they wanted to be on hand to help anyone who needed assistance.

Speaker 10 But in addition to tear gas and flashbangs, bangs, Red Ranger and the Echo crew also had to contend with the fact that Seattle's superhero movement had sustained some serious reputational damage.

Speaker 23 Phoenix Jones?

Speaker 39 No, he's not a member of our organization.

Speaker 19 He's not. No, no.

Speaker 38 No association. No, no, no, we don't.

Speaker 10 Phoenix has always said that one of the main reasons he created his superhero persona was to inspire others to take on injustice in the world and to stand up for those in need.

Speaker 10 But by 2020, the character he'd created became a punchline, a symbol of hypocrisy and absurdity above all else.

Speaker 10 And as the most famous member of the community, his fall from grace cast a shadow over the whole real-life superhero universe.

Speaker 10 While on patrol, Red Ranger and Justin Service repeatedly distanced themselves from Phoenix.

Speaker 38 Phoenix Jones is another.

Speaker 41 Not really, not anymore.

Speaker 41 He's in a bad business.

Speaker 41 What's his business?

Speaker 41 What's the name of the business?

Speaker 41 He's committed criminal activities. I'm not going to get into it, but yeah, he's not a good example.

Speaker 10 At one point, they walked past a poster of Phoenix that said, Officer Jones, pepper spraying a neighborhood near you.

Speaker 19 Holy shit, take a picture of that.

Speaker 27 Oh, no worries.

Speaker 39 I've got to get this.

Speaker 19 Holy crap.

Speaker 10 All through June of 2020, clashes between the police and protesters continued.

Speaker 10 And then on Saturday, June 20th, all hell broke loose, and the Seattle superheroes had to step into a deadly situation where the police were nowhere to be found until it was too late.

Speaker 10 Around midnight, Justin Service and Red Ranger started their patrol of the Chaz. Red Ranger, who was a registered nurse, had been giving medical care to folks and trying to de-escalate some arguments.

Speaker 10 There was a group of people setting up fireworks. but then around 2:20 a.m., they heard gunfire.
Guns, get back, get back, get back.

Speaker 10 Phoenix was also in the area. At just after 3 a.m., he tweeted: Bullets in chaos.
I'm in chop. Stay away.
Scene confusing. Shooter on the loose.

Speaker 10 Red Ranger and Justin Service ran toward the sound of the gunfire and arrived on the scene of the shooting. It was total chaos.
And laying on the ground was 19-year-old Horace Lorenzo Anderson Jr.

Speaker 10 help him. He's on the truck.
He'd been shot. We gotta help him.
Keep away. Come on, everybody, back here.

Speaker 10 Back here. Come with me.

Speaker 22 We were doing CPR and trying to provide medical intervention with the volunteer medics that were on the scene. And we were calling for an ambulance.

Speaker 22 Well, the ambulance wouldn't come in because they can't come in until the police clear the scene.

Speaker 40 Hey, guys, watch out so we can get out of here. Drive the car, go!

Speaker 10 The police claim that it was the protesters who prevented law enforcement from entering the chazz.

Speaker 10 But based on reporting by KOW's Ashley Haruko, who reviewed videos from that night, along with the 911 dispatch recordings and eyewitness testimony, it was not the protesters that caused the delay, but miscommunication between the Seattle fire and police departments.

Speaker 40 Everybody, get back, get back, get back! Someone was shot! Get back! Get back!

Speaker 40 Someone was shot!

Speaker 22 We ended up losing a poor young man, you know, when we tried to save him. We didn't get the help we needed that night, and I wish we had.

Speaker 22 There's a lot of factors that went into that, but it's still a regret that that young man lost his life.

Speaker 38 Everybody get to safety!

Speaker 40 Holy crap.

Speaker 10 Horace Lorenzo Anderson's father currently has an active lawsuit for wrongful death filed against the city of Seattle.

Speaker 10 Meanwhile, Phoenix had apparently left the scene. He tweeted that he hadn't been able to get a description of the shooter.
And I get the sense that he was reaching a breaking point.

Speaker 10 Later that same night, in the early hours of Saturday morning, he goes on to tweet, too much, too damn much. We need to do something now.
People are dying and my fucking city is under attack.

Speaker 10 I arrive on the scene after the shooting, directed via Twitter. No police.
Chaos. People grabbing the evidence and moving things.
I had no description of the shooter and medical was already there.

Speaker 10 I was drawing attention, and with an active shooter, I had to be back. I have no idea how to combat this threat of real-life-ending magnitude, and at the same time, protect people's right to protest.

Speaker 10 I am so angry. Why are the mayor, governor, and police standing outside an imaginary border when citizens of Seattle are fucking dying?

Speaker 10 Then a long series of A's and H's.

Speaker 10 If the brief moment in time when the Chaz existed was a test case for letting superheroes stand in for cops in emergency situations, it did not go well for the superheroes.

Speaker 10 They'd failed in their mission to intercede in those moments before a crime takes place.

Speaker 10 And when things did go horribly wrong, they weren't able to prevent the death of Horace Lorenzo Anderson or catch the person who killed him.

Speaker 10 And at the end of the day, it is Phoenix himself who is angrily demanding that the police show up and do something to protect the people because he and his fellow superheroes have failed.

Speaker 10 In the days that followed, he then got into a Twitter beef with an account claiming to be the official Chaz account.

Speaker 10 It posted that Phoenix was banned from the Chaz and that the Chaz Solidarity Community had issued orders for security to deny access to the Chaz to all members of superhero movements attempting to enter the area.

Speaker 10 Whether the account was really representing Chaz organizers is contested, but Phoenix took it as the truth and railed against them. In another all-caps tweet, he said,

Speaker 10 I do not respect your imaginary borders.

Speaker 10 Citizens are dying.

Speaker 23 Grow up.

Speaker 10 I'll see you tonight in the streets.

Speaker 10 Joan's out.

Speaker 10 Finally, on Wednesday, July 1st, the city moved in and started dismantling the Chaz barricades. Protests and conversations about police abolition and reform would continue.

Speaker 10 But one thing seemed clearer than ever in the city of Seattle. There seemed to be very little appetite for our masked adventurer, Phoenix Jones.

Speaker 10 His triumphant return only seemed to make him more enemies in the hometown he'd sworn to protect.

Speaker 10 But even then, then, Phoenix Jones would not be deterred. He'd continue to take to the streets in search of crimes to thwart.
And soon, at long last,

Speaker 10 I'd be going with him.

Speaker 10 That's coming up.

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Speaker 10 By 2021, Phoenix Jones had become a running joke in Seattle. His superhero squad was a distant memory.
He pled guilty to two drug conspiracy charges, and his relaunch at the Chaz had been a flop.

Speaker 10 At this point, most people would probably decide to give up on the whole real-life superhero thing, but Phoenix Jones isn't most people.

Speaker 10 When I visited Phoenix in Seattle in 2021, he agreed to take me on one of his patrols so I could see firsthand how he fights crime these days.

Speaker 6 I am here to pick up Phoenix Jones at his apartment.

Speaker 10 It is 1 a.m.

Speaker 6 on December 21st. About to go out on patrol.

Speaker 10 I actually ended up going on three different patrols with Phoenix, and every single time we had to use my rental car because Phoenix was having various car troubles.

Speaker 10 On one of those patrols, the plan had been to begin the night by doing a homeless handout, which surprised me, given Phoenix's passive disdain for this type of superhero work.

Speaker 10 But in the end, it never happened because Phoenix claimed his car got broken into and someone stole all the stuff stuff we were going to give out. So we had to go with plan B.

Speaker 10 Yeah, what's the plan for tonight?

Speaker 6 So we're going to Capitol Hill. We're going to check that out and see if we got people on foot walking around.
Then if Capitol Hill is lame, we're going to check out second and third and pike in area.

Speaker 6 We're going to get out and walk around there a little bit.

Speaker 10 We never ended up getting out of the car that night. Phoenix was dressed in superhero casual.
He wasn't wearing his full super suit.

Speaker 10 Just the molded breastplate with the gold chevron and a black leather trench coat and helmet.

Speaker 6 Still bulletproof. I still got all my stuff on.
I'm a little less knife resistant. But

Speaker 6 get stuff done. We can still go fight crime.

Speaker 10 The stakes were very high for Phoenix. He told me because he's on probation, there can't be any slip-ups, pepper spray-related or otherwise.

Speaker 10 Because if he gets into any trouble, he says he will go straight to prison for two years.

Speaker 6 You're a journalist, right? So if we stop and we stop a crime and it goes badly, right? They're not going to arrest you. There's no legal ramifications for you.
But me, I'm on probation.

Speaker 6 I've been asked to stop several different times.

Speaker 6 It's like every time I come out, my entire entire life could possibly be on the line.

Speaker 10 With Phoenix behind the wheel, we made our way through the darkened streets of the city, keeping our eyes peeled for signs of trouble.

Speaker 6 When you start like a patrol, I'll like drive around and sort of feel it out. And I'll hit a spot that feels like this could be that spot.
You know what I mean?

Speaker 10 But we weren't having much luck finding any crime. What percentage of patrols would you say you end up stopping a crime?

Speaker 19 Hmm.

Speaker 6 So I would say this, on average, probably stop about two crimes a week or do a citizen's help, like where I do something that's like above like helping, right?

Speaker 6 But it's not always stopping a crime and it's not always on patrol, right? Like today, I fixed that tire for that person, dressed up, super suited up, Phoenix Jones dup, right?

Speaker 6 But it didn't have anything to do with patrol, right?

Speaker 10 Phoenix told me the reason he was late to tonight's patrol was because he and his son had pulled over to help a stranded motorist.

Speaker 10 Apparently, he'd been wearing part of his super suit, and his son had worn a Batman mask. Phoenix had lots of stories like this.
He told me that the day before, he'd had another heroic encounter.

Speaker 10 This time, he'd saved his neighbor's life.

Speaker 6 One of my neighbors, overdosed on drugs, had a reaction that ended up having to do CPR.

Speaker 10 Phoenix's need to help people impacts every part of his life. Even things like mundane trips to the grocery store.

Speaker 6 I went to the check-in scan, and I was trying to do the scan thing, and this thing would not scan.

Speaker 22 my stuff.

Speaker 10 Now, us civilians would probably just head over to another register. But for Phoenix, this was his time to shine.

Speaker 10 He told me that when the checkout clerk didn't know how to fix the scanner, he got down on his hands and knees to find the problem.

Speaker 10 He even called up the manufacturer himself to get the reset code for the machine.

Speaker 6 I popped it in, the machine worked, and I was like, there, problem solved. And I'm like, now you know how to do it next time.

Speaker 10 Phoenix said his girlfriend, who was with him at the time, did not swoon. or look into his eyes and say, oh, Phoenix, you're my hero.

Speaker 10 She was more like, can we just get the hell out of here and get on with our day?

Speaker 6 I'm like, well, what would you prefer me to do?

Speaker 11 You know?

Speaker 6 She's like, well, I guess I'd prefer you just to go to another machine. I'm like, okay, so what besides obfuscate my responsibility to help my people? What other than that would you like me to do?

Speaker 10 I can see how it would be hard to be with someone like Phoenix, who seems to be addicted to being the hero.

Speaker 6 I think people love uncompromising characters, right? And just because I'm an uncompromising character, people are drawn to that.

Speaker 6 But if they really understood what that entails, I don't think they would like it very much.

Speaker 22 You know what I mean?

Speaker 10 Phoenix is well aware that fighting crime can damage his personal relationships. But in another of our interviews, he told me he couldn't quit, even if he wanted to.

Speaker 6 I think I have a compulsion to do the things that I believe in, and I don't care about the cost. Whatever makes me stop bad, guys, it's a compulsion I cannot fight.
I don't know what it is.

Speaker 6 I can't put my finger on it, but it's a compulsion that could cost me everything that I cannot stop doing.

Speaker 10 I think that compulsion was one of the things that made Phoenix as successful and as famous as he was at his peak.

Speaker 10 But alongside that compulsion to take down bad guys is Phoenix's compulsion to be better than everyone around him.

Speaker 10 And I think his intense competitiveness and his ego made it impossible for him to live up to his own ideals of what a superhero is.

Speaker 10 And even though I believe his heart is in the right place, there were moments when I was with Phoenix where I came away thinking, this guy is just an asshole.

Speaker 10 One of those moments happened after we'd finished up a patrol and I had to give Phoenix a ride to go pick up a car he was borrowing.

Speaker 19 Sorry about this going around in circles.

Speaker 6 It's definitely not my fault.

Speaker 19 Hello?

Speaker 6 All right, cool. I have to be on the right street, but the address you gave me does not take me here.

Speaker 6 Frustration.

Speaker 10 Coincidentally, the person he was borrowing the car from was his neighbor, the one whose life he said he had saved from a drug overdose.

Speaker 10 Anyway, this guy had texted Phoenix the address where we were supposed to meet him, but the guy was drunk and sent the wrong address. This was around 3 in the morning.

Speaker 10 And when we got to where we were supposed to meet him, he was nowhere to be found. So Phoenix started honking the car horn so his friend could hear where we were and come find us.

Speaker 10 Unfortunately, the batteries in my recorder had just died, and I was in the process of replacing them when this sonically rich moment happened.

Speaker 10 We were parked right outside of an apartment, and I called Phoenix out for what I thought was an asshole thing to do.

Speaker 10 I remember saying, There are people all around us trying to sleep, and blasting your horn outside their window at 3 a.m. is a dickhead move.

Speaker 10 By the time I was able to start recording again, Phoenix was in the middle of defending himself.

Speaker 6 So I don't know why that's not chill. Like, even when it's explained to to me, it still doesn't, it still doesn't like change my mind on it.

Speaker 6 It just makes me think like, well, if you don't like horn honking, you shouldn't live right next to a road like that.

Speaker 10 No one will ever convince me that honking your horn outside someone's home at 3 a.m. So you can find your drunk friend is an acceptable thing to do.

Speaker 10 But instead of Phoenix admitting that it's a dickhead move, he blamed the people sleeping inside their homes.

Speaker 10 It's not like this is a grave injustice or anything, but I think Phoenix's attitude about it says a lot about who he is.

Speaker 10 The thing I find so infuriating about Phoenix is that he claims to be out here on the streets because he wants to serve and protect the citizens of his city.

Speaker 10 Unless he needs to find a drunk friend at 3 a.m., in which case, fuck those people. They should go find another street to live on.

Speaker 10 I think his willingness to disrupt these people's lives while also claiming to care so much about them that he puts his life in danger for them is hypocrisy.

Speaker 10 And this is just one small example of many in which I believe Phoenix is a hypocrite. That's the thing that bothers me the most about Phoenix.

Speaker 10 I don't think there's anything morally wrong with using drugs, so I don't really care whether or not Phoenix does drugs.

Speaker 10 And I personally believe all drugs should be decriminalized and treated as a public health issue, not a criminal one.

Speaker 10 So I don't have a problem with Phoenix's small-time Coke and ecstasy deals on their own.

Speaker 10 The thing I dislike about Phoenix is that he acts like he's better than everyone, that he claims to live up to to a higher moral code than everyone around him, which I think is total bullshit.

Speaker 10 I do think he does more than most to help the people in his community, and I think he deserves credit for that.

Speaker 10 But I found so many instances where he lied to me that it makes it hard to believe his endless tales of heroic deeds.

Speaker 10 Though there was this one moment when we were out on patrol and we came across a concrete piece of evidence of at least one time when Phoenix really was the kind of superhero you read about in comic books.

Speaker 10 We were doing a U-turn at an intersection when our headlights illuminated a mural on the side of a fence. There, in bright colors, was a painting of Phoenix Jones in his full supersuited glory.

Speaker 19 There I am.

Speaker 19 Yeah.

Speaker 6 It's purple. Over there getting pushed on the swing by me right there.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 6 It's random.

Speaker 10 In the mural, Phoenix is pushing his ex-girlfriend, Purple Rain, on a swing. They're painted to look like kids.
Behind the mural was a playground. The building used to be a daycare.

Speaker 10 Phoenix had told me the story of the mural during one of our interviews.

Speaker 6 I stopped the building from catching on fire. I smashed in the building and I put the fire out when the building was burning where the children's daycare is.

Speaker 6 And they're like, oh, look at this cool mural with these little kids. No, that mural's there because that building is there because I'm here.

Speaker 10 Like, you can't forget what we did.

Speaker 6 Even Midnight Jack, even El Caballero, because that guy Midnight Jack was cool enough to go run back to the car and to bring me back the fire extinguisher.

Speaker 6 So I'd only have to stomp out one floor of fires.

Speaker 8 He did that.

Speaker 19 It was real.

Speaker 6 So thanks, Jack. I dedicated to a decade of my life to doing dangerous, real-life shit.

Speaker 10 As we sat there staring at the mural and the headlights, Phoenix was feeling reflective and seemed genuinely sad that more people didn't talk about these moments in his life when he was a real hero, rather than focusing on his fall from grace.

Speaker 6 I really did not think that my life would turn out this way.

Speaker 6 You know what I mean? Like if I could have redrawn it, it's not quite what I had in my mind.

Speaker 10 What did you have in your mind?

Speaker 6 I mean I have one drug charge, but I mean like nothing of any consequence, right?

Speaker 6 I imagined that people would talk about my work. It's shocking that people don't.

Speaker 6 It makes me almost feel less uh

Speaker 6 well I feel like your work is too unconventional for people to wrap their heads around it, you know? I don't know what's unconventional about helping people.

Speaker 10 Like, it's not. Helping people is one thing, but putting on a superhero costume and calling yourself a real-life superhero is a totally different thing.

Speaker 6 Agreed, but it's still the same. The superhero outfit doesn't change the work.

Speaker 10 At the end of the patrol that night, Phoenix apologized for not finding any crimes to thwart.

Speaker 27 Sorry, we didn't find any crime. Get some random conversations.
Yeah.

Speaker 10 We never did come across any crime during any of the patrols that he took me on. We also didn't help anyone.

Speaker 10 We didn't didn't administer any first aid or hand out any food or socks or water like Justin Service and Red Ranger had done on their patrol. Even if you can't make it, I'd just on them.

Speaker 10 Yeah, yeah, that sounds good, man. I said goodnight to Phoenix, and I assumed it was the last time I'd ever see him.

Speaker 10 This was my last reporting trip to Seattle, and I was heading back home to Los Angeles in a couple days, and we had no plans to meet up again.

Speaker 10 Signing off.

Speaker 10 But then, a funny thing happened.

Speaker 10 When I got back to my hotel, I noticed that Phoenix had left his helmet on the back seat of my car. So I texted him, and he said he would stop by the next day to pick it up.

Speaker 10 Just before the sun came up, I got another text from Phoenix.

Speaker 18 It said, 321.

Speaker 10 Then another text that said, 3 minus 2 equals 1. It was one of his number codes.
the kind he told me he sends to his friends to let them know he's thinking about them.

Speaker 10 The next day, Phoenix came over to my hotel. He was parked on the street outside.
I came out and opened the passenger side door of his car and handed him the helmet.

Speaker 10 And then I looked down and saw it, plain as day, just sitting there in the armrest of the car door. A small bag of drugs.
At least I assume it was drugs.

Speaker 10 It wasn't much, just a bit of white powder inside one of those tiny Ziploc bags, the kind only drugs come in.

Speaker 10 I held it up and I looked at Phoenix and said, said, you should be careful with this stuff. It's illegal and you're on felony probation.

Speaker 10 He seemed very surprised and laughed nervously. Then he took the bag from me, threw it out the window, and drove off.

Speaker 10 And that was the last time I ever saw Phoenix Jones.

Speaker 10 Now the thing is, it wasn't Phoenix's car. He was borrowing it from his neighbor.
So there's a good chance that Phoenix had no idea it was there.

Speaker 10 But that probably wouldn't have mattered to the police.

Speaker 10 After I got back from that last trip to Seattle, I looked into what Phoenix had said about his probation, and I wasn't able to verify if it was true.

Speaker 10 According to the court documents, the sentence he received did not include community custody.

Speaker 10 and the King County Community Corrections Division said he isn't under their supervision for the 2020 charges.

Speaker 10 But whatever the terms of his release are, if Phoenix got pulled over and the cops found drugs in the car he was driving, I don't think the outcome would be good.

Speaker 10 At the end of the day, I do think that Phoenix is a liar.

Speaker 10 And maybe he conned a few of his supporters and friends out of some cash. We have yet to see the super suit that Phoenix said he would build after reportedly collecting over $3,000 on GoFundMe.

Speaker 10 And sure, the guy is super arrogant, admittedly uncompromising, and also a total hypocrite. But there is no part of me that thinks he should be in jail.

Speaker 10 I do believe there's a good chance that he might slip up and end up serving time, largely because his personal life seems so out of control.

Speaker 10 In one of our interviews, he was telling me about the court-mandated therapy sessions that he goes to.

Speaker 10 Do you feel like you've gotten anything out of therapy?

Speaker 6 Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've learned what is wrong with other people a lot.

Speaker 10 Phoenix told me that his therapist had her own theory about why Phoenix has so many struggles in his life.

Speaker 6 You feel like you're out of control of your world because your family got rid of you. Maybe, but my family did get rid of me.
That's a real thing.

Speaker 6 And if I feel out of control, maybe you should talk to those motherfuckers who put kids on a doorstep, not talk to the kid who makes sure other kids don't end up on a doorstep.

Speaker 10 That ain't a problem to me.

Speaker 6 There's no logic gap for me there. You're not going to convince me into feeling better.
I'll never feel better. ever.
And I don't want to.

Speaker 10 It's almost as if underneath his super suit, Phoenix has this protective layer, this reflexive attitude that surfaces anytime someone challenges him.

Speaker 10 I'll leave it to Phoenix and his therapist to figure out why Phoenix feels this need to be above reproach. I do hope he works it out.

Speaker 10 I think it would do him some good to listen to criticism and think honestly about how his actions affect other people.

Speaker 10 I think that would make him better at crime fighting. and improve his personal relationships.
And I know that's not just an important thing for Phoenix himself, because he's also a parent.

Speaker 10 Which brings me to one last story that I'd like to tell you before I bid farewell. It's a story that Phoenix told me about his 12-year-old son.

Speaker 10 He was at the park one day after school, just hanging out with some friends, and he noticed a suspicious-looking guy standing outside a liquor store holding a knife.

Speaker 10 The guy went into the liquor store, and Phoenix's son walked over and peered into the store through the glass door and saw this guy, Rob the Woman, working behind the register.

Speaker 6 She's an old Middle Eastern lady. She's like 70, has a mobility scooter.
She's like defenseless.

Speaker 23 My son's like, I don't think so.

Speaker 6 So he goes over to the store, he waits by the door, and the door slides both ways open, right? I love his ingenuity. So he pulls the door this way so it's opening towards the front, right?

Speaker 6 And when the guy tries to run out of the store, he just bang! You hit the dude straight in the face with the door. The alcohol goes down, the knife flops out of his hand.
My son chases this guy.

Speaker 6 And now he's got no knife. And he turns around to face off my son.
My son just straight kicked him straight in the face. BAM!

Speaker 10 Shortly after, the police arrived on the scene.

Speaker 6 A cop show up, and he's just karate kicked this dude down the hill. And then the girl in the store said that, you know, he'd hit him with the door, and it'd crack the glass of the door of the store.

Speaker 6 So the police were saying that they were going to charge him. with breaking the glass.
And the woman was like, absolutely not. That guy had a knife and he came into my store.

Speaker 10 The store clerk convinced the police not to charge Phoenix's son with a crime for breaking the door.

Speaker 10 And instead, Phoenix says the cops gave his son a token of their appreciation for his act of civilian heroism.

Speaker 6 The police gave him this like little crime stopping pendant. It's really cool.
I'll show it to you. I'll pull it up.
It's really cool.

Speaker 22 And it was his first crime he'd ever stopped, you know?

Speaker 10 At the time, the cops didn't know it was Phoenix's son.

Speaker 6 They came by the house to give him the little pendant and talk to him about it, you know? And when they came by the house,

Speaker 6 I was there and the cop was like, oh man, he's like, I don't know what my boss is going to think of this.

Speaker 10 Phoenix says the police told his son he could keep the award, but that he had to keep it a secret.

Speaker 6 There was a definite conversation between the police and my attorney because they in no way endorsed my behavior, which is hilarious because they endorsed my behavior entirely, right?

Speaker 6 Because my son used every skill I've ever taught him. It's not that he fought crime.
It's that he recognized the same thing that I recognized and put the responsibility on himself.

Speaker 6 He's not the kind of person that sees a problem and goes, oh, well, that's for somebody else. Or that person's not my person.
Like he sees something, takes responsibility for it, and fixes it.

Speaker 6 That's what I love about it. It's not that he stopped the crime, it's that he did it for someone else.
Does that make sense? Totally, totally. Yeah.

Speaker 10 Would you want him to have the life that you do?

Speaker 19 No.

Speaker 23 I would never want anyone to have life I have.

Speaker 10 Was this the origin story of Seattle's next great real-life superhero?

Speaker 10 Would this 12-year-old boy follow in his father's footsteps and grow up to become a masked adventurer, a defender of the innocent and protector of the downtrodden?

Speaker 10 Maybe he would even be better at it than his father, because he'd had loving parents who looked after him and was not burdened by the baggage of being abandoned as a child.

Speaker 10 Maybe he would build his own super suit and find some like-minded friends and spend years training for a righteous goal. Maybe he would become the hero that Seattle deserves.

Speaker 10 Or maybe this is just another made-up story, like the kind you'd read in a comic book.

Speaker 10 The Superhero Complex is hosted and written by me, David Weinberg, and reported by me, Amalia Sortland, and Caroline Thornham. Production from Amalia Sortland and Caroline Thornham.

Speaker 10 Sean Glenn, Max O'Brien, and David Waters are executive producers. Fact-checking by Andrew Schwartz.
Production management from Cherie Houston, Frankie Taylor, and Charlotte Wolfe.

Speaker 10 Sound design, mixing, and scoring by Nicholas Alexander and Daniel Kempson. Music supervision by Nicholas Alexander and David Waters.
Original music is composed by Paul Housden.

Speaker 10 Special thanks to Peter Tangen, Willard Foxton, Matt O'Mara, Katrina Norvell, Beth Ann Makaluso, Oren Rosenbaum, Shelby Schenkman, and all the team at UTA.

Speaker 10 For more from Novel, visit novel.audio.

Speaker 42 Hello, and welcome back. Today's topic: Global Companies headquartered in rural small towns.
No one knows this superpower better than Sunoco president and CEO Howard Coker. So, Mr.

Speaker 42 Coker, what's the secret in South Carolina?

Speaker 43 We're in 34 different countries, 300 different operations, and everywhere I go in the world, the values from Partsville South Carolina resonate across the globe.

Speaker 43 The culture of this company would absolutely degrade, if not disappear, if it wasn't for the small-town values that we get from this great city.

Speaker 42 Well, tell me about your experience with South Carolina's pro-business government.

Speaker 43 You know, South Carolina Commerce Department pro-business policies are supported by job creation and retention and workforce development and it's certainly well aligned and supported.

Speaker 43 Port Sunoco, they're incredibly responsive and genuinely care about our company's needs now and into the future. They're approachable and have no problem sitting down with us at any time.

Speaker 43 Business in South Carolina have a seat at the table.

Speaker 42 Visit SC LaunchTelegacy.com.

Speaker 9 From wine country weekends to scenic drives through the Sierra foothills, fall is the perfect time to explore California. And there's no better way to do it than in a brand new Toyota hybrid.

Speaker 9 With 17 fuel-efficient options like the stylish all-hybrid Camry, the Adventure-Ready RAV 4 hybrid, or the spacious Grand Highlander hybrid, Toyota has the perfect ride for any adventure.

Speaker 9 Every new Toyota comes with Toyota Care, a two-year complementary scheduled maintenance plan, an exclusive hybrid battery warranty, and of course, Toyota's legendary quality and reliability.

Speaker 9 Visit your local Toyota dealer and test drive one today so you can be prepared for wherever the road takes you this fall. Toyota, let's go places.

Speaker 9 See your local Toyota dealer for hybrid battery warranty details.

Speaker 21 The murder of an 18-year-old girl in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved for years until a local housewife, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story.

Speaker 10 America, y'all better wake the hell up.

Speaker 18 Bad things happens to good people in small towns.

Speaker 21 Listen to Graves County on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season ad-free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

Speaker 4 Thanksgiving isn't just about food. It's a day for us to show up for one another.

Speaker 44 It's okay not to be okay sometimes and be able to build strength and love within each other.

Speaker 4 I'm Ellie Aconi, host of the podcast Family Therapy, a series where real families come together to heal and find hope.

Speaker 45 I've always wanted us to have therapy, so this is such a beautiful opportunity.

Speaker 4 Listen to season two of Family Therapy every Wednesday on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 7 Join me, Danny Drejo, in Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows.

Speaker 18 An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends and lore of Latin America.

Speaker 7 Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the shadows

Speaker 18 on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

Speaker 1 This is an iHeart podcast.