Original subtitles

The coroner ruled

the cause of death to be the shotgun pellets.

It wasn't the wounds from the shooters after the shotgun

that killed Malcolm X.

The cause of death was ruled to be the sawed-off shotgun.

Rally attendees seized one of the gunmen

as he tried to escape the Audubon.

There is archival film

of the scene outside the Audubon Ballroom

right after the assassination.

Intervening policemen engaged in a brutal tug-of-war...

You see a scuffle between the police

and the crowd that was trying to beat down Talmadge Hayer,

the only one of the assassins to confess.

And there's a man standing on the edge of that crowd

who looks a lot like William Bradley.

There he is, right there.

Who, according to Hayer,

fired the shotgun that killed Malcolm.

And he's feigning like he's part of the brawl.

And in that kind of misdirection,

he steps back,

and then you see him walk across the frame

very calmly, closing his coat, and he just walks away.

This is how he got away.

If William Bradley is the man who pulled out that shotgun,

and took the life of Malcolm X,

and I can prove it,

I want to confront him, face-to-face.

According to Talmadge Hayer,

all five of the assassins of Malcolm X

came from the mosque in Newark, New Jersey.

What killed Malcolm X was the sawed-off shotgun,

and Talmadge Hayer says that the gun

was fired by a man named William Bradley.

Over the years, I had heard that William X. Bradley

had changed his name,

but I could never find out what his Muslim name was.

Salaam-alaikum, sister. Hamdullah.

I was at a Muslim function,

and there was someone

at this Muslim function that was from Newark.

And I didn't even really expect to get the answer,

I just approached this... "Oh, you're from Newark?

You know, the guy that killed Malcolm..."

And before I could even finish the question he said, "Oh.

Al-Mustafa Shabazz. William Bradley."

So on and so forth. And I was just like...

Wow. You know? I was blown away. Everything.

He gave me everything.

And I couldn't sleep that night.

Bradley's Muslim name unlocked a whole lot of information,

including his rap sheet.

The list of crimes under the name Al-Mustafa Shabazz

included aggravated assault, terroristic threats,

robbery, sexual assault...

It just went on and on.

I went back to some of my Newark contacts

with Bradley's Muslim name.

And it seemed to make everyone pretty nervous.

- Peace, brother. Peace, brother. - Hey, how you feeling?

Brother, let me ask you a question.

What're we going to do about that Mustafa Shabazz,

William Bradley?

Leave him alone. Leave him alone.

Leave him alone.

Because he's probably being protected by the state. Leave him alone.

Leave him alone.

If he did what they think he did, and he's been out here like that,

they're protecting him.

I don't want you in prison behind some bullshit...

- Oh, no, no, no. I ain't... - You understand that?

I'm trying to tell you something.

Does the name Al-Mustafa Shabazz ring a bell to you?

Yes, yes, I knew... He used to actually come here

for Jumu'ah as well. He went other places,

but Al-Mustafa Shabazz,

yeah, he used to come here for Jumu'ah.

He used to go other places, but he used to...

'Cause he didn't live too far from here,

and he was known as William Bradley.

And on the street,

they say that he had, um... something to do with Malcolm's killing.

It's a touchy conversation, as you can probably see

how I'm trying to handle it.

But, yes, that is something that has been floating around

that Al-Mustafa Shabazz, known as William Bradley,

was the shotgun man that took Malcolm...

That took Malcolm out.

It's been documented that there is a triggerman here in Newark

hiding in plain sight. Have you heard that allegation?

- Yeah, I've heard it. - Was it Mustafa

Al-Shabazz? You know who he is?

Shotgun dude. Right.

No, I remember. I know what it's about, you know?

And, you know, the guy was known for...

you know, having a shotgun and all of those...

So, it made everything kind of

sound like it is a possibility, that this could be real.

There's no evidence of it, but I've heard it, you know?

Some of that stuff can be dangerous, you know what I mean? So...

I mean, that's why I don't like to, you know, deal with gossip.

I mean it's just all innuendo, and uh...

like circumstantial, and this and that,

but I, you know... I've seen him in the community

a couple of times.

He's walking around, you know, so obviously,

if somebody have proof of that, they should come forward with it.

And if they don't, if we don't have any proof of it,

they should just let it alone.

I kept asking around Newark about Bradley,

but, basically, he remained elusive.

And then, I got a tip.

I got a call from a person who said, "Hey, you know what, man?

William Bradley was in a 2010 campaign commercial

for Cory Booker when he was running for mayor of Newark."

A re-election campaign!

I mean, this sounded like crazy talk, you know.

It's just... I don't...

I said, "What?"

He said, "Yes, man! He is in a video!"

Violent crime in our city was getting worse,

but together, Newark, we took action.

Adding 300 police to our streets...

It's only a millisecond, you know, that he appears,

but I froze it, and there he is...

William Bradley,

today's Al-Mustafa Shabazz.

It was just mind-blowing. It was mind-blowing.

This is for the first time that the world has seen

the face of the man

who allegedly took the life of Malcolm X.

He wasn't even trying to hide, you know?

He had no fear of being clipped for this crime.

And he thought that the process of reinvention

was so complete

that he was audacious enough to appear on film, on video,

for a very popular mayor, now senator.

We are making Newark safer and stronger.

And together, Newark, we are taking back our city.

Are you familiar with somebody named William Bradley

or Al-Mustafa Shabazz?

- In Newark? From Newark? - Yeah.

Yeah.

Do you know that he appeared in

a re-election campaign video of yours in 2010,

and that he is one of the people who allegedly

murdered Malcolm X?

That connection, I was not aware of, no.

You weren't aware of that?

You are breaking news to me.

He's one of the people that is alleged by whom?

By Talmadge Hayer,

who is a convicted assassin, an admitted assassin

of Malcolm X.

- Wow, I was not aware of that. - Do you want to see it?

Do you have it with you right now?

I think we do.

- Yeah. - I mean, he doesn't talk.

He doesn't, but he appears.

...was getting worse,

but together, Newark, we took action.

- That brother right there. - Yeah. No, I know him well.

I know him well.

You've never heard anything about his affiliation with the...

I have not heard that.

- ...assassination of...? - I have not heard that. Yeah.

Does it surprise you?

Um, again, I would love to know the facts.

I would love to know the facts.

Yeah.

It's one of many threads of Malcolm's assassination

that have not been reopened or unearthed.

Yeah, right.

And it's important to get to the truth. And by the way,

we all know that there's been wrongful accusations,

wrongful convictions, and nobody should be...

Presumptions shouldn't be made about anybody.

But, we should get to the truth.

And, uh, again, so much of this history is tied in

with the history of Newark and the history in our state.

Um, we should go...

We should follow the evidence, and find out.

We should know these things.

Um, but we should not jump to conclusions about anybody.

- That's really important. - Fair enough.

Yeah, I mean, he's been named multiple times.

Off the record, what do you know about him?

I mean, he's the one living, um...

assassin... potential assassin.

- Assassin. Please... - Potential.

- Potential. - Please, keep saying "potential."

It turns out that after he was released from prison in 1998,

Bradley built a new life for himself in Newark.

He married a prominent community activist,

and together they founded a boxing gym for local youth.

That's probably how he ended up in that Cory Booker ad.

Basically, what our young kids need today,

they need someone to give them valued time.

He had become a kind of

grandfatherly-type figure, you know?

A mentor to the youth

who's just going to guide the kids to the right path.

I had to set my eyes on this gym.

I didn't know if I'd see Bradley there.

I don't even know if I wanted to.

First Class Championship Development Center

is what it's called,

and, um, I think... I even think they have a daycare center,

if you can imagine that.

But it looks like it's closed now.

Yep, nothing but weeds now.

It's unbelievable, man. I'm getting...

I'm really kind of getting sick to my stomach right now, I really am.

I'm feeling some kind of way about this, as I'm talking about it.

You know what I'm saying?

It's really making me sick.

That's the first time I've seen it, you know?

That's the first time I've seen that place with my own eyes.

It's just really appalling that this has been

allowed to continue all these decades,

and no one has done a damn thing about it.

It's really, really sickening.

Let the world see this man.

This man can no longer hide in the shadows.

He can no longer hide in the shadows.

Before I could confront Bradley face-to-face,

I had to put things to rest,

and collect the evidence to prove once and for all

that A, Bradley was guilty,

and B, Butler and Johnson were innocent.

The trial transcripts don't reveal much.

Initially, Talmadge Hayer denied any involvement in the murder.

But there was ample proof of his guilt.

I mean, he was caught at the scene with a.45 clip in his pocket.

But when it comes to Norman Butler and Thomas Johnson,

the only thing they had

was very contradictory eyewitness testimony.

That's all they had.

There was no physical evidence to speak of.

There was only one way to catch the shooters,

and that was to find people,

and there were hundreds of people in the room,

to identify who the shooters were.

That's what I was concentrated on.

There was no physical evidence to be found.

Now you can, you know...

People can pick over that all they want.

That's all there was to it.

Today, jurors expect

when they hear a criminal case,

there will be forensic evidence linking a defendant to the crime.

Obviously, DNA has become a major, major factor

in criminal investigation.

But none of this existed back in the 1960s.

We relied pretty much on what people saw, what they heard.

We had ballistics evidence,

in which a gun in the possession of someone

matched a bullet that was fired.

We had fingerprint evidence that was available in rare cases.

And of course, we had statements made by the defendants themselves

that were viewed as very compelling evidence.

Both Butler and Johnson had alibis,

people who testified they saw them or spoke to them on the phone

during the exact time period the crime took place.

Butler even had a doctor who testified

that he saw him that morning for injuries on his leg,

that Butler said made it near impossible for him

to walk around freely.

The case against Talmadge Hayer is ironclad,

but the case against Butler and Johnson is weak.

So the prosecution successfully convinced the jury

that the three defendants acted in concert with one another.

So whatever is used against one,

is now going to be used against the other.

So, the ironclad case against Hayer

is now gonna be coattailed to the weak cases

against Butler and Johnson.

And once that happened, their fate was basically sealed.

I had stated myself

that Norman Butler and Thomas Johnson,

that they were not involved.

Originally, when the trial first started,

I actually felt that the brothers would be cut loose.

I didn't think that they was gonna be convicted

until the trial started going on

and it became obvious what was being done.

When it started to look

like Butler and Johnson might actually be convicted,

Hayer made his big move and took the stand a second time.

That's when he confessed to being part of the assassination

and insisted that Butler and Johnson were innocent.

I didn't know Hayer. I mean, I didn't know him.

I never saw him before in my life, never heard of him.

I knew Johnson.

We knew each other, but we didn't know Hayer.

He knew who did it with him, and it wasn't us.

Watch the wire.

They want a conviction.

It doesn't make any difference what I say or what he say,

all they care about is a conviction.

So, if the white man say you guilty, you guilty.

Why? 'Cause he says so and he got a gun,

or he got a key, or he got money and it's that simple.

All three men, Hayer, Johnson, and Butler,

got 20 years to life.

Years later, when Talmadge Hayer filed an affidavit

which finally provided the names of the men

he said were his real accomplices,

a judge said he didn't consider it new evidence.

There would need to be some corroboration of these claims

in order for a court really to be satisfied.

So, on its face, it didn't seem to have enough substance.

But Bill Kunstler,

the defense attorney for Hayer,

did everything humanly possible

to get the case reopened, to get it reexamined.

And he didn't stop with Hayer's affidavit.

Mr. Kunstler also had an affidavit from a second person

named Benjamin Goodman.

Mr. Goodman was present at the time of the murder,

and he claimed, in this affidavit that Mr. Kunstler filed,

that the other two men, Butler and Johnson,

were not present in the auditorium at the time of the assassination.

Benjamin Goodman, I know him by his Muslim name,

Benjamin Karim, he was Malcolm's right-hand man,

and he opened up for Malcolm that day at the Audubon.

For killing Malcolm, to free Norman...

He passed away in 2005,

but I dug up an old interview he did

with a television producer in the mid-90s.

Norman was innocent.

You couldn't have paid him to walk through those doors,

or Johnson, because we knew them.

We knew what they were capable of.

We were in charge of who came through that door,

and we knew every Muslim at Number 7,

and Norman and Johnson

was as familiar as we were there with each other.

But Benjamin Karim was never called to testify.

So they were innocent.

They were railroaded into prison.

And Malcolm would not have wanted,

no matter how much they hated him,

someone to go to prison for his death,

and they were innocent.

I couldn't have walked in that ballroom.

- Right. Right. - Period.

Everybody in security for Malcolm that day,

I worked with. I soldiered with.

I knew them and they knew me.

I couldn't have walked in the place, so--

You would've been immediately recognized.

I worked with all of them.

I worked with all of them. Every day.

And of course, the cops know that because BOSS, right?

Bureau of Special Services.

BOSS was all over Harlem, and they was in the Nation.

So, the BOSS knows that, so the police knows that.

They knew that I didn't do it. I couldn't have done it.

If I wanted to do it, I couldn't have done it.

So that means they knew what they were doing

when they put me in jail.

If there was no police misconduct,

what was it? What do you call it?

Two weeks after the anniversary

of Malcolm X's assassination,

I went to the scene of the tragedy,

the Audubon Ballroom in Upper Manhattan.

Although 20 years had gone by,

a strange pall hung over the all-but-abandoned hall.

I was able to convince writer Peter Bailey to come to the ballroom.

Gil Noble had this incredible show on WABC-TV

in New York called Like It Is.

He wanted to interview me in the Audubon Ballroom,

which I had sworn to never set foot in again.

Still very visual to me.

Uh... I feel a little shaky,

because the place really has, uh,

you know, bad memories as far as I'm concerned.

I mean it was weird, you know,

I just did not like being there.

We repositioned the chairs where the audience sat

and cleared the stage from which Malcolm stood

before being gunned down.

The workmen, miraculously, dug up the actual lectern

behind which Malcolm stood that day.

And one of the things I see is this,

I guess it's called a rostrum,

and you could see bullet holes in it

and then chalk marks surrounding them.

The bullet holes were still visible.

And he had found this in the basement at the Audubon.

And to me when I saw it,

that just kind of confirmed my belief

that they never had any intentions

of seriously investigating that assassination.

Why would you leave a piece of evidence like that?

All those years, it had been down there

in the basement.

If we want to understand

the New York City Police Department's involvement

in Malcolm's assassination,

you got to go back a few days before,

actually a week before.

Because what happened a week before

is that Malcolm's house was firebombed.

While Malcolm X, his wife,

and their four children slept,

three Molotov cocktails were thrown into the house.

The property was badly damaged.

I remember him pushing me out of the bedroom,

and I saw all of the fire.

My husband brought the baby to me and told me to stand.

Then he brought my other children to me.

Had that fire gone through that window,

it would have fallen on a six-year-old girl,

a four-year-old girl, and a two-year-old girl.

And if you attack me, that's one thing.

I know what to do when you start attacking me.

But when you attack sleeping babies,

why, you are lower than a god...

He blames the Muslims on the firebombing

of his New York home. Do you have a comment on that?

It looks to me like he did the job himself.

There was a bottle of gasoline

that was found in his house!

We believe that it was put there by either a police person

or somebody in a fireman's uniform.

Eventually what happens is that

the NYPD begins to go off the record to reporters.

And saying, you know,

"This is suspicious. You know, we're not sure

if a firebombing actually took place.

Malcolm may possibly have done this

for a publicity stunt."

It sends out the message

that you don't have to take Malcolm's security that serious

because he's willing to bomb his own house.

You know what the temperature was?

It was about 15 or 20.

I stood in my underwear,

bare feet, in the middle of my driveway

with a gun in my hand for 45 minutes

waiting for the police,

or waiting for the fire department to come.

If I want to put on a show,

I could find a better way than that to put it on.

Even before their house was firebombed,

Malcolm and his family had plenty of reasons

not to trust the NYPD.

Has anyone threatened you?

That's all I get is threats.

And I called the 114th precinct a few days ago.

They informed me that it was nothing they could do, you know.

But in those final weeks,

it was clear Malcolm was in dire need of protection.

It was also clear that he wasn't getting it.

That is part of the complex tragedy

of Malcolm, but of being black in America.

Martin Luther King has been to jail.

James Farmer has been to jail.

Why, you can't name a black man in this country

who is sick and tired of the hell that he's catching

who hasn't been to jail.

To turn to the people or the system

that inflicted damage on you to protect you...

Like, how crazy is that?

So the policemen in this country

are the ones who are responsible for the brutality.

The policemen themselves have become guilty

of violating the rights of the people.

So what are the people to do?

Call upon the same ones

who are victimizing them to protect them?

No!

They have to protect themselves.

Excuse me for raising my voice.

They have to protect themselves. But I get excited...

You knew he was in grave, mortal danger?

No question.

Didn't you see yourselves as duty-bound to protect this man

from an imminent death threat?

Not, uh... I wouldn't say I didn't see that.

All I could see was the expense.

That's really all I could see.

"We can't afford it." It's 24/7, cops, detectives...

Can't do it. But we know he's in danger,

and we are duty-bound to acknowledge it.

So it was then that I struck my cleverest note.

I said, "Your answer is obvious.

We'll all go off, tell him that his life is in danger.

We'll offer him security, he will decline it,

and we need to document that."

If you look carefully through

the New York City Police Archives,

you will see a document where we offered him security

and he declined it.

So it was a cynical gesture, for sure.

A cynical gesture?

Yes.

A cynical gesture.

Me offering him something I knew he would refuse,

and that I expected and wanted him to refuse.

Why did you know he would refuse it?

I knew Malcolm. That's why.

I think people should question

some of the police who investigated the bombing out there that night,

and let them give their story as to whether or not

I could have set those bombs.

Malcolm did not trust the police.

And so he did not take security the way that it was needed.

And what ultimately happens is, a week later,

his security is going to be compromised.

And who compromises it?

The New York City Police Department.

And once his security was compromised,

he was basically a sitting duck.

Do you think New York Police are providing

enough protection, or do you feel that you have to provide your own?

Do I feel that the New York Police are providing

enough protection, or do I have to have

protection of my own?

I look for protection from Allah.

My guest tonight, Malcolm X,

once the number two man in the Black Muslims,

now broken with Elijah Muhammad.

He says he's a marked man and that a number of attempts

have been made on his life.

You say five different attempts recently.

- How were they attempted? - Yes, um,

more than five.

Malcolm was a U.S. citizen.

He was also a very high-profile, public personality.

He was under constant threat.

He was being followed.

And the authorities had a responsibility, I believe,

to protect his life at all costs.

I am very happy to be here this evening.

And I'm thankful for the invitation to come here to Detroit.

Uh, I was in a house last night that was bombed, my own.

Excuse me if I keep coughing like that,

but I got some of that smoke last night...

During that last week or so,

Malcolm was unraveled.

He wondered, I think,

how his family was going to be taken care of.

And when this explosion took place,

in trying to get my family out of the house,

none of us stopped for any clothes.

The only thing I could get my hands on is what I have on now.

He was homeless. He was literally homeless.

And I was told by his personal secretary

that he didn't even have 150 dollars to his name.

He couldn't even buy an insurance policy.

No insurance company would sell him a policy.

It was coming.

And he knew it was coming

and everyone else knew it was coming.

He said, "It will all be over soon."

It was clear that he was under enormous pressure,

and that leads me to that February morning.

It was Sunday morning.

It was a cold, bitterly cold morning, I remember.

That Sunday, there were just all kinds of signs...

that something was going on.

Death was all over Malcolm that whole day.

The deterrent effect

of having law enforcement present was not there.

On that day, there were two uniformed officers

and they're kind of upstairs, away from the crowd.

If anything--

the man's house was firebombed the previous week--

you add more security!

There was virtually no security.

The last time you cased the joint,

- police were there, you knew that the... - If... If...

If... If... It would have been a deterrent

if the officer was stationed in such a position

that it could have affected the situation of entering.

It would have been a deterrent if, uh, there was a search at the door.

Um, it could have been a deterrent,

um, in that respect.

You know... Entering the place would have been impossible

under those circumstances.

But none of this happened.

Tell me where you sat.

Down in front, in the front row,

uh, basically, on the left-hand side

close to the front of the stage.

No officers in sight.

No security procedure to get into the ballroom.

The assassins just walked in there,

and Malcolm's security coordinator,

a man named Gene Roberts,

had only a small security force to protect Malcolm.

I was part of the front rostrum guards,

the guards that stand in front of the stage,

and when Malcolm came into the ballroom that Sunday,

I escorted him in the back to a little office area.

As the rally started to form up,

I noticed three people sitting on the front row

reading newspapers.

I didn't bother to mention it because they were there before I got there,

and I figured they had already been checked out.

Just as Malcolm was being introduced...

- Salaam-alaikum. - Alaikum-Salaam.

Get your hand out of my pocket!

Hold it, hold it, hold it...

Two individuals started a commotion,

and I started walking towards them.

And the next thing I know, I see these guys firing shots.

And everybody panicked.

People were knocking over chairs, running out.

Two of the individuals ran right by me,

and the last guy, I hit him with the chair.

He stumbles, he gets up, he runs outside.

I went straight to the stage,

felt Malcolm's pulse.

He still had one, but it was weak.

And then I started to, um...

started to give him mouth-to-mouth.

After maybe about five minutes,

uh, not wanting to tell Betty that he was dead,

I told Betty that, um,

"I'm getting a little dizzy."

Maybe somebody else could try.

At that point, she got on her knees next to him,

but it was too late.

Mrs. Shabazz, do you believe

it was the Black Muslims who assassinated your husband?

Do you think, ma'am, that this assassination

is likely to touch off reprisals against Black Muslims

by Malcolm's followers?

Will you make any effort at all

to continue your husband's work?

What do you see as the future

of your husband's movement, ma'am?

Do you think it will continue without him?

Since the bombing of your home,

have the police made any effort to offer you protection?

If Malcolm's assassins are caught,

what do you think should be done with them?

Did you start to reply to the question

about the police protection?

Did they make any effort at all to offer you protection?

Well, I guess they did make an effort, yes.

Did they offer you a bodyguard or anything like that?

- No. - Do you want police protection?

After he tried and failed to save his boss' life,

Gene Roberts left the Audubon.

I couldn't feel anything until I got home...

after which, I start shaking like a leaf.

My mom and dad was visibly upset.

And, you know, they asked me if I was all right and everything.

I said, "Yeah, I'm fine, I'm fine."

I told them I had to make a couple of phone calls.

I called my supervisor up.

I told him, uh, that Malcolm had been shot.

I was told to come into the office the next morning,

which was Bureau of Special Services.

It's true.

Gene Roberts was one of those operatives

working for the NYPD in the Bureau of Special Services

who was put in to various black groups.

If there's any doubt whether the NYPD

really cared about the fate of Malcolm and his family,

the story of Gene Roberts puts it to rest.

Roberts was an undercover police officer.

He belonged to a very secretive unit within the NYPD.

He had managed to infiltrate Malcolm's organization,

and he rose to the position of personal bodyguard

and security for Malcolm.

I had never done anything of this nature before.

But at that time, I had a pregnant wife,

and hey, it's a job, and let's go out and do it.

We wanted someone

to infiltrate Malcolm's new organization.

We didn't know where Malcolm was going,

or what he was going to do,

or whether he was going to break the law.

We just figured out what we needed.

Black male, no roots in the police department, no relatives.

And, uh, we'd say,

"We'll induct you into the police department on January 1."

But you never get a uniform, never get a gun.

You'd never even get sworn in!

Nobody knows you except a particular little group

which was Bureau of Special Services.

I didn't know whether I had backup or not,

I was just out there.

Far as I know, I was out there by myself.

Malcolm thought that the police department

was monitoring him, but in a very obvious way.

I don't think he understood that his closest associate

was working for us.

Turns out, not only did Malcolm not know

about Roberts, the prosecution in the case didn't either.

Which means that Roberts was never interviewed for the investigation,

even though he was right there.

I like to think that he was standing on post,

facing out at the audience,

and he could see all of the faces in that audience of 400 people,

including the faces of the five assassins.

I didn't know about him. I was never told about him, okay?

At the time, in charge of the investigation,

I knew nothing about the existence of this man. Nothing.

They wanted to protect his identity,

but they sure protected it from me.

I don't know what side they thought I was on,

but I didn't know anything about him.

There was a LIFE magazine article,

uh, which there's a picture of Gene Roberts

giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to Malcolm X

after he had been shot.

Pretty shocking thing.

Nobody knew that he was an intelligence operative.

Nobody ever knew he was there!

I didn't sleep well that night.

The next day, I get called down by the department,

and the basic question was,

"Why did you do that?"

Knocked a guy down with a chair,

give Malcolm mouth-to-mouth.

And I told them that my only reasoning was

because I was a cop, and it was my job

to possibly save lives if I could.

What am I supposed to do? Just let him lay there and die?

Why would you do that?

You're a cop. He's a thug,

and you're giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

Inappropriate.

This is them, we are us. We don't do that.

You're not there to be Malcolm's friend.

You're there to monitor his behavior,

or maybe lead to his arrest.

They're not autonomous agents.

These are spies and tools.

They're not even allowed to think.

They're only there to observe and report.

So, thinking is dangerous.

Somebody in the executive level

obviously made a decision

that they did not want to surface this man.

Maybe they were afraid that if they told me,

I would've insisted that he be a witness.

I don't know. I don't even know what he would've said,

because... I never even got to see him.

If the NYPD had an agent

in the Audubon that day,

close enough to give him mouth-to-mouth,

it makes me wonder who else law enforcement had on the inside

that nobody knows about.

Sunday afternoon, I was listening to music

and Malcolm was shot.

I got up, went upstairs, started to get dressed.

Mary said, "Where are you going?"

I said, "I'm going to work."

She said, "The office hasn't called."

I said, "They will."

The phone rang and I heard her say,

"He's on his way, he just left."

The whole squad was called in.

And the supervisor sent me to be liaison

with the police department on the investigation.

Did the Bureau have anybody in the Audubon Ballroom that day?

Nine informants.

Nine?

Nine informants. I had nine informants.

We got a report from all of them.

A couple of them just quit.

The shooting was more than they bargained for.

Chief, were there any plainclothesmen in the audience?

No, there were not.

If Gene Roberts had been allowed to take the stand

at Malcolm's trial,

would he have been able to identify the man with the shotgun?

We'll never know.

William Bradley, Al-Mustafa Shabazz,

if he was in fact the shotgun assassin,

he walked out of the Audubon that day,

and disappeared into obscurity.