The Texas Observer

A well-known Austin activist fingered as an FBI informant has acknowledged that he provided information leading to the arrest and felony indictment of two Austin men who participated in protests last September at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, MN.

“The simple truth is that I have chosen to work with the Federal Bureau of investigation [sic],” Brandon Darby said in an open letter he sent this week to friends he has worked with since 2002.

Darby’s activist network stretches from Austin to New Orleans, where he co-founded Common Ground Relief, a grassroots reconstruction effort that drew thousands of volunteers from around the country. In 2004, he helped organize and was arrested during anti-Halliburton protests in Houston. His letter suggests that he disagreed with tactics some members of the Austin Area Affinity Group planned to use to disrupt the Republican Convention. Darby was a member of the group.

“When people act out of anger and hatred, and then claim that their actions were part of a movement or somehow tied into the struggle for social justice only after being caught, it’s damaging to the efforts of those who do give of themselves to better this world,” reads Darby’s letter.

Darby’s fellow activists say they identified him as “CHS 1” – confidential human source 1 – after reviewing an affidavit (PDF) by FBI agent Christopher Langert that was released in discovery in the case against David Guy McKay, 22, and Bradley Neal Crowder, 23. They say information described in the affidavit came from conversations between McKay and Darby.

The informant told Langert that McKay and Crowder fashioned protest shields made from cutting traffic barrels in half. After describing how police seized these items from a trailer the two helped drive from Austin to St. Paul, Langert refers to conversations gathered when the informant wore a wire to record McKay talking about how he and Crowder had made Molotov cocktails, using tampons soaked in lighter fluid for wicks.

The Molotov cocktails were among the items seized in a raid that led to felony indictments of McCay and Crowder, now known as the “Texas Two.” They were charged with possession of unregistered firearms (the cocktails). Information gathered by Darby may have contributed to broader charges against eight others from around the country for conspiracy to riot and conspiracy to damage property in the furtherance of terrorism.

Several of Darby’s friends initially defended him against accusations that he was an informant, but after they acquired additional court documents from sources close to the case against McCay and Crowder, they confronted him days before he went public.

“I don’t feel like I lost my credibility,” says longtime Austin-based activist Scott Crow. “But I staked my credibility defending him, and people backed me up.” Now that Darby has gone public, Crow is ready to go on the offensive.

“While it is not yet clear how long or to what extent Darby has been acting as an informant, the emerging truth about Darby’s malicious involvement in our communities is heart-breaking and utterly ground-shattering to some of us who were closest to him,” says Crow, who in 2005 co-founded Common Ground Relief with Darby.

Activists in St. Paul with the RNC Welcoming Committee posted a video in October 2007 that showed a tongue-in-cheek use of a Molotov cocktail to light a barbeque. Langert’s affidavit states that Darby had been working with the FBI since November 2007.

Crow and another member of the group claim the additional court documents – which the group has so far declined to make public - show Darby actively encouraged, enabled and provoked McKay and Croder to take illegal action. Crow asserts that Darby “hadn’t even met these guys yet” when he began reporting to the FBI. “How can you know they’re going to plan something,” he asks, “if you hadn’t met them yet?”

McCay’s father has previously argued that his son was naïve and gullible.

McCay and Crowder have been denied bail and remain in federal detention in St. Paul. Their trial date has been postponed indefinitely. They each face seven to 10 years in prison.

–Renee Feltz is a fellow at the Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism and an intern with the investigative unit at The New York Times.

While Austin revels in its Democratic parties this evening, a mobile home blaring zydeco music off its back end will try to bring a more somber message to the city.

The KatrinaRitaVille Express may sound like the latest funky South Austin happy hour hangout—and most of those are on wheels, too—but this old FEMA trailer from Mississippi isn’t here for the party. Derrick Evans has been touring his trailer around the country to raise awareness for the slew of problems facing victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and the stagnation that’s taken hold in recovery efforts.

He’s here tonight with more than 40 people affected by the storms. They came by bus to draw attention to the storm recovery. So far candidates have said little about Hurricane Katrina in debates, and Evans says neither Clinton nor Obama have inspired much hope for his cause. “I wouldn’t say that any of them have sufficiently demonstrated a grasp of the depth of this regional crisis,” Evans says.

“We want to start at the top and end the neglect,” he says, comparing post-Katrina devastation to Southern Reconstruction or post-World War II Europe. “Rebuilding was characterized by bold, intelligent leadership from the highest levels,” he says. Evans, who lives outside Gulfport, Miss., says the neglect people feel along the gulf began with poor federal oversight of the money earmarked for recovery efforts.

The FEMA trailer, then, is a good symbol for his traveling cause. Evans bought his trailer on eBay, after a handful of serious health risks created a buyer’s market for the emergency homes.

Evans is working with a handful of organizations to address political, environmental and economic concerns that combined to make Hurricanes Katrina and Rita so disastrous, and which he says still haven’t been addressed years after the storms. With much of Austin rallying tonight around hope and policy changes, Evans and the storm victims hope their cause can be swept up by the wave.