Demonstrators protest in front of the police station on March 12, 2015, in Ferguson, Missouri. | Source: Scott Olson / Getty
Darren Seals was one of several Ferguson, Missouri, activists who died violently and mysteriously in the years after they had been involved in protests over the 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown. In September 2016, Seals was found shot and killed in his car, which had been set on fire. The murder was never solved and it didn’t take long for people to speculate that his death may have happened at the hands of law enforcement.
Now, his story has another layer of COINTELPRO-like mystery surrounding it as it has been revealed that the FBI had surveilled him. In fact, the bureau has a 900-page file on Seals, but the vast majority of the information in his file had been redacted.
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According to the Riverfront Times, the FBI’s file describes Seals as “a self-described revolutionary who has espoused somewhat militant rhetoric and has access to weapons.” But for the most part, his file is a novel-size document full of redacted info and one of the few things it does reveal is that the FBI had police officers stop Seals for no apparent reason.
