In his name

Activists toppled statues to protest Yeshua Musa’s arrest. Three days later federal prosecutors tried to make an example of him.

by

After more than a week of marches and demonstrations protesting the police killing of George Floyd, downtown Madison is quiet by midnight on June 6, 2020. Just a handful of people linger in small groups on the steps of the Wisconsin state Capitol, including a young man who introduces himself as Yeshua Musa.

“I’m out here trying to learn something. Trying to start a dialogue about what comes next,” says Musa, whose legal name is Devonere Johnson. “I don’t want this movement to end with nothing being accomplished…. George Floyd’s murder woke me the fuck up. Black people don’t have to be powerless. The racist status quo is a pandemic that also needs to end.”

Musa would rather ask this reporter questions about race, politics and economic theory than yield to an interview. But he eventually agrees to talk about why he’s protesting.

“I didn’t know what it meant to be an activist before the protests started. Now I’m out here all day and night doing it. It isn’t just about the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Maybe this isn’t personal for everybody out here. But it’s personal for me,” Musa says. “I didn’t realize all the anger I was holding in. I’m going to see how far I can go with all this. Test the limits.”

Musa’s remarks would prove prophetic.

Sixteen days later a video showing Musa wielding a megaphone and baseball bat inside The Coopers Tavern on the Capitol Square would go viral. So would a video of Musa’s tense arrest that happened moments later. The incident became the catalyst for a night of violent protest that included the razing of two statues on the Capitol grounds; the assault of a Democratic state senator for trying to take a video of protesters on a public street; and the attempted arson of the City County Building. It furthered a rift between local activists demanding change and downtown businesses already hurting from the pandemic. And it brought President Donald Trump’s promised crackdown on Black Lives Matter protesters to town, with federal prosecutors charging Musa with two counts of extortion.

Over the course of a year, in four lengthy interviews, Musa shared his side of the story with Isthmus. When his arrest made headlines nationwide, Musa was simultaneously hailed as a hero by activists and assailed as a dangerous troublemaker. “Free Yeshua” became a rallying cry for a growing Black Lives Matter movement against injustice and oppression. Musa denounces the heavy hand of the law, and the severe crimes he was charged with in federal court. But he also sincerely admits to making mistakes.

Mostly, he resents how he became a pawn to further the narratives of others.

“I’m not the wild violent person I was made out to be in all those news stories,” says Musa in a November 2020 interview, shortly after getting out of jail. “I never saw myself as a political prisoner, either, or a protest leader. I was just out there. I was mad. Really mad. Mad at the whole world. I had reason to be mad. But I lost my self control and that’s on me.”

Musa, 29, is a father of two young children, a vegan and avid chess player (he walloped this reporter more than once); a few years ago he completed a paid apprenticeship program with the Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership and worked a union carpenter job.

In late spring 2020, as the state was still in shutdown from COVID-19, Musa was taking care of his kids full time while his girlfriend was at work. He was also a constant presence at the Black Lives Matter protests in Madison.

As the protests grew in early June, Musa says he relished the role of being an agitator.

“I wanted to get under people’s skin to get them out of their usual mindset. To get them to start asking questions,” Musa says. “That was my way of getting a lot of different kinds of people to engage in a civil discussion so that we could actually understand each other. For a while, that seemed to work.”

He recalls one day playing loud music on the Capitol Square while two men were trying to have a business meeting on the patio at The Coopers Tavern across the street. The men asked him to turn his music down.

“I was like, ‘Why?’ and that led to a fun and positive conversation. They invited me to sit down with them and it was great,” says Musa. “They didn’t stop having their meeting but we kept talking. We exchanged numbers. We came to understand each other. It was positive.”

Musa admits things did not go as well on June 23, the day of his arrest. According to police and court records obtained by Isthmus, police started receiving complaints from downtown business owners around noon about a young man being loud and disruptive.

The court records reveal what preceded Musa entering Coopers, something that has not been previously reported: Musa was asking people at the top of State Street whether they supported the Black Lives Matter movement. According to the court documents, a diner at Coopers replied, “All Lives Matter.” A video, shot by a bystander and released by the Madison Police Department just hours after the incident, starts with Musa following the diner inside Coopers Tavern from the restaurant’s outdoor patio.

“You’re a racist. You’re a racist. Why are you a racist?” Musa is heard saying through a megaphone. Peter McElvanna, co-owner of The Coopers Tavern, is then seen calmly trying to deescalate the situation by standing in between Musa and the diner, who walks out of view towards the back of the restaurant.

“I wouldn’t be in here right now if this guy wasn’t a racist. But that’s the world we live in,” Musa continues through the megaphone. “So we are going to talk about this Jesus guy. Jesus was not a white man with blond hair, blue eyes and pink lips. His name was Horus. He was stolen and plagiarized from ancient Egypt.”

The two or so people inside the restaurant barely look up from their meals as Musa delivers an impromptu history lesson for another minute. Waitresses continue to bring out food to patio customers as Musa walks around with the megaphone.

“My name is Yeshua Musa,” he says in his parting comments. “And I’m fucking disturbing the shit out of this restaurant. And I got a fucking bat.” After pausing for a beat, his tone turns friendly. “Thanks guys.”

“I love your shirt,” Musa says to a man he passes while exiting the restaurant.

Outside, Madison police officers are moments away from confronting Musa. A short struggle ensues as officers slowly bring Musa to the ground. People witnessing the arrest start yelling at the officers and a small crowd forms.

“You cannot arrest him for using a megaphone…. Do the right thing. Do the right thing,” said a man heard but not seen in the video. “You better fucking explain yourself.”

Musa is also heard saying he “can’t breathe” and telling officers “to get off” his back. Four officers eventually lift Musa horizontally and carry him to a squad car.

Moments later, Musa escapes from the police vehicle and is quickly tackled by officers before being taken into custody.

With tensions still high after the death of George Floyd, videos of Musa’s arrest were used as a call to arms for Black Lives Matter activists. The arrest was perceived as a local example of police violence against a young Black man — persecuted for exercising his First Amendment rights. As videos spread online, some concluded that the police beat Musa into compliance and his arrest was a targeted effort against local Black protest leaders.

Musa calls that “an exaggeration.”

“I’m not gonna lie, it wasn’t violent. People perceived it that way and I was screaming and yelling a lot,” says Musa. “But it is what it is. I still don’t know why they left the door of the squad car open. My five-second escape added another charge and a trip to the hospital before [being booked in] the jail.”

Hundreds would soon converge around the Dane County Courthouse with demands to “Free Yeshua.” As the protest continued into the night, an expanding crowd contemplated what to do. A plan to march to the governor’s mansion was ditched after someone looked up the distance to Maple Bluff. Protesters would eventually topple statues of Forward and Col. Hans Christian Heg and break windows at the state Capitol and other nearby buildings. State Sen. Tim Carpenter (D-Madison) was attacked by some 10 protesters for taking a video on a public street.

Musa is hesitant to talk about his past. He sums up his childhood by saying “nothing was easy.” He’s also experienced some significant trauma, the details of which he would rather not reveal. He grew up in cities around the Midwest before moving to Madison in his early 20s. He had little in the way of a support network and ran into trouble while experiencing homelessness. At that point, he says, “I was not in a good place and desperate to get out of Madison.”

In the spring of 2016, two men from out of town were targeting homeless people with a tempting cell phone contract scam. Musa and a few acquaintances hatched a plan to double-cross the men.

“They were taking advantage of people,” says Musa. “That’s how I justified it to myself. But it isn’t a very good excuse.

Musa got caught robbing the robbers. Unbeknownst to him, one of his acquaintances allegedly brought a gun when confronting the scammers. The whole episode led to a felony theft conviction, a long stint at the Dane County Jail, and five years of probation. It was Musa’s only serious criminal conviction before the feds came knocking.

Musa thrived after being released from jail despite not having permanent housing. He landed several full-time jobs, received promotions, took business classes at Madison College, and eventually enrolled in a paid apprenticeship program. He landed a union carpenter job and things were going well for a while. But after filing a formal complaint about racial slurs being used on a job site, Musa was eventually fired for allegedly entering the cab of a crane. He believes it was retaliation for filing a complaint. The Department of Workforce Development found probable cause for his claim but Musa says he can’t discuss the details of any further action.

After losing the carpentry job, Musa took classes in masonry and applied for an electrician apprenticeship. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. His job prospects dried up as the world went into lockdown.

“It was not a good time. Felt like there was nothing to do but wait,” says Musa. “Then George Floyd was murdered.”

Musa’s arrest at Coopers was on tentative state charges of disorderly conduct while armed and resisting arrest. His attempted escape was charged as a felony. A charge of criminal damage to property would later be added for an earlier incident in June involving BLM graffiti to the Wisconsin Law Enforcement Memorial. His probation was revoked and he was awaiting trial in the Dane County Jail. Then the full weight of the federal justice department came down on him.

Scott Blader, the Trump-appointed U.S Attorney for the Western District of Wisconsin,  announced two federal extortion charges against Musa on June 26. Charged under the Hobbs Act, the decades-old statute has been used to prosecute criminal racketeering operations and public corruption. Musa faced a maximum sentence of more than 40 years in prison.

“At the time, it felt like I was the one being punished for tearing down those statues. Like I was going to take the heat for all that,” says Musa. “It’s not up to me to say what kind of protesting is good or bad. It’s not up to me to judge people. All I know is everyone knew where I was that night: locked up.”

What exactly did Musa try to obtain with alleged threats of violence against two downtown restaurants? As detailed by federal prosecutors, he sought a donation to his Venmo account for an unspecified amount of money that was never given, a free beer, and a burger that he gave to a homeless individual. The gains from his alleged extortion racket totaled less than $20.

The federal charges also didn’t stem from the much-publicized arrest outside of Coopers Tavern on June 23. They were connected to incidents the previous day at both Coopers and Mackesey’s Irish Pub on State Street. Blader alleged Musa had threatened to break the windows of Coopers Tavern unless given money and to bring 600 protesters to “destroy” Mackesey’s Irish Pub unless given a beer and a burger and fries.

“Those who attempt to take advantage of recent events to extort local businesses under the guise of community activism will be vigorously prosecuted,” Blader said. “All citizens have a right to feel safe within their communities. Extortion is not activism, it is a crime and it will not be tolerated.”

Federal prosecutors alleged that Peter McElvanna and Amy Marsman, the husband-and-wife team that owns Coopers, were victims of Musa’s extortion scheme. But they disagree. McElvanna even tried to post Musa’s bail after he was arrested.

“We advocated all along that federal charges were excessive and we didn’t want to be part of that. Those charges were ridiculous,” says Marsman. “We can’t have someone coming into the restaurant with a megaphone and a baseball bat. He was being a provocateur. But we considered the whole thing over as soon as [Musa] left the restaurant.”

But protesters laid into the couple nevertheless.

“There was backlash from people who blamed us. They didn’t have the whole story, just what they saw on the news and social media,” says Marsman. “The mood downtown was really hot and tense. But we’ve always worked behind the scenes to support our community, without a lot of fanfare. It’s part of being a responsible small business in a community.”

Joseph Bugni, Musa’s federal public defender, declined to be interviewed for this story. But he argued in court briefs that the alleged crime Musa committed at Mackesey’s — extortion resulting in a free beer and burger — was “blown completely out of proportion.”

He explained that Musa and the owners of the bar had a disagreement that played out over three days. Two other protesters, who still have state charges pending, also participated in escalating the confrontation.

It started June 21 when Musa and a friend, who had a dog, were told they couldn’t sit inside. The friend had brought his dog inside on a previous occasion and Musa took the refusal to be served as a slight. Bugni writes Musa believed he “had been singled out because of his race.”

The next day, Musa and a friend returned to the pub with a boombox blaring music. They had a heated but brief conversation with one of the owners and left. The cops were called and approached the men about the incident but nothing more came of it.

On June 23, Musa and two friends returned to Mackesey’s and again spoke with the owner. That conversation appears to have gone well, with Bugni writing, “All is mostly forgiven, or at least forgiven enough to be served.” Musa allegedly says during this conversation that he and his friend could have brought hundreds of protesters to the bar to “burn it down,” but didn’t. The bar owner ponies up a couple of free beers and a burger and fries order for the alleged inconvenience Musa and his friend had suffered.

Bugni allows that Musa may have “acted like a complete jerk,” but argues the federal charges are an overreaction.

“The owner doesn’t report this interaction to the police or immediately write down a description,” writes Bugni. “He simply goes on with his business. The interaction is, however, alleged to be an attempt at extortion.”

Bugni adds that local and federal law enforcement went “up and down State Street, trying to make a case against Johnson [Musa’s legal name]. They interview the business owners seeing who else Johnson may have extorted. Many had dealings with Johnson. One bar remembers him trying to get a free beer,” writes Bugni. “Others remember Johnson making inappropriate statements and disrupting business — a few had even called the police. But none of these businesses reported that Johnson tried to extort money from them.”

In the end, federal prosecutors got their conviction — settling for one count of extortion for the incident at Mackesey’s in exchange for a guilty plea. The other extortion charge was dropped. Musa says federal prosecutors offered a deal he couldn’t refuse. Instead of facing a maximum penalty of 40 years for his federal charges and possibly more time for the state crimes, Musa accepted a plea bargain of two years of probation with time served and with all his state charges dropped.

“We would have won if we took it to trial. I know we would have. Whatever I did or did not do, it wasn’t extortion. I was protesting even if it was disruptive,” says Musa. “I learned a lot about myself when I was in jail. I was happy people were out there screaming for my release. But when I heard [protesters] destroyed a lot of shit in my name, I didn’t know how to handle that. The government was trying to pin all that on me.”

On March 21, Musa sets up a folding table with his friend Duke on the Capitol Square across the street from Coopers. He has several chess boards on hand for people to start their own games and is accepting challenges from anyone who passes by.

“I’ve been doing this most weekends. I like playing chess against a lot of different people and this is a way to do it while building community,” says Musa. “I also think it’s a good way for people like me to be seen downtown as a positive presence.”

With time to reflect on what happened in June 2020, Musa has come to believe that protesting in the streets is only the first step to bringing real change to a community.

“Of course, the police can’t be killing people. That needs to be protested. But I started thinking about how people were buying supplies for protests from stores that have no connection to our community. We need to build our own wealth,” says Musa. “All that collective energy out in the streets needs to build something new. That’s what I would like to participate in and be a part of.”

He understands why protests in Madison turned destructive, but is skeptical that tearing down statues will help solve systemic injustices experienced by the Black community.

“Breaking windows and tearing shit up will definitely get people’s attention. That’s kind of the point, right?” says Musa. “But then you got to go back out there and tell people why you were so pissed off and help clean it all up.”

After being lionized by local activists, he also drew their wrath this spring, accused of betraying the movement and spreading hate speech on social media with his comments about transgender athletes.

“People were out there screaming, ‘Free Yeshua,’ breaking statues and windows in my name, now some of them hate me because of a disagreement on social media?” Musa asks. “That doesn’t make sense to me.”

Musa says he is ready to leave Madison; he is concerned his notoriety isn’t good for his family and he’d like a clean slate.

“I don’t have nothing to prove,” he says. “Just because I went to jail and y’all made me this icon, I don’t have to be what you want me to be. I am me.”