Rotten Mango - #145: He Was Shot Then He Fought To Save His Attacker’s Life (Terrorist Mark Stroman)

Episode Date: March 9, 2022

The public was split. Most wanted him dead. He didn’t deserve to live, he killed 2 people, and shot another in the face. Another group of people, a smaller group, fought to save his life. Activists, professors, and lawyers fought hard. They knew he was guilty but they fought. One man fought the hardest. He traveled the world campaigning for his release. The world was shocked. They asked him: are you sure you want him to be free? Are you out of your mind? Do you need psychiatric help? “But… but didn’t he shoot you in the face?” Book: “True American” - by Anand Giridharadas (this is one of the best books I’ve read all year… it’s incredibly emotional and I highly recommend it) Full Source Notes: rottenmangopodcast.com To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rambles. Whether you're doing a dance to your favorite artist in the office parking lot, or being guided into Warrior I in the break room before your shift, whether you're running on your Peloton tread at your mom's house while she watches the baby, or counting your breaths on the subway. Peloton is for all of us, wherever we are, whenever we need it, download the free Peloton app today. Peloton app available through free tier, or pay to description starting at $12.99 per month. Welcome to this week's main episode of Rod and Mango. I'm your host Stephanie Sue.

And let's talk about a well-known case. People were kind of divided. They were split. Most people wanted him dead. He didn't deserve to live. Texas made the right choice by sentencing him to death. That's what they should have done. Some people, a smaller group of people, they wanted to fight for his life. They wanted to fight for his right to live. Some activists, professors, lawyers, they all got involved.

They all knew that the killer behind bars had killed two people, attempted to kill another, and had thought about committing a massacre. But they wanted this guy to not be executed by the state. They fought for him. Now the one person that stood out in particular though, he fought the hardest for the release of the killer. He traveled the world trying to get this man out of prison, and people were confused, they were shocked, they were looking at him like, are you sure you want this guy to be free? You know he killed two people, right? Are you sure you don't want him to die? I mean are you out of your mind, do you need a psych evaluation?

It just doesn't make sense to us. How could you? After he shot you in the face. He's the victim? Yes. Once. Yes. Killer to be free? Yes. Wow. As always, full source notes are available at ronmangopodcast.com. And I just want to do a little, little update. I'm sorry, and I apologize for not having a mini-showdub. If you guys watch our YouTube channel,

there's going to be a video on it. There was a huge family emergency. We're all good. It was very exciting, but we're back now. So anyways, back to the show notes. There is a book on this case that I, I mean, it's probably one of the most emotional books that I've read in a really long time. It's called The True American by A'Nad Girahadas. Now, there's a ton of great resources online about this whole case. There's interviews with the author, interviews with the victim, Ted Ted talks with the victim. With this book is probably

the best deep dive that you will have on this case, and it just adds this layer of perspective that I couldn't find anywhere else. It is incredibly emotional though, so I warn you, you're gonna feel a lot of things. Get your tissues ready. Now the author went through record after record testimonies, he taped interviews, he watched hours and hours of taped interviews, he had video footage and text from other interviews, he had personal correspondence with those involved, he went through court transcripts, legal documents to put this case together and trust me, you can feel that passion, you can feel the hard work, it's a lot. So please go pick up a copy of this book and go watch the TED Talks that I've listed

in the show notes. Wow. Now let's get into the main story. It's about a guy by the name, what's about multiple people, but it's about a guy by the name of Rasuten Buiyan. Now he goes by the nickname Rice. He was born in Bangladesh and in a very impoverished area. Like this is the type of area that couldn't take electricity for granted.

It's said that the smallest of winds would have devastated the entire town. The power would cut out randomly, factories would straight up implode, sometimes buses would accidentally drive off the mountainside because it was so dark. So it wasn't great. But this is where rice grew up and because his dad was an engineer, his big family grew up in the upper middle class. But it is a big family, Rice was the youngest of 8 kids and he looked up to his dad. He thought because of my dad's hard work, we live in this nice house on a quiet street

away from all the pollution in the city. I mean, my dad is an inspiration. Rice wanted to become an engineer, He wanted to make his parents proud. He starts volunteering. So at a young age, Rice is really active in his community. Everyone said that he's just someone who's really selfless. This guy is just a nice person. Rice's dad, led by example, so he had set up a primary school.

He ran the neighborhood trust. He kept the streets clean. He made sure the drains were cleared. He even got involved in politics at one point. And Rice's mom on the other hand was also a very loving person. She was incredibly religious and she would spend her entire day cooking, cleaning, playing with the kids. I mean, she was so devoted to her family. Rice respected both of his parents, but sometimes he idolized his mom. His biggest price for her was, and I quote, If you looked at our eight children, you would never be able to tell which three were biologically hers.

So to give you some context, Rice's dad was married once before, but his wife died really early on. And even when he remarried, even though it wasn't typically accepted at the time, Rice's mom did not care that he already had three kids. In fact, she didn't even hesitate to accept them as her own. So the whole family, they're devoted to Islam, which by the way, they don't really show this side of Islam in the news. Wonder why? And typically Islam is associated with terrorism, and media, and shows, and fictional TV shows, movies, and the news. But the truth is, it's actually

the polar opposite. So in reality, Islam is about compassion, solidarity, and community. So it's expected of those that are practicing Islam to be kind and generous. That's why rice grew up and any time that the family could, rice's family would go by all the groceries that they could find at the time, spend the whole day cooking up traditional foods in the front yard. I mean, I'm talking enough to feed dozens and dozens of people. They would open up their front gates and a line would form around the block of hungry people who didn't have food.

They would feed them. They would even let them take home for their loved ones. So they also practice extended fasting, which from my very small amount of knowledge has to do with, you know, when you're fasting, you learn to be grateful. Because you know, maybe you take food and water for granted. But when you fast, I mean, even these tiniest little things, you're gonna be like, wow, I have not been grateful for this, like just a sip of water. But it's also to feel how those less fortunate feel on a daily basis. And it kind of inspires you to be more compassionate, right? So rice

was a faster. In essence, long story short, Islam is a very altruistic religion. I mean, of course, there's fanatics, right? Like any other community. I mean, there's so many cults around the world that have killed tortured kidnapped people that are fanatics and, you know, they branch off from all different sorts of religions, and we're always quick to say, well, that's not what Christianity is about. They're just a couple bad apples. So let's keep that same energy for our Muslim friends.

Thank you. Anyway, back to the story. So this is how rice grew up. And he was always a bit of a dreamer. He wanted to be someone, to become someone, to make his family proud. So one of his older brothers, another hero of his, like an inspiration, was trying to study

and get into a prestigious military boarding school in the area. Now, this is called the Kadek College. They saw thousands of applications a year, but only a tiny tiny tiny fraction got in. You had to pass a written oral medical test. It was intense. So, Rice's brother applies, and he failed. It was a huge disappointment for everyone. Rice's mom was distraught. She started crying, my oldest son, who is such a good student. If he couldn't make it, what hope is there for this family?

I mean, I don't see how any of us could ever do it. And Rice being the little ambitious, diligent, seven-year-olds kid, he looked up at his mom and he said, Mom, don't give up, I can do it. And at that moment, in that split second, he made a vow that he was gonna make his family proud. He was gonna overcome any obstacle, climb a freaking mountain if he had to. I mean it was gonna happen. Which

by the way, this is a tiny little fourth grader thinking of these things. Kering this heavy burden. So Rice, he starts studying 16 hours a day in the heat. He had two fans on to cool him down, but trust me when he would get anxious or a question was puzzling him, the sweat would just start dripping down. He started going to coaching classes. He read every textbook he could find on aspiring cadets. And then he took the exam and he got it. He went to his mom and he said, Mom, good news. I told you to never give up, right? Something my brother couldn't do.

Doesn't mean no one could do it. You shouldn't give up. You should try. I tried and God helped me. This mom burst into tears and she said, I'm so happy. I'm so happy because you're happy. And then she said, but I'm gonna lose you. So at 12 years old, rice went to join the cadet college and he was home sick immediately. Like this, he's gonna be there for six years without his family. Training under harsh conditions. They started 12. 12. Wow. Yeah.

That's a college? Yeah, essentially. So the cadets school's main goal was to harden the boys. So that should tell you what kind of energy that this camp is gonna have. You have to wake up at 6 a.m. every single morning, and then immediately you have to run or do some other sort of military parade

The younger boys would then have to march to class. I'm talking like mountain climber marching not like oh I'm just stomping on beat. I'm talking knees parallel to the do you know what I mean like it's it's a march The seniors would inspect the younger boys dorms and they would make sure that the beds were made Perfectly that their shoes lined up heel-to- heel. And if you failed to tuck your sheets tightly or if one shoe, one freaking shoe was a little bit crooked, you would be punished. Most of the time, it was push-ups until you drop, or a frog jumps while holding your ankles.

Sometimes they make you run laps until you literally pass out from exhaustion. If you talked out of line-in class, you would either get tugged behind your ear or a full slap on the butt in front of everyone After class ended you had two hours for homework and then dinner, which by the way you had to walk in formation too You only left campus on Thursdays, and that's because they made you run three miles up the airport road and back That's the only time you could leave

Guards would stand along the trial watching you. Now, Rice would almost always be the first boy in the race to make it to the finish line. But that's when he learned a very valuable lesson. So each student is placed in a house. It's like Hogwarts. But not fun and magical. Just like more sweaty.

So Hogwarts and the whole house had to race to get to the finish line to earn points. So as, I mean, it's everybody for themselves, but the whole house had to race to get to the finish line to earn points. So, as, I mean, it's everybody for themselves, but the whole house included. You could be first in line, but if the rest of your house is the last, your house is going to get the least amount of points. So, rice realized that finishing first wasn't great for his house. Sure, his, his friends would be like, yeah, so we got the first one, he's in our house,

but his team would never be the victory team. So he realized if he ran slower, he could keep motivating his team. He could keep egging them on. Like, come on guys, we can do it. Like he was a motivator. That's a leader. Yeah.

That's someone with some specific qualities. Exactly. And the lesson he took from this was, sometimes it's good to give up personal triumph for collective victory. It was one of the biggest lessons he learned as a young kid. And another important lesson he learned was one time a teacher sprang to him in class. The teacher was like, you were making noises.

He's like, it's not me. I'm, I'm, no, I'm going to fight for my justice. It wasn't me. Why would it be me? I did not make any noise. I'm not a troublemaker. And the teacher told him. It's like a house fire, rice.

In life, you're going to get burned for a sin that's not your own simply because of where you're standing. He's nodding. Yeah, I know. No, but because I was taught these lessons too. Really? I was never really taught this. Yeah. What are we? The land of snitches over here in America? I was like, excuse me, that's not me. So rice later said that military school taught him a lot of things. Discipline, team building, leadership, patience, and after six long hard years, he graduated. He was thrown into the real world. His dream was to become an airplane pilot. Ever since the first time he had been to an airport, he was obsessed.

He used to watch airplanes fly by as a kid. Especially when his dad went on business trips. You try to see which one was carrying his father. Which one had his dad in the sky? So rice's dream was to go to the Bangladesh Air Force Academy. And his plan was, okay, I'm gonna graduate the Air Force Academy, and then I'm gonna fulfill my other dream. I want to immigrate to the land of freedom, the land of opportunities, the land of dreams. Yes, none other than Antarctica.

Because it might be the only place that that's possible. No, I'm kidding. He wanted to immigrate to the United States of America. He believed he could further his education in the US. And it was just this shiny idea, a shiny concept, and the story eyes of a kid who had never been outside his own country, rice gets so excited, passionate, whenever he thought about America, like he grew up watching American TV shows, he said, and he thought this about America, and I quote, Without any problems, that was the image. It's the land of opportunity. Whoever goes there, you can be whatever you want. The tools are there. You use the tools and it's up to you.

Not like Bangladesh where there's limited opportunity and there's millions of people fighting for a small, tiny opportunity. But he felt like in order to get to America, because immigration laws vis-a-s, they're really hard to get. He had to do something a little bit better with his life. So that's why he makes it into the Air Force in Bangladesh. And it was really hard. You have to have good health, good vision.

You have to be highly talented. You need a very high IQ to get into the Air Force. You have to go to the Air Force Academy even to get in. And Rice had to study day and night for three months to pass the exams. And it paid off. He made it into the training program, which is usually three months long. But within two months, he fractured his wrist.

He didn't tell anyone. He didn't want to give anyone a reason to boot him, so he kept pushing harder, harder. And finally, he went and saw a doctor two weeks before the camp was over and they screamed at him. Your hand is never going to be okay. You took such a long time to come back. I mean, the fracture has spread so much, it's very unlikely that you'll ever get it back to the way that it was before.

What were you thinking? You risked your entire military career and your entire life because you're so stubborn. But Rice kept trying. He wore a cast for three months, suspended his training and his wrist went back to normal and he was formally enrolled in the Air Force Academy He spent the first two and a half years studying aerodynamics Which is like the study of the motion of air particularly when affected by a solid object such as an airplane wing Navigation meteorology. He started flying dozens and dozens of hours

He received his commission as a pilot officer, but he still could not stop thinking about freaking America. I mean, what would it like to be there to study there? Maybe it had to do with the fact that a plane crashed recently and it killed one of his teachers and another cadet. He missed his sister's wedding, his brother's wedding, he missed everything. So the Air Force in Bangladesh is, okay, don't get me wrong, the Air Force here is fantastic. One of the best of the best, right? Yeah, amazing. I have so much respect, but the Air Force in Bangladesh is a lot more strict.

I believe in terms of like, you are not allowed to have any semblance of a personal life. Like you can't even take a furlough to go see your baby that was born like a month ago. So he missed everything. He missed his sister, brother's wedding. Like he was missing all of these big life events and he's thinking, is this what my life is going to be like forever? So at 22 years old, rice left the Air Force. Which is honestly a very shameful thing to do at the time.

You went from the height of serving the country to do what? What could you possibly want wanna leave that for? Not only are you risking your family's reputation, but you're trying to be so selfish. What's more, selfless, and serving this great country? So Rice goes home and he starts thinking about, how do I get into the US?

How do I get into the US? Well, what about programming? I feel like that's a good way to get a visa. So he figured having this type of specialized knowledge would get him into America faster and quicker. So he found out that his next door neighbor knew a lot more about programming than him. They had known each other since childhood and they start bonding over their mutual love for programming and they even exchanged programming books. So during one of these late night programming sessions her name is Abida and she hesitated

and she blurred it out she blurted out. You know I used to have a crush on you when I was a kid, but then you left for the academy and I never really had a chance to tell you that. And Rice was taken aback. First of all, he didn't know this. Of course he didn't. And secondly, I mean, it's really uncommon for women to be so straightforward in this time and culture, which by the way, I love Abida. She's not only teaching a man how to use computer, but she's also asking him out. I mean, she's like, yes, teach that bitch and then make him your bitch.

Like, that's goals right there. So Rice nervously asks her, do you still have feelings or is it gone? And with that, they started dating. They would hang out at ice cream shops, going to waterfront places, and just learning about programming together. After about a year of this,

Rice was really worried. The only thing that he cared more about in the world was his mom's approval, and he was scared that his mom wouldn't approve of a beta. He said, My mom is on one side of the scale, and the whole world, the entire world, is on the other side.

But to me, my mother's side is still heavier. Luckily, Rice's mom loved Bita. And with that, they had dreams of getting married. But Rice had to accomplish something else first. He still wanted to go to America. So, morning after morning, rice would wait in the visa line outside the American Embassy. Sometimes you'd wait three to four hours a morning

and they would just come out and say, all right, we're done for the day. The rest of you can just fork off. Sometimes you would make it into the Embassy and they would scoff at him. So essentially what he was trying to do was get a visa to study in America. Now they want to prove America and they still do this. They want to prove that you have ties back home. They want you to come to America and study, but then get the fork out when you're done. Now, are you really gonna get the fork out when you're done? Probably not, so they need to have reasons.

Do you have family back home? Do you have businesses back home? Is there something that's tying you to your home country so you don't try to stay in America? So they would scoff at him and they'd say, a young, unmarried, but Bangladesh-y, you're gonna go to America to study. And we America have to believe

that you're gonna come back to Bangladesh after you're done studying? Yeah, right. Rejected, visa rejected. And it was rejected over and over and over again, which by the way, there's like one person working that embassy that's approving the visas. So, you know, it's the same person.

Yeah, it's like, you're here again, rejected. I'm not even going to ask you questions, reject it. Meanwhile, rice went hard to work, writing emails to US State Department officials. You would get very generic replies being like, come on, keep trying. We love you. So weird. They're just very generic. And on his eighth try of trying to get a visa.

This is like, he would go every morning, but this was only the eighth time he was allowed into the embassy. Only the eighth time. Yeah. Which I mean, it's not a lot if he went every single morning, but they're like a year straight. Okay. You know, that's, that's not a lot of times he's actually entered into the building. They had hired a new interviewer.

And that interviewer was a little bit younger, was so impressed by Rice's military background. His TOEFL exam results, the test of English as a foreign language, were out of this world. So they asked him, what's your dream? To study aviation so I can return to being LaDesh and fly for an airline. And that is the correct answer. And they said, all right, well, good luck on your dream. visa approved. Wow. Yes. So rice left the embassy trembling. The first thing that he

did when he got back home was ask for the prayer rug in the house and he dropped to the floor and he gave God thanks. I mean this was wonderful to everyone, but Abida. She tried to be happy and she smiled, she said, you did it, you did it. But she knew that it meant that he was leaving her. And he tried to reassure her, you know me. I'm not just gonna go there and forget about you. I'm gonna come back for you after I'm done studying. I'm gonna convince your mom to let you marry me. We're gonna be huge wedding. Maybe on New Year's Eve, just the way we talked about. We're gonna have lots of food to give to the poor. Remember we said that we wouldn't be accepting any gifts. We'll start our own family and we can go to America together. And with that, Rice arrived in New York City,

an unforgiving city, the city of dreams and then crushing those fucking dreams. At just 25 years old, he rented a tiny, tiny, cramped apartment in Queens. He lived with three other men from Bangladesh, that they were strangers. The location was horrible. It was under a flight path into La Guadilla airport. So this guy's getting no sleep. He said it was like an earthquake every single night. He's living under the airport?

Essentially right under the flight path. So when the plane is low enough, they're passing over his apartment and then landing in La Guardia. And he's like, I, it was like one of those movies, really. And then he would wake up, he would call Abida every time he had to cook anything. Because this guy had no idea what he was doing.

The other guys would tease him. Are you calling your cooking support? Like your IT support, but is she your cooking support? She would even instruct him over the phone, and I'm including this because I need to try this. You need to hold the knife over the flames of the stove before you cut the onions. If your knife is blazing hot, you won't cry.

And then Rice would rush out to his many part-time jobs. He was working hard to make ends meet. I mean, he had a roommate that worked at a gas station. Rice was working the graveyard shifts there. He would take daytime classes, study during the day, and then at night he would stand behind that broly proof glass and go to work. I mean, it wasn't a great area, but that didn't bother him.

It didn't even bother him that he was only getting two to three hours of sleep at night. He also added job as a bus boy at a French restaurant, and now, before Rice could formally enroll in his aviation classes, a friend of his convinced him to switch to IT. He said, I know you love computers and I know you love coding, and technology is turning so many professions obsolete. Like, why would you train to fly a plane when soon computers will be flying planes? So in the end, after much contemplation, he decided officially to go with IT. So he enrolled in this full-time course at PACE University in Lower Manhattan,

but the problem was that he was at a very specific visa. And in order to be a full-time student, he would need an F1 visa. Now, the only way to get that and change the visas, you would have to leave the country and come back. America was like, I don't care where you go, you could literally go to Canada, but you gotta go. And then when you get approved for the next visa, you gotta come back into the country with that visa. It's very complex.

So he was like, okay, but then Canada was like, no, you need a visa to get in here. So he's where the fork can I go? So he goes back home hoping to marry Abida. Okay, this is the time that maybe this is a sign I go there. I marry Abida, I try to get her in as a dependent on the visa, but her mom refused. But their relationship was really cute and I think everyone just kind of had the hopes that his F1 visa would get denied.

So this is another visa lottery system, like a visa system where he would have to get approved and you know, they just kind of, they had the thing and the thought in the back of the mind, oh, well, maybe he's not leaving again. And Rice did not get the F1 visa. But he did win the diversity visa. Okay, this is crazy. The diversity visa is essentially,

you probably have a bigger chance of winning the Powerball lottery. The diversity of these that admits immigrants from places that send relatively few people to America. And the chances are so low. About 50,000 winners out of several million applicants. I mean, the chance of making it is less than 1%. America is essentially like, we just want more diversity posters in our colleges, so

let's just admit like a couple people from all the countries every year. For no reason. So rice wins this against all odds and the diversity visa allowed him to bring us spouse to join him in America. He could work in the US, he could study in the US indefinitely for as long as he wanted. There was really no limitations. So his new plan was to get a degree, Maryabita, bring her to New York. And this is gonna be amazing.

But when he got to New York, a former cadet from the academy called him and said, hey, I heard you're in the US too, I made it too. But I live in Dallas. If you wanna move to Dallas, Texas, I could get you a job here. So Rice visits him and he's like, wow, your bathroom is the size of my apartment. This is amazing!

I mean, the rent is so much cheaper. You guys have lower taxes here. This is in the grand scheme of things. If I'm going to stay in the US forever or indefinitely and bring a beta here, I should live here or not in New York, a beta would hate New York. So his friend Salem said, oh yeah, and me and my brother were opening up a gas station. We would love for you to work there. I mean, if you do well, maybe you can even save up and join us in our next venture and

you can own a piece of a gas station before long, it's not a glamorous job, listen. You're going to be literally working the counter, but it'll cover the bills, it'll cover tuition for your IT program. So Rice moved to Dallas in the early summer of 2001. Rice was 27 years old at this point and he realized just how much work he had gotten himself into. First of all, the place that Salem bought was in horrible shape. It took like a full month just to clean the place of all the trash and scrub every surface,

but Rice never complained. After a month later, the shop station opened and Rice fell into a routine. At 5 a.m., he would wake up, get dressed, and he would say to himself in the mirror, I'm working behind a counter right now. But in a few years, I'll be climbing that corporate ladder. Why would you break into these apartments? For money, for drugs, whatever was in there. Why aren't you afraid of getting caught at doing this?

No. Who's going to catch us? What a police! It was the height of the crack era, and instead of locking up drug dealers, some New York City cops had become them. I would suit up in my uniform and we're going to want some drug dealers

and I know how to do it really well. This is the inside story of the biggest police corruption scandal in NYPD history and the investigation that uncovered it all. Did you consider yourself a rat? 100% I save my soul just like everybody else does. Listen to and follow the set, an Odyssey originals documentary podcast series available now in the Odyssey app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your shows.

I'm not a big guy man, but I love being that dirty mother f***er. And Rice was shocked. He said this was kind of a wake up call. He had always thought of America in a very specific way and a very glamorized romanticized way, but the minute that he started working, he realized that there was no sense of community in America. There was no family values that were super strong. It felt like every man for themselves. He saw kids disobeying their parents cursing at their own parents, being disrespectful to strangers to elders.

He learned that the word God had no weight here as it did back home. And he was shocked at how much crime there was. He witnessed adults stealing their way into free gas. He saw kids stealing candy and gum. And then one day he saw two men hovering with each other. Over an item and he approached them and they ran out of the store. He looked down. They had opened up a condom box and stolen some condoms.

So he runs out after them, like, hey, you have to pay for those. Where the guy turns around and flashes something shiny back off. I will as soon as you pay, you know, things cost money and my boss is going to be mad at me. And he flash the gun once more and said, back off. And rice realized that his life was worth more than two condoms. And he backed off and he Okay, okay, you don't have to pay Another time Rice was checking out a man for a soda and he looked up to see a gun pointed at him

Give me the money. So this is back then when gas stations acted like pawn shops So they would buy things off of you and he thought that he was trying to sell the gun I mean this is 2 p.mPM in broad daylight in his head. Robbery's were in movies, not the great country of America. This only happened in developing countries, right? This is America, the greatest country of them all. And it's 2PM. Robbery's are strictly a nighttime festivity, no?

I said, give me the money. Okay, sir, yes, I know, but how much do you want for it? And all of a sudden, the thief cocked the gun, pressed it up to rice his forehead, and he realized, oh, shit, he's not trying to sell that gun, he's trying to kill me. Okay, okay, don't shoot! Here's the money.

That was his first robbery. Then, four months into his text in life, one of the most devastating events in American history took place. September 11th, 2001. He learned that the very jetliners that he had once dreamed of flying had flown into the Twin Towers. This incident would impact every single American's life, in varying degrees, of course, thousands of people lost their lives, more people lost their loved ones, and everybody lost their faith

in humanity for quite some time. But how would this drastically change the life of rice? I mean, he's an immigrant trying to get by in Dallas, Texas thousands of miles from the World Trade Center. He didn't even directly know anyone impacted by the attacks. But his life changed. He overheard customers venting their anger at all people who looked similar to him They would say things like these damn foreigners are taking over our country are good American countries being overrun by them Kill all the Muslims in the Middle East This is what people were saying Every American had their own opinion about the terrorists and rice had one too

He thought that the terrorists who you know, they were people who practiced Islam, they claimed to be Muslim, they chanted Allah, but the religion that rice knew, the real Islam would automatically disqualify these people. They were not real Muslims. And then six days later, rice read the paper, and he started to feel this fear creep into his daily life. He read an article about a Pakistani immigrant who had been shot in Dallas. He was working at a shop and it was reported that the police found no motive, no robbery, no suspects, no witnesses, but everyone had a pretty good idea why someone would do this.

According to the papers, his name is Hassan. He was a Muslim man and he tried to pray at least five times a day. He wasn't someone that liked to impose his views or faith on others. He never liked to talk about God or politics or religion with anyone. Back in Pakistan, he was a very successful businessman. His family had a house with more rooms that he knew what to do with. They had gardeners maids, they were very wealthy and because of that they were being targeted. At one point his dad was kidnapped for ransom of around $100,000. They felt like it was time to finally leave. Hassan was in a very interesting situation where he came to America not necessarily to make it,

but to be safe. So he starts working at a mini-mark called Mom's Grocery and eventually he bought it. He worked that store himself. He had a very small team with few employees. Sometimes he would put in more than 24 hour days. Now, his plan since Hassan was the first in America, his plan was to get his whole family there later.

And his family found out that not only was Hassan shot to death, but now, since he was their green card sponsor, the rest of the family was not welcome into the US. But thankfully, at the time, there was still some good people in power. A congressman had found out about this and vowed to do everything in his power to help the family. So since the visa system is honestly so sh-

there's nothing that he could do even as a congressman. So February 13th, 2003, he introduced his private bill. A private bill is something that doesn't happen often. It's essentially a law that's passed, that's private, and usually only applies to one person or a group of people. Really? It's very uncommon to get these passed,

because you have to get them passed by the house, the senate, literally everyone. So it's very uncommon. He proposed this, and because there was so much space for corruption, he was worried. It wasn't gonna pass. But after 15 months, the bill passed through the Judiciary Committee.

It took another two months to pass the House, another four for the Senate. And finally, October 30th, 2004, President George W. Bush signed into law that this family could make it into the US. And gave them a chance at life. Now, after reading about this senseless murder, Rice was very distraught. He had nightmares that this was gonna happen to him. I mean, he worked at a gas station. He was so worried he talked to Salem about changes they could make.

Like, hey, why don't we just not use a fake CCTV to deter, you know, burglars? Why don't we use a real camera? Why don't we have two employees inside the store at all times? Why do we work solo shifts? But every time Salem would say that's a lot of money. I'm interested in change, but not if it costs money. He would try to comfort Rice. You know, it's just a dream, you know.

Think about it. Of course, Americans are mad. Their home has been attacked, but their anger will subside though. Until then, we keep our heads down. Tell you what, if it makes you feel any better, I'll take you off the night shift. You'll be working mornings. Rice wasn't feeling great, but he agreed. He was scared, he wanted to quit, but he felt loyalty to his friend and he needed the money. September 21st, he was a normal Friday. Originally, Rice was supposed to work until noon, but the person who was coming to relieve him of his shift had actually quit a few days ago.

So now he's stuck there all day long. Great. So much for morning only deals. The first customer was the barber next door who gave rice a friendly warning. He said, Hey, rice, I don't know if I should be the one to tell you this, but I heard some customers saying some very wild racist things. Like you be careful, man, it's getting wild out there. A few minutes after the barber left, another man walked it, and he made rice's skin crawl. He had tattoos everywhere, he was wearing a red bandana, a black baseball cap, and sunglasses that pretty much concealed his entire face. It looked like he didn't want to be seen. And he was holding onto something, but it looked like he was trying to keep it concealed.

And then it happened. It clicked in rice's head. He was getting robbed. Fork, not again. So this man walks up to the counter, raises the gun, points it at rice's head. Now, maybe it was his military training, but he stayed calm. Rice, he knew the drill. I opened the cash register, give him the cash, and just stay safe. That's it. So he opens the cash register and takes out $150, which is not everything in there. He places it on the counter and he gives his usual speech. Please just take the money.

Please don't hurt me. But the other guy asked him, where are you from? Excuse me? And rice froze. He felt a chill go down his spine because you realize that maybe this isn't a regular robbery. He tried to step back and, you know, remain calm and turn around and then boom! He said it felt like stinging, like a million bees were stinging his face at the same time.

And then there was this explosive noise. He couldn't even process the situation he was in shock. Did I just get shot? Maybe I'm hallucinating. But then he saw blood, his blood, literally pouring out of his own head, and he screamed mom. But nobody was there. He tried to cup his hands around his head And he said I thought my brain was gonna come out of my skull at any moment

But it didn't make sense though. Why would I be shot? None of this makes sense and on top of that He should be dead like this guy has military experience. It doesn't make sense that he's not dead Then rice realized that his killer is still standing there staring at him So he knew if I don't pretend to die, he's going to shoot again. So he lunged himself onto the floor and he laid there in a pool of his own blood. And all he could think about was his family, about Abida. He saw them and he said that they were staring at him. They were trapped behind this glass wall.

They couldn't even help him. He prayed that his mom wouldn't be so sad. He prayed and said, if you give me my life back today, I will dedicate my life for others, especially the poor, the deprived, the needy. I will, I promise, but please just give me the chance. There are a lot of people that love me and it'll be too hard for them to get this message,

to hear that I'm gone. Even for the sake of them, for the sake of my mother, please give me a chance at survival. And then Rice heard the door close. And he realized he was alone. So he thought about calling 911, but instead, he had heard the door to the barbershop open and he wanted to make sure nobody died there.

So he left the gas station and decided to go in there. He begged the barber to please call 911 once he realized the killer was not there. He heard customers screaming, and he looked into the mirror and he said his face was perforated and what felt like a hundred places and oozing from every hole with blood. His right eye was shut and caked with blood. He said I saw all those scenes in horror movies but in the mirror, just bleeding all over my face.

My shirt was covered in blood. So the barber called 911 and he said, I don't know how many minutes, I don't know how long it took for the ambulance to come. But in the meantime, I was thinking, should I just sit down on the floor? Should I lie down? But if I lie down or I sit down, that means I'm giving up and maybe I'll die.

So instead of sitting tight, I should keep myself positive and energetic. So rice, after being shot in the face, ran around the parking lot back and forth because he needed to stay awake. He felt like he was in a craze like, which way is the ambulance coming? Oh my god, what if the ambulance was coming from that way? Then he would run to that side of the parking lot, then to the other. Where's the ambulance?

Oh, where is it? Where's the ambulance? And after minutes, it finally arrived and Rice was just standing outside the shop. He even remembers the medics working on him and he felt the strongest wave of the most powerful feeling ever. Close your eyes. And sleep. And he kept begging the paramedics, please, just can you go faster? I just need to sleep and I know I can't.

I need to fight this urge just to hurry, please, go faster. He knew if he slept, he would die. So he kept his eyes open as long as possible. And then he lost consciousness. The next part is insane. He survived. He woke up the next morning in the hospital room, and he was so happy to be alive that all he could think about, he started crying, his right eye refused to cooperate, though

it wouldn't even open. A nurse handed him a mirror so he could see, and he saw stitches all over his face. The right side of his face was swollen and dotted with little blood-colored polka dots. There were over a three dozen or so burning pellets that flew into his mouth, his cheek, nose, ear and forehead. So this is one of those bullets, so every bullet is a little bit different. This one is the one that when it makes impact, it kind of just shatters. It like mushrooms out.

So there's over three dozen bullet fragments in his head. His whole face was a giant bruise, it looked like someone had punched him full force in the face 100 times. All the dots, all the gunshots, all they could say was, I like terrible, but I'm so happy to be alive. I mean, yet seeing my face was shocking for sure, and I had to think, I had to wonder, will I look like this for the rest of my life? What will a bee to think about it?

Will she still love me? And the nurse has told him, it looks bad, but you're alive! The palettes didn't even enter your brain. I mean, they were just millimeters away, like a tenth of an inch from entering your brain. So you're lucky. So, rice stopped pitting himself, and he kept trying to think, why should I complain? I got my life, so let's not worry about that.

And in that moment, he said he just felt overpowering gratitude. Just happiness about how beautiful and how precious life was. He said, I can talk to my family again. My mom, my dad, a beta. I mean, this is the greatest blessing. He said, and I quote, this is the moment I think about every single day. And it helps me keep check and balance. Why should I complain? Why should I think about the small things? Why should I do something bigger and better? Not only for myself, but for others as well, because I enjoy life. If I control life, if I feel how life is important,

then I should spread that message to others, to people who don't think the same way. Those who want to spoil their life with drugs and this and that, to tell them how beautiful it is, just to be alive. So later that day, Rice was discharged from the hospital. You're like, wow, the injuries went that bad. No. Rice also thought, oh, that's a good thing, right?

I mean, why would the hospital let him go unless they were? He was ready for the world, right? That makes sense. But why was his jaw not moving? Why couldn't he talk? Why was his right eye still closed shut? Why was the whole right side of his face throbbing in pain? He told everyone this and they just said, well, you're going to be fine. Just make sure you come back for some outpatient treatment. And, oh, yeah, here's a good doctor you can see for your eye. Turns out, the hospital released him prematurely because he had no money and he had no health insurance. They were not going to get paid for taking care of him,

so they released him. Yes, they decided that they should just release him a day after he was shot in the face. Because you know, the great country of freedom and opportunities. Listen, I love America, but like some things are really messed shot in the face. Because you know, the great country of freedom and opportunities. Listen, I love America, but like some things are really messed up in the healthcare system is definitely one of them.

So he does go see an eye specialist. And his name is Dr. Rand Spencer. Dr. Spencer happened to be a fellow pilot. He was probably one of the best eye surgeons in Dallas, which is great, but not really because he wasn't cheap. The first consultation alone just to take a look at his eye was going to be $500. And Dr. Spencer realized that rice's eye was filled with blood. The lens had been pierced by pellets and a cataract was forming, so yeah, there were a lot

of problems. But the good news is that the eye could still perceive light. Now this is a very, very, very small but good news. Typically if your eye can't even perceive light, there's no hope in saving the eye. So the first day of surgery, rice saw on the news that another mini-marked clerk had been shot. First it was his son, then it was him, and then now an Indian immigrant by the name of Vasudev Patel. Vasudev had woken up October 4, 2001 like any other day. He had left his wife and kids at home and he went to go work at Shell, the gas station.

He was alone on that shift in around 6.45 a.m., a car pulled up, a man walked in with the revolver and said, give me the money. Patel tried to reach for his own gun, but the man already filed a bullet. The bullet tore through Patel's collarbone and broke it, it shattered four of his ribs, it penetrated his left long and he fell onto the floor. So the killer keeps trying to open the register, but you know he couldn't find the key. So he threatens to shoot Patel again and he's like I'm gonna shoot you again unless you

open it. Patel could not move. So the killer tried to open it and again and again and he failed and then he looked up and he said get up and open it or I'll blow your brains out. But then he realized that he was there for too long and the shooter glanced out the window and made a run for it. He scurried away. The first and the last victim died on the spot and Rice was the sole survivor.

The last victim who was shot though, unlike the first two, this shell station where he worked had a real functioning security cameras. So Rice saw the footage played on TV and he recognized it to be the same person that tried to kill him. No way. The man was arrested the very next day after Patel shooting. Inside of his car, the police found a semi-automatic rifle with 150 matching cartridges, three other guns, a bulletproof vest, a pill bottle of cocaine, a bottle of anti-depressants, a muscle relaxance, they also found marijuana rolling paper and a hat that said, show me your tits.

The police suspected that he was planning something big, that he was potentially planning to attack the Dallas area mosque, as some sort of 9-11 counter strike. He would later say, yeah, I thought about it, I thought in my mind if I walked into that mosque and quote, leveled about 100 people or so. That would have made a statement. The fact that he said, leveled? I don't know, that sent a chill down my spine. So we're gonna get into all of it, but first, rice's recovery.

Rice went into his first surgery, and Dr. Spencer pulled back his right eyelid, and his entire eye, there was just pellets all over it. And Dr. Spencer was the only doctor cutting rice and slack. He really sympathized with rice, and you know, the other doctors, they were not so forgiving. They kept hounding him with bills, but he had no money. What was he supposed to do? And on top of that, it didn't seem like anyone at all was cutting him slack.

He was Muslim in Texas, who refused to pay his bills at a Christian hospital. Things were not looking good with everything going on on the news. This luck, he was Muslim in Texas who refused to pay his bills at a Christian hospital. Things were not looking good with everything going on. On the news. And that's just the surface. I mean, imagine the trauma that Rice had. Sure, the guy is arrested, but what if this was an organized attack? What if there's other people out there that think the same way that we're going to do the

same thing? What if? He also found out that the guy who shot him, his name was Mark Strowman. The new study at tattoos that referenced the KKK, the Nazis. What if he had some KKK friends? What if they came to finish the job? He's the only survivor, the only one that could testify against Mark. What if they went for other people?

Any other poor Muslim minding their own business? What if this was just the start for them? So rice started having these intense night Marys, he had debilitating flashbacks, I would come at random hours of the day. He was depressed, he had PTSD, he knew he needed professional help, but he was already in debt, no one would see him. So, he thought to himself, forget about that. They're not gonna let me into a psychiatric hospital, so I'm gonna pray to the biggest psychiatrist in the world. I'm gonna pray to God, and he kept praying to pray to the biggest psychiatrists in the world. I'm going to pray to God. He kept praying to God and he said, he will be my psychiatrist.

Rice's family meanwhile back home were begging him to come back. They said, we'll take care of you. We'll help you heal. We'll nurse you to health. We'll be there for you. And although it was very tempting, he couldn't. First the doctor said no, because there was a bubble in his eye that could expand and wreak havoc if it gained altitude.

So, flying risks the total loss of the sight in his right eye, but also, he didn't want his family to see him like this. He needed to be strong for them and not the other way around. His dad had suffered a stroke when he found out that rice had been shot. Because, you know, think about it this way, their family sent rice to America. So sad that rice was leaving. But they thought, at least he'll be safe for there. At least he'll have more opportunities there. But then he gets shot. For what? For being Muslim? He told the beta, I just want to accomplish my goals. I'm going to do my best. If I go home now, it's going to haunt me for the rest of my life.

I went to the US and I was shot. And now I'm back home and I'm a loser. But I'm a fighter, I'm a soldier. I learned how not to give up and now if I go back with this medical condition with the sphere with this phobia, it will always be there in my mind. His right eye could now detect and count fingers. He could see shadows on the ground. He could see a shadow in the mirror which is a huge improvement but he would need follow up surgeries. And the bills kept coming. He said he was getting medical bills from every direction and every month they would come with more interest rates, late fees. I mean, it was absolutely ridiculous.

They were bugging him, calling him sending him more and more bills. It was $60,000 plus for spending like one day in the hospital. I was thinking, God, will I ever be able to get my life back in this country? He would answer the phone and tell hospitals about his situation and they would just say, yeah, we're sorry, but this is our job. And he was so upset, he said,

where is this humanity we talk about? Even after knowing all of this? And he turned his anger at the world into something positive. He went back to learning coding through textbooks with one eye, by the way. He started teaching himself with one I barely working. He got a job as a telemarketer, which by the way he needed that job, because at his first job, you know, Salem, he felt like it was his fault at first. He was like, oh my god, it's my fault. This was at

my gas station. I'm the one that convinced you to move to Dallas, but eventually that love and care turned to discuss. He felt like rice was just dead weight. He said, you gotta get out unless you start paying rent. Like I'm feeding you, I'm putting food on the table, you gotta do something. So rice gets a job and at this job, he meets a very, very sweet guy from Bengal who offered to let him stay with him in his cramped one bedroom apartment. Rice would sleep on the sofa and his new friend just said, pay for whatever you can, I'll take care of the rest. Now let's talk about Mark Stroman. Mark was born October 13th, and for years he thought

that his name was Mark Baker. Because that's the name of his dad, his mom's husband, the only dad figure that he had in his life. But he devastatingly found out later that his mom had an affair and he was the product of that affair. So he was, you know, he was marked strong, so Mark grew up in Plano, Texas, which is a very nice suburban type area in Dallas,

and his life seemed promising until his mom ran off. Without even a warning, she ran off, left her three kids with her mother, and then a few months later they got a phone call. Your mother is pregnant with twins and we found her lying in the gutters on the streets. Whatever that means.

So she gives birth, gives up the twins for adoption, and she comes home to her kids. And at first it was strange, you know, she became a different type of pain in the kids' lives. It's suspected that she had some sort of OCD. She never let the kids sit on any furniture. Like not even chairs? I mean, obviously understandable if you're sitting on the dining table or the coffee table, but like not even chairs.

Sandra and her husband would fight. They would call each other every name under the sun. I mean, it just seemed like neither of them wanted the kids. The kids were in inconvenience in their lives. So they were just sent to stay in their rooms for as long as possible. Even Christmas dinner at the kids were forced to eat it in their rooms.

Wallace, the dad, would call Mark names. He'd say, you're so stupid, you're so ignorant and dumb and worthless, and I just want to kick you in the head with anger. And he would. Mark got most of the beating. The other two siblings were girls, so Mark was like this punching bag. He just was always getting hurt. And even by the bullies at school, Mark was getting bullied.

And when he told his parents what happened, they would just say, if you don't go back there and whip their ass, then you're gonna get your ass beat here. And if he wasn't getting beat, sometimes his parents, as a sick and cruel punishment, they would force him to cut the grass. Let me explain. Mark has a grass allergy.

What in the world? Yeah. Mark's sister said that Sandra and Wallace, the mom and dad, they lived in their own world It's it seemed like they had this life where nothing is important to them except for them Mark didn't even have a chance. He was put out by his parents He never felt welcomed or love. He didn't have a nurturing childhood that he deserved his mom would tell him, you know As $50 short

As $50 short of the money that I needed to abort you. I wish I had just gotten dogs instead of you kids. So at a young age, Mark starts developing these nightmares that would lead to sleepwalking. And several times he was trying to sleepwalk out of the house with nothing on but his underwear. So of course, this kid just ends up hating sleep. He hates going to sleep and I don't know if all of this

took a big toll or if he didn't try but his school grades weren't great either. He had a hard time with reading comprehension. And when he was around 12 to 13 years old, he found out the truth. Wallace was not his real dad. And he felt upset. Not because he didn't know but because and I quote, So my whole life, I'm letting this man, Wallace Baker, abuse me, thinking that he's my father, kick me, something in the head, do all of this stuff, and then I find out that he's not my father.

I mean, the people I've trusted my whole life turned out to be a pack of liars, you know? You grow up trusting in a mother, your grandmother, your grandfather, and you believe everything they say. And then you find out that your whole existence has been alive. I mean, it's shocking. Very shocking. So Mark starts acting out after he finds out this information.

And by the sixth grade, Mark the Bullied becomes the bully. He would approach Scrawnier kids with a pair of nunchucks and he would ask them for money. He would punch them to give it to him. He started failing his classes. At the young age of 13, he stole a truck, a full-on truck. He panicked so hard that he crashed it into a police car. So, that's smart.

I mean, obviously Mark was caught. He was evaluated by a psychiatrist who said he had an above average IQ around a 106, and he was far from being insane. They said this kid is not someone who is unable to control his own actions, but he's troubled. That's for sure. We think that Mark would do well placed in a structured environment where he could be around nurturing adult figures. So they put him in the Texas Youth Commission. So it's typically a place for troubled teens, like a halfway house.

Parole Supervision type environment, but it's not a great place. It's not a great place with nurturing adult figures. There was a class action lawsuit filed against the Youth Commission that they did very, very shady things. If you didn't listen, they'd slap you, punch you, sometimes kick you. Sometimes they would have you stand up against the wall with your hands in your pockets and they would just punch you in the abdomen. It was not great.

Mark spent some time there, but eventually he ended up back with his grandparents. During this time, he meets a woman by the name of Tina. She was 14 when he was 15. They fell in love. She fell in love with him, even though he was the type of teenager that would pull out a 5-inch knife and threaten other kids for their money. And he spent his time under age drinking and vandalizing property, but you know, when you're young, you don't know anything, eventually he graduated into breaking into houses to steal

weed. And around the time that he's arrested for that, Tina told Mark that she was pregnant. So Tina is pregnant with Mark's baby, and his parole officer takes this into consideration, and they let Mark go off easy. They say, as long as you pinky promise to work at your grandparents construction company, you can go.

So he goes, and at first everything's going well. He's doing well at his job. It's giving him purpose. Tina gave birth to their daughter And apparently the daughter just look just like Mark Mark was 16 when he became a dad and then another baby Robert I mean the couple were broken up at this point and Mark's parole officer was really rooting for him even though Mark was still found burglarizing and vandalizing homes

But you know, that's just he's just inspired, right? He's like the Bank Seas of the World, right? Anyway, then one day Tina has a cut on her neck. She claims it wasn't Mark that gave it to her, but it was just strange. Like the whole, he's just getting increasingly violent, increasingly balsy. I mean, the whole thing is very, very alarming

and the pro-loss officer knew this whole story but still didn't do anything. Then Tina gave birth to their third child, Erica. Her and Mark were on and off at this point, but it said that Mark treated Erica like his own daughter, even though everybody knew that she was and I mean, she looked nothing like Mark. The crimes also only started escalating at this point. Mark went up behind an older woman, grabbed her neck, choked her and demanded hand over

your purse. He stole $600 from her and went on a shopping spree, buying clothes, shoes, a woman's purse, some cologne. This time, due to the violent nature of his crime, he was given an 8-year sentence. But again, he was paroled in a matter of months. So Tina's sick of his shit, everybody's sick of his shit, and she decided to leave him for good, and it sent him over the edge. He starts smoking meth.

He would literally start his mornings with meth with his coffee. He started working at a body shop and he was, you know, he was hard working and at first he was a charismatic employee but apparently slowly the more meth that he did, it just got worse and worse. Also he lost some clients for the body shop because he would call them to their face a fucking n-word when they walked in. I mean, if that's not a giant flaming red flag of racism,

I don't know what is. Apparently, he did this all the time. He was the type of guy that would make such an offensive joke and you're like, whoa, whoa. That was out of nowhere. We were talking about the weather. Is he being serious? Like, why is he staring at us? What kind of reaction is he wanting from us? Because does he think that this is funny?

Why is he giggling? Nothing he said was funny. He would say things like immigrants need to go back to their countries. He said, but I'm not racist. My ex-wife Tina, she's half Mexican. So my kids are a quarter Mexican and I always treat them with respect. I know. He just role-desize. Unless being white automatically makes you a racist, does it? No with respect. I know, he just rolled his eyes. Unless being white automatically makes you a racist, does it? No, well then I'm not racist. Yeah, he was that type of guy. And it would just get progressively violent.

Mark remarried, had another kid, and when she left with their child because of his drug-induced violent ways, he got so depressed, he would start burning down people's cars if he hated them. He started working out religiously. Now the gym that he went to was notorious for steroid use. I'm not sure, I mean a lot of people believe that Mark's increased aggression came out of nowhere, so maybe it had something to do with steroid abuse.

One of his former friends said, Mark was in this vicious cycle, he was hurting on the inside, looking for an escape, he would do drugs, date dancers, stay up till 2 a.m. picking them up, partying with them, and then go to work the next morning it was this vicious cycle. And then sometimes his co-workers would ask him, hey Mark, which doin' on the weekend? He would say, oh me? I'm just hunting insert racial slur this weekend. Wanna come? Now these co-workers listen to this and they thought, this guy's just saying it for shock value. They were slightly disgusted, but I guess not that disgusted, because Mark's own boss

was also a bit of a racist. He would say, whoa, whoa, whoa, now you took it too far. I never actually hunt minorities, I just call the cops on them and let them do the work. I mean, he's like, you gots to go, I can't do this anymore. So his boss lays him off, and Mark's life felt like it was falling apart. He started branding himself as a gun runner, a gun salesperson. He was obsessed. He would buy and sell guns.

He would show off his brand new AK-47s. Things were only getting worse. He also found out that his girlfriend was cheating on him with a good friend of his, and finally, in 2001, he was in big trouble again. He went out to threaten demand at a bar with his gun, and he went straight to jail. He's bailed out that night, and around that night, he woke up to watching the news unfold.

It felt like the world had stopped. Time had stopped in the US when 9-11 happened. That's when everything just changed for Mark. He was serious now. His country was being attacked. This meant war. And guess who was to blame? He said, and I quote,

the Arabs. Yes, the Arabs. I mean, he barely knew what that even meant. He just categorized anyone who is a person of color who wore a hijab, which he called robes that covered their heads. Anyone who vaguely fit that description, even if they had one without the other,

would they were an Arab, an immigrant. So Mark started going out telling people that he was gonna shoot Arabs, you know, fighting the good fight, protecting the homeland. Nobody around him was worried. They just thought, oh, there goes Mark again, flapping his gums, what a wannabe! He's always starving for attention, pretending to be this tough guy.

But he never does anything. Nobody ever cared to call the police, even though they knew that Mark was heavily armed, highly agitated, aggressive, violent, and ready to kill. So Mark starts driving around in his suburban, which by the way, this side of Mark's car is already enough to send any immigrant or really any minority packing and running.

He had an American flag on the windshield. That's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. He had Texas maps on the side mirrors and then really aggressive white supremacist bumper stickers on the rear window. Like immigrants are taking our jobs like that to be vibe. So you're like, okay, coupled with the flag and the Texas maps, I got to go. I'm not parking next to this guy's truck, you know. He only stopped when he saw someone that he believed,

and I quote, looked like an Arab, and he already hyped himself up. Before he left that day, he replayed B-rolls of the 9-11 attacks to get angry before leaving the house. He said everybody else around him was saying the same thing anyway. They were saying, let's get him,

let's get them dirty bastards. Let's bomb the Middle East. Who? Oh, we don't know. But as Americans, we want justice. That's what he said him and his friends were saying. He said, I wasn't the only one in Dallas doing this. There were a lot of us hunting Arabs.

What? And every time I say, like, the Arabs or Arabs, just know it's because this is how he was saying. And I don't know how else to say it without making him look like a nice person, you know, it's not me saying it. He was hunting Arabs, that's what he kept calling it. It started as harassment on the roads and when I say harassment, it's not even harassment, it's just straight violence. He and his friends would corner a car with a Middle Eastern driver in it and they would corner it until it drove into the emergency lanes or fell into a ditch. Eventually Mark would escalate. He became so enraged that he pretty much convinced himself that he lost a loved one during

9-11, which he didn't. He somehow convinced himself that America was too timid, too weak, too sympathetic to the enemy, that they needed someone else to get revenge as an American. He said that when he was out quote hunting, he felt, I began to feel a great sense of rage, hatred, lust, bitterness, and utter degradation. Although revenge was not my motive, I did want to exact a measure of equality. I wanted those eras to feel the same sense of insecurity about their immediate surroundings.

I wanted them to feel the same sense of vulnerability and uncertainty on American soil, much like the mindset of chaos that they already had in their home country. How dare they come to America and be at peace, find comfort in our country, my country, America. And here we are, Americans, under siege at home, because we are the land of freedom. My sense of anger surged when I reflected upon the past.

I'm a tax paying citizen whose hard earned dollars has been sent to those countries as a means of humanitarian aid. Their homeland was a place our country fed when they were starving, medicated when sick, you know, clothed when naked or cold, educated when an error, and giving willing assistance and defended them when they was under attack. I looked at the fact that over 5,000 innocent Americans lost their lives because some foreigner felt a need to make a statement at the expense of innocent people.

While I felt as Americans, we needed to exact some sort of retribution and also make a statement here at home. And abroad that if we, as Americans, was going to be under siege here at home, then certainly, they would have to need to feel our pain. When was he saying this? To who? They would have to need to feel our pain. When was he saying this? To who? Oh, to his friends, but then also later to police and interviews.

So he still believes it? For a little bit. Okay. And he says, my sense of security and my right to live in peace and sanctity was all but shattered. I stood there reflecting on what I could do or would do or better yet. Should I do in the wake of the World Trade Center atrocity? I looked at the situation and took an assessment. And then I found myself going to the store to make a purchase. And there behind the counter, in the land of the free, home of the brave, the land of the pilgrims pride, land for which

my forefathers died, the bell of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness, has all been silenced by those people he was there behind the counter. Hearing the land of milk and honey living the freedom of liberty of the thousands of victims of September 11th, and here he was in this country, at our expense, this foreigner. Whose own people had now sought to bring the exact same chaos and bewilderment upon our people, our society, as they themselves lived at home and abroad. It left me with this sense of just having had someone spit in my face. After all, our country has done to help build, educate, and liberate their country.

And to see that those people thought so little of America, and consequently the American way of life with such content and utter disregard. And closing, I shot him. He's talking about his son, his first victim. This was not a crime of hate, but an act of passion and patriotism, an act of country and commitment, an act of retribution and recompensation. This was not done during peacetime, but at war time. I, Mark Anthony Stroman, felt a need to exact some measure of equality and fairness for the thousands of victims of September 11th for the United States of America and its people,

the people of this great country. He said it was for us Americans that he had to kill. 46 year old, Wukar Hassan, 49 year oldold vasudev patel they were killed and i think we can all say to that is you mark strumming you're not an american you're killer you're a murderer and just to clarify and point out mark shot in indian a pakistanie and a bangladeshi the latter two were muslim but none of them were even around like in the sick name of vengeance you don't even know what you're talking about you're ignorant not only are you a ruthless killer, but you're freaking ignorant.

So because for people like Mark, it's enough for someone to resemble what he thinks. A Middle Eastern or an Arab looks like, to be branded a terrorist. So he's arrested. His trial was set to start on April Fool's Day, 2002. And leading up to the trial, you would think that the smartest thing for him to do is to

stay quiet. Stay low, right? No. Instead, he went on to news stations, gave interviews, he admitted to the shootings, he tried to justify his actions. He said, we were at war. I did what I had to do. I did it to retaliate against those who retaliated against us.

And at one point, he told a prison guard, God, I'm in prison. You'd think it's illegal to kill her abs around here. I guess for some reason he thought the guard would agree with him because maybe the guard was white. And the guard said, what are you talking about? It is illegal. And he reported it to the warden. And he argue and Mark said, well, if you had loved ones and they killed, you would kill

him too. So going back to how Mark was just really convincing himself that he had a sister who died in 9-11, even though he didn't. He starts writing letters to his friends in prison. He wrote to one friend saying, and I quote, I don't know how much longer I can stand to be around all these fucking insert racial slur. He would spend his time in prison drawing Confederate flags and scribbling forever free all over them, which is ironic because the Confederates fought for slavery. So forever free, really? Who? You?

He would write about his cellmate too and he wrote, I got a new cellmate and he's white, so that's good. But he beat some insert homophobic slur to death with a fucking hammer. 35 times to the head, damn, and I thought I had a few issues, smiley face. And he don't like N words at all.

So now there's three of us in here for murder. We're all white, and the insert racial slur are worried about us, smiley face. Hell, even I'm worried about us, ha ha ha. Sometimes Mike would sit there and tell jokes, what's the difference between a dead N word in the road or a dead dog in the road? The dead dog has skin marks in front of it. And I'm only telling you guys this because I mean, yes, it is disgusting and despicable

and it's kind of important to what happens next in the story. So it's just an extra layer of context that otherwise I would have omitted these types of things because really what do you, what do we get from any of this? So Mark starts writing back to his first wife Tina to tell how loud some of the minorities are and how obnoxious they are. He talked about how the poor white guys needed to band together and strike them before the POCs came for them. They called themselves the Peckerwood Warriors. So that word is kind of in the same family

as red and the sea word, I guess. Right. I don't know if I can say those I'm not going to. And at the time, it was adopted by a white power movement and used as a label for aspiring associates of the Aryan Brotherhood, which is a white supremacist prison game and a crime syndicate, really. Mark would pretend to have ties with the Aryan Brotherhood but then other times he would deny it. He said I would never join the white supremacist because remember, my first wife Tina, which was half Mexican.

So if I was a member of the Aryan Brotherhood, me having a Spanish wife, that would make me kind of a hypocrite. You have to be, you know, if being proud of who I am, my skin color makes me racist then I'm racist. But no, I'm not. I don't hate the. My skin color makes me racist, then I'm racist. But no, I'm not. I don't hate the blacks.

I don't hate the Spanish. I don't hate the Jewish people. I don't hate what I was gonna say. But I still have some animosity towards the Arabs. But no, I'm not racist. I just believe in being proud of who I am. My mother's got a bit of Cherokee Indian in her, so I'm a mixture myself.

This, this whole energy is the same as my friend is a quarter black, and I treat him like a normal human being. Now, if you were half black though, like that's the energy. He said it wasn't a hate crime. I only looked at killer, very specific group of people just because of the way they looked and where they were from because I hated them, but it's not a hate crime. It's crime of passion. All the while he's saying this, there's just a raging swastika on the right side of his chest. He had a tattoo of it. One of his tattoos just said 187, which is sometimes used to slang for murder. In the California penal code, it means murder for police. So it means murder, death, and kill. Gangsters picked up on it on the police radios and they would use the term 187 to threaten people.

So it became popularized when 187, the code for murder, started making its way into rap songs. So if you ever hear anyone say, I'll 187 your ass, you should probably call it cops. He had a tattoo of a rose and the words in loving memory, A. Bro. Which could be a bro of his died, like bro don't go, which I doubt, or it could be a reference to the a Aryan bro brotherhood and then Lower on his pecs yet some flames and near his stomach had a Harley tattooed on his forearm And before he was arrested he'd be walking around with these tattoos and wearing neo-nazzi t-shirts

He would take pictures with his kid in front of neo-nazzi flags and they would give their best Nazi salutes. Oh my goodness. So back to his little prison gang, he wrote a poem to a friend about it, and prosecutors would later use it against him during trial, and it was just not a great poem, poetically speaking, intellectually speaking, you know, just not great. So I'm not even going to go into it. He also wrote an 11-point manifesto that he would show his friends. The title of the manifesto? True American.

And I've shortened the points because it's long-winded in his opinions or dumps, and we're not gonna dwell on them longer than we have to. Number one, I think the money I make belongs to me and my family. The government needs to stop giving into crack addicts who squirt out babies back to back. Number two, playing with toy guns doesn't make you a killer.

That's an odd one to include considering he played with real guns and actually killed people. Number three, being a minority doesn't make you noble or a victim, which is fascinating, but because the fact that you went hunting for minorities for no reason at all to shoot and kill them, and you're like, you need to stop and be like a victim.

Number four, this is my life to live, and it's not gonna be up to others' expectations. Number five, oh this one's good. If you're selling me anything, dairy queen, a pack of cigarettes at a hotel room, you better do it in English. In fact, as an American citizen, you should speak English. My uncles and forefathers didn't die in vain, so you could leave the country you were born in.

Just so you know, his uncles and forefathers died in vain fighting for slavery. They probably didn't even fight honestly. He said, to come here and disrespect our culture and make us bend to your will, no, nope. Number six, I don't think just because you were not born in this country, you should qualify for any special loans. So he's really upset that the government was offering immigrants loans

to start their own businesses. He said, so you can open up a little 7-11 or some trinket shop. Number 7. I believe a self-righteous liberal Democrat with a cause is incredibly dangerous. Number 8. Our soldiers did not go to some foreign country to risk their lives in vain and defend our constitution so that decades later you can tell me the constitution is an ever-changing living document and is open to interpretation. No, the dudes who wrote the constitution are light ears ahead of us, so leave it alone. Nine, I have never owned or was a slave

and a large percentage of our forefathers weren't wealthy enough to own one either, so stop blaming all of us poor white folks for owning slaves. And remember, tons of white Indian Chinese and other races have been slaves too. I don't believe in hate crime legislation, even suggesting it pisses me off. You're telling me that someone who's a minority like gay or disabled or another nationality or otherwise different from the mainstream of this country has more value as a human being than I do as a white male?

Number 11. I will not be found upon or looked down upon or made to keep silent because I have these beliefs and opinions. I thought this country allowed me that right. And he went on a tangent. Besides this whole September 11 thing has devastated everyone's lives. And then here I am, I step in and I'm the American terrorist. Mark's trial begins where he is potentially going to receive the death penalty. So if not, he would get a very good deal for his crimes.

And you're probably like, why? So Texas hadn't introduced the life without parole until 2005. So if he was simply charged of a hate crime, he would walk free again one day. You're like, well, wait, wouldn't a hate crime make it worse? Not really. This is an analogy that was used in the book to highlight how this is happening. So if Mark entered into a store and shot an Indian man because he was Indian and sped away,

he would be looking at life with parole. Now, if he walked into that store and held that Indian man at gunpoint, demanded $300, took it, murdered him, he would get the death penalty because it was capital murder. So capital murder essentially just means aggravated murder versus plain murder. So the prosecutors were hoping with the footage

of the Shell gas station where Patel was killed. So Patel, the last victim, he was actually threatened, non-stop to give money over, even after he had been shot. Remember? So the prosecutor saw, okay, this is aggravated murder because he kept demanding money. He kept saying, I'll blow your brains out unless you give me the money so they were hoping to get him in for capital murder and the death penalty.

All the while, Rice is prepping for his fourth surgery. His retina refused to stay in place and it wasn't looking great. The prognosis was that maybe a quarter of his eye's functionality could be saved. And he was full of anxiety. The news, the fact that he was going to testify during the trial, he had severe PTSD. He felt like Mark was going to kill him. At the courthouse, Rice refused to use the restroom.

Because in movies, that's when the crimes would happen. Someone would get killed. Maybe Mark would meet him there. Maybe he would send someone else. Anyways, in the trial, Mark's defense attorneys seemed to hate Mark as much as everybody else. Anytime someone testified, Mark's attorney refused to cross examine them, he would always just say, the defense has no questions.

So obviously, Mark has found guilty even without his attorney and when it came to sentencing, the defense did bring out one witness, a psychiatrist to testify on Mark's state of mind at the time. They said, at the time, Mark had been doing a lot of meth. We scanned his brain and we found that there was generalized status slowing, which is consistent with epilepsy. There was swelling and damage to the brain. And MRI found that the right frontal lobe where the blood flows had just stopped.

Again, it could be drug use or injury, but that's the area that's responsible for governing emotions, impulse, impulse control. The doctors basically said that Mark had a drug addiction whose brain had wasted away because he didn't get the help that he needed. The doctor said it's very hard. For those addicted to drugs, there's very little resources, the system is broken, people doing drugs, you know, yeah, no one is making them do it understandably, but we're not helping them.

We're not doing anything to help them until they commit a heinous crime and then we put them to death. And that's exactly what the jury did. They sent in smart stromit to death. Rice had gone home after the trial and Abida had left. She told him she couldn't wait around. And it was just kind of a tragic love story. He fell into a deep depression, his mom snapped him out of it. He was downstairs eating breakfast at noon and she was like, get your life together. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and make something of yourself. So he came back to the US and he started working at Olive Garden.

He would work double shifts on the weekends to save money. He managed to finally get his own apartment in Dallas, which was a huge deal. He was alone, no roommates. His name was on the lease. He was doing this by himself. He really put his whole into being a waiter. He felt like it was the safest environment to get rid of his PTSD.

He'd be surrounded by strangers he'd be forced to talk to them. Rice was a bit of an awkward server, but in a really likable way, so he got a lot of good tips. He was able to make like $5, $600 a day on the weekends, so people really liked him. Now keep in mind, Rice only had sight in one eye. His right eye never recovered, but it looked like there was no trauma there. So he never told his boss or his co-workers. He never complained.

He never made a deal about it. He never wanted people to pity him. He had to work twice as hard and it paid off. He still had a little bit of debt to pay off, but slowly but surely it was getting there. He was very shocked, though, at American culture still. He saw lots of young people living a sad life. That's what he called it.

A life full of sex, alcohol, and drugs. He said he was shocked about all the parties coming in for Mother's Day. And he said, what is today? Why is it so busy? And he said, what? It's Mother's Day. When is Mother's Day in your country? What? It's every day. I don't just call my mom and send some gifts once a day,

a year, I call her every day. He would say that in America, some people think freedom means whatever I want to do, whenever I want to do it, whatever I want to say. That's freedom, but that's the wrong definition. That's why a lot of people end up making mistakes. Freedom is not whatever you want to say. That's freedom, but that's the wrong definition. That's why a lot of people end up making mistakes. Freedom is not whatever you want to do or whatever you want to say. Freedom is nothing but a responsibility. There's something good here. There's something bad here. There's something good over in Bangladesh and something bad there.

So that's how he compared his culture versus the American culture. So while he's working at Olive Garden, he runs into an old friend who's working at Texas Instruments. Yeah, the high school calculator place. That Texas Instruments. They do a lot of other things too, but I just know them for the calculator said I'd buy every time. He would hear Rice's story and he wanted to help. Rice's dream was still to get into IT. So he introduced him to another friend, Asan Muhammad, who was a database administrator at an esteemed company and he started a small IT training company called SafaSoft. So Rice was given the course for free. He worked the weekends at Olive Garden, and you know the stars lined up. He was also granted $50,000 from the Texas Crime Victims

Compensation Program. His doctor spent his eye doctor helped him apply for that. But even with that, he was still $10,000 in debt. Mainly it was all interest because America. He wanted to get rid of his debt, so he started negotiating with the creditors, the hospitals, the ambulance services, going back and forth calling them. Finally, everybody gave him a break. They lowered his initial $60,000 debt to $42,000,

meaning he could use the grant money, pay off his debt, and he would initial $60,000 debt to $42,000, meaning he could use the grant money, pay off his debt, and he would have $8,000 left over. Which the fund wanted back. They were like, give it back to me. And he had to fight for it. He said, what are you talking about? I need therapy. I need to get a car from my job. Like, please, can I just have it? Like, it's just 50,000. I was shot in the face. So they're like, okay, fine. Don't sue us. Don't make it a big thing, keep it out the papers. Near the end of 2004, Rice finally got an entry-level job in ID.

And by 2009, he was climbing the ranks, he had a really comfortable salary, the days of debt and financial insecurity were gone, and he had gotten his green card. So he's living his best life, and Mark is sitting on death row. Mark would wake up at 3am, he would eat breakfast which what he called was cold raw doughy pancakes, a spoonful of eggs that wouldn't even fill up a small child, apple sauce that even a toddler would hate, and just this watery oatmeal and coffee that was either too cold or too diluted, the only times you would ever get real food is for the holidays, or if one of your buddies on death row was getting killed.

The rest of the day he would stare at the window. He said that he hated that some of the cats that lingered around were fat. He said he was so jealous. This proof that they're being fed better than the prisoners. Even the rats in prison looked better. Mark felt nice on death row though. He said, I was one of the less screwed up people, one of the more respected people. Yeah, are you kidding me?

He said there's some sickos in this place, a ton of child molesters, makes my stomach flip. I mean, I'm no angel by far, but I do have respect for women and children in our elderly. He said, whippiss and petals are so heinous that he refused to acknowledge them as real men. He said that there were some really crazy people in prison, there was an inmate, who ripped out his own eye and ate it. So, to mark, that just confirmed, you know, I'm a normal person. Sure, I did murder two people and attempted to murder a third, but who defines the word normal anyway? He said that another inmate smashed bottles of his own shit

and launched a full-on fecal attack on three guards who were running away choking and gagging. He said another guy barks like a dog every day, but he gets no medical attention. They just all laugh and shake their heads. They don't care if someone has mental issues. I mean, the fact that many inmates are going insane from being isolated in their cells is horrible. But then at the same time, Mark would say, you know, not a single day or minute passes that I don't regret my actions. But also, I hate being surrounded by child molester

sickos and insert racial slur. So did he really change? December 2003, Marks appeal was shut down, and in 2004 one of Marks' neighbors was executed. So he starts feeling the panic, he starts becoming obsessed with death. Now there was a documentary maker who wanted to interview Mark, to make a documentary on this case, and at first Mark refused. He's like, I'm going to be villainized. But then eventually he agreed, And during the interview he said, I still can't forget those days. The hatred that I felt towards the Arab world,

the sight of people jumping from the towers, the stories of people trapped on that flight. I'm very patriotic and my country was attacked, so I kind of took a personal. I think maybe it was the looping reruns of 9-11 on TV, it just kept boiling up and I just snapped. I guess that I'm that dumb Texas redneck where everybody in the Middle East is Arab to me. In my view, that was my stupidity, like even the man from India, I mean I thought he was Arab. I never killed anyone before, but I felt really possessed at the time of the shootings, like I wasn't in my own body or even my own mind. Right now, in prison, I'm just trying to keep a positive mindset. I've seen a lot of my neighboring cellmates walk out of their cell and never return. body or even my own mind. Right now in prison, I'm just trying to keep a positive mindset.

I've seen a lot of my neighboring cellmates walk out of their cell and never return. I've seen people get dragged out of here, pepper sprayed gas, kicks and fighting on their way to their execution. And I believe in God now. Yeah, it's kind of weird to say, but if I didn't come to death row, my eternity would have been lost. So essentially, he's saying, if I didn't kill people, I wouldn't have been able to find God and I wouldn't go to heaven. So he drew truly beliefs he's going to heaven. Then the documentary maker helped Mark start a block. Mark would send him posts and the documentary maker would post it online. Mark claimed to be a simple Texan stuck in a freaking hellish nightmare. He talked about how suicide feels like the only solution, but he's not strong enough.

He said, I struggle daily, knowing my actions of cause pain, just like the attacks on our country of cause pain. The vicious cycle of hate has to stop somewhere. So this is six to seven years after spending, you know, on death row. It's weird because he starts, you know, talking about the concept of death row, he's criticizing it, he complained about their lack of TV or even church services. He says that he can only shower three times a week. And all of these things, which I get it, prison conditions are really rough, but I don't know if you're in a position to be preaching.

That's all. He said, we on death row are being punished for the few people that have been caught in their cells with cell phones and other contraband. I mean, this is not right, this is not fair. Then a few days later, guards found Mark's own cell phone and a charger and a chunk of metal sharpened into an arrowhead and a substance resembling marijuana. So this guy really just is a hypocrite.

He blogged about how sorry he was. He said, I'm sorry for the grief. This September 11 devastated me and I became an American terrorist. I wanted to shoot everybody of Middle Eastern descent. I had no idea that that guy was from India, you know? That was the biggest mistake of my life. You know, for the pain that I've caused their children, that's what bothers me. It bothers me at night because I know what I've caused my family is doubled on theirs.

So the question is, was it genuine or was this guy becoming desperate with a sense of impending doom trying to appeal his death sentence? He was quick to argue that he should not be killed because of his crimes. He said to punish me, to show me it's not right to kill, they're going to do the same thing that I did, a revenge killing. He left a video for his kids and in the end he said, kids love your country. And you know that's true, God bless, and don't forget September 11th. I love y'all.

Goodbye. Are you kidding me? Yeah. The documentary filmmaker helped him with that. You see, the documentary filmmaker was a Holocaust refugee. And he believed that bias could hijack anyone. You, me, anyone. And that's why he believed that we need to be more understanding

of extremist ideology. It's a disease, and if you grow up around that type of disease, you just might get it until you know better. It could easily consume anyone in their right circumstance. So the two formed a very unlikely friendship. And at the end, Mark wanted Elon, the filmmaker, to be responsible for his ashes. He said, please, can you put me to rest in the Austrian Alps? And Alon sat there and said, Mark, let's get this right. You're a self-described American patriot

who allegedly killed for his patriotism. You killed for it, but you want your final ashes? So far away from America, that's kind of fascinating. Well, that's what I think I belong. I think that's where I will be at peace. Everything I'm doing right now, I'm trying to get my heart right. I ask God every day for forgiveness for the people I've killed and it's not something I'm proud of doing

But that's something I did. There's no turning back. And then Mark got his death day July 20th 2011 He found out six months prior At this point rice became an American citizen with a comfortable wage a stable job And he was already thinking of ways to give back to the community At this point, Rice became an American citizen with a comfortable wage, a stable job, and he was already thinking of ways to give back to the community. He thought about starting a charity,

focusing on developing poorer parts of the world, maybe eight other victims of hate crimes lobby on their behalf. He started networking, going to conferences, fundraisers, humanitarian meetings, and going to those places, talking with these people he realized. He needed to do something very important first.

He needed to forgive Mark Stroman. It had been nine years since the attack and rice grew up being taught as a Muslim by his Muslim mother that peace and happiness were part of the journey of forgiveness. And rice felt like he had to make an example of himself. Not just for him, but for the world to follow him. He had to publicly forgive Mark Stroman and then wage a legal war to save his life. It was a weird idea, for sure, but he felt like it would not just show just the Americans but the whole world what his faith was really about.

What being Muslim was really about. It wasn't about 9-11. That's not a real Muslim. That's a terrorist. That's a horrible person. Being Muslim is about forgiveness, peace, and with that, hopefully the cycle of hatred would end. So Rice said,

I did not see Mark as a killer or a murderer. I tried to look at him like a human being. Yes, he made a horrible mistake, a terrible, terrible mistake, and committed crimes. We're not angels, we're human beings that make mistakes. And there are some human beings that learn from others' mistakes, and some that learn from their own. If Mark has given a chance, he might become a spokesperson.

He might warn people, don't do what I did. I mean, who could do that better than Mark Stroman? Right started speaking up against the death penalty. He started working with activists, professors, and he wanted to launch a campaign. But the first thing he had to do though was to approach the murdered victims' families and ask for their approval. The Hassan family gave their blessing. They said, Rice, you might be able to convince others to not be racist, and Mark might be able to convince others to not kill people based on their religion or the color of their skin and also the fact that so many people have been quoting the Quran and there's a quote that says an eye for an eye and it seems like you know

Islam and Muslim is all about being vengeful but they always forget the line right after that says he is closer to me who forgives. So it's like, you know, the curiosity killed the cat, but everybody forgets satisfaction brought it back. So they just use that eye for an eye to really villainize anyone who was Muslim. And they said this would be the way to show the world. The Patel family, they never spoke about it publicly, but they gave rice their blessing and rice would remain friends with Patel's wife for a very long time, even after. This is crazy. Yeah.

The campaign blew up because the headlines were wild. Victim wants gun man freed, victim trying to save killer's life. And rice would tell interviewers, there's three reasons why I want to do this. What I learned from my parents, they raised me that I should forgive easily. And number two, because of what I believe as a Muslim, human life is precious and no one has the right to take another man's life. And three, Islam does not stand for hate or killing. Rice started doing interviews and when Mark Strowman heard, he was floored.

He wrote on his blog, there's a man out there that has every right in the world to hate me for what I did, but this man, Rice, has come to the forefront in an effort to show the world how forgiveness and compassion overruled the human nature of hate. I am envious of his actions and his kindness speaks volumes. He execs the example of what the human race should follow. Rice, I'm deeply touched by all you have said and that's from my heart and soul. Fate joined us together in a very strange way and we need to make sure that there is not another Mark's drama.

I know, I'm very conflicted about him, but let's talk about rice because I love rice. So this was really admirable on rice as part because it wasn't just the fact that he had to not want Mark dead for what he did, which honestly, would you blame him? Absolutely not. But he had to go out there and retell, and retell what had happened to relive that trauma over and over and over again.

He would stand up on stages. He would be doing interviews with 35 pieces of bullets in his head still. The pellets, they never were taken out. Oh my God. He had to relive all of that every single time and everyone. Wanted to talk to him like everyone. Rice was talking about a story in America, Europe, back home in Bangladesh, yet to get enough

attention to make the courts do something. But it didn't go well all the time. Apparently in one speech in London, a man stood up and started screaming, who are you as a Muslim to forgive a Christian? What right do you have to do that? Where's the forgiveness for all of the Muslims that were killing Americans that were killed in Iraq in Palestine and Afghanistan?

What about them? You'd say, sir, I'm not an Islamic scholar. I just know that the Quran teaches forgiveness. I'm just here to share my personal story. This is not a political campaign. He tried to understand these people, but there's going to be some weird people in the crowd. Most people thanked him, though, and a lot of them said,

thank you for placing true Islam on display for the world, the religion of love and mercy and not bloodlust. A week before Mark's execution, Rice went to court to sue the state of Texas. Yeah, he argued that he should have a legal say in what happens to Mark and that in Islam, the victim is hugely respected, but this hasn't been his experience in the judicial process in Texas. Mark went on to post another blog post that said, if I'm allowed to live past the 20th of July, I will take that as a sign from God that my work has just begun. Mr. Rice, thank you for your inspiring message.

You have forgiven me. You have forgiven the unforgivable. What do I want you to carry on with? What I want you to do today is I want you to get out there, take center stage, and give the world their rights. It's a remarkable thing you're doing and just continue with the human rights because you are touching so many people. He said, the closer I get to my death, peace I seem to find.

In the final hours when they do come, I'll blow out the candle of life with no bitterness for I have tasted life. I have lived and I have loved. He felt blessed that so many people wanted to help him live, more than his own family was doing for him. Rice prayed that he could stop the execution. He said that he started to see himself in Mark.

He said, right now, there is another guy thinking to himself, am I going to die or am I going to survive? And I can understand that feeling and what's going on in his mind. And at least have mercy on this guy and at least let him live for a better world. Let him live to make a change. Rice's legal battle was denied the same day of Mark's execution. Mark was set to be executed at 6 p.m. and shortly before 5 p.m.

Rice called the filmmaker with a huge favor. Can I talk to Mark? Mark got on the phone and his first word since the shooting time. Personally, with Rice, how are you doing? Hey Mark, how are you buddy? How are you doing man? Hey man, are you buddy? How are you doing man? Hey man, thank you for everything you've been trying to do for me.

You are inspiring. Thank you for my heart, dude. Mark, you should know that I'm praying for God, the most compassionate, gracious God. I forgive you and I do not hate you. I never hated you. You are a remarkable person. Thank you for my heart. I love you, bro.

I love you with all my heart. Thank you for being such an remarkable person. Thank you for my heart. I love you, bro. I love you with all my heart. Thank you for being such an awesome person. You touched my heart and I would never have expected this. You touched mine too, Mark. Hey, Rice, they're telling me to hang up right now, but hold on. Let me try to call you back in a minute. And that was that. His phone time had ended and he had to prep for his last meal. Meanwhile, Rice was fighting behind the scenes. His entire legal team interns were typing away 100 words per minute. They had an hour on the clock.

And Rice said once Mark said, I love you bro, he had tears streaming out of his face. The same person 10 years back who wanted to kill him for no reason because of his Islamic faith. And now 10 years later, the same person is calling me his brother, and telling me he loves me? What Mark didn't tell Rice was that he was ready to die. He told the filmmaker that he had a change of heart, and he just wanted to go.

The judges denied Rice's legal arguments. Alon was in the execution viewing for Mark, and he said that it was very dark with superlose elings, and Mark was strapped to a gurney. In his last words were, The Lord Jesus Christ be with me. I'm at peace. Hate is going on in this world and it has to stop.

One second of hate will cause a lifetime of pain. Even though I lay on this gurney, seconds away from my death, I am at total peace. And then he said, I'm still a proud American. Texas Loud, Texas Proud, God bless America, let's do the stamp thing. I love you, all of you.

And then his last words were, I feel it. I'm gonna sleep now. Good night. One, two, there it goes. And he shut his eyes. He was pronounced dead at 843 p.m. Devastated, rice reached out to Mark's kids and he told them if you need anything anything at all feel free to reach out He met up with Mark's oldest daughter Amber who was going through a really hard time

She told them everything she poured out her trouble She said one of her kids was being taken away from her She was being pressured into rehab and now she had no money to visit her kid from her, she was being pressured into rehab and now she had no money to visit her kid. She had $50 and Rice gave it to her and she said she was shocked. She couldn't believe she just got $50 from the man that her father tried to kill. She said there was a time where her father's racism had influenced her life and she thought like him and she was ashamed. And Rice told her, you may have lost a father, but you've gained

an uncle. An Amber said she was so confused and ashamed because she couldn't even reach Rice's level of forgiveness even for her own father. She told him, I guess I'm just not a good person like you because I still hate him for everything he did. Rice stayed in touch with Mark's kids and he busied himself with starting his own organization called World Without Hate. It was about anti-hate crimes to develop an anti-hate curriculum for kids in school. He ended up quitting his job in IT and has since then become a notorious public speaker. He is inspiring people to hate less and forgive more.

I will link his website in the show notes so you can keep up with all the work that he's done since then and everything he plans on doing because he's done amazing things. I don't know what the plan is but whatever it is we can imagine it's going to be filled with love and compassion because rice is a remarkable man and honestly America should be very proud to have someone like him and that is the story of Rice. And I hope you guys enjoyed this week's main episode. It was a little bit very emotional actually. Please go read the book to American.

Rice actually did a TED talk. Get the tissues ready. Just the fact that someone like this exists is humbling, but also so inspiring. So go check that out. And I will see you guys on Sunday for the mini-sode. Bye. This is humbling but also so inspiring, so go check that out and I will see you guys

on Sunday for the mini-suit. Bye!