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Dec. 30, 2021 - Human Events Daily - Jack Posobiec
54:10
EXCLUSIVE: THE JAKE GARDNER STORY REVEALED

The Jake Gardner story told like never before, with Turning Point’s Malia Shirley, Human Events Daily host Jack Posobiec and Gardner’s beloved girlfriend at the time of his heart wrenching suicide.Justice4Jake.comHere is your daily dose of Human Events with @JackPosobiecSupport the Show.

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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard today's edition of Human Events Daily.
Now, because we have been doing some of these evergreen conversations, some of these stories where, you know, we're always focused on the news of the day every single day on this, but I wanted to take this time around the holidays to kind of record some content, pre-record, you know, so we did this in Phoenix right around when AmericaFest was going on, kind of on the sidelines.
But a lot of people were coming in, so I said, ooh, I want to interview this person, I want to interview that person.
And then there were some people who were coming who I've connected with online in the past, but never actually met in person, and they had a story.
of a story that is something that really should be on the mind of every conservative, every patriot, and really just anybody who lives in this country and wants to understand what's been going on here for the last 18 months or so.
And that is the story of Jake Gardner.
And now everybody knows Kyle Rittenhouse and everybody knows the story of this guy was in, you know, in that event, in that situation that he was in, was put in the situation that he was in.
And then he had to defend himself.
He was later, of course, you know, we know the rest of the story for a year.
Right.
Or 14 months was called every name under the sun, white supremacist, murderer, all the rest of it by people up to and including the president of the United States, Joe Biden.
Right.
Then finally, when he was put before a jury of his peers, he was completely exonerated.
Well, not everybody knows is that there was a similar situation that took place in Omaha, Nebraska to a guy by the name of Jake Gardner.
And so we have here with us today.
Two folks, they're actually members or, you know, part of the Nebraska Freedom Coalition.
We've got Malia Shirley, and she was actually in the past a Turning Point field rep and chapter chair out there.
And we also have Jake's girlfriend, Dana, who's joining us today.
To talk about the situation.
And, you know, look, this guy, I just really wanted this to be a platform.
The way I look at it is this is Jake's story.
This is your story to tell.
And, you know, I really just wanted you guys to be able to come in and share that story with the audience here because this is something that I think, and it's very sad and I wish that it had turned out differently.
But, you know, when you look at Kyle Rittenhouse's exoneration and the fact that he was able finally finally when he got through everything to be put in front of that jury that they did the right thing and they looked at that video and they said look he did what he had to do or he would not have been alive to get through it and jake that is the exact same thing that happened to him but you know i don't know how you guys want to start or basically you know Or maybe
just start this, you know, kind of talk about how it was that you knew Jake.
Well, I just want to start by thanking you for giving us this platform.
Obviously, it's something very close to our hearts.
I know I mentioned to you when Kyle was exonerated that it was kind of a bittersweet moment because it felt like it was a little bit of a win for Jake, too, but he just wasn't here to experience that.
I guess I knew Jake Through Dana primarily because she dated him for it would have been seven years just about a week ago.
And also because he was a avid supporter of all conservative values.
He volunteered for the Trump campaign back in 2015-2016.
He was a huge supporter of our Turning Point chapter at Creighton, and he was just very active in the community, wanted to make Omaha a fun and lively place for people to come and experience and just be engaged with each other.
So that was how I knew him, and then obviously Dana dated him for upwards of six years.
So you knew him outside of all the political stuff.
I did.
Yeah, I did.
Yep.
Yeah, we started dating, yeah, about six years ago.
Our first date was at our amazing zoo that we've been talking about all day.
You guys have been telling me about the zoo, by the way.
You know, I'm not exactly saying that.
It's the number one zoo in the world.
When I thought of zoos, I never thought that Omaha, right?
Yeah, I know.
It puts us on the map.
Really?
Okay.
All right.
Well, we will go.
And of course, it's up to the kids.
It's not up to me or it's up to them.
But if they have a good time, we will come up.
We'll make it happen.
We'll go to the zoo.
You had your first date at the zoo.
We did.
That's amazing.
Yeah.
And then it just kind of went from there.
Yeah.
And then, so going through to it, so then would you go to like the Turning Point stuff with him or the campaign stuff?
No, no.
That was more like his deal.
That was more his deal.
Jake was like the boots on the ground for that and just like to be running with that whole thing and I was just kind of the supporter on the back end.
Yeah, my wife, Tanya, and then kind of the same deal where, you know, if there's like a specific event like this, like America Fest is going on, and so she'll come with me to that.
But in terms of if it's just, you know, tabling or something, she's not going out there day to day.
Yeah.
Though she does listen to the podcast.
I'll give her that, I'll give her that.
And we actually have a special Christmas episode as well, so you guys have to check that out.
So, you know, kind of, let's, and I don't know which one of you, either one of you wants to start, but for those who don't know Jake Gardner, just kind of in a nutshell, right, who, what, where, when, why of Jake and, you know, how did it end up the way that it did?
Sure.
So back in May of 2020, right around when the George Floyd riots were going on, there was a protest in Omaha, started out probably midtown area, and then they were making active plans to move downtown.
Jake had a very popular bar downtown.
He owned the bar.
It was called The Hive.
And he also then turned it into, it was called The Gatsby, which 20s theme, roaring 20s.
Had a huge New Year's Eve celebration there in 2020.
But he, after the COVID lockdowns, was...
Preparing the bar, preparing inventory, cleaning everything up to be ready to open up the following weekend when the lockdowns were over.
So that day, he was there with his father, with his business partner, just a couple bartenders, and they were there all day.
It was a Saturday.
They were there all day cleaning up, getting everything ready.
And the protesters started making their way downtown as soon as it was starting to get a little darker out.
And really what happened was the protest, peaceful protest, turns into more of a riot They start throwing bricks, throwing rocks and windows at buildings.
And so he was just kind of monitoring the situation from the bar.
His plan was to, if anything had happened, pull the fire alarm, call the police, let the officials handle it.
And he just wanted to be there to try and minimize or assess the damage.
What ended up happening was the name of the man who attacked him was James Scurlock, was around different areas around the block already throwing rocks, throwing bricks through windows, property damage of course, and a group came and approached Jake's bar.
And what had happened was originally they were throwing rocks, everything, of course.
And his father comes out after it lulls down a little bit, Jake's father, and asks them to just kind of move along.
Like, keep it pushing.
We don't need to do this.
And someone actually came from across the street and body slammed his father to the ground.
And most of this is on video, right?
It's all on video.
And I know I've watched this.
For anybody listening, we'll have to put a link out for folks to see it because this is all on video.
Correct.
So, body slammed his dad to the ground.
At that point, Jake came over and tried to dissolve the situation, tried to...
And his dad's a little bit older, right?
His dad is a little bit older, and he was currently going through cancer treatment, so he wasn't in the best physical condition or anything.
And Jake came over, tried to de-escalate, and they didn't want to de-escalate.
He was obviously an avid Second Amendment supporter.
He always carried on him, working downtown Omaha.
And one thing that they do like to say is, well, his permit was expired.
It was expired by a few days, and it only expired because of all the COVID restrictions he wasn't able to get in and renew it.
So that's one of the things that they like to say.
But He told them, he said, I don't want any trouble.
He's backing up from them.
But that's just for concealed carry, right?
Right.
At this point, he's on his private property, right?
Correct.
Yep, because he owns the bar.
And he lived above the bar, did he not?
He lived right across the street from the bar.
But people like to say that, like, well, he was on the sidewalk, right, which wasn't anywhere near his property, which clearly was.
So, anyway.
Right.
So he's backing up.
He at one point brandishes his firearm and he's like, I don't want any trouble.
Trying to de-escalate.
At that point, some girl comes and jumps on him and is holding him, just trying to restrain him.
At that point, he fired a shotgun.
Shot, not towards her or anything, but just fired the shot.
In his mind, he told Dana, I did that.
Usually the sound scares people off, usually.
Like a warning shot.
Yeah, like a warning shot.
Into the air, not at someone.
Right.
Into the air.
And at that point...
She got off of him, but at that point was when James Scurlock ran towards him, jumped on his back, had him in a chokehold, and from what he has told Dana, his business partners, other people, there was a puddle right on the ground.
It had rained the night before, and James was actively trying to drown him, like push his face in the puddle, and James is on him.
You can do, by the way.
Yeah, you can do.
Absolutely.
Two inches of water is easily left.
People drown.
It happens with kids all the time.
Sure.
Where they think, oh, it's just a puddle.
But no, no, no, no, no.
If you close up, you're the airways.
Airways, yeah.
That's it.
Yeah.
And you can hear a couple times throughout the video, like you said you've watched, Jake is saying, I can't breathe.
Please get off me.
Please get off me.
Eight times.
Yeah, roughly like eight times.
And this goes on for a few minutes.
And at that point, he takes his gun and just fires over his shoulder.
It hits Scurlock, I assume, in the jugular, hit him in the neck, and he bled out on the way to the hospital.
And as soon as that happened, Jake went inside his bar, called the police, waited there for them to come.
They came, put him in handcuffs, of course, and everything, took him to the police department, and he probably spent the next day or so there while they were reviewing everything.
As they were reviewing all of the footage, he had security cameras everywhere around the bar, so there's clear-cut footage of this incident.
You can even hear on the videos him asking, like, please get off me.
I can't breathe.
Please get off me.
And James had told him multiple times, even when he was on his back.
James was on Jake's back telling him.
Scurlock.
Yeah, Scurlock.
I'm going to effing kill you, N-word.
Like, multiple times.
His dad heard it.
He was going to get his gun and kill him.
His business partner heard it.
Mm-hmm.
So, after reviewing all of the evidence, after seeing the video footage and everything, the DA's office, Don Klein at the time, and the Omaha Police Department came to a unanimous decision that it was a clear-cut case of self-defense.
Let me pause you right there.
They go through all this craziness and we saw so many of these incidents throughout all of this and I remember I wrote about this in when I did the Antifa book because we'd had the whole timeline of things and we went to sort of but each one you know we were only doing a paragraph on each right and so I remember this was one of the first ones because it was May and I think it's something where people though they got lost in because that happened and then the next day that something
happened and then the Friday after that something happened and people things kept happening over and over and over that summer and that's why in the book we had to do such a timeline because I didn't want Because, of course, the Wikipedia page is totally taken down now.
It's totally whitewashed.
They even took away all the death count that used to be there for 2020 because so many of these things happened.
And yet, you know, we just kept driving along.
Events kept driving along.
People weren't going back and then reexamining them.
So in this situation, though, the local police, DA, all the officials look at this thing and they say, And it's not like Kyle Rittenhouse, by the way.
Kyle Rittenhouse, they drop a murder charge, double murder charge on him immediately, without any investigation, without any review whatsoever.
And that's something that obviously we talked about a lot during that case.
But in this one, they actually did do the review first.
There wasn't a knee jerk.
And they said, look, because, of course, it's all on the closed circuit cameras.
I think there were some people in the crowd who had cameras, too, right?
Yeah, there was.
Yeah, I feel like I've seen both.
The whole thing's on video.
You can all see this.
And they say, so he was exonerated right off the bat.
They said, look, we looked at this.
The whole thing's on tape.
We don't need it.
I mean, obviously, I'm sure they interviewed people, but you almost don't need to because you can see it.
So then what happened?
So then, after that, the police department advised him to get out of Omaha.
They said it's not safe for you to be here.
They recommended him go to one of the coasts or somewhere just not nearby.
Even advised him to drive to Kansas City and fly out of Kansas City as opposed to flying out of Omaha.
Why did they say that?
Why did they say something so drastic?
Because from the moment that happened, I remember reading there's an account called Omaha Scanner, and they basically just tweet out everything that's going on the police scanner.
And as soon as it was reported that there was a shooting downtown during the George Floyd protests, Everyone was waiting.
And before I even knew it was Jake, in my gut, I was just like, please don't let this be an interracial crime because if it is, things are going to blow up.
And the second it came out that Jake was a white man who shot and killed James, who was a black man, at that point, the court of public opinion decided that he was guilty.
And The Omaha Police Department knew just based on the community activists on the left that they follow.
Immediately there were calls to action, though not so much action as protests, riots, whatever the case may be.
So over the next seven to ten days, they all begin protesting outside of Jake's Bar.
They had to have security there.
24-7 because they were afraid people were going to burn the bar down.
Burn the building down.
And his apartment across the street.
Yeah.
Was this a period, by the way, and I remember some of this happening in real time, where they were trying to say that the logo of the bar, the hive, right?
Yeah.
This was the weirdest.
Well, it was all his logos.
I remember going down the rabbit hole, though.
They were trying to say that his logo, and it was like...
It had like white supremacist symbols.
It was like a bee thing was the logo, right?
But they tried to tie it to some white supremacist.
They were trying to like...
Did Joy Reid tweet it out?
She tweeted out, everyone tweeted out, Megan Hunt, a state legislator in Nebraska, tweeted out about- Oh, she's crazy.
I remember her.
She's insane.
She's the worst.
The absolute worst.
She was tweeting out, Kara Eastman, who was a Democratic candidate for Congress, was tweeting that Jake Gardner killed this man in cold blood.
It was cold-blooded murder.
Because it wasn't enough to say, this happened on video, and we can go through that and dissect it and say, hey, we don't think it was self-defense.
No, no, no, no.
He, overnight, you know, they have to go through the symbol.
Yes.
They do this, like, numerology, symbology thing, and they decide he must be a white supremacist Nazi.
They said he had Nazi tattoos somewhere on his body.
Of course, of course.
Which don't exist.
Right.
Yeah, it's...
And they find like, I remember there was a guy, I think it was a Coast Guard guy, and somebody from the New Yorker was trying to say, because he had the Malta cross, they were trying to say that it was like an iron cross, Nazi cross.
You even had Adam Devine, who he's from Omaha, the actor Adam Devine, and he would frequent Jake's bar anytime he came in town.
And Jake, one of his photos on his social media was him and Adam Devine.
So they started going after Adam Devine, saying, you support a white supremacist.
Oh, because he went to the Nazi bar, right.
Because he went to the Nazi bar.
And so Adam Devine had to go and basically disavow Jake Gardner and give the whole, you know, stump speech about, oh, I don't condone white supremacy.
And...
Bow to the crowd.
Or to the mob, rather.
And that's what happened.
Yeah, so did 311, the band that he named his bar after.
So The Hive is a song that 311, they're a band that actually originated in Omaha, right?
I didn't know that.
Yeah, and so have you ever heard the song, what's one of their hit songs?
Amber?
Yeah.
No, no, yeah.
Oh, okay, okay, okay, yeah.
Anyway.
I just don't know they're from there.
Oh, yeah.
So The Hive is one of their songs, and he named the bar after their song.
It has a bunch of their equipment and everything, instruments, in the bar.
So it's literally like a 311 bar.
Like a tribute bar.
Yes, totally.
Yeah, and a lot of the bars will do...
You know, they'll do like a sports team or, you know, British team or something.
He's like, no, it's a 311 bar.
Correct.
And the Gatsby, he just loved that era.
He loved Prohibition.
He loved the 20s.
He loved—he's just an old soul.
And so, anyway, people just tried— And Gatsby's clearly also a theme bar.
Right, a theme, yes.
Yeah, so, yeah.
And that makes sense.
So if you did like a 1920s style New Year's party.
Yeah, at the Gatsby.
Yeah, it just kind of writes itself.
Yes, yes.
You know, flapper dress and the dudes are wearing like pinstripes.
The little newsboy hats.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Put my boyfriend in one of those.
It was great.
Oh, amazing.
Amazing.
But what I was getting at was 311 kind of did the same thing with Jake.
They did some post on Instagram, which I don't remember exactly word for word, but that, you know, that what happened to James Scurlock was, you know, wasn't right and that they don't support racism or anybody, any of their followers that are racist, anything like it was...
So here's a guy who's dedicated his entire bar, put however much money it took to raise the capital, take out loans for that bar, and dedicated it to 311.
And now, you probably know...
And had traveled the country to see them every single year for probably 20 years.
And now, did they even try to reach out to Jake?
No.
And to say, hey, you know, we understand you're a big fan.
Can we get your side of things?
Of course.
Yeah, no one ever bothered to ask any questions.
And that's...
So what ended up happening then was...
So we're in this point where the disavowals are starting, the protests are going on, the cops are saying, you've got to get out because...
Essentially, these people are out for blood.
There are these people in the streets.
They're out for blood.
They've got your name.
They've got the name of your bar, location.
You said he lives right there anyway, so he's in that area.
Even to the point of using a different Yeah, to that point.
Was that like a couple hours between Omaha to Kansas City?
Three hours, yep.
And so even his parents, they had to station security outside of his parents' house.
His parents.
Because people were looking up where his parents lived, where his brother lived.
Of course.
And then when all of these protests are going on, they start protesting outside of Don Klein's home, who was the district attorney at the time.
And you said that's the DA. Yep.
Mind you.
So the DA exonerates him.
But then, this is like Antifa BLM types, and they're targeting now the DA at the DA's home.
Correct.
And the DA at the time was a Democrat.
So, for whatever that's worth, he- Who exonerated him.
Who exonerated him, yeah.
Initially.
Yes.
And so, as all these protests are going on, finally, Don Klein says, okay, you know what?
I'm confident in my decision, but we'll invite in a grand jury.
And I'll appoint a special prosecutor.
Totally caved.
Bent the knee to the mob.
And it's hard for me not to harbor a lot of resentment towards him.
Because in my mind, that initial action was what, not his initial action, rather his follow-up action of caving was what really expedited this entire process.
And as the grand jury comes in, the special prosecutor that gets appointed, Frederick Franklin, everyone, even Jake's lawyers at the time, felt okay about his appointment.
They said verbatim that he was a very fair man.
And so Jake wasn't really worried.
We weren't worried, you know.
Even though he owns a law firm that only employs black lawyers.
Which we didn't know till later, but yeah.
And so Frederick Franklin gets appointed as the special prosecutor.
And from that point on, it became very evident that they had an agenda to push.
The investigators on the police department, I have a lot of contacts within the police department, and they were telling me the people who were appointed to investigate were nothing short of black supremacists.
They were incredibly racist towards white people, towards Asians, towards Anyone else really?
And his business partner even said that it became a case of witness intimidation where they're going after his partner who's going to testify in this grand jury and harassing him, harassing his family, and trying to influence him to not give his testimony.
Did they target you at all in any of this?
I didn't have anything like that.
I had more, like, just social media warriors coming at me, attacking my business, and that's what I had.
Because they probably, I mean, that's the thing in investigations that you always kind of assume that the significant other is not going to give you anything you want.
Unless it's like, you know, like an ex kind of situation or like a divorcee, that kind of thing.
Then, yeah, sure.
But, you know, otherwise it's usually like it's just not worth it.
Right.
Yeah.
But so they're going after this.
And look, we've seen the grand jury process, and this has always been the sort of stereotype cliche about grand juries, is they'll indict a ham sandwich.
So even if you put this in front of people, because at the end of the day, the grand jury is...
And the question there, that's not just...
The standard is much lower, by the way, than it is in court, so people understand that.
This is not a question about a grand jury does not decide whether or not you're guilty.
A grand jury decides whether or not to bring charges.
Correct.
And so what it exists as is a sort of veneer for a DA to say, well, I didn't bring charges.
The grand jury brought charges.
Right.
But the thing is, though...
No grand jury is going to sit there and say, well, you just presented us all this evidence.
You know, we don't think it should go to trial.
What the prosecutor says is, we'd like there to be a trial to determine whether or not this evidence warrants a conviction of a crime.
So a grand jury usually says, okay, fine, go to trial.
Well, and what's crazy is that during this entire grand jury, when his business partner was called to the stand to testify, he's referencing the security footage, the video, and Franklin comes in, no, no, they haven't seen that.
The video.
Correct.
He said they don't need to see that.
So the grand jury, which again, is convened to conduct the investigation, was not actually shown all of the videos that we just talked about?
Correct.
They weren't shown a lot of things.
And we've submitted a request for all of the evidence that was given to the grand jury, and we still have not gotten any records released.
And from what we've seen...
Oh, I guarantee that's all sealed.
And from what we've seen from Franklin's press conferences and everything, he's blatantly lied multiple times about facts of the case.
And so if he's lying...
So Franklin is essentially kind of like the binger in this situation.
Exactly.
Yes.
So this is why, you know, again, because we have the Kyle Rittenhouse, we can sort of like go one-to-one here.
So this is the person who says, look, I want to make an example out of this guy.
I want to, and by the way, gain political capital, gain clout, maybe, you know, book deals, CNN and MSNBC hits, you know, the nation is going to talk about me.
And Andrew Branca, by the way, who does Law of Self-Defense blog.
You know, he always points out that in these cases, that if you get an activist prosecutor assigned to it, then who isn't looking at the law, they're thinking of how can I exploit this person?
Yes.
Right?
Self-defense, well within their rights to do so.
Obviously, you know, and I just said this earlier today on the thing that the right to self-defense is an inherent expression of the right to life.
So if you believe you have a right to live and that everyone has a right to live, well, then the positive expression of that would be defense of that life because if you're not allowed to defend it, then you don't actually have a right to live, right?
So that's the way that works.
That's the way you actually pull that through.
through.
So that's where the right to self-defense comes from.
But that being said, you know, these prosecutors realize that especially and like you said, if it is a case that involves, you know, cross racial and you've got one victim and it fits the narrative, then of course, they realize that they can ride that to fame then of course, they realize that they can ride that to fame
And even if even if and this is totally bank his credit, you know, because he's explained this so well so many times, even if the case fails, they can still get political clout and political capital out of this.
And so what if they just had to destroy somebody's life?
Right.
Right, exactly, exactly.
So what happens next?
Which I think if anyone's paying attention, they probably know at this point.
Yeah, so at that point, the grand jury decided to indict him on four different charges.
And this happened, it was released on September 14th.
So during this entire time...
Of 20?
Yes, of 2020.
During this entire time, May to September, Jake was in Oregon, staying with one of his friends, Super low-key.
So he did actually take the advice.
He did.
He left Omaha, went to Oregon, stayed there up until the charges were announced.
And at that point was when...
What day was that?
That was the 14th and on September 20th, Jake committed suicide.
In Oregon?
In Oregon.
Because he...
I don't know if it's because he thought that he felt like he couldn't win.
I don't know if it's because he didn't want to drag his family and Dana and all of his friends and loved ones through that.
None of us really know because...
We didn't have the opportunity to talk to him about it.
It was just something that we never thought was in the realm of possibilities of what he would have done.
And I know I tell Dana all the time, I wish he would have known the army he had behind him because we were willing to go to war for him.
We were willing to fight for him.
Obviously, like you said, I would talk to anyone and everyone that would listen.
Cassandra Fairbanks did an amazing job in the very beginning reporting this initially and getting the story out there.
Obviously you, Tim Pool, so many people really were talking about it.
And even Tucker Carlson picked it up, which really helped garner a lot of support for him almost.
Kind of similarly to Kyle, who he said...
In the beginning, you don't really know all of the support that's out there, but then once your story gets out more, there's a lot of hate, but there's also so much support that comes with it.
Right, and what people, I think, don't even realize going on the timeline, this actually happened, this incident was prior to the Kyle Rittenhouse, because Kyle, that wasn't until the end, way, way later, end of August, is when that happened.
So this was, what, three months prior to all of that.
So at that point...
Really, the family and myself and Dana and a couple of our really close friends with Jake have been trying to push for any type of justice, whatever that looks like.
Like, I know we filed a lawsuit, a wrongful death lawsuit against Franklin and I even believe Don Klein's office just for that action of caving to the mob, inviting the grand jury, falsifying evidence, witness intimidation.
Like, the list goes on.
And we're just trying to raise awareness to the fact that even though Kyle won and thank God he did, the right to self-defense is still under attack and it's still very much an issue that needs to be consistently fought for.
And just because Kyle won, they're not going to stop.
That doesn't win the battle, not the war, right?
But do you think that Kyle being exonerated, and even though of course he's exonerated, he's still kind of quasi-canceled, right?
You know, ASU was protesting him.
Though I will say though, even though ASU held a protest against him, I don't know if you guys saw the video.
Yes.
But Turning Point and the local conservative chapters of other groups all came out, I think Yao came out as well, to shout down the people protesting Kyle Rittenhouse, basically saying if he wants to come out, he can come out.
So there are still people trying to cancel him.
When you saw that exoneration, did you feel that it kind of emotionally had some resonance with what happened to Jake?
I did, and her and I even had talked about it.
Yeah, it was just...
I just remember saying, like, I just wish he would have held on.
I wish he would have waited, you know, because...
I think at the time it was just so hard to see that, you know, he could have gotten out of this, you know, that he had the support and I think the emotions and just He was just going through a lot, the stress, everything.
It was just, because I had talked to him even the day that he died, and it was just, I had never seen Jake like that before.
And what people don't realize is that he's a war veteran, too.
He was dealing with I was going to say, we should bring it up.
Yeah, he was dealing with, like, a traumatic brain injury.
He was still dealing with, like, PTSD. And that night, similar to Kyle again, like, that night...
What was his injury where he served?
He served in the Marine Corps from November 2000 till 2004.
He was one of the first units to invade Iraq, and his unit was one of the most decorated Marine And those early operations in Iraq, that was some of the fiercest stuff.
Because that was still when you had fully constituted Iraqi army that he was facing off again.
So that's mill-to-mill conflict, and that's real, real stuff.
This is kind of prior to, I guess, what do they call it later, the insurgency, etc.
This is straight-on military conflict.
Yeah.
Well, and Dana even said there's video of him over there when he was first there.
And he says, you know, I'm glad to be here.
I'm glad to be fighting for my country, but I don't want to kill anyone.
Yeah.
Wow.
And that was something that they tried to use against him.
Yeah.
Wait, wait, wait.
His military service.
Oh, right.
Of course.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was going to say, how would you use a comment like that against him?
I'm guessing this is another one of those comments they didn't show the grand jury.
Yeah.
No, of course not.
Well, they tried using that against him, too, because of his Facebook posts, too.
He made a Facebook post that said something along the lines of, gotta love when you have to conduct a fire watch.
A military-style fire watch.
A military-style fire watch.
To protect your business.
And they took that...
Oh, I remember this.
For people who haven't served, a fire watch...
I don't know.
It might sound strange to you.
It might sound like a strange term.
It literally means standing watch overnight.
And you're not only checking for fires, but you're just checking to see if anything bad goes wrong.
Right.
And I was a Navy officer on ship.
That's what you say.
You call a fire watch.
Yeah.
You might have different shifts and things.
But it's a very, very extremely common term across all branches.
And of course Marines and Navy are similar so we have a lot of that same terminology from the Navy and the Marines are sort of shared because of that.
But they tried to say Firewatch meant like, I'm going to shoot somebody.
Well, Fred Franklin flat out said from that post that he took that as Jake was basically waiting in his bar to shoot a brother up.
Yep.
Exact quote.
Exact quote.
Also, of course, they had to bring in, you know, because Jake worked on the Trump campaign and Trump said, when the looting starts, the shooting starts.
Right.
So they're going to bring up any statement.
So they bring up that.
They brought up.
By the way, you can do this to anybody, right?
You can take anybody and go through their social media posts and decide to turn them into any angle you want.
Oh, he just destroyed him just for being a Trump supporter, which had absolutely nothing to do with anything that happened, right?
But he...
Use that against him as well.
He was a racist, white supremacist.
Oh, they loved to use that he was like a transphobic bigot because there was a point in time at his bar where in the women's restroom, a man dressed as a woman came in, assaulted a woman to the point she had to go to the hospital.
And Jake made a blanket policy that, sorry, that's not allowed.
You have to...
Go into the bathroom that corresponds with your plumbing.
Which wasn't out of character for Jake because Jake was like all about safety in his bar.
Like that's the biggest thing.
Like he wanted everybody to feel safe and be safe.
And so I remember that night that that happened and he was like up all night distraught over it because somebody got hurt in his bar.
He even had posters in his bar bathrooms, in the women's room specifically, that said, if you're on a date and you feel uncomfortable, ask for an angel shot.
And that will be a code to the bartender that you need help out of the situation you're in.
Really?
Yeah.
So they try, of course, like they do with everyone, they try and paint him as this awful person who was hell-bent on...
Shooting a brother up.
The dress code?
Oh, he had a very strict dress code, which they also used against him, too, because he had a nice place.
It was, you know, craft cocktails.
Like, it was just a fancier, you know, upscale bar.
And so he didn't allow people in that had, like, pants down to their ankles or hats on or flip-flops.
I mean, it was just a very, like...
But he wouldn't let his friends in.
He was going for a certain clientele.
Right, right.
But, I mean, people, you know, would use that against him.
Like, he was a racist because he wouldn't let somebody in, like a black guy in, that had a hat on.
He'd say, can you please take your hat off and then you can come in.
Well, then he was a racist because he was asked to take his hat off and then wasn't allowed in if he didn't do that.
Pretty sure I've seen white people wearing hats.
Right.
I would have to go back and check, but I'm fairly certain.
Yeah, right.
Yeah.
Well, and he held all of his friends, family, whomever, to the same standard.
To the same standard, yes.
So he wasn't being discriminatory in a negative sense.
It was equal playing field.
No, again, you can do this to anybody.
Right.
Twist statements, and I've always said this, that it's like the racism industrial complex has a supply and demand issue, because they are demanding that we live in this country full of systemic racism, and I remember when they tried to turn Covington Catholic, right?
It wasn't enough for them to say that Nick Salmon was, you know, a racist.
It had to be the entire school had to become like this Nazi training academy, you know, in Kentucky, right?
You know, on the river that, you know, apparently had just escaped everyone's notice.
And I remember they were...
You know, they were going through, like, yearbook photos and yearbook quotes to find anything that would fit their narrative.
Or they could twist a little bit to fit into that narrative.
And it's the same thing they did to Jake.
It's the same thing they do to, you know, really all of us.
Anybody who they've decided to target to say, oh, well, this thing is actually related to that thing, which is related to this thing, and therefore Nazi.
Right.
Yeah.
Well, and that's exactly what Fred Franklin did in his presentation of the, quote, evidence.
So how is Jake's family doing?
In terms of this?
You know, not good.
Not good.
I mean, they're just taking it day by day.
And, you know, they are really blessed to have a lot of support, you know.
And they actually had to move out of Omaha because of all this stuff going on.
Yeah, just to stay safe and get out of it.
But they're hanging in there, you know.
It's still a struggle.
I think it's always going to be a struggle.
Especially, you know, just going through the lawsuit and the rest of their family is in Omaha.
So it's just hard, I think, too.
Do you, you know, I just realized I can probably...
Facilitate, if they'd ever be interested in maybe even talking with Kyle Rittenhouse or his family or if you ever wanted to talk to him or something, we could probably put that together because I imagine that obviously different situations, but similar in so many ways.
I think we can probably, not on the podcast or anything, obviously.
And of course, the Turning Point cameras will be there.
No, no, no.
We'll talk offline, but if you're ever interested or you guys think that would be interesting to do, just to sit down and kind of talk through some of this stuff, because I know he's mentioned that, and they've said it publicly, that even Kyle is in, because think of it, right?
He had PTSD. Kyle never served in the military.
He wasn't a Marine.
He wanted to be a police officer at one point, but he had PTSD from that event.
Now you've got Jake, who's already a combat vet, who's already coming out with trauma from that, plus the newfound trauma of having to live through this event.
And I don't think people realize this as much, that when you're in a situation where you literally are faced with You know, having to conduct that kind of action to protect your own life or else, you know, you're going to be done for.
You're going to be destroyed.
That is extremely traumatic to anybody at any age, regardless of your background.
And so I don't know.
And, you know, you said before you were talking to him that day.
And I don't think anybody...
And I've read about it.
I know so many people who have gone through PTSD, who live with PTSD, and I don't think unless you've ever been through it yourself, and even though however many guys I talk to about it, you don't know what it's like until you've been there.
You have no idea what it's like until you've been there.
And so, in terms of that kind of closure, and I think that, you know, we look at veteran suicide in this country is, you know, and it's, we talk about it like some statistic, you know, 22 a day, 25 a day, and they act like, oh, well, too bad, you know, that's...
Sorry for them.
It's just how it is.
Just how it is, yeah.
But we have this great military, and they're all doing great, and so what if people are becoming statistics?
But I think one thing that you guys have done, and I think it's so brave, by the way, that you are both coming on and being so willing and courageous for Jake.
That even after all of this, that you're not letting him just be some statistic and you're not letting his story just become what they want it to be.
Because I'm sure for them it's ah, right?
We were right.
We told you that this guy was bad and he knew he would be found guilty and all the rest of it.
And that's clearly not what was going on.
I do hope that in some way Jake knows that you guys are out here and that you're fighting for him and that you haven't quit on him and that you are still fighting for him and you just have to pray.
You just have to pray for him and that's for me as a believer.
That's above my pay grade.
It's above my pay grade how God looks at those situations but I hope that I have to imagine he takes it all into consideration.
And so for you guys, because we are getting towards the time, do you have a website or anything set up where I could drive people to if they want more information about this or want to support what you're doing, support this kind of work?
Yes.
So we are actively working on setting up a website right now.
It will most likely be justiceforjakeg.com.
If you follow NebraskaFreedom.org, I will push everything out through there as well so that it's easily accessible in the event that the name changes or anything.
We are working on trying to find a, whether it be a third-party source or straight through the website, trying to get something set up for legal funds.
I know we had...
Multiple GoFundMes that, of course, just magically get taken down.
You gotta go give, send, go.
Just don't even...
If you're on the right side of the aisle or even just a patriot or a Christian, just give, send, go.
Just don't even think about it.
And I've been recommended that one and heard great things about it.
So, yes, we will be setting up a give, send, go justice for Jake Gardner.
We're working through a lawsuit right now, a wrongful death lawsuit.
And actually, John Pierce is one of the attorneys on that.
So one of Kyle Rittenhouse's former, I believe, lawyers.
But really, yeah, just trying to raise as much awareness as we can, giving the family as much support, whether it be emotionally, monetarily, whatever the case, because...
We all know these things get very expensive very quickly.
And just trying to hold people accountable is really what we're trying to do here.
Obviously nothing we can do is going to bring Jake back, but hopefully something we can do will prevent another instance like this in the future.
So that's really what we're pushing towards, just making sure that we can honor his memory.
Thankfully, he was buried at Arlington National Cemetery on July 8th of this year, actually, just in 2021.
So it took probably almost a year to get all of that set up.
We wanted him to be in Omaha, but the police department, everyone else pretty much recommended that...
Jake wanted to be in Arlington.
Yeah, Jake wanted to be in Arlington and that nothing that we would have set up in Omaha would be safe.
He told his mom the night before that if he was supposed to turn himself in on the day that he died, fly back to turn himself in in Omaha.
And he told his mom the night before that...
If something happens on the airplane or if the plane crashes or something like that, I want to be cremated and I want to be buried in Arlington.
You actually said that.
Mm-hmm.
Wow.
And I'm sure that she, you know, heard that and at the time had no clue.
Right.
Right.
It's just something you say, you know, something you say.
Yep.
Yep.
Well, that was the thing was he knew.
He knew.
None of us knew, but he knew.
The second that indictment came out, I think Jake knew.
Made the decision.
Mm-hmm.
Do you think he just didn't want everyone to have to go through that?
Because it sounds to me like he's the kind of guy who...
Didn't necessarily put himself first, that it seemed like family.
You guys have shared so many great stories.
You're always talking about how he cares about people, stayed up overnight.
Yeah, absolutely.
I think he didn't want his loved ones, his parents, to go through that.
And I think Jake believed that he didn't stand a chance.
He had gotten like 5,000 death threats over the summer on his cell phone, and I think he thought once that indictment came out, there's no way.
There's no way I'm going to get out of this.
So, yeah.
But the truth is, we are here.
We are here today.
You're here today.
You're both here today.
We do have the ability to get the truth out.
We do have the ability to get the narrative out.
And to anybody else who's out there that is in a situation where you're facing wrongful accusations and you feel like...
There's nowhere to turn.
Just understand.
We will help you.
I will help you.
We will find Amalia and Dana for you to help you.
You can get this kind of help.
And that's the thing.
They do have hotlines and things out there, but I don't know if they deal with these types of situations.
Find any way to get a hold of us.
Me personally, I will be on the phone with you.
This is not something that...
Kyle Rittenhouse, right?
It worked.
We can make it work again.
But if you had a message to anybody else who's facing that kind of situation, what would it be?
Oh, gosh.
Put me on the spot.
I am for you on the spot.
It's my job.
Man, I think I would just say...
I mean, not necessarily charges, but just that onslaught of anger and hate.
I call them swarm attacks.
For me, it's a swarm attack.
And it's like the first three times my name trended on Twitter is because of swarm attacks.
Yeah.
And it's all lies.
I think that's exactly what I would say, just what you said.
Like, it's not the truth.
It's not the truth.
And it's, I mean, we tried so many times just to get him to, like, shut his phone off, like, don't read it, because it's not accurate information.
Like, you know it's not.
We all know it's not, you know?
So I think I would just encourage people to just surround yourself with people that support you, that know the truth, that can continue to encourage you in those situations.
I always tell my wife, the first rule of social media is don't read the comments.
Yeah, exactly.
I've been coaching Dana on that.
Don't read it.
There's actually a way to set up, if you're on Twitter, you can set it up to, and this is how I run it, and I've got a big account there, but you can set it up where you mute, auto-mute people who have, like, If they don't follow you, that's the biggest one for me.
You can also auto-mute for other things.
You can mute certain words.
And so you can actually craft it into such a way where...
Pretty much the only response you're going to see is someone who's basically on your side.
Which is funny for me because I do have it set it up that I don't see anyone's comments if they don't follow me.
So sometimes there's been situations where some big celeb or big account is coming at me and I'm not...
I have that auto-muted, so I just don't even know.
And then someone will tell me, like, hey man, Seth Rogen's coming after you again.
I'm like, oh, alright.
I'm with Tanya.
Is there anything interesting?
Like, okay, maybe I'll respond to you.
But it is a way, like, you gotta...
Just don't lock in, right?
Don't lock into that world because that's what they want to do is they want to drag you down.
And I say this before that, you know, evil cannot create, evil can only corrupt, right?
And so they want to take something good and something true and turn it into something evil, right?
And something that, you know, something like someone fighting for their life and then overcoming odds and winning and winning that ability to, you know, continue to live is...
The essence of good, right?
The actual essence of good, the core of good.
But at the same time, for anyone to come and try to corrupt that and then twist that, that is the essence of evil because their ability to corrupt, they don't have the ability to create.
And so at the same time, though, You have to see that, and it's hard.
It's so hard, because we as humans, we're designed to focus on threats, we're focused on targets, we take energy that's coming at us, but you have to just say, I'm not accepting it.
Unplug and just surround yourself.
Put on your favorite movie and go be with your loved ones and, you know, take your dog for a walk, whatever it is, right?
But social media is kind of horrible in these ways.
It's horrible, yeah.
And I think that as a society, we haven't quite got to the point where we know how to deal with it properly, how it affects us, and especially for people who are going through trauma.
But just to kind of wrap up, thank you.
Really, thank you for being here.
Thank you.
Have either of you guys ever done any, like, interview like this before?
No, I haven't.
I'm sure she has.
Not long form, but I have talked about it extensively with, like, local media, with just different people.
Because this is amazing.
This is absolutely amazing.
And just thank you.
Yeah, thank you.
And I'm sure, you know, I hope, please share this with, you know, with this family and friends.
Absolutely, yeah.
Just know that.
And when you get the link set up, you know I'm going to post them all and get them all out there and get this out there.
I appreciate you very much.
And do you guys, from anything else, people follow you personally?
I mean, if you want to follow me, at Malia Shirley.
You are a pretty good follower.
And I say that because you post those things all the time.
I don't think of myself as any type of account to follow.
I pretty much just post as my own form of therapy to cope with all of the insane things going on.
But if you're in the Nebraska area, I will keep you updated on all of the local...
And you do events in Nebraska, right?
Yep, we do events.
I know we're going to bring you out for an event.
All right.
We have to see the zoo, right?
Yes, yes, absolutely.
All right.
Let's see if the zoo lives up to expectations.
It's going to exceed.
It'll surpass.
Yes.
She's literally telling me the zoo is better than San Diego.
It is.
I mean, okay.
Henry Darley Zoo.
It is.
Okay.
In Omaha.
All right.
We're going to check it out.
All right.
Next time, we'll all be together.
The Omaha Zoo.
Sounds good.
Thank you so much, Malia, Dana.
God bless both of you.
Thank you.
I'm going to pray for both of you tonight.
And thank you so much for being here, sharing the story, sharing Jake's story, sharing your story with us.
And I think this is really powerful stuff.
Thank you.
This is a very special episode.
Thank you very much.
God bless to both of you and everybody out there.
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