Security footage showed that Alexander Friedmann had been infiltrating the building for months. Some days, he carried a clipboard, like a supervisor; other times, he lugged a bucket.Photograph by Dan Winters for The New Yorker
In 2019, just two weeks before Nashville’s new jail was supposed to open, a correctional officer noticed something odd. He’d been organizing keys and other equipment for the new facility when he spotted an anomaly: one of the key rings was a different shape than all the others. The rest were horseshoe-shaped. This one was circular.
He called the jail’s key-control officer. “We don’t use rings like this,” the key-control officer informed him. The pair investigated further, and, after reviewing surveillance footage, they soon realized they had a problem: someone had been breaking into the jail while it was under construction.
And not just anyone. Days later, police arrested Alexander Friedmann, one of America’s most prominent prison-reform activists, as he tried, once again, to sneak into the building. For months, Friedmann, always carefully wearing a mask, posed as a laborer and entered the facility. He hid guns, razor blades, and tools in secret compartments throughout the building—one behind a mirror in a bathroom, another in a visitation room. The officer on duty at the time of Friedmann’s arrest called the sheriff’s office in shock. “You’re not going to believe this,” he said. “We got Alex freaking Friedmann.”
In this week’s issue, the reporter James Verini investigates this bizarre and unsettling crime. Friedmann was admired in criminal-reform circles, in part, because he had dramatically turned his life around. As a young man, he had been imprisoned for nearly a decade after being convicted on charges of armed robbery and attempted murder. In addition to his activism, he had become a PEN-award-winning playwright and had written a guest column for the Tennessean. He also consulted on “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” and on prison legislation for Bernie Sanders. He was known, Verini writes, as “the sort of activist that people who normally can’t abide activists could appreciate.” So why was he stashing dangerous items in Nashville’s new jail?
Verini sits in on Friedmann’s trial, and explores his possible motives, talking to his friends and family members. He even exchanges letters with Friedmann himself. (Friedmann, however, declined to meet with Verini in person, quipping, “I’m not Jack Abbott and you’re not Norman Mailer.”) American history is filled with dramatic stories of prisoners breaking out. This week, Verini offers the reverse: a dramatic tale of a person determined to break in.
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What Just Happened?
Speaking earlier today at the White House, President Donald Trump said that U.S. military action against Iran could last another “four to five weeks,” and added, “we have capability to go far longer than that.” In previous comments, Trump has indicated his desire to replace the current regime and liberate the Iranian people, yet, today, he did not include that in his list of goals.
What is the President’s endgame for the war?
“It’s quite surreal. I think he genuinely believes that they are creating the conditions for an internal revolution within Iran, by degrading and devastating and decimating the ranks of the leadership of the regime. . . . And that seems to be a quite naïve view. Trump has repeatedly said that, Yeah, once we’re done, you guys can just take over. And that’s a kind of vague gesture to the entire Iranian people. And it’s far from clear that there are any conditions on the ground that could lead to a stable . . . pro-American takeover within Iran without serious foreign intervention. And it’s also very unclear that this White House would consider, or wants to consider, the actual intervention it would have to carry out to affect the change that it claims that it wants to see.”
—The journalist Ishaan Tharoor speaking to Tyler Foggatt on a forthcoming episode of The Political Scene podcast.
For more: read Tharoor on the outbreak of the war and Robin Wright on the future of Iran after the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
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