Squatters: Get the F*** Out of My House (2026) s01e05 Episode Script

[reporter 1] Homeowners
all across the country
run into issues with squatters.
[reporter 2] Squatters are ready
to make your house their home.
[person] Happening right under our noses
and nobody knew.
[narrator] Get the fuck out of my house.
As an investigative reporter,
I cover all kinds of scams.
In 20 years, I have seen
every scam in the book.
I thought. Until I heard about
Shanetta Little's story.
How in the heck
did this happen to this woman?
It's beyond shocking.
If this could happen to her
in Newark, New Jersey,
this could happen literally to anyone.
[reporter] That's just the start
of this bizarre residency battle.
I had this feeling
of somebody watching me.
[person] They're armed and ready.
He is connected to a group
on the terror watch list.
I literally lost my shit.
[Pineda] So, let me tell you
a little about Newark.
Newark, New Jersey,
is the most populous city in New Jersey.
It has had a very rich cultural history.
What's happening now is that
it's developed this real resurgence
and people like Shanetta Little
are the young people
that are discovering Newark again.
[Little] I love Newark. I love it here.
I love the people, I love being
where it feels like a community.
It was just kind of important to me
to find a neighborhood
that I feel like I can be a part of.
I was adopted at age two to a single mom.
[chuckling] She was, uh, in her 60s at the
time and she ended up adopting six girls.
I guess being an adopted kid sometimes
I don't know how to describe it almost.
Just, you're kind of really separated
from the rest of the world.
I was just always someone who was
determined to make a way for myself.
I was really good in school,
I was class president
from my eighth-grade year
all the way through my senior year.
But I never had a real home.
I never quite felt like a lot of spaces
were my safe spaces.
And so I decided I was gonna buy a house
just to have my own sense
of stability and safety.
I started looking for houses
right before the pandemic hit.
When I first saw the house, I said,
"Okay, this is my house."
It just felt, like, meant to be.
As soon as I went inside,
it had the original wood floors.
It had the Tudor charm
with, like, the arches.
I just fell in love
with all the possibilities.
And it was an empty slate.
A place that was mine
that I could call my own home.
Nobody could kick me out.
I put an offer in on the house
and then I finally got the closing.
It just felt like a big accomplishment.
As a single woman, you know what I mean?
Getting my first house on my own,
I was very proud of myself.
So, Shanetta buys her first home.
This little slice of the American dream.
And then what happened from there
just got more and more frightening.
She needed to renovate,
it was a fixer-upper.
So, it was empty for a number of months.
She gets to the house
because she's going to check on it
and start her renovations.
And then she tried to use her key
and noticed that her key didn't work.
And then she looks on the ground
and notices there's, like, metal shavings.
Somebody sawed the doorknob
off her home and changed the locks.
[Little] I went to my neighbor
right next to me and I said,
"Hey, you know,
someone changed the locks to my house."
She's like, "Oh, I saw him
changing the locks on your house."
And I was like, "What do you mean you saw
him changing the locks on my house?"
And she's like, "Yeah, you know,
your husband, your boyfriend,
he's so nice.
He said he's gonna be my new neighbor."
And I said, "My husband?
I don't have a husband."
I panicked and I had to call the cops.
I didn't know if he was still in the house
or he was around somewhere.
I go sit on the front steps.
I'm on my phone with my head down
and I have, like, this feeling of, like,
somebody watching me.
I hear something,
but as soon as I look up,
there was a man, like, right here to me.
And he's tall with, like, long legs.
He just stepped all the steps in one step,
slipped his key in the lock,
opened it and slammed the door,
like, nose-to-door kind of thing.
And that's when she knew,
"I am in trouble."
Now Shanetta is
on the outside of the door.
And the squatter
is on the inside of the house.
I started banging on the door
and I'm trying to get into the house.
And then I just look up and
there's this huge flag in the bay windows.
It was red and it had
a green star in the middle.
What do you do, like,
when you raise your flag?
Is he, like, declaring war?
And I was like, what [mouthing] the fuck?
-[police radio chatter]
-This is the scene.
The squatter hung a flag,
he retreated to the interior of the house
and she's standing there vulnerable
in front of the door.
When I saw the flag, I'm, like,
remembering the letters that I got.
[suspenseful music playing]
A few months ago,
I received this letter in the mail.
The heading title is "Al Moroccan Empire
Consulate at New Jersey state republic.
Moorish Divine and National Movement
of the World."
And the claimant was
Consul-General El Jaleel-Hu
from the Moorish sovereign citizens.
It had these little flag symbols
that were on it,
and these fingerprints that were so scary,
stamped in blood.
The letter said that there was
an adverse possession on my house.
It meant that this person
was rightful owners of my property.
And I was like, "What the heck?"
It was, like, six pages long.
Doesn't make any sense.
I'm like, "Oh, it's a hoax, a scam.
I-I should be fine."
So, I ignored it and I just [chuckling]
kind of went about my life.
You know, checking on the house
and going through the different
inspections that I needed to get
so I could start renovating my house.
Fast-forward everything,
this person locked himself in my house
and there's this huge flag.
The same flag from the letters that I got.
What is Moorish sovereign citizens
and who is Jaleel-Hu?
[distorted] I met Jaleel
through mutual friends.
I chose to remain anonymous.
I just fear what he may do
that would affect me.
Jaleel liked to promote himself
as being, like, a serial entrepreneur.
I'm Jaleel-Hu El.
If you wanna find out
the roots of your family lineage
and you have family in the continental US,
American land,
we're doing fantastic work finding records
all the way back to the 1800s.
[ex-friend] There was a Moorish group
that recruited him.
Soon Jaleel started wearing, um, the hats,
promoting the material.
[Jaleel] And that's what we're doing.
Telling the, you know,
the US citizens to get off our land.
[Pineda] The Moorish
sovereign citizens movement
do not believe in the legitimacy
of the United States government.
They believe they are sovereign citizens
who actually own the property
that Shanetta's house sits on.
They just feel like,
"I can come up to your house with a flag
and claim that I own your home."
That is crazy.
[ex-friend] I don't think anybody knew
how radical Jaleel had become
until the pandemic.
When I connected the letters
to what happened,
I literally lost my shit.
I thought, this is not a scam.
Somebody effed up
and someone else owns this house.
[sighs] I was just like, "Oh, God."
[chuckles] "Here we go again."
It was just taking me back
to when I was a kid again.
I don't have a house.
And I don't have a home.
She has been so maligned by this group
claiming sovereignty over her property.
And you're just outraged
that this could happen.
He was so calm it was annoying.
Do you know what I mean?
And so deliberate and, like, adamant.
"This is my house and we're the rightful
owners based on treaty one-whatever."
This guy claims he's the consul-general.
He claims, "This is my property."
I'm not bound by the laws of America
because of some obscure treaty
from the 18th century.
That's when she said, "Oh, no.
I do not know what I'm dealing with now
and I may get hurt."
After I ground what happened to me
in reality since it's so bizarre,
I call the police and tell them
somebody broke into my house.
And he's locked himself in the house.
I explained getting the letters
for the first time,
explained about the flag in the window.
As much detail as I can.
[sirens wailing]
The cops get here
and so I go over to the captain's car
and he's just like,
"Okay, we had to contact the FBI."
The FBI has to get involved
in my little lockout situation?
And he says,
"Well, it turns out that this guy
is a part of what we designate
as a terrorist organization."
[Beckford] A Newark home taken over
by an alleged extremist group
that not only changed the locks,
but actually claimed ownership
over the property.
And that's just the start
of this bizarre residency battle.
My name is Checkey Beckford.
I'm a news reporter with NBC New York.
I get off the porch and I turn around
and he's raised a flag in the window.
It was one of those stories that is
newsworthy because it is just so unusual.
Little says that police are looking into
whether he is connected to a group
on the terror watch list.
The Moorish Sovereign movement
is decentralized
with no uniform ideology
or central leadership.
Tactics vary by individual.
Some engage in squatting
and fraudulent legal filings,
while other factions adopt
a militant approach.
That same week, a story from CBS Boston
showed the Moorish Sovereign Citizens
shutting down I-95.
[reporter] Anti-government militia members
accused of illegally carrying guns
and thousands of rounds of ammunition,
which prompted an hours-long shutdown
of I-95 in Wakefield over the weekend.
[person] We have three guns.
[reporter] They're members of the group
Rise of the Moors.
In recent years, what we have witnessed
is this resurgence, um, in the movement.
We've seen this group armed to the teeth
in confrontations with police.
We have the right to travel as long as
we're not making any unnecessary stops.
These people can be dangerous
because their reasoning isn't rooted in
any sort of real logic
or bound by any laws.
They just go anywhere
and claim that what they want is theirs
and they're willing to do anything
to take it.
[Little] The captain comes in
and he explains to us,
"This is the situation,
we have to have the SWAT team come out."
And I'm like, "The SWAT team?"
At that point, I got a little scared
because I don't want anybody
to die over my house.
I just remember [chuckles] going outside
to take a video of the SWAT team
and I posted it to TikTok.
You guys, I'm not even kidding.
This is the literal SWAT team
that was called
to get this guy out of my house.
I'm watching from one of the windows
in my neighbor's house.
It really just felt like an action movie.
First, you see the SWAT team
just driving down the street in uniform.
And then you see, like,
the police officers with their guns out,
hopping off the back of the cars,
getting in a formation.
I just have this pit in my stomach.
"Oh, God. What
Why did it have to come to this?"
[sirens wailing]
I don't know why I decided
to post it to TikTok.
I'm, like, looking at my phone
and I'm like, "Oh. Oh, crap."
I'm getting, I think, a thousand plus,
like, followers, like, every minute.
[Pineda] Millions of people
start following it.
What do people like better
than some sort of drama unfolding live?
[Little] This is crazy.
So they surround the house
and their guns are drawn.
And I can hear, like,
over the loudspeakers
[chatter over megaphone]
there's the person
who's doing the negotiation.
[officer speaking on megaphone]
[Beckford] What's really important
to note here is that
there's no information about
what Jaleel has in the house.
Could he have a firearm?
Could he open fire on them?
They have no idea if this guy is gonna
blow the house to smithereens.
If he's gonna hurt himself,
hurt the neighbors, hurt her.
[officer speaking on megaphone]
[Little]
[officer speaking on megaphone]
If you look at the comments on TikTok
throughout this standoff and siege,
people are really rooting
for Shanetta Little.
They know that she is the rightful owner.
And you just feel for her.
You just want her to win.
You want her to succeed.
[Little]
After an hour or two hours,
I can't remember how long it was,
somebody asked me,
"Is it okay to use the battering ram
to, like, knock the door down?"
And I said, "Yes! Get him out."
[Little]
They're gonna take that battering ram
and they're gonna ram through
her front door to get to the squatter.
[Little] This is crazy.
[clattering]
[siren wailing]
Police took that battering ram,
they ram through the front door.
[Beckford] On this quiet street,
as neighbors stand there
watching what's unfolding.
Eventually, Jaleel is dragged out
by his arms and legs.
He's literally hanging in the air
as multiple police officers hold him up.
[Little]
It was so bizarre to me
because he just planked it the whole time.
Just stiff as a board.
They just literally carried him in
and, like, scooted him
in the back of the police car.
[chuckles] And that was it.
[Little]
And it's just at this moment,
that you just wanna just cheer
because finally she got this person,
the squatter, out of her house.
And you're just so happy for her.
Jaleel gets booked
in the Essex County Jail for the weekend.
But he got released
after the long weekend.
[Pineda] He books himself out of jail.
And then, instead of staying away,
he goes back to the neighborhood.
[Little] I was at work,
and my neighbor's texting me, saying,
"Hey, just so you know,
there's a guy out here
passing out flyers about you
and leaving it in the mailbox."
[Pineda] He is passing out flyers
saying that Shanetta
is not the owner of her house.
That he's the rightful owner.
And he even tried to, like,
turn my neighbors against me.
And not only that, he went on a podcast
that I got links of,
just talking about me and the house
and the situation.
We actually provided notice.
Like, if you actually have a claim
to the house, you gotta respond.
There was no answer.
When I saw the podcast,
I feel like that went to,
like, another level of crazy.
So at that point,
we're still waiting on her paperwork.
I've never seen her paperwork.
I've seen what was
in the public records for myself.
But she never actually presented
any paperwork.
[Little] Jaleel just became
so weirdly obsessed with my house.
And I was like, "Is he not gonna stop?"
Like, "What do you want?
You can't have my house."
[Pineda] Shanetta goes to the prosecutor.
She goes to the police
and she says, "Hey, this happened.
This person was arrested.
This person was charged.
And now he's back in my neighborhood,
on my block,
passing out flyers
saying that I'm the bad guy.
What are you gonna do about it?"
[Little] They told me that
in the state of New Jersey,
I would not be eligible
for a restraining order
because there was no previous relationship
between me and this person.
It just got me really depressed
because, like, my first night in my house,
I just always imagined me, like,
with a little music playing
and having a glass of wine,
sitting on the floor
'cause there's no furniture or anything.
And I just didn't feel safe enough
to do that.
[Pineda] Finally, Jaleel-Hu
was indicted by a grand jury.
He gets charged with burglary,
making terroristic threats
and trespassing.
He had an arraignment date,
he didn't show up.
We later found out
that he'd fled to China.
There's still a bench warrant out
for his arrest.
So if you see Jaleel,
you should probably contact police.
[chuckles] As you can see, I'm free.
I'm still a winner. [chuckles]
[Little] I just felt so violated.
At some point it's like, okay, well,
if nobody else is gonna protect me
and make sure that I'm safe,
then I gotta do it myself, you know.
Once I moved into the house,
it's booby-trapped to the nines.
I have things that
you wouldn't even think are weapons
that I know how to use as a weapon.
I have knives in places.
I have pepper spray.
The real hero in this story is Shanetta.
[Little] It's coming together.
The last time you're gonna be
getting on these counters.
So don't get used to it, Buck. [chuckles]
[meows]
She refused to be bullied by this group.
She went toe-to-toe with them
and came out on top.
I did learn a lot about myself
and I became, like,
a stronger version of myself.
I won the war, you know,
raise your flag at that.
[Beckford] I hope Shanetta's story
teaches people
that if they encounter something
like this, to not just brush it off.
The Moorish Sovereign Citizens
and groups like them are very real
and can be very dangerous.
If they're not stopped or controlled
in some way,
they will see this as the wild wild west
and a frontier
that they can just do what they want
and claim what they want.
You have to safeguard your home.
You have to safeguard your property.
Because if you're not looking out for it,
we've seen, someone else is looking at it
and they'll come and do anything
that they can to get your house.