Five years ago, while playing for the Copper Hills High School football team, Thompson met Marcel Malanga, the son of Christian Malanga. He proclaimed himself president of the United Congolese Party and railed against what he saw as vast government corruption in the DRC. On May 19, he assembled a ragtag band of a few dozen paramilitaries, leading them in an extraordinarily ambitious yet ultimately amateurish attempt to unseat Congolese president Felix Tshisekedi. Among them were Thompson, Malanga's son Marcel, and 36-year-old Benjamin Reuben Zalman-Polun, a convicted drug trafficker from Maryland. Videos taken in Kinshasa after the aborted coup showed Thompson being hit with the butt of a rifle by security forces.

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Persons: Tyler Thompson, Miranda Thompson, Marcel Malanga, Thompson, Malanga, —, Brittney Sawyer, Matt Miller, “, Christian Malanga, Felix Tshisekedi, Vital Kamerhe, Malanga's, Marcel, Benjamin Reuben Zalman, Polun, Tyler, he’s, ”, Marcel Malanga's, Brittany Sawyer, ” Sawyer, Zalman Organizations: Democratic, BBC, —, State, Embassy, High School football, New, United Congolese Party, U.S . State Department, Associated Press Locations: Utah, South Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Congolese, DRC, U.S, British, Belgian, Canadian, Salt Lake City, American, Brussels, New Zaire, Maryland, Kinshasa, West Jordan , Utah, Congo