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Speaker 1: In this podcast, we're going to talk frankly but sensitively

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Speaker 1: about issues some people might find disturbing, including rape and suicide.

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Speaker 1: If you or someone you know is suicidal in the

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Speaker 1: US Down nine eighty eight, check out this podcast notes

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Speaker 1: page for information on LGBT plus mental health resources in

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Speaker 1: your community.

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Speaker 2: I'm sitting on the stoop of an apartment that has

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Speaker 2: become kind of infamous in West Hollywood. There's some words

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Speaker 2: that will just always stay with you. This is one

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Speaker 2: sentence that has stuck with everyone who's worked on this podcast.

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Speaker 3: If it didn't I hurt so bad, I kill myself,

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Speaker 3: but I'll let ed Buck do it for now.

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Speaker 2: That's an actor reading Jamelle Morre's diary. We're going to

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Speaker 2: use an actor to bring voice to his words, and

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Speaker 2: I kind of feel like a bears repeating in my

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Speaker 2: own voice. If it didn't hurt so bad, I kill myself,

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Speaker 2: but I'll let Buck do it for now. Jamel Moore

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Speaker 2: wrote those words well, he could have been any twenty

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Speaker 2: six year old who found himself exploring the fun and

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Speaker 2: not so fun parts of West Hollywood. The thing is

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Speaker 2: he wasn't just any twenty six year old. And if

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Speaker 2: he had been I wouldn't be standing on the street

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Speaker 2: talking about him. Jammel Moore was, among other things, a diarist,

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Speaker 2: and like Queen Victoria and Frank and Andy Warhol, he

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Speaker 2: poured his emotions into a journal.

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Speaker 3: I honestly don't know what to do. Become addicted to drugs,

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Speaker 3: the worst one at that.

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Speaker 2: Jammel's diary tells the world that it was ed Buck

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Speaker 2: who got him addicted to crystal meth amphetamine. Meth can

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Speaker 2: be taken in many forms, pill forms, snorting. The most

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Speaker 2: common practice is smoking, but like many drugs, injecting it

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Speaker 2: makes the high more immediate as well as doing more damage.

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Speaker 3: Ed Buck one to think he gave me my first

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Speaker 3: injection of crystal myth. It was painful, but after all

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Speaker 3: the troubles, I became addicted to the pain and the fetish.

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Speaker 2: In this episode, we're going to talk about the crimes

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Speaker 2: of ed Buck. The thing is, I don't believe he's alone.

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Speaker 2: Actually I know he's not alone.

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Speaker 4: After Jamuel was gone, I didn't all think that it

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Speaker 4: was going to be swept under the rug like that.

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Speaker 2: Samuel Lloyd was a very good friend of Jamel. These

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Speaker 2: clips that we're going to hear are from a documentary

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Speaker 2: Jammel in tim It.

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Speaker 4: Was a surreal realization of how invaluable my life is.

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Speaker 4: A black gay man was.

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Speaker 2: The rawness and the anger of Jamel's friends. It's right

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Speaker 2: there on the surface. You know, for every beautiful young

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Speaker 2: man that shows up in West Hollywood to have fun,

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Speaker 2: make a life, or let's be honest, escape most parts

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Speaker 2: of the United States, it feels like there's just a

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Speaker 2: team of vultures sitting on the fence waiting for him

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Speaker 2: to fuck up. A hard truth is that it is

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Speaker 2: financially hard for queer people. There is a myth that

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Speaker 2: gay men, for instance, are financially better off. I'm an

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Speaker 2: economics reporter and a gay man, and in my expert opinion,

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Speaker 2: that notion is the purest form of bullshit. The series,

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Speaker 2: the show is about power and how it's used. You

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Speaker 2: have men like Jamel Moore or his friend Samuel Lloyd struggling,

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Speaker 2: and then you have ed Buck and he is not

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Speaker 2: alone sitting on the fence waiting.

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Speaker 4: You like to be in new places and be where

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Speaker 4: nobody knew him, and you know, be the boy.

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Speaker 2: That was mysterious.

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Speaker 4: He didn't talk very much and you know, and just

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Speaker 4: kind of give a little bit, give a little bit

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Speaker 4: here and a little bit there, and maybe do a

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Speaker 4: little bit something crazy and then just doesn't hear you

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Speaker 4: love doing that.

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Speaker 2: The difference between Jamel Moore and other victims is that

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Speaker 2: Jamel wrote his problems down.

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Speaker 3: Man, something is seriously wrong with me and my body.

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Speaker 3: I don't feel normal. I honestly think he has to

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Speaker 3: do with the judge. It makes me feel horrible, like

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Speaker 3: I'm so tired of living this life.

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Speaker 2: As sad as those words are, Jammel's diary allowed him

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Speaker 2: something and death that he'd never received in life. His

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Speaker 2: diary is how Jammel Moore was heard. It was his

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Speaker 2: diary that allowed his mother to understand what happened. It

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Speaker 2: was his diary that resonated with so many queer people,

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Speaker 2: and it was his diary that helped the local journalists

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Speaker 2: start a movement that would strike at the core of

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Speaker 2: political life in Los Angeles.

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Speaker 5: I I've been to jail, I I've been ragged and

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Speaker 5: being many time. I've lont my job, I've lost my apartment.

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Speaker 2: This is shattering the systems. The true crime podcast that's

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Speaker 2: about more than Crome. The life of Jamel Moore after

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Speaker 2: this break In two thousand and nine, Jamel Moore arrived

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Speaker 2: in Los Angeles, and like so many gay black men

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Speaker 2: before him, he almost immediately got involved with ballroom or

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Speaker 2: ball culture. Jamel joined the House of Combe, the Garsans,

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Speaker 2: headed by the transactivist Gia Banks. Now, ballroom is kind

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Speaker 2: of hard to describe, but I need to take more

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Speaker 2: than a moment, especially given the climate of anti gay,

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Speaker 2: anti trans, and anti drag laws in the US right now.

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Speaker 2: Ballroom is a kind of competition where different houses compete

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Speaker 2: against each other. Essentially and what I would all the

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Speaker 2: Olympics of drag. They have to think of drag in

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Speaker 2: this context as broadly as possible. It's about whether or

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Speaker 2: not you can pull off the look or serve realness.

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Speaker 2: There are all kinds of categories schoolboy, traditional, drag, military.

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Speaker 6: If I was to see look at you and guess

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Speaker 6: your category, I would say it would be which queen

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Speaker 6: realness bring it in a sports effect.

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Speaker 2: I needed some help explaining bal culture in its place

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Speaker 2: in black gay life.

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Speaker 6: My name is Sean Torrenton. I am one of the

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Speaker 6: founders of Slave TV, the premier destination for LGBTQ entertainment.

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Speaker 2: Shawn is currently a member of the House of Basquiat,

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Speaker 2: but he and Jamel were once a member of the

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Speaker 2: same house, though they never knowingly cross pass. But we

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Speaker 2: wanted to talk to Sean in part because, well, my

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Speaker 2: producers and I have become really fascinated with bald culture

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Speaker 2: and how it kind of forms a safety debt for black,

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Speaker 2: gay and trans folks.

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Speaker 6: Just growing up like a ball would be considered a

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Speaker 6: safe space for black and like latinx LGBTQ folks, particularly

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Speaker 6: who are like often facing like multiple layers of discrimination

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Speaker 6: and marginal marginalists, marginalism, marginalization.

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Speaker 2: I always fuck that word up.

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Speaker 6: Excuse me another word just discrimination and just being outcasted

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Speaker 6: from society and the communities made up of houses which

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Speaker 6: are like essentially chosen families that provide a sense of

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Speaker 6: like belonging and acceptance and families for everyone within the house.

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Speaker 2: Importantly for this story, Sean Torrenton has been a part

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Speaker 2: of ball culture in New York and LA.

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Speaker 6: So I would say LA ballroom is keeping it all

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Speaker 6: school because it's the smallest scene. LA is about like

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Speaker 6: everybody's just enjoying eachself is family. When when you go

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Speaker 6: to the ball everybody's love and everybody just know each

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Speaker 6: other and everybody's connected somehow, So I do of that

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Speaker 6: aspect of the la ballroom scene.

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Speaker 2: The latest iteration of ball culture got its start alongside

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Speaker 2: the age crisis in New York during the nineteen eighties,

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Speaker 2: and movies like Paris Is Burning brought ball culture above ground.

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Speaker 2: In the nineties, when baal culture reached kind of a

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Speaker 2: cultural peak, I snuck off to more than my fair

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Speaker 2: share in New York from college. That was an important

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Speaker 2: part of my coming out. Sean says, it's important to

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Speaker 2: understand why black and LATINX queer folk are so drawn

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Speaker 2: to this world.

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Speaker 6: The draw to this world is, you know, well as

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Speaker 6: far as like and I'm just gonna say me, when

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Speaker 6: you are a young kid and you are you know,

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Speaker 6: you didn't come from a privileged background, and the only

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Speaker 6: way out of your situation is through imagination. But then

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Speaker 6: you come to a place where everybody is living in

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Speaker 6: this fantasy and you getting all these cheers and all

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Speaker 6: these accolades because you are being your full authentic self.

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Speaker 6: That draws people in, and you are considered a celebrity

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Speaker 6: in that community, that would draw anybody in. It's fame

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Speaker 6: is what we all want. But even though you people

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Speaker 6: say they don't want it, everybody wants a little bit

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Speaker 6: of it.

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Speaker 2: While doing research for this show, I found the writings

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Speaker 2: of Channing Gerard Joseph. He's a queer author in a

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Speaker 2: Storian He traced the roots of drag and his child

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Speaker 2: ballroom or ball culture back to Washington, d c. Of

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Speaker 2: the eighteen eighties, and according to Joseph, essentially drag was

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Speaker 2: founded in protest against homophobia and racism when a former

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Speaker 2: slave named William Dorsey Swan became the first queer activist.

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Speaker 2: He was arrested for protesting new laws that were being

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Speaker 2: enacted at the time that made dressing as the opposite

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Speaker 2: sex illegal. This was the same time that voting rights

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Speaker 2: were being taken away from former slaves. Sound familiar, Well,

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Speaker 2: the former slave William Swan became the first documented person

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Speaker 2: to proclaim himself a queen of Drag or simply the

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Speaker 2: Queen Sean Torrington says, you can see a direct line

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Speaker 2: between the protests and community that William Swan created in

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Speaker 2: the ball community that he, Jamel and I were a

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Speaker 2: part of.

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Speaker 6: A lot of times people don't even have a place

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Speaker 6: to sleep, you know, they walk these balls for the

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Speaker 6: cash categories so they can pay their rent. This is

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Speaker 6: their way to make money. Some girls, in order to survive,

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Speaker 6: they have to escorre, you know, sex works.

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Speaker 2: Many of the houses now have relationships with brands and

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Speaker 2: social service organizations. The house that Sean Torrington is a

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Speaker 2: part of now is able to provide some housing, about

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Speaker 2: ten to fifteen units, but that is a drop in

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Speaker 2: the bucket when you consider that the homeless population of

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Speaker 2: Los Angeles County it's about seventy six thousand on any

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Speaker 2: given night. Jamel Moore found the same escape in being

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Speaker 2: himself as the former slave William Swan did in the

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Speaker 2: eighteen eighties, that I did in the nineteen nineties, or

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Speaker 2: that O'shee Sibley, the dancer who was murdered at twenty

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Speaker 2: eight in Brooklyn did this summer. He was murdered for

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Speaker 2: dancing voguing. That's a dance that goes all the way

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Speaker 2: back to a dance called the cakewalk, a dance that

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Speaker 2: slaves did. The rent in Los Angeles is now and

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Speaker 2: was too damn high. When Jamel got to LA it

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Speaker 2: was hard for him to have steady, reliable housing. He

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Speaker 2: bounced around between friends, couches, and sometimes sleep on the streets. Now,

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Speaker 2: while bal culture is a real thing and the relations

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Speaker 2: chips are real, it's not like joining the house comes

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Speaker 2: with a job. Samuel Lloyd says so eloquently, if you're

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Speaker 2: not making two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in Los Angeles,

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Speaker 2: you're certainly not living in the American dream. Now, with

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Speaker 2: not a lot of job prospects, it's not hard to

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Speaker 2: see how a handsome young man would turn to sex work,

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Speaker 2: especially in a town with a lot of rich gay men,

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Speaker 2: many of them closeted offering hundreds of dollars for sex.

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Speaker 7: It is the person who has everything and offers you

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Speaker 7: everything with this particular type of risk, i e.

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Speaker 2: The math and the sex.

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Speaker 7: Those type of offers are A young, poor black queer

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Speaker 7: person has to balance out. Do I eat today, do

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Speaker 7: I have shelter today? And do I engage in this

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Speaker 7: activity that may be dangerous, But at least I ate,

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Speaker 7: At least I have money in my pocket. At least

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Speaker 7: I'm gonna be okay for a days.

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Speaker 2: It's around this time that Jamel told a friend that

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Speaker 2: he was seeing a white john in West Hollywood who

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Speaker 2: had messaged him on.

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Speaker 5: Adam for Adam so Jamel Moore new Buck for a

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Speaker 5: long time. They kind of had not, I guess a

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Speaker 5: very long time, but they had a long standing relationship

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Speaker 5: that was predicated on party and play.

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Speaker 2: Lindsay Bailey is one of the federal prosecutors who would

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Speaker 2: eventually try at Buck.

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Speaker 5: So essentially, party in play is what would happen. Is

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Speaker 5: Jammel would go over to mister Buck's house. Buck would

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Speaker 5: provide him with methamphetamine, and in exchange, they would engage

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Speaker 5: in some sort of sexual play. So sometimes just touching,

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Speaker 5: a lot of times it would be you know, sexual photographs,

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Speaker 5: different types of photographs.

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Speaker 2: We're going to get back to Lindsay Bailey, the prosecutor,

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Speaker 2: but I need to explain party and play for those

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Speaker 2: who don't know. In the gay world, party has taken

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Speaker 2: on a completeletely different meaning. Alex Garner is an author

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Speaker 2: and activist. He's also a former sex worker.

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Speaker 8: Party in play is simply a reference to using drugs

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Speaker 8: while having sex. Usually that means the use of crystal

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Speaker 8: meth while having sex. It usually means for an extended

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Speaker 8: period of time.

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Speaker 2: Because the high from crystal can hit quickly, but mats

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Speaker 2: almost as quick and also if you use. Often people

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Speaker 2: get into a cycle of binge and crash, and that

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Speaker 2: can lead to going on the run, which means giving

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Speaker 2: up food and sleep while continuing to take meth every

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Speaker 2: few hours and have sex for several days.

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Speaker 8: And then, in terms of when it became sort of

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Speaker 8: part of the vernacular of the culture partying play within

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Speaker 8: the per contexts that usually almost referred to almost always

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Speaker 8: referred to crystal meth or some meth was almost always

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Speaker 8: involved in some way. Even though drug use could range

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Speaker 8: from marijuana to ecstasy, to to kintamine to cocaine, chrystal

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Speaker 8: meth became the sort of lightning rod when we talked

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Speaker 8: about party and play in the US context.

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Speaker 5: And sometimes Jamal would be paid for those sessions in cash.

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Speaker 5: Sometimes it would just be in drugs and they would

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Speaker 5: both smoke methamphetamine. But what Buck really liked to do

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Speaker 5: was slam, so that's injecting methamphetamine directly into your veins.

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Speaker 5: And they had that relationship for a long time.

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Speaker 3: I pray that I can just get my life together

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Speaker 3: and make it make sense. I hope so many people,

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Speaker 3: but I can't seem to help myself. I honestly don't

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Speaker 3: know what to do become addicted to drugs, and the

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Speaker 3: worst one at that. Ed Buck is the one to think.

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Speaker 3: He gave me my first injection of crystal myth. It

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Speaker 3: was painful, but after all the troubles, I became addicted

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Speaker 3: to the pain and the fantasy.

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Speaker 2: You can hear the pain and anguish. Jamel did the

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Speaker 2: best he possibly could to break his addiction. You know,

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Speaker 2: I got to say, it's not just the fact that

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Speaker 2: ed Buck introduced Jamel to slamming that's so appalling, or

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Speaker 2: the way he treated his victims, it was the illusion

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Speaker 2: that he cared about them. There are so many gay

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Speaker 2: white men who I've run into who say shit like

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Speaker 2: I'm not racist, I love black men, or I only

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Speaker 2: date black men, but then every single part of how

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Speaker 2: they act dehumanizes black men. I'm one hundred percent no,

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Speaker 2: I'm actually a one thousand percent sure that ed Buck

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Speaker 2: said that he loved black men. But here's the thing.

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Speaker 2: Ed Buck paid black men to do crystal meth so

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Speaker 2: that he could take pictures of them in underwear, and

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Speaker 2: he wasn't really interested in sex necessarily, but he paid

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Speaker 2: to humiliate and torture black men. For instance, he paid

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Speaker 2: them to let him call them nigger.

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Speaker 9: Seeking out men in that category and providing them food, shelter,

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Speaker 9: and drugs, You know, are the signs of somebody with

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Speaker 9: a scheme in mind.

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Speaker 2: When a white man is paying you to call you

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Speaker 2: a nigger, he ain't your friend. This was something that

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Speaker 2: Jamel Moore understood. He was horrified and troubled by what

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Speaker 2: ed Buck was making him do, and in the fall

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Speaker 2: of twenty sixteen, Jamel called his mother in tears, screaming

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Speaker 2: into the phone, saying, this man shot me up with

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Speaker 2: some stuff. I don't even know what it is. And

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Speaker 2: by the way, he did everything he could to quote

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Speaker 2: handle his life well, which meant getting the fuck away

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Speaker 2: from ed Buck now. With help from friends, he did

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Speaker 2: just that, moving back to his family in Texas in

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Speaker 2: the spring of twenty seventeen. So many of the things

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Speaker 2: that he needed to get his life together, they just

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Speaker 2: weren't available to Jamel. For instance, he was beyond the

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Speaker 2: age of being able to be on his parents' health insurance,

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Speaker 2: was in withdrawal. He needed more than willpower, He probably

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Speaker 2: needed consistent medical care, trauma therapy, rehab a detox is.

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Speaker 2: Withdrawal symptoms were mistaken for pneumonia, Lindsey Bailey picks up

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Speaker 2: the timeline.

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Speaker 5: In July of twenty seventeen. I think Jamel was an

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Speaker 5: addict and needed another fix, essentially, and so he reached

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Speaker 5: out to the person that he knew would reliably get

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Speaker 5: it to him. He sent Buck a text message that

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Speaker 5: said I've been missing La, along with a video of

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Speaker 5: somebody being slammed with methamphetamine and a question mark. Buck

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Speaker 5: responded with I believe the text was along the lines

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Speaker 5: of be here now, and he bought Jamel a one

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Speaker 5: way ticket from Texas to Los Angeles. Jamel took a

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Speaker 5: backpack and basically everything he owned, got on that plane

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Speaker 5: and flew from Texas to Los Angeles. Buck sent someone

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Speaker 5: to pick him up from the airport. The driver picked

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Speaker 5: him up at I believe it was about one PM,

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Speaker 5: and he got to Buck's apartment at about one forty

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Speaker 5: five PM, went inside and never came out.

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Speaker 2: No one knows exactly what happened after Jammel walked into

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Speaker 2: that apartment.

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Speaker 5: There weren't photos or videos from that day, but we

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Speaker 5: can imagine that it was much like other times in

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Speaker 5: which Buck slammed Jammel, probably to the point where he

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Speaker 5: lost consciousness. And died. Buck went to a neighbor to

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Speaker 5: ask what to do. The neighbor started to perform CPR

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Speaker 5: while Buck called nine to one to one, and when

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Speaker 5: the paramedics got there, Jammel was already gone.

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Speaker 2: For Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies responded to a nine

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Speaker 2: to one one call from North Laurel Avenue in West Hollywood.

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Speaker 2: A young black man was lying unresponsive on a mattress

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Speaker 2: on the floor, naked except for white sox. Tennant's name

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Speaker 2: was ed Buck. He described the dead man as his friend.

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Speaker 2: Buck said his friend had ejected meth. A little after that,

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Speaker 2: he said his friend became very warm to the touch.

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Speaker 2: It took ed Buck almost two hours just to pick

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Speaker 2: up a phone and call police. This is shattering the system.

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Speaker 2: More after this, this is shattering the system. I'm Sonari Glennon.

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Speaker 2: When we left off, Jamel Moore lay dead in Edbuck's apartment, cold,

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Speaker 2: naked and alone. The last thing Jamel Moore saw would

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Speaker 2: have been pretty frightening. Buck's home was genuinely a frightening place.

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Speaker 2: He had photos of all kinds of politicians in prominent places,

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Speaker 2: but also there was a ray of gear devil mass

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Speaker 2: gas masks, all kinds of paraphernalia. Henry Scott, the former

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Speaker 2: editor of Ujoville, said they called Buck's apartment the gates

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Speaker 2: of Hell for a.

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Speaker 10: Reason, and ed Buck's apartment and insanely he allowed photographs

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Speaker 10: to be taken by some of the text workers. The

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Speaker 10: living room, there's a big matt press on the floor,

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Speaker 10: there's a sofa. There are bins of a drug paraphernalia

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Speaker 10: in store.

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Speaker 2: Ed Buck Long had a reputation for being obsessed with

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Speaker 2: black men. Henry Scott, the journalist, talked a lot about

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Speaker 2: his obsession with black men.

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Speaker 10: He had several little plastic bins in his living room

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Speaker 10: of white underwear, and he insisted that the young gay

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Speaker 10: black men put on whiteies. That was one of the passions.

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Speaker 10: He claimed that he actually was friends for these young

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Speaker 10: men he used. He told me at one point that

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Speaker 10: Jamel Moore was a young friend of his who he

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Speaker 10: had helped through life. That's what he claimed.

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Speaker 2: An investigator arrived from the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner's office.

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Speaker 2: On the floor next to Jamel, he noted ziploc bags

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Speaker 2: swelled with water. A rolling toolbox was parked against the wall.

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Speaker 2: Inside were several syringes with brown residue, a scale, lighters,

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Speaker 2: a straw, a glass pipe with burn marks, and a

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Speaker 2: clear plastic bag containing a crystal like substance. The examiner

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Speaker 2: was able to unlock his phone using his password nineteen

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Speaker 2: ninety one, Jammel's birth year. According to news reports, there

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Speaker 2: was a text from American Airlines that said that Jammel

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Speaker 2: had flown that morning from Houston to lax. The examiner

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Speaker 2: performed an autopsy. There were no signs of visible trauma.

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Speaker 2: There was, however, puncture wounds visible on his left in

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Speaker 2: our forearm. Jamel tested positive from methan fetamine and the

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Speaker 2: examiner found quote a notebook located in the decedent's property

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Speaker 2: that indicated using intravenous drugs with ed Buck in the past. Again,

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Speaker 2: reports say that the examiner ruled the death and accidental

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Speaker 2: methan fetamine overdose. In less than five days after his death,

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Speaker 2: the case was closed. Jamel Moore died on July twenty seventh,

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Speaker 2: twenty seventeen. Meanwhile, ed Buck was a man about town.

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Speaker 2: By the Thursday after Jamel's death, he showed up at

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Speaker 2: a Wiho City meeting of the Stonewall Steering Committee of

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Speaker 2: the Democratic Party. Now that's a gay arm of the

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Speaker 2: local party. There was Buck Chilling, pretending that nothing was wrong.

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Speaker 11: Than that shouldn't have happened. It just shouldn't have happened.

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Speaker 2: By August first, Jamel's mother, Letitia Nixon, began contacting all

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Speaker 2: kinds of media outlets to try to draw attention to

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Speaker 2: the plight of her son.

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Speaker 11: My son filed police reports. He's be cried out to

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Speaker 11: so many people, and we all failed them. I just

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Speaker 11: hope that the Sheriff's department does not fail my son.

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Speaker 11: I'm asking for justice. It's crazy how the whole entire

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Speaker 11: situation was handled. My son's dead and five days later

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Speaker 11: the case is closed. I just want justice. That's it.

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Speaker 11: My whole life has been turned upside down when you

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Speaker 11: fight for the ones you love, and I will not

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Speaker 11: stop until I get justice ed. Buck needs to be

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Speaker 11: held to accountability for all the things that he's done.

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Speaker 2: Letitia Nixon would soon get the attention of a small

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Speaker 2: local website called we Ho Times. The story contained most

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Speaker 2: of what Nixon claimed. The story would also contain this

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Speaker 2: titbed that would bring the case to national attention, if

399
00:25:26,160 --> 00:25:29,760
Speaker 2: not an arrest. It called ed Buck quote one of

400
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Speaker 2: California's most prolific and substantial political donors, a detail that

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00:25:34,440 --> 00:25:38,840
Speaker 2: many readers in Los Angeles were completely astonished to hear. Now,

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00:25:38,960 --> 00:25:42,280
Speaker 2: while the local media began to take notice, the Sheriff's

403
00:25:42,320 --> 00:25:47,320
Speaker 2: office failed to mail more this time around. Lindsay Horvath

404
00:25:47,480 --> 00:25:49,960
Speaker 2: was on the city council when Jamel Moore died. She

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Speaker 2: served two terms as mayor, long before the death of

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Speaker 2: ed Buck's apartment. They were on the opposite sides. How

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Speaker 2: do you choose not align?

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Speaker 12: There were any number of issues. I was a big

409
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Speaker 12: affordable housing advocate. He opposed many projects. He lived in

410
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Speaker 12: rent controlled housing, but he was wanting to close the

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Speaker 12: door on a lot of people from being a part

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Speaker 12: of the West Hollywood community in a lot of different ways.

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Speaker 2: What are those? I mean a lot of different ways.

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Speaker 2: It seems like there was an eternity in that phrase.

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Speaker 12: Well, I think that there's a lot that he did

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Speaker 12: that was not about creating an inclusive community, which I

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Speaker 12: think a lot of people come to West Hollywood.

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Speaker 2: For help me understand where what would frustrate you about, say,

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Speaker 2: the sheriff's deputies and dealing with the death of Jamel Moore.

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Speaker 12: Oh wow, it was more than frustration.

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Speaker 2: Lindsay Horbath was a council person at the time, her

422
00:26:48,680 --> 00:26:53,320
Speaker 2: frustration with police and especially the sheriff reached a boiling point.

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Speaker 12: It was absolutely devastating to hear about the death of

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Speaker 12: Jammel Moore. The sheriff's deputies who were involved in the

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00:27:05,880 --> 00:27:16,320
Speaker 12: investigation had indicated at some point thereafter that it wasn't

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Speaker 12: the first time that they had been called to that

427
00:27:20,080 --> 00:27:26,400
Speaker 12: particular residence, and so not only in that specific investigation,

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Speaker 12: but just knowing that there are there were ongoing issues

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Speaker 12: with that residence and to know that ultimately it resulted

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Speaker 12: in the death of now we know multiple people at

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Speaker 12: that residence was just absolutely heartbreaking. To know that it

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Speaker 12: was something that was known to law enforcement and yet

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Speaker 12: and yet it still happened.

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Speaker 2: Horvath was among a handful of politicians who spoke out earlier,

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00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:00,280
Speaker 2: like Mike Bonnam, let.

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Speaker 13: Them know that there is someone in office with some

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Speaker 13: influence who is going to be calling the sheriff, and

438
00:28:08,640 --> 00:28:11,159
Speaker 13: is going to be calling the district attorney, and is

439
00:28:11,200 --> 00:28:14,440
Speaker 13: going to be asking for a thorough and complete investigation

440
00:28:15,040 --> 00:28:17,600
Speaker 13: into this death and the circumstances around it.

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Speaker 2: One of the biggest mysteries of this story is why

442
00:28:22,119 --> 00:28:26,040
Speaker 2: the then La County District Attorney, Jackie Lacy, chose not

443
00:28:26,119 --> 00:28:28,680
Speaker 2: to pursue a case against ed Buck after the death

444
00:28:28,720 --> 00:28:29,520
Speaker 2: of Jamel Moore.

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Speaker 12: She chose not to bring the case, say more, I

446
00:28:34,880 --> 00:28:39,600
Speaker 12: think I think it was a choice, and there was

447
00:28:39,640 --> 00:28:43,160
Speaker 12: speculation as to why she made that choice, whether it

448
00:28:43,280 --> 00:28:48,960
Speaker 12: was his political contributions or political influence, whether she didn't

449
00:28:48,960 --> 00:28:52,400
Speaker 12: want to take on what she perceived to be of

450
00:28:52,520 --> 00:28:56,840
Speaker 12: flaws in the sheriff's investigation and expose those publicly, But

451
00:28:57,560 --> 00:28:59,920
Speaker 12: for whatever reason, she chose not to pursue the case.

452
00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:04,320
Speaker 12: I called her office after Jammel Moore's death several days

453
00:29:04,320 --> 00:29:09,520
Speaker 12: in a row, asking her office to help create safety

454
00:29:09,840 --> 00:29:12,320
Speaker 12: for people who wanted to come forward and testify and

455
00:29:12,360 --> 00:29:17,080
Speaker 12: share information about what they knew about the circumstances surrounding

456
00:29:17,160 --> 00:29:19,480
Speaker 12: Jammel's death, but what they also knew in terms of

457
00:29:19,520 --> 00:29:25,760
Speaker 12: the circumstances of what happened at that residence. And it

458
00:29:25,840 --> 00:29:29,479
Speaker 12: took many people coming forward, including my phone calls, not

459
00:29:29,520 --> 00:29:34,400
Speaker 12: only including my phone calls, for her to even be

460
00:29:34,480 --> 00:29:37,120
Speaker 12: willing to grant immunity for people to come forward and

461
00:29:37,200 --> 00:29:38,680
Speaker 12: share valuable information.

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00:29:39,360 --> 00:29:43,720
Speaker 2: All of this is entirely structural Alex Garner, the former

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00:29:43,760 --> 00:29:47,080
Speaker 2: sex worker and present day author and activists, and.

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00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:53,480
Speaker 8: Those structures create the vulnerabilities that allow someone to be mistreated.

465
00:29:53,720 --> 00:29:57,280
Speaker 8: Because someone like Ed Buck can I recognize those vulnerabilities

466
00:29:57,520 --> 00:29:59,640
Speaker 8: that the system has created and realized they can take

467
00:29:59,640 --> 00:30:03,680
Speaker 8: advantag of it. Because if you're young, gay and black

468
00:30:03,720 --> 00:30:07,520
Speaker 8: and doing sex work, you have no expectation that the

469
00:30:07,520 --> 00:30:10,040
Speaker 8: police are going to take you seriously or do anything

470
00:30:10,040 --> 00:30:24,960
Speaker 8: to protect you. There's still profound stigma associated with being

471
00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:28,360
Speaker 8: sex work, with being a sex worker, or just having

472
00:30:28,360 --> 00:30:32,440
Speaker 8: gay sex. So having to talk to a healthcare professional

473
00:30:32,600 --> 00:30:37,880
Speaker 8: or a legal representative about your sex life is inherently

474
00:30:37,920 --> 00:30:43,800
Speaker 8: difficult because of the in trensed homophobia in our culture

475
00:30:43,840 --> 00:30:48,920
Speaker 8: and society, not to mention obviously in trenched racism in

476
00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:51,880
Speaker 8: terms of our relationship to the criminal justice system. So

477
00:30:53,000 --> 00:30:57,400
Speaker 8: those vulnerabilities are created by a system, a system that

478
00:30:57,560 --> 00:31:01,960
Speaker 8: is incredibly strong. But people who want to take advantage

479
00:31:02,000 --> 00:31:07,400
Speaker 8: of others can identify that and say, oh, I know

480
00:31:07,520 --> 00:31:09,640
Speaker 8: that they're less likely to call the police on me

481
00:31:10,080 --> 00:31:12,800
Speaker 8: for this reason. I know I can push them a

482
00:31:12,800 --> 00:31:16,240
Speaker 8: little bit more with a few extra dollars for this reason.

483
00:31:16,760 --> 00:31:19,360
Speaker 8: I know I can get them to be silent about

484
00:31:19,360 --> 00:31:23,680
Speaker 8: this for this reason. So it really is all of

485
00:31:23,720 --> 00:31:30,520
Speaker 8: these structural issues around jobs, housing, mental health and health

486
00:31:30,600 --> 00:31:35,480
Speaker 8: and physical health, and then homophobia, racism, classism, all of

487
00:31:35,480 --> 00:31:39,760
Speaker 8: these sorts of things are immigration policies. All of these

488
00:31:39,800 --> 00:31:42,960
Speaker 8: things construct a world in which someone has to function

489
00:31:43,800 --> 00:31:46,960
Speaker 8: and is largely vulnerable because of these structures.

490
00:32:02,040 --> 00:32:05,160
Speaker 2: And even while articles were being written, ed Buck was

491
00:32:05,200 --> 00:32:08,200
Speaker 2: still luring men to his apartment with the promise of

492
00:32:08,320 --> 00:32:09,160
Speaker 2: money and drugs.

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Speaker 10: He was a troublesome kid.

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Speaker 2: On the next Shattering the System, Sympathy for the Devil,

495
00:32:20,040 --> 00:32:22,120
Speaker 2: a Rise and Fall of ed Buck.

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Speaker 10: His mother, interviewed over the years, said she knew when

497
00:32:26,640 --> 00:32:28,800
Speaker 10: the phone would ring it would be the school reporting

498
00:32:28,880 --> 00:32:32,200
Speaker 10: another problem. But her son, she picked up the phone saying,

499
00:32:32,240 --> 00:32:36,480
Speaker 10: now what's he doing? So he was a little bit difficult.

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00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:40,920
Speaker 10: He was a very handsome young man. He became a model.

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00:32:41,760 --> 00:32:53,000
Speaker 2: I'm Scenari Glinton and this is Shattering a Sisco. Shattering

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00:32:53,000 --> 00:32:57,080
Speaker 2: the System is a production of Macro Studios and iHeart Podcasts.

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00:32:57,400 --> 00:33:00,480
Speaker 2: I'm your host, Scenario Glinton. You can follow me on

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00:33:00,560 --> 00:33:04,880
Speaker 2: Instagram at snari plus. The Number one. Our executive producers

505
00:33:05,080 --> 00:33:10,120
Speaker 2: are Charles D. King, Asha Corpus, Win Royo Reccio, Jonathan Unger,

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00:33:10,400 --> 00:33:14,320
Speaker 2: Lindsay Hoffman, and Sonari Lenton. That's Me. Our podcast is

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00:33:14,320 --> 00:33:16,880
Speaker 2: co written and produced by Ralph Cooper the Third and

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00:33:16,960 --> 00:33:21,120
Speaker 2: Ben Cory Jones. Erica Rodriguez is our associate producer. Dana

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00:33:21,160 --> 00:33:25,560
Speaker 2: Conway is our archival producer, Chris Mann is the audio engineer,

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00:33:25,600 --> 00:33:29,640
Speaker 2: and Lisa Pollock is our consulting editor. Sound design and

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00:33:29,720 --> 00:33:32,880
Speaker 2: music provided by Chris Mann with pod Shaper clips were

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00:33:32,880 --> 00:33:37,200
Speaker 2: provided by the TYT Network. The Young Turks Special thanks

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00:33:37,240 --> 00:33:41,120
Speaker 2: to Portia Robertson Maigas and Karen Grigsby Bates, and to

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00:33:41,240 --> 00:33:45,800
Speaker 2: Michael Thomas of the Jamel and Tim documentary and filmmaker

515
00:33:45,920 --> 00:33:50,840
Speaker 2: Jace Bryan of the Beyond at Buck documentary. Stay tuned

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00:33:50,880 --> 00:33:56,840
Speaker 2: for sympathy for who That's Next on Shattering the System

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Speaker 2: Wow