WEBVTT - Ep. 2 - Shattering The System: "They Told Him To Go Away" 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:02.960 In this podcast, we're going to talk frankly but sensitively 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:07.119 about issues some people might find disturbing, including rape and suicide. 0:00:07.720 --> 0:00:10.400 If you or someone you know is suicidal in the 0:00:10.560 --> 0:00:14.240 US Down nine eighty eight, check out this podcast notes 0:00:14.280 --> 0:00:18.080 page for information on LGBT plus mental health resources in 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:18.880 your community. 0:00:20.760 --> 0:00:23.239 I'm sitting on the stoop of an apartment that has 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:28.960 become kind of infamous in West Hollywood. There's some words 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:32.080 that will just always stay with you. This is one 0:00:32.120 --> 0:00:35.800 sentence that has stuck with everyone who's worked on this podcast. 0:00:36.560 --> 0:00:39.000 If it didn't I hurt so bad, I kill myself, 0:00:40.120 --> 0:00:45.320 but I'll let ed Buck do it for now. 0:00:45.880 --> 0:00:48.479 That's an actor reading Jamelle Morre's diary. We're going to 0:00:48.680 --> 0:00:51.839 use an actor to bring voice to his words, and 0:00:51.920 --> 0:00:53.960 I kind of feel like a bears repeating in my 0:00:54.000 --> 0:00:58.720 own voice. If it didn't hurt so bad, I kill myself, 0:00:59.400 --> 0:01:02.880 but I'll let Buck do it for now. Jamel Moore 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:05.399 wrote those words well, he could have been any twenty 0:01:05.440 --> 0:01:08.360 six year old who found himself exploring the fun and 0:01:08.640 --> 0:01:11.920 not so fun parts of West Hollywood. The thing is 0:01:12.080 --> 0:01:14.920 he wasn't just any twenty six year old. And if 0:01:14.959 --> 0:01:17.000 he had been I wouldn't be standing on the street 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:22.240 talking about him. Jammel Moore was, among other things, a diarist, 0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:26.440 and like Queen Victoria and Frank and Andy Warhol, he 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:28.840 poured his emotions into a journal. 0:01:30.440 --> 0:01:34.600 I honestly don't know what to do. Become addicted to drugs, 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:37.160 the worst one at that. 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:42.520 Jammel's diary tells the world that it was ed Buck 0:01:42.600 --> 0:01:46.360 who got him addicted to crystal meth amphetamine. Meth can 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:50.240 be taken in many forms, pill forms, snorting. The most 0:01:50.240 --> 0:01:54.720 common practice is smoking, but like many drugs, injecting it 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:59.240 makes the high more immediate as well as doing more damage. 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:02.720 Ed Buck one to think he gave me my first 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:08.160 injection of crystal myth. It was painful, but after all 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:15.000 the troubles, I became addicted to the pain and the fetish. 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:17.680 In this episode, we're going to talk about the crimes 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:21.400 of ed Buck. The thing is, I don't believe he's alone. 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:23.960 Actually I know he's not alone. 0:02:24.320 --> 0:02:28.480 After Jamuel was gone, I didn't all think that it 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:30.560 was going to be swept under the rug like that. 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:34.480 Samuel Lloyd was a very good friend of Jamel. These 0:02:34.520 --> 0:02:36.840 clips that we're going to hear are from a documentary 0:02:37.120 --> 0:02:39.239 Jammel in tim It. 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:43.720 Was a surreal realization of how invaluable my life is. 0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:45.720 A black gay man was. 0:02:47.000 --> 0:02:50.320 The rawness and the anger of Jamel's friends. It's right 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:53.200 there on the surface. You know, for every beautiful young 0:02:53.240 --> 0:02:55.680 man that shows up in West Hollywood to have fun, 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:59.160 make a life, or let's be honest, escape most parts 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:01.639 of the United States, it feels like there's just a 0:03:01.800 --> 0:03:04.840 team of vultures sitting on the fence waiting for him 0:03:04.880 --> 0:03:07.640 to fuck up. A hard truth is that it is 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:11.639 financially hard for queer people. There is a myth that 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:15.320 gay men, for instance, are financially better off. I'm an 0:03:15.320 --> 0:03:18.720 economics reporter and a gay man, and in my expert opinion, 0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:24.399 that notion is the purest form of bullshit. The series, 0:03:24.560 --> 0:03:27.760 the show is about power and how it's used. You 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:31.560 have men like Jamel Moore or his friend Samuel Lloyd struggling, 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:34.720 and then you have ed Buck and he is not 0:03:34.840 --> 0:03:37.840 alone sitting on the fence waiting. 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:42.560 You like to be in new places and be where 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:45.320 nobody knew him, and you know, be the boy. 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:46.480 That was mysterious. 0:03:47.000 --> 0:03:49.600 He didn't talk very much and you know, and just 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:51.640 kind of give a little bit, give a little bit 0:03:51.720 --> 0:03:53.600 here and a little bit there, and maybe do a 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:56.240 little bit something crazy and then just doesn't hear you 0:03:56.360 --> 0:03:57.080 love doing that. 0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:01.400 The difference between Jamel Moore and other victims is that 0:04:01.480 --> 0:04:04.200 Jamel wrote his problems down. 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:10.320 Man, something is seriously wrong with me and my body. 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:14.160 I don't feel normal. I honestly think he has to 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:18.520 do with the judge. It makes me feel horrible, like 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:22.200 I'm so tired of living this life. 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:25.880 As sad as those words are, Jammel's diary allowed him 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:29.640 something and death that he'd never received in life. His 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:33.800 diary is how Jammel Moore was heard. It was his 0:04:33.880 --> 0:04:37.160 diary that allowed his mother to understand what happened. It 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:40.320 was his diary that resonated with so many queer people, 0:04:40.800 --> 0:04:43.200 and it was his diary that helped the local journalists 0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:46.159 start a movement that would strike at the core of 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:47.880 political life in Los Angeles. 0:04:48.640 --> 0:04:52.839 I I've been to jail, I I've been ragged and 0:04:53.120 --> 0:04:59.479 being many time. I've lont my job, I've lost my apartment. 0:05:02.200 --> 0:05:08.159 This is shattering the systems. The true crime podcast that's 0:05:08.200 --> 0:05:12.200 about more than Crome. The life of Jamel Moore after 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:23.800 this break In two thousand and nine, Jamel Moore arrived 0:05:23.800 --> 0:05:26.880 in Los Angeles, and like so many gay black men 0:05:26.960 --> 0:05:30.600 before him, he almost immediately got involved with ballroom or 0:05:30.600 --> 0:05:34.159 ball culture. Jamel joined the House of Combe, the Garsans, 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:38.960 headed by the transactivist Gia Banks. Now, ballroom is kind 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:41.120 of hard to describe, but I need to take more 0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:44.200 than a moment, especially given the climate of anti gay, 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:53.640 anti trans, and anti drag laws in the US right now. 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:58.000 Ballroom is a kind of competition where different houses compete 0:05:58.040 --> 0:06:00.760 against each other. Essentially and what I would all the 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:03.840 Olympics of drag. They have to think of drag in 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:07.560 this context as broadly as possible. It's about whether or 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:10.720 not you can pull off the look or serve realness. 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:15.479 There are all kinds of categories schoolboy, traditional, drag, military. 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:17.840 If I was to see look at you and guess 0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:21.640 your category, I would say it would be which queen 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:24.440 realness bring it in a sports effect. 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:28.000 I needed some help explaining bal culture in its place 0:06:28.080 --> 0:06:29.120 in black gay life. 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:31.479 My name is Sean Torrenton. I am one of the 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:36.760 founders of Slave TV, the premier destination for LGBTQ entertainment. 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:39.440 Shawn is currently a member of the House of Basquiat, 0:06:39.600 --> 0:06:41.760 but he and Jamel were once a member of the 0:06:41.800 --> 0:06:45.600 same house, though they never knowingly cross pass. But we 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:48.039 wanted to talk to Sean in part because, well, my 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:52.239 producers and I have become really fascinated with bald culture 0:06:52.520 --> 0:06:55.360 and how it kind of forms a safety debt for black, 0:06:55.440 --> 0:06:58.279 gay and trans folks. 0:06:57.279 --> 0:07:00.560 Just growing up like a ball would be considered a 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:07.720 safe space for black and like latinx LGBTQ folks, particularly 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:11.200 who are like often facing like multiple layers of discrimination 0:07:12.280 --> 0:07:16.160 and marginal marginalists, marginalism, marginalization. 0:07:16.440 --> 0:07:18.000 I always fuck that word up. 0:07:18.000 --> 0:07:23.480 Excuse me another word just discrimination and just being outcasted 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:29.120 from society and the communities made up of houses which 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:32.360 are like essentially chosen families that provide a sense of 0:07:32.400 --> 0:07:37.200 like belonging and acceptance and families for everyone within the house. 0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:41.000 Importantly for this story, Sean Torrenton has been a part 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:43.640 of ball culture in New York and LA. 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:46.120 So I would say LA ballroom is keeping it all 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:49.440 school because it's the smallest scene. LA is about like 0:07:49.560 --> 0:07:53.120 everybody's just enjoying eachself is family. When when you go 0:07:53.280 --> 0:07:56.640 to the ball everybody's love and everybody just know each 0:07:56.680 --> 0:08:00.400 other and everybody's connected somehow, So I do of that 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:02.640 aspect of the la ballroom scene. 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:06.800 The latest iteration of ball culture got its start alongside 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:10.000 the age crisis in New York during the nineteen eighties, 0:08:10.240 --> 0:08:14.560 and movies like Paris Is Burning brought ball culture above ground. 0:08:14.960 --> 0:08:17.400 In the nineties, when baal culture reached kind of a 0:08:17.680 --> 0:08:20.520 cultural peak, I snuck off to more than my fair 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:23.680 share in New York from college. That was an important 0:08:23.680 --> 0:08:26.320 part of my coming out. Sean says, it's important to 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:30.400 understand why black and LATINX queer folk are so drawn 0:08:30.640 --> 0:08:31.400 to this world. 0:08:32.760 --> 0:08:40.760 The draw to this world is, you know, well as 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:43.880 far as like and I'm just gonna say me, when 0:08:43.920 --> 0:08:49.640 you are a young kid and you are you know, 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:54.200 you didn't come from a privileged background, and the only 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:58.600 way out of your situation is through imagination. But then 0:08:58.640 --> 0:09:02.440 you come to a place where everybody is living in 0:09:02.440 --> 0:09:05.199 this fantasy and you getting all these cheers and all 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:09.959 these accolades because you are being your full authentic self. 0:09:10.679 --> 0:09:15.000 That draws people in, and you are considered a celebrity 0:09:15.040 --> 0:09:18.679 in that community, that would draw anybody in. It's fame 0:09:19.880 --> 0:09:22.679 is what we all want. But even though you people 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:24.840 say they don't want it, everybody wants a little bit 0:09:24.880 --> 0:09:25.160 of it. 0:09:26.040 --> 0:09:28.520 While doing research for this show, I found the writings 0:09:28.559 --> 0:09:31.319 of Channing Gerard Joseph. He's a queer author in a 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:34.839 Storian He traced the roots of drag and his child 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:39.000 ballroom or ball culture back to Washington, d c. Of 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:43.440 the eighteen eighties, and according to Joseph, essentially drag was 0:09:43.559 --> 0:09:48.040 founded in protest against homophobia and racism when a former 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:53.040 slave named William Dorsey Swan became the first queer activist. 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:56.040 He was arrested for protesting new laws that were being 0:09:56.120 --> 0:09:59.319 enacted at the time that made dressing as the opposite 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:03.240 sex illegal. This was the same time that voting rights 0:10:03.280 --> 0:10:07.240 were being taken away from former slaves. Sound familiar, Well, 0:10:07.320 --> 0:10:10.760 the former slave William Swan became the first documented person 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:14.760 to proclaim himself a queen of Drag or simply the 0:10:14.840 --> 0:10:18.400 Queen Sean Torrington says, you can see a direct line 0:10:18.440 --> 0:10:22.280 between the protests and community that William Swan created in 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:24.920 the ball community that he, Jamel and I were a 0:10:24.960 --> 0:10:25.320 part of. 0:10:26.160 --> 0:10:29.600 A lot of times people don't even have a place 0:10:29.640 --> 0:10:34.120 to sleep, you know, they walk these balls for the 0:10:34.160 --> 0:10:37.320 cash categories so they can pay their rent. This is 0:10:37.360 --> 0:10:41.960 their way to make money. Some girls, in order to survive, 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:45.000 they have to escorre, you know, sex works. 0:10:45.480 --> 0:10:48.439 Many of the houses now have relationships with brands and 0:10:48.520 --> 0:10:51.960 social service organizations. The house that Sean Torrington is a 0:10:51.960 --> 0:10:55.160 part of now is able to provide some housing, about 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:58.440 ten to fifteen units, but that is a drop in 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:01.040 the bucket when you consider that the homeless population of 0:11:01.040 --> 0:11:04.240 Los Angeles County it's about seventy six thousand on any 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:07.680 given night. Jamel Moore found the same escape in being 0:11:07.760 --> 0:11:10.840 himself as the former slave William Swan did in the 0:11:10.880 --> 0:11:14.320 eighteen eighties, that I did in the nineteen nineties, or 0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:17.560 that O'shee Sibley, the dancer who was murdered at twenty 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:21.560 eight in Brooklyn did this summer. He was murdered for 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:25.280 dancing voguing. That's a dance that goes all the way 0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:28.320 back to a dance called the cakewalk, a dance that 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:45.080 slaves did. The rent in Los Angeles is now and 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:48.400 was too damn high. When Jamel got to LA it 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:51.600 was hard for him to have steady, reliable housing. He 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:57.200 bounced around between friends, couches, and sometimes sleep on the streets. Now, 0:11:57.320 --> 0:11:59.880 while bal culture is a real thing and the relations 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:02.640 chips are real, it's not like joining the house comes 0:12:02.679 --> 0:12:06.160 with a job. Samuel Lloyd says so eloquently, if you're 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:09.000 not making two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in Los Angeles, 0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:12.959 you're certainly not living in the American dream. Now, with 0:12:13.080 --> 0:12:15.680 not a lot of job prospects, it's not hard to 0:12:15.679 --> 0:12:18.640 see how a handsome young man would turn to sex work, 0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:21.960 especially in a town with a lot of rich gay men, 0:12:22.480 --> 0:12:26.160 many of them closeted offering hundreds of dollars for sex. 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:34.520 It is the person who has everything and offers you 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:39.079 everything with this particular type of risk, i e. 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:43.160 The math and the sex. 0:12:44.520 --> 0:12:47.120 Those type of offers are A young, poor black queer 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:50.280 person has to balance out. Do I eat today, do 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:53.680 I have shelter today? And do I engage in this 0:12:54.240 --> 0:12:56.240 activity that may be dangerous, But at least I ate, 0:12:56.280 --> 0:12:58.040 At least I have money in my pocket. At least 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:00.440 I'm gonna be okay for a days. 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:05.320 It's around this time that Jamel told a friend that 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:08.440 he was seeing a white john in West Hollywood who 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:09.640 had messaged him on. 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:14.760 Adam for Adam so Jamel Moore new Buck for a 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:16.800 long time. They kind of had not, I guess a 0:13:17.000 --> 0:13:20.280 very long time, but they had a long standing relationship 0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:22.920 that was predicated on party and play. 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:27.120 Lindsay Bailey is one of the federal prosecutors who would 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:28.720 eventually try at Buck. 0:13:29.080 --> 0:13:33.240 So essentially, party in play is what would happen. Is 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:36.720 Jammel would go over to mister Buck's house. Buck would 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:39.720 provide him with methamphetamine, and in exchange, they would engage 0:13:39.960 --> 0:13:43.040 in some sort of sexual play. So sometimes just touching, 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:47.360 a lot of times it would be you know, sexual photographs, 0:13:47.559 --> 0:13:49.280 different types of photographs. 0:13:50.080 --> 0:13:52.559 We're going to get back to Lindsay Bailey, the prosecutor, 0:13:52.800 --> 0:13:55.559 but I need to explain party and play for those 0:13:55.720 --> 0:13:59.120 who don't know. In the gay world, party has taken 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:02.840 on a completeletely different meaning. Alex Garner is an author 0:14:02.840 --> 0:14:05.360 and activist. He's also a former sex worker. 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:12.360 Party in play is simply a reference to using drugs 0:14:12.400 --> 0:14:16.679 while having sex. Usually that means the use of crystal 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:20.560 meth while having sex. It usually means for an extended 0:14:20.600 --> 0:14:21.760 period of time. 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:26.800 Because the high from crystal can hit quickly, but mats 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:30.200 almost as quick and also if you use. Often people 0:14:30.240 --> 0:14:33.160 get into a cycle of binge and crash, and that 0:14:33.200 --> 0:14:35.840 can lead to going on the run, which means giving 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:39.560 up food and sleep while continuing to take meth every 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:42.360 few hours and have sex for several days. 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:45.320 And then, in terms of when it became sort of 0:14:45.400 --> 0:14:48.200 part of the vernacular of the culture partying play within 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:51.000 the per contexts that usually almost referred to almost always 0:14:51.040 --> 0:14:53.480 referred to crystal meth or some meth was almost always 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:58.040 involved in some way. Even though drug use could range 0:14:58.040 --> 0:15:03.520 from marijuana to ecstasy, to to kintamine to cocaine, chrystal 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:06.000 meth became the sort of lightning rod when we talked 0:15:06.000 --> 0:15:07.880 about party and play in the US context. 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:12.040 And sometimes Jamal would be paid for those sessions in cash. 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:15.920 Sometimes it would just be in drugs and they would 0:15:15.960 --> 0:15:18.960 both smoke methamphetamine. But what Buck really liked to do 0:15:19.040 --> 0:15:22.840 was slam, so that's injecting methamphetamine directly into your veins. 0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:27.880 And they had that relationship for a long time. 0:15:29.280 --> 0:15:31.000 I pray that I can just get my life together 0:15:31.040 --> 0:15:33.880 and make it make sense. I hope so many people, 0:15:34.040 --> 0:15:37.720 but I can't seem to help myself. I honestly don't 0:15:37.720 --> 0:15:42.440 know what to do become addicted to drugs, and the 0:15:42.480 --> 0:15:45.800 worst one at that. Ed Buck is the one to think. 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:50.080 He gave me my first injection of crystal myth. It 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:54.560 was painful, but after all the troubles, I became addicted 0:15:54.560 --> 0:16:00.360 to the pain and the fantasy. 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:03.880 You can hear the pain and anguish. Jamel did the 0:16:03.880 --> 0:16:06.920 best he possibly could to break his addiction. You know, 0:16:06.960 --> 0:16:08.880 I got to say, it's not just the fact that 0:16:09.040 --> 0:16:13.240 ed Buck introduced Jamel to slamming that's so appalling, or 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:16.520 the way he treated his victims, it was the illusion 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:19.640 that he cared about them. There are so many gay 0:16:19.680 --> 0:16:22.200 white men who I've run into who say shit like 0:16:22.840 --> 0:16:25.920 I'm not racist, I love black men, or I only 0:16:26.000 --> 0:16:29.680 date black men, but then every single part of how 0:16:29.720 --> 0:16:34.080 they act dehumanizes black men. I'm one hundred percent no, 0:16:34.160 --> 0:16:36.920 I'm actually a one thousand percent sure that ed Buck 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:41.160 said that he loved black men. But here's the thing. 0:16:41.920 --> 0:16:44.880 Ed Buck paid black men to do crystal meth so 0:16:44.920 --> 0:16:47.400 that he could take pictures of them in underwear, and 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:50.880 he wasn't really interested in sex necessarily, but he paid 0:16:50.920 --> 0:16:55.280 to humiliate and torture black men. For instance, he paid 0:16:55.320 --> 0:16:57.760 them to let him call them nigger. 0:16:59.080 --> 0:17:03.200 Seeking out men in that category and providing them food, shelter, 0:17:03.760 --> 0:17:08.240 and drugs, You know, are the signs of somebody with 0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:09.520 a scheme in mind. 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:12.399 When a white man is paying you to call you 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:16.199 a nigger, he ain't your friend. This was something that 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:19.880 Jamel Moore understood. He was horrified and troubled by what 0:17:20.000 --> 0:17:22.200 ed Buck was making him do, and in the fall 0:17:22.240 --> 0:17:25.959 of twenty sixteen, Jamel called his mother in tears, screaming 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:28.879 into the phone, saying, this man shot me up with 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:31.919 some stuff. I don't even know what it is. And 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:34.439 by the way, he did everything he could to quote 0:17:34.560 --> 0:17:37.800 handle his life well, which meant getting the fuck away 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:40.960 from ed Buck now. With help from friends, he did 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:44.080 just that, moving back to his family in Texas in 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:50.080 the spring of twenty seventeen. So many of the things 0:17:50.160 --> 0:17:53.199 that he needed to get his life together, they just 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:56.399 weren't available to Jamel. For instance, he was beyond the 0:17:56.440 --> 0:17:59.160 age of being able to be on his parents' health insurance, 0:17:59.880 --> 0:18:04.000 was in withdrawal. He needed more than willpower, He probably 0:18:04.040 --> 0:18:09.960 needed consistent medical care, trauma therapy, rehab a detox is. 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:14.280 Withdrawal symptoms were mistaken for pneumonia, Lindsey Bailey picks up 0:18:14.280 --> 0:18:15.440 the timeline. 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:21.160 In July of twenty seventeen. I think Jamel was an 0:18:21.200 --> 0:18:25.720 addict and needed another fix, essentially, and so he reached 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:27.520 out to the person that he knew would reliably get 0:18:27.520 --> 0:18:31.720 it to him. He sent Buck a text message that 0:18:31.840 --> 0:18:34.439 said I've been missing La, along with a video of 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:39.320 somebody being slammed with methamphetamine and a question mark. Buck 0:18:39.720 --> 0:18:42.320 responded with I believe the text was along the lines 0:18:42.320 --> 0:18:46.600 of be here now, and he bought Jamel a one 0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:51.679 way ticket from Texas to Los Angeles. Jamel took a 0:18:51.680 --> 0:18:55.800 backpack and basically everything he owned, got on that plane 0:18:56.040 --> 0:18:59.280 and flew from Texas to Los Angeles. Buck sent someone 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:02.360 to pick him up from the airport. The driver picked 0:19:02.440 --> 0:19:04.679 him up at I believe it was about one PM, 0:19:04.760 --> 0:19:06.840 and he got to Buck's apartment at about one forty 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:10.280 five PM, went inside and never came out. 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:14.800 No one knows exactly what happened after Jammel walked into 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:15.520 that apartment. 0:19:16.160 --> 0:19:19.199 There weren't photos or videos from that day, but we 0:19:19.240 --> 0:19:21.399 can imagine that it was much like other times in 0:19:21.440 --> 0:19:28.159 which Buck slammed Jammel, probably to the point where he 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:32.280 lost consciousness. And died. Buck went to a neighbor to 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:36.119 ask what to do. The neighbor started to perform CPR 0:19:36.280 --> 0:19:38.720 while Buck called nine to one to one, and when 0:19:38.840 --> 0:19:41.360 the paramedics got there, Jammel was already gone. 0:19:44.160 --> 0:19:47.520 For Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies responded to a nine 0:19:47.560 --> 0:19:50.679 to one one call from North Laurel Avenue in West Hollywood. 0:19:51.240 --> 0:19:54.920 A young black man was lying unresponsive on a mattress 0:19:55.480 --> 0:20:00.720 on the floor, naked except for white sox. Tennant's name 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:05.800 was ed Buck. He described the dead man as his friend. 0:20:06.720 --> 0:20:10.639 Buck said his friend had ejected meth. A little after that, 0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:13.280 he said his friend became very warm to the touch. 0:20:14.119 --> 0:20:17.360 It took ed Buck almost two hours just to pick 0:20:17.440 --> 0:20:25.720 up a phone and call police. This is shattering the system. 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:36.160 More after this, this is shattering the system. I'm Sonari Glennon. 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:45.600 When we left off, Jamel Moore lay dead in Edbuck's apartment, cold, 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:53.440 naked and alone. The last thing Jamel Moore saw would 0:20:53.480 --> 0:20:58.000 have been pretty frightening. Buck's home was genuinely a frightening place. 0:20:58.640 --> 0:21:03.119 He had photos of all kinds of politicians in prominent places, 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:06.680 but also there was a ray of gear devil mass 0:21:06.920 --> 0:21:11.320 gas masks, all kinds of paraphernalia. Henry Scott, the former 0:21:11.440 --> 0:21:15.679 editor of Ujoville, said they called Buck's apartment the gates 0:21:15.680 --> 0:21:16.720 of Hell for a. 0:21:16.720 --> 0:21:22.240 Reason, and ed Buck's apartment and insanely he allowed photographs 0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:25.399 to be taken by some of the text workers. The 0:21:25.440 --> 0:21:28.879 living room, there's a big matt press on the floor, 0:21:29.560 --> 0:21:34.440 there's a sofa. There are bins of a drug paraphernalia 0:21:34.480 --> 0:21:35.040 in store. 0:21:35.960 --> 0:21:38.840 Ed Buck Long had a reputation for being obsessed with 0:21:38.920 --> 0:21:42.359 black men. Henry Scott, the journalist, talked a lot about 0:21:42.480 --> 0:21:43.840 his obsession with black men. 0:21:44.080 --> 0:21:46.840 He had several little plastic bins in his living room 0:21:47.320 --> 0:21:50.800 of white underwear, and he insisted that the young gay 0:21:50.840 --> 0:21:55.320 black men put on whiteies. That was one of the passions. 0:21:55.800 --> 0:21:59.680 He claimed that he actually was friends for these young 0:21:59.720 --> 0:22:03.000 men he used. He told me at one point that 0:22:03.640 --> 0:22:06.199 Jamel Moore was a young friend of his who he 0:22:06.240 --> 0:22:09.400 had helped through life. That's what he claimed. 0:22:12.600 --> 0:22:16.600 An investigator arrived from the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner's office. 0:22:16.800 --> 0:22:20.440 On the floor next to Jamel, he noted ziploc bags 0:22:20.600 --> 0:22:24.399 swelled with water. A rolling toolbox was parked against the wall. 0:22:25.080 --> 0:22:29.840 Inside were several syringes with brown residue, a scale, lighters, 0:22:29.880 --> 0:22:33.000 a straw, a glass pipe with burn marks, and a 0:22:33.040 --> 0:22:37.840 clear plastic bag containing a crystal like substance. The examiner 0:22:38.000 --> 0:22:41.800 was able to unlock his phone using his password nineteen 0:22:41.880 --> 0:22:46.680 ninety one, Jammel's birth year. According to news reports, there 0:22:46.760 --> 0:22:49.600 was a text from American Airlines that said that Jammel 0:22:49.720 --> 0:22:53.800 had flown that morning from Houston to lax. The examiner 0:22:54.080 --> 0:22:58.639 performed an autopsy. There were no signs of visible trauma. 0:22:58.960 --> 0:23:03.000 There was, however, puncture wounds visible on his left in 0:23:03.080 --> 0:23:07.439 our forearm. Jamel tested positive from methan fetamine and the 0:23:07.520 --> 0:23:12.000 examiner found quote a notebook located in the decedent's property 0:23:12.240 --> 0:23:17.280 that indicated using intravenous drugs with ed Buck in the past. Again, 0:23:17.320 --> 0:23:20.439 reports say that the examiner ruled the death and accidental 0:23:20.560 --> 0:23:25.000 methan fetamine overdose. In less than five days after his death, 0:23:25.359 --> 0:23:36.040 the case was closed. Jamel Moore died on July twenty seventh, 0:23:36.160 --> 0:23:40.920 twenty seventeen. Meanwhile, ed Buck was a man about town. 0:23:41.040 --> 0:23:44.800 By the Thursday after Jamel's death, he showed up at 0:23:44.840 --> 0:23:48.199 a Wiho City meeting of the Stonewall Steering Committee of 0:23:48.240 --> 0:23:51.000 the Democratic Party. Now that's a gay arm of the 0:23:51.040 --> 0:23:56.000 local party. There was Buck Chilling, pretending that nothing was wrong. 0:24:00.080 --> 0:24:07.800 Than that shouldn't have happened. It just shouldn't have happened. 0:24:10.480 --> 0:24:15.400 By August first, Jamel's mother, Letitia Nixon, began contacting all 0:24:15.480 --> 0:24:18.280 kinds of media outlets to try to draw attention to 0:24:18.320 --> 0:24:19.280 the plight of her son. 0:24:19.720 --> 0:24:24.280 My son filed police reports. He's be cried out to 0:24:24.359 --> 0:24:28.439 so many people, and we all failed them. I just 0:24:28.480 --> 0:24:31.440 hope that the Sheriff's department does not fail my son. 0:24:32.359 --> 0:24:35.800 I'm asking for justice. It's crazy how the whole entire 0:24:36.000 --> 0:24:41.240 situation was handled. My son's dead and five days later 0:24:41.560 --> 0:24:44.560 the case is closed. I just want justice. That's it. 0:24:44.920 --> 0:24:48.359 My whole life has been turned upside down when you 0:24:48.480 --> 0:24:50.600 fight for the ones you love, and I will not 0:24:50.800 --> 0:24:54.439 stop until I get justice ed. Buck needs to be 0:24:54.600 --> 0:25:00.199 held to accountability for all the things that he's done. 0:25:11.280 --> 0:25:14.360 Letitia Nixon would soon get the attention of a small 0:25:14.400 --> 0:25:18.720 local website called we Ho Times. The story contained most 0:25:18.720 --> 0:25:22.239 of what Nixon claimed. The story would also contain this 0:25:22.359 --> 0:25:26.160 titbed that would bring the case to national attention, if 0:25:26.160 --> 0:25:29.760 not an arrest. It called ed Buck quote one of 0:25:29.800 --> 0:25:34.399 California's most prolific and substantial political donors, a detail that 0:25:34.440 --> 0:25:38.840