Speaker 1: In this podcast, we're going to talk frankly but sensitively
Speaker 1: about issues some people might find disturbing, including rape and suicide.
Speaker 1: If you or someone you know is suicidal in the
Speaker 1: US down nine eight eight, check out this podcast notes
Speaker 1: page for information on LGBT plus mental health resources in
Speaker 1: your community.
Speaker 2: Let's recap where we are in this story.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: I need to remind you that two gay black men
Speaker 2: have been found dead eighteen months apart in the same
Speaker 2: West Hollywood apartment. Jamel Moore and Timothy Dean both died
Speaker 2: of meth overdoses at one two three four North Laurel Avenue. Now, initially,
Speaker 2: both desks were ruled accidental overdoses. Ed Buck, a gay
Speaker 2: white man who was fairly well known around town, rented
Speaker 2: that apartment in West Hollywood. Now that's two overdoses at
Speaker 2: the exact same address, in the exact same apartment in
Speaker 2: less than two years. Yet ed Buck was still free,
Speaker 2: and he was still persuading men to cross this threshold
Speaker 2: and enter into what some might have called ed Bucks
Speaker 2: gates of health. It's important if we're going to understand
Speaker 2: what happened in ed Bucks apartment, we have to understand
Speaker 2: where this all happened when we started looking at the
Speaker 2: story of Jamel Moore and Timothy Dean, we realized that
Speaker 2: not a whole lot has been written about the history
Speaker 2: of West Hollywood specifically, so we thought we'd stepped back
Speaker 2: from the specific aspects of the crimes of that book
Speaker 2: to take a look at the place where ed Bucks
Speaker 2: crimes were made possible. I'm scenario Glennon. This is shattering
Speaker 2: the system the true crime podcasts. That's about more than
Speaker 2: crowd on this episode, Come as you are, the story
Speaker 2: of West Hollywood and its rise from a wallless, mob
Speaker 2: run railroad town to a modern gay mecca. More after
Speaker 2: this break Well, I just got off the bus in
Speaker 2: the center of West Hollywood's Boystown area on Santa Monica
Speaker 2: and Robertson, and I'm headed towards the abbey. Now it's
Speaker 2: not a church, it has no religious affiliation. If not
Speaker 2: quite a sacred space, it's supposed to be a safe space.
Speaker 2: It started off as a coffee shop, but in the
Speaker 2: more than thirty years since it's opened to stores, it's
Speaker 2: become one of the most important bars in the whole
Speaker 2: gay world. The motto of the bar might as well
Speaker 2: be the motto of the city of West Hollywood, come
Speaker 2: as you are. Let me tell you a short story that,
Speaker 2: whether than true or not, has become a local legend.
Speaker 2: In the fifties, the police in this area were known
Speaker 2: for doing stings on places where gay men gathered. On
Speaker 2: one particular, the police showed up to raid a gay
Speaker 2: bar and the most famous movie actress of the time
Speaker 2: was there. Elizabeth Taylor strolled to the door and informed
Speaker 2: the police that there was nothing to see here. The
Speaker 2: police sheepishly left empty handed. Think about that for a moment, police,
Speaker 2: gay people, celebrity, and what it says about power and
Speaker 2: this place. Hank Scott is a pioneering journalist. He's worked
Speaker 2: at the New York Times, he ran Out magazine, and
Speaker 2: he's one of the many people we've interviewed not just
Speaker 2: about the case of Ed Buck, but about the city
Speaker 2: of West Hollywood, gay life, and local politics. West Hollywood
Speaker 2: is the gayest city in the country, but Hank Scott
Speaker 2: says the city has a mixed reputation in the gay world.
Speaker 2: He learned that when he started the newspaper Wehovill.
Speaker 3: I reached out to publishers of leading gay publications around
Speaker 3: the country and asked them in ten words or less
Speaker 3: to describe West Hollywood.
Speaker 2: Scott thought it would be a good idea and a
Speaker 2: fun story.
Speaker 4: Oh how wrong he was.
Speaker 3: It was so upsetting that I thought this isn't something
Speaker 3: I should probably publish in my first week on the job.
Speaker 3: Twink Town, Silly Go Go Boy. And it turns out
Speaker 3: there's a lot more to West Hollywood than that. I realized.
Speaker 3: There were a lot of stereotypes about West Hollywood, and
Speaker 3: one of the things that I saw is my mission,
Speaker 3: both with the Lejoville and West Hollywood Magazine is to
Speaker 3: dig deep and find out what West Hollywood was really like.
Speaker 2: West Hollywood is a lot of what people are imagining
Speaker 2: when you think Hollywood. Just want to make sure that
Speaker 2: folks understand that Hollywood is a neighborhood fully within the
Speaker 2: boundaries of the city of Los Angeles. In the mid
Speaker 2: twentieth century, what is now West Hollywood wasn't its own
Speaker 2: city yet. It wouldn't be officially incorporated until nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 2: The city is only about one point nine square miles,
Speaker 2: hemmed in by Los Angeles to the north, south and
Speaker 2: east and Beverly Hills to the west, and there are
Speaker 2: about thirty six thousand people who were squeezed into this
Speaker 2: less than two square miles, and that number can triple
Speaker 2: or even quadruple on the weekend. How did we get
Speaker 2: to here? Well, we need to step into the wayback
Speaker 2: machine to help us understand what made it possible for
Speaker 2: ed Buck to so brazenly commit crime for millennia. That
Speaker 2: bright sunshine that brings people to southern California, well that
Speaker 2: was a curse. The semi arid landscape and the insanely
Speaker 2: large number of man eating bears meant that huge parts
Speaker 2: of Los Angeles were sparsely populated. Now, the ancient people
Speaker 2: lived here. The Tongva stalked deer in the Beverly Hills
Speaker 2: and fished in what is now Malibu. All the places
Speaker 2: where rich people live now are where people have kind
Speaker 2: of always lived the terrifying California. The bear kept the
Speaker 2: population low, but the Spanish and later the Americans massacred
Speaker 2: the bears and decimated the native population. By the time
Speaker 2: a huge deposit of oil was found in eighteen ninety two,
Speaker 2: Native Americans in the area were decimated and divested of
Speaker 2: their land, and by nineteen hundred Los Angeles had swelled
Speaker 2: to more than one hundred thousand people. Now, while La
Speaker 2: grew up, there was one area, a railroad town called Sherman,
Speaker 2: that sprang up.
Speaker 4: And it was the home of the Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: Pacific Railroad, all its main shops, its main railroads, and
Speaker 2: for decades a train ran down what is now the
Speaker 2: Santa Monica Boulevard. Sherman was where railroad and oil workers
Speaker 2: lived and played. It would become West Hollywood some time later.
Speaker 2: Now fast forward to the nineteen twenties. Los Angeles is
Speaker 2: one of the most important oil producing sites on the
Speaker 2: planet and Sherman was the wide open town that attracted
Speaker 2: lots of money. And while gambling was illegal in Los Angeles,
Speaker 2: it was legal over in Sherman, and all that money
Speaker 2: attracted bohemians, criminals, gays, hustlers, bohemians, and the mob. In
Speaker 2: the mid nineteen thirties, Bugsy Seagull, famous East Coast mobster,
Speaker 2: a hitman part of a group called Murder Incorporated. Well,
Speaker 2: he moved to southern California and this man got into
Speaker 2: almost every racket you can imagine, extorting the studios through
Speaker 2: the unions, and gambling and prostitution. Bugsy Seagull is probably
Speaker 2: though best known for helping build the Las Vegas Strip. Well,
Speaker 2: he made the money and the connections. He needed to
Speaker 2: do that in part because of the money and what
Speaker 2: he learned from running the Sunset Strip, the Sunset Strip
Speaker 2: that runs right through West Hollywood. Before it became a
Speaker 2: tourist trap, it was a cash register for the mob. Now,
Speaker 2: if you watch a mob movie Goodfellers of the Godfather,
Speaker 2: they sort of weave out that a big racket for
Speaker 2: the mob was gay bars.
Speaker 3: You could pay off the Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies.
Speaker 2: Hank Scott, the founder of jujo Vel.
Speaker 3: If you were gay, you serious problems if you were
Speaker 3: in the city of Los Angeles, seriously persecuted. But there
Speaker 3: were gay bars that could pay off sheriff's deputies and survive.
Speaker 3: And you know what the game was, Hollywood.
Speaker 2: They thrived in this town where a prostitute, a speak easy,
Speaker 2: a casino, a gay bar, a mobster, or a drag
Speaker 2: queen was just left alone. The gin, the drugs, and
Speaker 2: the sex have always been easy in West Hollywood. That
Speaker 2: image actually no, that reality stuck, and traces of West
Speaker 2: Hollywood's very complicated history persist to this very day. This
Speaker 2: is shattering the system. More after this break, if you're
Speaker 2: at a name a nightclub that you've heard of in
Speaker 2: the LA area, it is probably in West Hollywood or
Speaker 2: incredibly close. Now I'm going to read you a list.
Speaker 2: See if you recognize any of these CEO's. That's where
Speaker 2: Sammy Davis became a star. Cafe Chocadero, the Rainbow Room,
Speaker 2: the Viper Room, that's where if River Phoenix died outside,
Speaker 2: Chateau Momanc, The Troubadour where Elton John first played the US,
Speaker 2: The House of Blues, the Roxy, the Comedy Store. If
Speaker 2: you were to look up any of those names, you
Speaker 2: would have a pretty decent history of the nightlife in America.
Speaker 2: While West Hollywood clubs in its social scene would continue
Speaker 2: the thrive, ordinary people began to suffer. Rints began to rise,
Speaker 2: and affordable housing was being demolished and replaced with big
Speaker 2: hotels for tourists and expensive apartment towers. Here's journalist Hank
Speaker 2: Scott again.
Speaker 3: What happened was Los Angeles Board of Supervisors had become
Speaker 3: dominated by Republicans who were not interested in preserving a
Speaker 3: portable housing for people and the elderly people In once Hollywood, a.
Speaker 2: Group called the Coalition for Economic Survival was formed to
Speaker 2: fight gentrification.
Speaker 3: Russian Jewish immigrants were struggling to pay rent, so they
Speaker 3: really pulled things together. But then the Coalition also decided
Speaker 3: to engage the gay community, which was smart because this
Speaker 3: was a community that wanted to live in a city
Speaker 3: where their rights were understood and protected.
Speaker 2: This was the eighties, when the gay world was essentially
Speaker 2: reaching peak. Activist HIV and AIDS hit West Hollywood like
Speaker 2: a nuclear explosion. A monster you hear from the men
Speaker 2: who survived that in West Hollywood is that lesbian women
Speaker 2: were the superheroes. And when West Hollywood finally became its
Speaker 2: own city in nineteen eighty four, Valerie Tarrigdo became its
Speaker 2: first mayor. That made history. She was the first lesbian
Speaker 2: to be elected mayor of any incorporated municipality in the
Speaker 2: United States, and to paraphrase President Joe Biden, it was
Speaker 2: a big fucking deal.
Speaker 5: Do solemnly swear.
Speaker 2: One of her first official acts was to march to
Speaker 2: a popular straight bar and remove a sign in the
Speaker 2: window that read no faggots.
Speaker 6: This is going to be a turning point and look
Speaker 6: back at some of the oppression. Gays and lesbians have
Speaker 6: felt and say, why were we doing that? This makes
Speaker 6: absolutely no sense or just people. It took time in
Speaker 6: every oppressed class for that consciousness to be raised to say, well,
Speaker 6: we're all alike here, and those those class distinctions, whether
Speaker 6: it be women, men, blacks, Hispanics, it's all irrelevant.
Speaker 2: She helped pass one of the strongest rent control laws
Speaker 2: in the country, and under Tarigno, the city became the
Speaker 2: second US city to legally recognize same sex partnerships and
Speaker 2: offer domestic partner benefits. This is in the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 2: but everything in West Hollywood has two sides. On March sixteenth,
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty six, Valerie Trignau was convicted of embezzling. She
Speaker 2: resigned from the West Hollywood government after being sentenced to
Speaker 2: sixty days for embezzling public funds. The very first mayor
Speaker 2: West Hollywood went to jail. West Hollywood by the eighties
Speaker 2: transformed itself from that little railroad town to a progressive mecca.
Speaker 2: The city was becoming as progressive or as left as
Speaker 2: any American city, with stances on almost every single internet
Speaker 2: national issue you can imagine. Meanwhile, West Hollywood has more
Speaker 2: than its fair share of illegal straight massage parlors, which
Speaker 2: has been a part of recent things, and human trafficking,
Speaker 2: which is a problem of epic proportions in Los Angeles,
Speaker 2: has one of its centers in West Hollywood. West Hollywood
Speaker 2: was also a center for the legal and illegal marijuana trade,
Speaker 2: alongside a massive illegal drug trade.
Speaker 7: It's one point nine square miles of the most fun
Speaker 7: you'll ever have.
Speaker 2: Lindsay Horvat, she was the second woman mayor of the
Speaker 2: City of West Hollywood. As a city prospered because of development,
Speaker 2: it also struggled with its identity.
Speaker 7: It is the Sunset Strip, it is Melrose and Beverly
Speaker 7: and the design districts and creative district businesses like the
Speaker 7: Pacific Design Center. There's the Rainbow District with all of
Speaker 7: the LGBT nightlife, including some of the shows that you
Speaker 7: see on TV. Pump and Sir and you know, the
Speaker 7: vander Pumper Rules World is all of there is all
Speaker 7: located there on Santa Monica Boulevard.
Speaker 1: Group sixty six.
Speaker 4: Like what makes what makes West Hollywood special?
Speaker 2: So old or there's some weird, there's some pecuriarities beyond
Speaker 2: just you know, being gay, but.
Speaker 7: Sure, city sure so there, I think, especially because of
Speaker 7: the LGBTQ identity of the city, a lot of people
Speaker 7: expect the mayor to make statements or take positions on
Speaker 7: LGBTQ issues.
Speaker 1: Writ Large.
Speaker 2: I met Lindsay Horrvath in her office in downtown Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: She's now on the La County Board of Supervisors.
Speaker 7: It's one point nine square miles thirty six thousand people,
Speaker 7: so a very densely populated city.
Speaker 2: Somebody described the city as the no man's land between
Speaker 2: Los Angeles and Beverly Hills.
Speaker 7: I don't know that anybody would call it no man'stown today,
Speaker 7: but I think once upon a time there it was
Speaker 7: certainly known that the share Griff's Department sort of looked
Speaker 7: the other way at behavior that was going on in
Speaker 7: this one point nine square mile enclave. And that's where
Speaker 7: you know, sort of the gangsters on the Sunset Strip
Speaker 7: would go to many of the historic venues on the
Speaker 7: Sunset Trip. You know, they went there because they knew
Speaker 7: that it would be a safe place for them to
Speaker 7: go about as many people were paying attention, So it
Speaker 7: let people kind of live and let live.
Speaker 2: So before West Hollywood became a city of its own.
Speaker 2: It was an unincorporated part of Los Angeles County, and
Speaker 2: it used the LA County Sheriff's Department for police protection.
Speaker 2: This is a system that's called the Lakewood Plan, which
Speaker 2: was developed where small towns can stay independent but also
Speaker 2: provide services like police and fire without the costs of say,
Speaker 2: starting your own police force from scratch. And when West
Speaker 2: Hollywood was incorporated, the city founders stuck with the sheriff.
Speaker 2: I asked Lindsay Horvav, the former mayor, about the historic
Speaker 2: relateationship between the City of West Hollywood and the LA
Speaker 2: County Sheriff's Department.
Speaker 7: It's been a colorful history, as you might imagine. The
Speaker 7: Sheriff's Department, as many law enforcement agencies did, had a
Speaker 7: pretty fraught relationship with the LGBTQ community. There was, and
Speaker 7: some are you continues to be a very difficult relationship
Speaker 7: between law enforcement and lgbt community members just wanting to
Speaker 7: live their lives out freely and safely. And there were
Speaker 7: many raids on gay bars in West Hollywood that created
Speaker 7: a very tense and hostile relationship between law enforcement and
Speaker 7: the community.
Speaker 2: Now, remember West Hollywood contracts the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department,
Speaker 2: which has about two dozen patrol stations across the region
Speaker 2: to provide law enforcement services. West Hollywood doesn't have a
Speaker 2: lot of leverage when it comes to policing its own.
Speaker 7: Police force as a city that has nearly fifty percent
Speaker 7: of the community identify as LGBTQ plus. There are cultural
Speaker 7: sensitivity trainings and cultural competencies that are required in order
Speaker 7: to keep people safe, and so the relationship then improved
Speaker 7: and there are now some community members who still to
Speaker 7: this day feel very strongly that the Sheriff's Department station
Speaker 7: in West Hollywood is different than the broader department and
Speaker 7: cares for the West Hollywood community quite effectively. There are
Speaker 7: folks who do not believe that, and very much believe
Speaker 7: that the Sheriff's Department hasn't done enough to understand and
Speaker 7: appropriately serve and keep safe the LGBTQ plus community.
Speaker 2: Were you satisfied with the Sheriff's Department when you were
Speaker 2: in the city.
Speaker 7: I think that the Sheriff's Department in many ways did
Speaker 7: a great job. In many ways was very challenged to
Speaker 7: have a city of thirty six thousand people that could
Speaker 7: on any given night quadruple just because of who was
Speaker 7: coming in to go to the night life. That makes
Speaker 7: your job and your responsibilities very difficult. It's not like
Speaker 7: you're patrolling bedroom community of thirty six thousand people that
Speaker 7: goes to sleep at ten o'clock at night. But I
Speaker 7: will also say because of that, they had to be
Speaker 7: prepared for a different kind of experience. And I think
Speaker 7: there were ways that the department fell short in terms
Speaker 7: of the expectations of the community as it related especially
Speaker 7: to cultural competency.
Speaker 2: And there's no like, oh, in order to come the
Speaker 2: west out Like in my mind there would be like, oh,
Speaker 2: there is this sort of special training or maybe why
Speaker 2: I want to know this, But there's none of that
Speaker 2: in your shade.
Speaker 7: You shugar head requirements. No, there there was discussion that
Speaker 7: certain trainings happened, and I asked that question at a
Speaker 7: public meeting, and I just asked someone from the station
Speaker 7: who was a sergeant, what sort of training he had
Speaker 7: had as it related to LGBTQ plus cultural competency. And
Speaker 7: he said that he had been trained on the flags.
Speaker 7: That was literally his answer.
Speaker 2: Oh, trained on the flag.
Speaker 7: Literally the flags, that was his answer. And so he
Speaker 7: didn't even say pride flags he just said the flags.
Speaker 7: So when that is an answer that you get from
Speaker 7: a sheriff sergeant who is dedicated to the West Hollywood station,
Speaker 7: it is troubling to think that not everyone at the
Speaker 7: station could receive the kind of training one might expect
Speaker 7: in order to properly serve the lgbt Q plus community
Speaker 7: and keep people safe.
Speaker 2: Members of the community like Jamel Moore and Timothy Dean,
Speaker 2: this is shattering the system. The True Crime podcast that's
Speaker 2: about more than crime more after this break. If you've
Speaker 2: paid any attention to the news of pop culture in
Speaker 2: the last I don't know, fifty sixty years, you understand
Speaker 2: that the LAPD, the police for the city of Los Angeles,
Speaker 2: have historically been the symbol of police brutality and aggression. Well,
Speaker 2: the LA Sheriff is like the cousin that doesn't get
Speaker 2: quite as much attention. There really aren't any PBS documentaries
Speaker 2: about the LA Sheriff, though there should be right now.
Speaker 2: For instance, there's a group of whistleblowers and you cannot
Speaker 2: make this up. A group of LA County sheriffs who
Speaker 2: are claiming that some of their own colleagues other sheriffs,
Speaker 2: were members of the gang called the Bandidos. The plaintiffs
Speaker 2: claim that the Bandido's gangs that these are police officers.
Speaker 2: Mind you, we're harassing and intimidating and even physically attacking
Speaker 2: other sheriffs. So I don't think we have the greatest
Speaker 2: leadership right now and West how A Day got rid
Speaker 2: of several sheriffs which were getting rid.
Speaker 4: Of the bad apple since there's bad cops at discriminating
Speaker 4: against people for because of their ethnicity.
Speaker 2: A special Council report that was published in early twenty
Speaker 2: twenty three indicates that gangs within La County Sheriff's Department
Speaker 2: have existed for decades and that quote members not only
Speaker 2: use gang like symbols, but engaging gang type and criminal
Speaker 2: behavior directed against the public and other department members. Some
Speaker 2: of the accused sheriffs have been fired, and the county
Speaker 2: denies the allegations that the internal gangs act with impunity.
Speaker 2: We reached out to the Sheriff's office for this podcast,
Speaker 2: but they decline. This is the sheriff's office that was
Speaker 2: in charge, the one that showed up to ed Buck's
Speaker 2: apartment when on two different occasions they had countered the
Speaker 2: lifeless bodies of Jamel Moore and Timothy Dean. There is
Speaker 2: a huge divide in West Hollywood between renters and homeowners,
Speaker 2: between woke gays and often older, wealthy white men, and
Speaker 2: there has been a click of older white men who
Speaker 2: have been on the city council for decades. No shame
Speaker 2: on my home for more than a decade, but some
Speaker 2: are Paradoxically, all these smart people in West Hollywood do
Speaker 2: not pay attention to local politics, and until recently it
Speaker 2: wasn't unusual to get less than twenty percent in a
Speaker 2: local election. There's a great saying all politics is local. Well,
Speaker 2: if all politics is local, then at least some of
Speaker 2: the power eils should be right. So I am standing
Speaker 2: right across the street from the West Hollywood City Hall,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to see just how much local residents
Speaker 2: know about local politics and local power.
Speaker 4: Do you mind if I ask your quick questions?
Speaker 2: Do you live in West Hollywood?
Speaker 4: I don't think he does.
Speaker 2: Would you know who the mayor of West Hollywood is?
Speaker 3: N s I shouldn't like me.
Speaker 1: I don't know Gavin Newsom.
Speaker 7: No.
Speaker 4: Right now, off the top of my head.
Speaker 2: In Maryland, this is the West Hollywood that Ed Buck
Speaker 2: chose to move to. And once he got here, he
Speaker 2: jumped right into the.
Speaker 4: Mix of things. He showed up to city.
Speaker 2: Council meetings advocating for animal rights. He became part of
Speaker 2: the Gay Democrats, and he gave the money. He would
Speaker 2: end up giving nearly five hundred thousand dollars to politicians
Speaker 2: over the course of his time in Wee Home.
Speaker 4: Now, that might not seem like a.
Speaker 2: Lot, but a few thousand dollars goes a long way
Speaker 2: in West Hollywood, where in some municipal elections only a
Speaker 2: few thousand people show up. So I'm back at the abbey,
Speaker 2: and inside the bar there is a portrait of Liz Taylor.
Speaker 2: It reads, this was the last place that Liz Taylor
Speaker 2: was seen in public. Now, I tell you something, if
Speaker 2: you sit here long enough, you'll see the new kids
Speaker 2: just off the bus.
Speaker 8: I'm afraid that a lot of people come here dreaming
Speaker 8: of becoming musicians, actors, and then they easily get lost
Speaker 8: in alcoholism and drugs, and then they run out of money.
Speaker 2: That's Otavio today. He was Timothy Dean's roommate. He's a
Speaker 2: straight Italian actor and dancer. He's been in the US
Speaker 2: for nearly a decade. The beginning of Otavio's story sounds
Speaker 2: like a version of I don't know nearly every Hollywood story.
Speaker 8: When I arrived, I slept in a hostel by Hollywood Boulevard,
Speaker 8: by the Walk of Fame.
Speaker 2: So many people arrived with the dreams of stardom, just
Speaker 2: like Otavio. But if you can imagine what he experienced
Speaker 2: in West Hollywood.
Speaker 8: I have a lot of friends who want to study abroad,
Speaker 8: people in the Netherlands, in Spain, in France and Italy,
Speaker 8: in the United States as well, or in either places
Speaker 8: in the world, and nobody has stories like mine.
Speaker 2: There is something that remains of that old railroad town
Speaker 2: and the mob hangout that West Hollywood just cannot shake off.
Speaker 2: Now the city of West Hollywood Park, which is where
Speaker 2: I'm walking, is alongside also the Sheriff's office. Elsewhere in
Speaker 2: the series, we talked to some of the most senior
Speaker 2: law enforcement officials connected to prosecuting at Buck. Now, while
Speaker 2: ed Buck is an extreme case, law enforcement and some
Speaker 2: jurisdictions are looking a bit closer at crimes focusing on
Speaker 2: the queer community. Let's hear about a case from Jeremiah Levine.
Speaker 2: He's with the US Justice department.
Speaker 5: And during that string of robberies, he exclusively targeted gay
Speaker 5: men who he met on the dating app Grinder, and
Speaker 5: when he met them, he used gay dating culture in
Speaker 5: a way that allowed him to really violently exploit these
Speaker 5: men for robbery.
Speaker 2: In the next episode, we'll return to the more direct
Speaker 2: story of Jamel and Timothy. We wanted to give you
Speaker 2: a sense of where they spent their last days. This
Speaker 2: park and this intersection are where so many queer folks
Speaker 2: have found their lives and livelihood. I've lived there for
Speaker 2: over a decade and it has its problems. But if
Speaker 2: I've learned one thing, it's that if the greatest trick
Speaker 2: the Devil played was making you believe he doesn't exist,
Speaker 2: then just as dastardly is the idea that anyone could
Speaker 2: just get off of a bus or chain or a
Speaker 2: plane and make it in Hollywood. Well that's the show.
Speaker 2: Thanks again the John Ponder of the West Hollywood History website.
Speaker 2: That's such a great site. Check it out. And Karina
Speaker 2: Longworth well, she's the OG of Hollywood podcast Gotta Find Her.
Speaker 4: This is Shattering the System.
Speaker 2: Shattering the System is a production of Macro Studios, and
Speaker 2: iHeart podcasts. I'm your host, Snari Glinton. You can find
Speaker 2: me on Instagram at Snari plus the Number One. Our
Speaker 2: series executive producers are Charles D. King, Asha Corpus, Win
Speaker 2: Royal Reccio, Jonathan Hunger, Lindsay Hoffman and Sinnari Luton.
Speaker 4: That's Me.
Speaker 2: Our podcast is co written and produced by Ralph Cooper.
Speaker 2: The third Erica Rodriguez, is our associate producer. Dana Conway
Speaker 2: is our archival producer. Chris Man is our audio engineer.
Speaker 2: Sound design and music provided any Via Lobos, Assistant editors
Speaker 2: Annie Va Lobos and Edward Bartress, with special help from
Speaker 2: Lisa Powell. Also special thanks to Jennifer buen On Toni
Speaker 2: and the Press Play Agency. Also special thanks to Porsche Robertson.
Speaker 4: Magas and Karen Graff by Bates.
Speaker 2: And archival clips provided by The Big Goose Adventures.
Speaker 4: This is Shattering the System