Speaker 1: In this podcast, we're going to talk frankly but sensitively
Speaker 1: about some tough issues including sexual abuse, drugs, and suicide.
Speaker 1: Check out this podcast notes page for information on mental
Speaker 1: health resources in the queer community.
Speaker 2: This is Shattering the System. I'm Sinari Glinton. In our
Speaker 2: previous episode, we learned that a twenty six year old
Speaker 2: gay black man, Jamel Moore, was found dead in the
Speaker 2: apartment of Ed Buck at one two three four North
Speaker 2: Laurel Avenue in West Hollywood. Buck, who is white, was
Speaker 2: sixty two years old at the time, and he had
Speaker 2: kind of turned his home into a sort of drug
Speaker 2: or sex dungeon on the street. They called it the
Speaker 2: Gates of Hell. Now in his apartment he displayed photos
Speaker 2: of prominent politicians, the trappings that came with being a
Speaker 2: political donor. And it's interesting to me how the media
Speaker 2: covered Melmore's death. Let's get into it.
Speaker 3: It has been three months since twenty six year old
Speaker 3: Will Moore found dead the West Hollywood home wealthy democratic.
Speaker 4: Donor at Buck.
Speaker 5: Initially, his death was ruled accidental, but they better mean overdose.
Speaker 6: Moore's mother, Letitia Nickson, has pressed police to continue the
Speaker 6: investigation into worse On Jamil's or theorious death.
Speaker 2: Jamel Moore is dead. Then five days later the case
Speaker 2: is closed, ruled an accidental overdose. Now that's despite Jamel
Speaker 2: Moore's diary. That's despite a bag of evidence. That's despite
Speaker 2: other victims who'd been in this very apartment and have
Speaker 2: stories to tell. Ed Buck was out in the streets
Speaker 2: and he was becoming kind of a local news celebrity.
Speaker 2: Jamel Moore's mother would begin a campaign not only to
Speaker 2: get ed Buck put in jail, but to get the
Speaker 2: politicians who gave them money held accountable. The local news
Speaker 2: site U Hillville covered this very vigil held in front
Speaker 2: of the Los Angeles County, the Sheriff's.
Speaker 6: Office, the lord to cover this family with club and
Speaker 6: peace even in this difficult times.
Speaker 2: Now, this is Letician Nixon, Jamel Moore's mother speaking to reporters.
Speaker 7: This is something that shouldn't have happened. It just shouldn't
Speaker 7: have happened. My son fouled police reports. It's crazy how
Speaker 7: the whole entire situation was handled. My son's dead, and
Speaker 7: five days later the case is closed.
Speaker 2: I'm standing in the spot where Letitia Nixon spoke those
Speaker 2: very words literally across the Street. A few years later,
Speaker 2: on the fourth anniversary of her son's death, she would
Speaker 2: get a measure of justice for her son. Ed Bud
Speaker 2: would be convicted of federal charges, including the death of
Speaker 2: Jamel Moore, but justice was not swift at all. Eighteen
Speaker 2: months after Jamel Moore was found dead in his apartment,
Speaker 2: another black man, Timothy Dean, was also pronounced dead from
Speaker 2: an overdose in the exact same apartment in ed Buck's
Speaker 2: apartment in West Hollywood. And even after a second death,
Speaker 2: ed Buck walked the streets with impunity.
Speaker 5: And that's what I saw ed Buck as being in
Speaker 5: this case. He was an offender who had acted with
Speaker 5: impunity for nearly a decade. And I was made aware
Speaker 5: through the course of this case that ed Buck is
Speaker 5: not alone and he is not the only person victimizing
Speaker 5: underserved populations in Los Angeles. So this was a really
Speaker 5: important bell weather and deterrent for other people who would
Speaker 5: victimize these populations.
Speaker 2: This is shattering the system, the rise and fall of
Speaker 2: ed Buck. That's after this breaking years ago, when I
Speaker 2: was a young local public radio reporter, I went to
Speaker 2: a local journalism awards banquet. Didn't have a car, so
Speaker 2: a newspaper reporter offered to give me a ride home.
Speaker 2: Her name was Linda Lutton. She'd been the big star
Speaker 2: of the evening. Actually, she won the prize for investigative journalism.
Speaker 2: She had won that award because she helped to put
Speaker 2: a local official in jail with her reporter. Now, as
Speaker 2: we're driving home to the South Side Chicago, I remember
Speaker 2: asking her an important question for me, which was what
Speaker 2: made her look into this. I don't know local school
Speaker 2: official so closely. What a tipped her off? I asked her,
Speaker 2: and she looked at me and matter of factly said,
Speaker 2: scenari he was an asshole. It's hard to be an
Speaker 2: asshole in only one part of your life, you see.
Speaker 2: The thing is you get the sense, at least from
Speaker 2: everyone I've talked to in this story. Even before the deaths,
Speaker 2: ed Buck was kind of an asshole.
Speaker 4: He was a troublesome kid.
Speaker 8: His mother, interviewed over the years, said she knew when
Speaker 8: the phone would ring it would be the school reporting
Speaker 8: another problem. But her son, she'd pick up the phone saying, now,
Speaker 8: what's he doing? So he was a little bit difficult.
Speaker 8: He was a very handsome young man. He became a model.
Speaker 2: Hank Scott reported extensively on that book, his political connections
Speaker 2: and the deaths in his home. Scott started the local
Speaker 2: website Wehillville, which covers West Hollywood. And I always think
Speaker 2: the names are important, So let's begin. Edward Bernard Peter
Speaker 2: Buck Milter. That's Ed Buck was born in August twenty fourth,
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty four, in Steubenville, Ohio, which is just about
Speaker 2: a half an hour or so from Pittsburgh. Other famous
Speaker 2: residents from Steubenville late Great Dean Mark. Now. When Buck
Speaker 2: was six, he moved from Steubenville with his parents, one brother,
Speaker 2: and two sisters to Phoenix, Arizona. He went to a
Speaker 2: Catholic grade school and North High in Phoenix. By all accounts,
Speaker 2: his family is pretty middle class. My childhood was uneventful
Speaker 2: as hell. That's at least what Ed Buck told the
Speaker 2: Arizona Republic in June nineteen eighty seven. Now, Buck would
Speaker 2: later say that he was molested as a child, and
Speaker 2: he would describe his father as a longtime alcohol and
Speaker 2: when reading about his youth, you kind of get the
Speaker 2: sense it was anything but uneventful. Buck came out of
Speaker 2: the closet to his family in the early seventies. He
Speaker 2: would eventually shorten his name from Buck Melter to Buck.
Speaker 2: Let's go back to Hank Scott, the founder of the
Speaker 2: local news website Hill vill.
Speaker 4: He spent a number of years in Europe modeling and
Speaker 4: touring work, living in Paris and other places.
Speaker 8: And then he came back and he had friend of
Speaker 8: his had a small business, an odd business that involved
Speaker 8: documenting driver's license information for an insurance company, strange things,
Speaker 8: and the business was struggling. Ed stepped in to help
Speaker 8: the guy. He bought it from me, and it took off, and.
Speaker 4: Then sold it and he ended up at.
Speaker 8: The age of thirty maybe thirty two, he ended up
Speaker 8: a million dollars times pocket and that, you know, that
Speaker 8: changed his life.
Speaker 2: It was this money that would allow Buck to launch
Speaker 2: a recall campaign against the then governor of Arizona, Evan Meetcha. Now,
Speaker 2: at the time, Buck was a registered Republican and the
Speaker 2: Republican governor, among other things, was opposed to the Martin
Speaker 2: Luther King Holiday. Meechim even defended the use of the
Speaker 2: word Picaninny. Anyway, Buck would lead a campaign to get
Speaker 2: Meetum recalled. Now, this was alongside of an impeachment and
Speaker 2: a federal indictment. Now politics being politics, Buck was attacked
Speaker 2: by Beecham, calling Buck and his supporters quote a band
Speaker 2: of homosexuals and dissident Democrats. The Arizona campaign will give
Speaker 2: Buck his first taste of the spotlight, and in an
Speaker 2: interview with the Arizona Republic at the time, when asked
Speaker 2: if he would ever run for office, he said, quote,
Speaker 2: I think I'd be more effective as a private citizen.
Speaker 2: The recall movement has shown how people can get together
Speaker 2: and change things. I know how to do that now
Speaker 2: it may come in handy later. All of that attention
Speaker 2: that Buck received was very unwanted. The bright lights might
Speaker 2: just reveal that he had had a few run ins
Speaker 2: with law.
Speaker 8: Ed Buck was arrested at one point for using a
Speaker 8: fraudulent prescription to get some drugs from pharmacy. Ed Buck
Speaker 8: got in trouble in an adult store when a cop
Speaker 8: saw him grabbing the crotch of another man nearby. So
Speaker 8: you know there were those sorts of issues at the time.
Speaker 8: But he then when Meetam was pushed out office, Edbuck
Speaker 8: decided to move to where well, Hollywood with better place,
Speaker 8: and he moved to a place where he lived for
Speaker 8: another thirty years on Lowell Avenue apartment in a fairly
Speaker 8: ordinary building, looking very fancy.
Speaker 4: And he slowly got involved in civic life.
Speaker 2: Can you discuss, So what is a gay man, an
Speaker 2: out gay man getting involved in civic life. Tell me
Speaker 2: what that looks like in West Hollywood.
Speaker 4: For ed Buck, Oh, it looks great West Hollywood.
Speaker 8: I mean, you know, out came in with money, getting
Speaker 8: involved in civic life. I mean it made him a
Speaker 8: welcome figure. There were a couple of causes he cared about.
Speaker 8: One was building Terra. You know about that. It's an old,
Speaker 8: old building. Who's owner. You didn't sign a written contract
Speaker 8: with you orally it gave it to the City of
Speaker 8: West Hollywood as long as it would preserve it.
Speaker 4: The city decided it.
Speaker 8: Wanted to turn it into the apartments and build housing
Speaker 8: for low income seniors. And of course the neighbors who
Speaker 8: owned their own homes bought that and launched a campaign.
Speaker 8: Terror took the City of West Hollywood at court. Ed
Speaker 8: Buck supported it, and Taror won.
Speaker 2: So let's think about this for a minute. There's a
Speaker 2: building called Tara in ed Buck's neighborhood. Now this is Hollywood,
Speaker 2: so they call it that because it looks like the Tara,
Speaker 2: you know, the one from Gone with the win well
Speaker 2: Ed Buck was living in a rent stabilized apartment on
Speaker 2: the same street, actively working against and helping to stop
Speaker 2: a plan to convert the building into housing for low
Speaker 2: income seniors. And he was living again in a rent
Speaker 2: stabilized apartment.
Speaker 8: It now remains an empty building. While there's a struggle
Speaker 8: for people to find housing in West Hollywood, terras, it
Speaker 8: there empty, and so he got involved in that. And
Speaker 8: then he had a passion for animal rights and this
Speaker 8: was his big, big thing. So he was involved in
Speaker 8: an animal rights group, and he decided to form an organization.
Speaker 4: That campaigned for a band and the sale of Furr
Speaker 4: in West Hollywood.
Speaker 8: Furr was not something most West Hollywood residents went out
Speaker 8: and bought, but a section of West Hollywood adjacent to
Speaker 8: Beverly Hill, the design district, was full of very affluent
Speaker 8: stores like those in Beverly Hills, and somebody flying in from.
Speaker 4: New York might go by for a.
Speaker 8: Code and had led a campaign to stopped the sale
Speaker 8: of her and West taller Wood became the first city
Speaker 8: in the nation to ban you know, I haven't been
Speaker 8: a resident of West Holloway for a long time, and
Speaker 8: I will tell you that I'm so proud of my
Speaker 8: city right now.
Speaker 2: Ed Buck clearly saw the fur band as a badge
Speaker 2: of honor. We'll hear more about his animal rights activism later.
Speaker 2: Hank Scott, the journalist, says ed Buck early on developed
Speaker 2: a reputation for being difficult.
Speaker 8: Also said he was a really difficult guy.
Speaker 4: So, uh, you know a number of people.
Speaker 8: Steve Martin, who ran for city council long city council,
Speaker 8: talked about the difficulty of feeling with it.
Speaker 4: Book, A number of people who difficult difficult.
Speaker 8: He would get angry, he would get nasty, he would
Speaker 8: get semi violent. There were a couple of instances where
Speaker 8: he appeared at city council meetings and made statements, and
Speaker 8: they were one city council member who asked that I
Speaker 8: not declared her name, but I think everybody knows.
Speaker 4: She actually had the sheriff.
Speaker 8: Steputies escort with the car after the city now council
Speaker 8: meeting to hear the Dead Book to attack her. I
Speaker 8: met someone else who was very involved in the animal
Speaker 8: rights movement. With that who's no one even lives in
Speaker 8: the United States, but she told me that she feared
Speaker 8: violence from Medoc. They would get in what she thought
Speaker 8: of as a minor disagreement and he would get violent.
Speaker 8: So this was a part of his personality, and I
Speaker 8: think maybe it.
Speaker 4: Got worse when the drug used took all. But he
Speaker 4: was known as a difficult guy to deal with.
Speaker 2: West Hollywood can look on the outside as if it's
Speaker 2: some harmonious gighborhood, but there is a long history of
Speaker 2: racism and sexism in West Hollywood. Just for example, it
Speaker 2: was long a practice that black men would have to
Speaker 2: show multiple forms of ID to get into bars, and
Speaker 2: the city can be incredibly unwelcoming to lesbians. Also, the
Speaker 2: city can be very much a not in my backyard
Speaker 2: kind of place, which ed Buck fit right into. Henry
Speaker 2: Scott says, there are a lot of divisions in West Hollwood.
Speaker 8: Then the other division that I've found fascinating his division
Speaker 8: between what I call the work gays and the old
Speaker 8: gay boomers. There's plight a division there that we see,
Speaker 8: particularly on the city council right now.
Speaker 2: Ed Buck made friends and some enemies in his early career,
Speaker 2: getting involved in democratic clubs and donating money. He gave
Speaker 2: nearly half a million dollars doing it mainly at one
Speaker 2: grand to five grand at a time. One of the
Speaker 2: people who benefited was John Duran, a former city council
Speaker 2: person and former wehome here.
Speaker 9: When I first met at, he was very talkative, he
Speaker 9: had intelligence, but the fact that he'd run for office
Speaker 9: and almost took Governor Meetrom of Arizona out made him
Speaker 9: interesting to me. But he was out as a gay man,
Speaker 9: and if you move into West Hollywood either gay or
Speaker 9: presumed to be possibly gay, and so I think by
Speaker 9: the time ed got here, he intended this destination to
Speaker 9: explore his sexual element.
Speaker 10: I first met ed Buck when I got involved in
Speaker 10: city politics.
Speaker 2: Lindsay Horvav was a second woman mayor in West Hollywood's history.
Speaker 2: She's currently on the LA County Board of Supervisors, and
Speaker 2: she began volunteering in West Hollywood in two thousand and seven.
Speaker 10: I volunteered on campaigns for city council he had run
Speaker 10: at the time. I did not volunteer on his campaign,
Speaker 10: to be very clear, but that's how I met him.
Speaker 10: He was running and some of his friends were running
Speaker 10: against people I was supporting.
Speaker 2: So what would you say? What was your impressive him?
Speaker 10: At the time, I wasn't politically aligned with ed Buck.
Speaker 10: I didn't see I didn't share his worldview, and my
Speaker 10: experience was that any bud who was on the other
Speaker 10: side of him, he made an enemy.
Speaker 2: It's not clear when ed Buck began using meth, but
Speaker 2: there was an influx of drugs into West Hollywood at
Speaker 2: the end of the nineties. Again, John Durant, former mayor
Speaker 2: of West Hollywood.
Speaker 9: He was very involved with the Democratic Party, the Democratic Clubs,
Speaker 9: the Stonewall Democratic Club, but his role in West iod
Speaker 9: government has been primarily as a agitator.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 9: He'd come to council meetings on occasion and scream and
Speaker 9: yell about development issues.
Speaker 4: That's what I recall.
Speaker 9: Now I'm wondering whether some of those appearances before council
Speaker 9: were under the influence of myth because that sort of
Speaker 9: anger and agitation, and the sweaty brow, the clenched fists,
Speaker 9: the teeth being gritted. I mean, now I recognize all
Speaker 9: of that to be the symptoms of somebody under the
Speaker 9: influence of amphetamine.
Speaker 8: Crystal meth has had an incredible impact, negative impact on
Speaker 8: West Hollywood and other gay communities because West Hollywood is
Speaker 8: so much of a quote gay community thirty percent of
Speaker 8: the population that's gay. I have lost friends to meth,
Speaker 8: and I have seen friends lose their careers. I had
Speaker 8: someone I lived with for three years in New York
Speaker 8: and was very close to who lost his job almost
Speaker 8: committed suicide.
Speaker 4: Amost everything he am.
Speaker 8: And one of the challenges I found in West Hollywood
Speaker 8: was the unwillingness for the gay community to acknowledge the
Speaker 8: horrors of men.
Speaker 2: It's not clear when Ed Buck began using meth, but
Speaker 2: there was an influx of math into West Hollywood at
Speaker 2: the end of the nineteen nineties. Over time, Buck began
Speaker 2: to become involved in fetish play. His fetish focused on
Speaker 2: black men dressed in white underwear. He enjoyed humiliating men,
Speaker 2: and according to prosecutors, there were thousands of videos of
Speaker 2: Buck smoking up with and eventually slamming or shooting men
Speaker 2: up with meth. Neighbors began noticing the parade of black
Speaker 2: men going into Buck's apartment. This is shattering the system,
Speaker 2: well just the beginning. To do me a favor and
Speaker 2: push yourself.
Speaker 3: My name is Ludlow b. Query the Second. I am
Speaker 3: a Los Angeles based lawyer. I was co counsel as
Speaker 3: Edward Buck's defense.
Speaker 2: Council, this is shattering the system. I'm snari Clinton at
Speaker 2: this part of the story, we thought we needed to
Speaker 2: understand what ed Buck was thinking besides his statements at trial.
Speaker 2: What possible excuse would ed Buck have for his behavior now,
Speaker 2: so that you all know at the start of the
Speaker 2: process for doing this podcast, we reached out to ed
Speaker 2: Buck and his family. They declined. We did speak to
Speaker 2: one of his lawyers, Chris Darden and Ludlow B. Query.
Speaker 2: The second were ed Buck's lawyers. You might remember Chris
Speaker 2: Darden from the OJ case. Darden was one of the
Speaker 2: prosecutors who tried OJ Simpson for the murder of his
Speaker 2: ex wife, Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman.
Speaker 2: Simpson was acquitted. Darden, though has since become a very
Speaker 2: well paid defense attorney. His co counsel Ludlow B. Query,
Speaker 2: also a defense attorney. If less famous, he is very
Speaker 2: much la He was bussed to Beverly Hills High. I
Speaker 2: have to say that talking to Ludlow Query was possibly
Speaker 2: one of the more memorable interviews that I've done in
Speaker 2: my career, in part because of how he defends at Buck. Well,
Speaker 2: you know, when I think of this case, like, you know,
Speaker 2: the average person who might be listening this, like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I understand black man is a criminal defense attorney, that's
Speaker 2: the thing. But then I have to ask the question
Speaker 2: that I feel like the average black of Angelino might say,
Speaker 2: which would probably be something like, look, Chris Darden on
Speaker 2: the wrong side yet again, is he on the wrong
Speaker 2: side you and you and Christy Darden like in this case, Like.
Speaker 3: It depends on obviously, if you look at this case
Speaker 3: you were talking about the ed Buck case. Obvious, Yes,
Speaker 3: if you look at it outside of the criminal justice
Speaker 3: sphere or the criminal justice space, then I can understand
Speaker 3: why people would say that. Yes, I mean ed Buck
Speaker 3: is accused of court doing horrible things that resulted in
Speaker 3: the deaths of two black men. He's accused of exploiting
Speaker 3: black men in particular. Those are the allegations. And you know,
Speaker 3: it appeared that Jackie Lacy, the district attorney at the time,
Speaker 3: wasn't willing to file a case against them. And I
Speaker 3: can understand how the public couls see that as, oh, well,
Speaker 3: these are just black men and black lives don't matter,
Speaker 3: and so you know, wealthy ed Buck is going to
Speaker 3: not be prosecuted because the victims happen to be blackmail,
Speaker 3: homeless black men, black men who have drug addiction problems,
Speaker 3: black men who are in prostitution, so they're to.
Speaker 11: Society, they're looked at is throwaway.
Speaker 3: And to people who are advocating that black lives matter,
Speaker 3: and particularly and in this particular insin black gay lives matter,
Speaker 3: I can understand how it would be perceived that me
Speaker 3: and Chris are on the wrong side yet again. But
Speaker 3: lawyers and the criminal justice system doesn't operate, it's not
Speaker 3: supposed to operate under the influence of public opinion. You
Speaker 3: cannot get justice if you prosecute or don't prosecute, or
Speaker 3: convict or don't convict based on what the masses want.
Speaker 1: But our justice system is based on testable evidence. You
Speaker 1: know what I mean.
Speaker 4: You can't bring in a mob.
Speaker 12: A crowd and say to the jury, well, the mob
Speaker 12: says they're guilty, so you better convict.
Speaker 2: Now, this wasn't necessarily a mob action. Prosecutors would eventually
Speaker 2: find thousands of videos of ed Buck in his victims,
Speaker 2: both ed Buck injecting them and smoking meth with them.
Speaker 2: In addition to that, there was the actual evidence that
Speaker 2: was found inside of his apartment, as well as the
Speaker 2: willingness amongst his victims to testify if they got immunity.
Speaker 2: One of the big questions of the case seems to be, well,
Speaker 2: you know, I live around the corner from at Buck's
Speaker 2: apartment and I look at one, two, three four, Laurel,
Speaker 2: I'm like, is he really a wealthy man?
Speaker 11: Well, you know, I mean, I'm not going to comment on.
Speaker 3: On his assets, you know, but that was certainly what
Speaker 3: the public, the public perception of him.
Speaker 2: Was one of the things regardless of what you think
Speaker 2: about this case, I think about, who's no one to
Speaker 2: think of him as a boogeyman?
Speaker 11: Okay, right, so right, this is not a boogeyman. He's
Speaker 11: just not.
Speaker 3: He was portrayed as a boogeyman by the prosecution and
Speaker 3: by the press.
Speaker 11: But he's not a boogeyman.
Speaker 2: So humanize him for me helped me understand.
Speaker 11: Ed book was.
Speaker 3: In my opinion, ed Buck was a meth amphetamine addict
Speaker 3: that is a diction and had gotten control of him
Speaker 3: and as a human, as a person, you know, apart
Speaker 3: from this horrible drug, he is a compassionate, you know,
Speaker 3: civically active, caring man. I mean he howso because you know,
Speaker 3: as intent always is to help people. Now it got
Speaker 3: twisted by an addiction. Yeah, it got twisted by an addiction.
Speaker 3: And you know, doing drugs with people is definitely not
Speaker 3: helping him.
Speaker 11: And another thing I mean this is does ed Buck
Speaker 11: have a history of victimizing black men?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 3: I mean you go back and back in time in
Speaker 3: his life, there's none of there's no history of him
Speaker 3: abusing and victimizing black men.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: So, how do you explain the thousands and hours of
Speaker 2: hours of tape that I mean, like.
Speaker 11: How do you make people that is all well, that's.
Speaker 3: All within the context of this crazy world that he
Speaker 3: was living in under the influence of this addiction. I
Speaker 3: think that the thousands of hours of tape really didn't
Speaker 3: speak to what the charges were in the sense that
Speaker 3: the things that he was that were the picture of
Speaker 3: him that was being painted with the thousands out of
Speaker 3: hours of tape was that he was sexually assaulting people,
Speaker 3: that he was torturing them.
Speaker 11: Well, he wasn't charged with any of that.
Speaker 3: He was charged with distribution, causing death and bringing somebody
Speaker 3: from another state.
Speaker 11: For the purposes of prostitution. That's what he was charged
Speaker 11: with that as well.
Speaker 2: But so.
Speaker 3: To prove that he distributed meth amphetamine to these two
Speaker 3: gentlemen who passed away, you didn't need thousands of hours
Speaker 3: of what I called shit show evident that just made
Speaker 3: him look horrible, made him look like a monster, but
Speaker 3: it didn't.
Speaker 11: It wasn't relevant to the actual charges. It made him
Speaker 11: look like a sexual assaulter.
Speaker 3: It made him look like a torturer, evil man, but
Speaker 3: the charges did not reflect.
Speaker 11: Any of that.
Speaker 2: That was just poured on.
Speaker 11: To make the jury hate him.
Speaker 12: Think about what it says that this person, let's say,
Speaker 12: in some crazy world that doesn't actually exist, there had
Speaker 12: never been any ill will. Two terrible tragedies, two terrible accidents.
Speaker 12: Many you find more people ever sick. That's sick. The
Speaker 12: best case scenario is almost unimaginably sick.
Speaker 3: In my opinion, it unduly prejudiced the jury against our client,
Speaker 3: and so it wasn't even about what he was charged with.
Speaker 3: It was just like a monster. Whatever he's charged with,
Speaker 3: find him guilty. But we're going to find him guilty.
Speaker 3: I'm really just doing my job, you know. I just
Speaker 3: happen to be a black lawyer, you know, But I've
Speaker 3: represented white supremacists. I have represented white supremacists. Now, does
Speaker 3: that mean I believe in white supremacy. No, not by
Speaker 3: any means do I believe.
Speaker 11: In white supremacy. So that gets to.
Speaker 3: The your clients, Aret, your friend's trope Again, I'm not
Speaker 3: going to go to the clan rally just because I'm
Speaker 3: representing somebody who might be a member of the Aryan
Speaker 3: Brotherhood or.
Speaker 11: The klu Klux Klan.
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna like join the clan or start espousing
Speaker 3: their hate speech.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 3: But my job is to make sure that criminal defendants
Speaker 3: get due process. So I'm not here to judge him.
Speaker 3: I'm here to make sure his rights are protected. Doesn't
Speaker 3: mean I'm buddies with him, doesn't mean I agree with
Speaker 3: anything he says, doesn't mean I agree with any of
Speaker 3: his beliefs, doesn't even mean I like him.
Speaker 11: Doesn't even mean I like him. You know what I mean.
Speaker 11: I'm doing my job now.
Speaker 3: I do care about it, Buck, because I got to
Speaker 3: know it, Buck, and and and how I feel about
Speaker 3: it Buck, and how I feel like he was sort
Speaker 3: of portrayed as something that he Wasn't you know that's true?
Speaker 2: You should you cared about uh Ed fuck, and I'm not.
Speaker 2: I'm not asking this question in a flippant way.
Speaker 11: Why Because I got to know. I got to know him.
Speaker 3: You know, I have to be careful what I say
Speaker 3: because I can't, you know, divulge our conversations, you know,
Speaker 3: but I got to know him.
Speaker 2: What's he like as a client?
Speaker 11: He's you know, he's he's easy going. Really, you know,
Speaker 11: he's not he's not a person. He's not.
Speaker 3: He's respectful, he's highly intelligent, he's very practical, and he
Speaker 3: wasn't he wasn't a problem on any level.
Speaker 11: As a client.
Speaker 2: Now, can I tell you that one of the most
Speaker 2: surreal things is to hear the lawyer for Ed Buck
Speaker 2: getting misty eyed about gay black men. I talked to
Speaker 2: Query for two hours in downtown Hollywood. Aside from defending
Speaker 2: that Buck, because that's your job. Yes, what do you
Speaker 2: say to the young man who's moving to West Hollywood
Speaker 2: and Jamelle Moore of today, the young person who's comes
Speaker 2: to Hollywood. What advice do you give to that young
Speaker 2: person who's arriving today?
Speaker 11: The la is a jungle.
Speaker 2: You gotta be careful.
Speaker 3: I would just, you know, hope that you don't get
Speaker 3: involved in anything that involves you, you know, doing drugs,
Speaker 3: because that's just a bad it's a cliche path.
Speaker 11: In Hollywood.
Speaker 3: It's a it's an la cliche and it just leads
Speaker 3: to nothing good.
Speaker 11: And you matter. You matter.
Speaker 2: The vigor with which you defend mister Bob. Do you
Speaker 2: think that that's in the message to gay black men
Speaker 2: that they matter?
Speaker 3: I think that I in doing my job. And this
Speaker 3: again is the This is where you compartmentalize as a lawyer.
Speaker 3: This is what makes this is one of the hard
Speaker 3: parts about being a lawyer, and what's so unique about
Speaker 3: being a lawyer is you have to compartmentalize because.
Speaker 11: All I had to focus on defending my client. I couldn't.
Speaker 3: Focus on the message I was sending to young gay
Speaker 3: black men. I couldn't focus on that and do the
Speaker 3: job I was supposed to do. This was not about
Speaker 3: callousness or uncaring for young black gay men. This was
Speaker 3: about me doing my job for my client and nothing more.
Speaker 11: As a black man, I love all of my brothers.
Speaker 2: But you know what, we know that America did not
Speaker 2: love these brothers, the gay black men. Even after Jamal
Speaker 2: Moore was found dead in the apartment of a white
Speaker 2: man with a troublesome pass ed, Buck continued to walk free.
Speaker 2: He had the privilege and he had power, and he
Speaker 2: used that to continue to stop his prey, and the
Speaker 2: system did not protect them. Later in the series, we
Speaker 2: look at what it finally took to get ed Buck arrested.
Speaker 5: I initially reviewed all of the reports and immediately saw
Speaker 5: that we had a disturbing pattern of what I later
Speaker 5: learned to be party and play, which was Buck luring
Speaker 5: his victims to his apartment to inject them with methamphetamine
Speaker 5: and then on some occasions sexually assault his victims.
Speaker 2: The team gathers to take down ed Buck. This is
Speaker 2: Shattering the System. I'm Snari Glinton. Stick around for the
Speaker 2: next episode. Shattering the System is a production of Macro
Speaker 2: Studios and iHeart Podcasts. I'm your host, Snari Glenton. You
Speaker 2: can follow me on Instagram at Snari plus the Number One.
Speaker 2: Our executive producers are Charles D. King, Asha Corpus, Win
Speaker 2: Royal Reccio, Jonathan Unger, Lindsay Hoffman, and Sonari Glinton. That's Me.
Speaker 2: Our podcast is co written and produced by Ralph Cooper
Speaker 2: the Third and ben Corey Jones. Erica Rodriguez is our
Speaker 2: Associate producer. Dana Conway is our archival producer, Chris Mann
Speaker 2: is the audio engineer, and Lisa Pollock is our consulting editor.
Speaker 2: Sound design and music provided by Chris Mann with pod
Speaker 2: Shaper Clips provide a courtesy of TV one LLC, All
Speaker 2: Rights Reserve and the Damage Report Special thanks to Porsche
Speaker 2: Robertson Maigas and Karen Griggsby Bates. We'll be back next
Speaker 2: week when we find out that's shockingly another man showed
Speaker 2: up in ed Buck's apartment dead and no one filed charges. Again,
Speaker 2: that's on the next shattering the system. I'll see you
Speaker 2: next time.