August 10, 2023 • 34 mins
They say the devil's in the details... Politics. Drugs. Justice?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
In this podcast, we're going to talk frankly but sensitively
about some tough issues including sexual abuse, drugs, and suicide.
Check out this podcast notes page for information on mental
health resources in the queer community.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
This is Shattering the System. I'm Sinari Glinton. In our
previous episode, we learned that a twenty six year old
gay black man, Jamel Moore, was found dead in the
apartment of Ed Buck at one two three four North
Laurel Avenue in West Hollywood. Buck, who is white, was
sixty two years old at the time, and he had
kind of turned his home into a sort of drug
(00:40):
or sex dungeon on the street. They called it the
Gates of Hell. Now in his apartment he displayed photos
of prominent politicians, the trappings that came with being a
political donor. And it's interesting to me how the media
covered Melmore's death. Let's get into it.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
It has been three months since twenty six year old
Will Moore found dead the West Hollywood home wealthy democratic.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
Donor at Buck.
Speaker 5 (01:09):
Initially, his death was ruled accidental, but they better mean overdose.
Speaker 6 (01:12):
Moore's mother, Letitia Nickson, has pressed police to continue the
investigation into worse On Jamil's or theorious death.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Jamel Moore is dead. Then five days later the case
is closed, ruled an accidental overdose. Now that's despite Jamel
Moore's diary. That's despite a bag of evidence. That's despite
other victims who'd been in this very apartment and have
stories to tell. Ed Buck was out in the streets
and he was becoming kind of a local news celebrity.
(01:46):
Jamel Moore's mother would begin a campaign not only to
get ed Buck put in jail, but to get the
politicians who gave them money held accountable. The local news
site U Hillville covered this very vigil held in front
of the Los Angeles County, the Sheriff's.
Speaker 6 (02:00):
Office, the lord to cover this family with club and
peace even in this difficult times.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Now, this is Letician Nixon, Jamel Moore's mother speaking to reporters.
Speaker 7 (02:22):
This is something that shouldn't have happened. It just shouldn't
have happened. My son fouled police reports. It's crazy how
the whole entire situation was handled. My son's dead, and
five days later the case is closed.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
I'm standing in the spot where Letitia Nixon spoke those
very words literally across the Street. A few years later,
on the fourth anniversary of her son's death, she would
get a measure of justice for her son. Ed Bud
would be convicted of federal charges, including the death of
Jamel Moore, but justice was not swift at all. Eighteen
(03:06):
months after Jamel Moore was found dead in his apartment,
another black man, Timothy Dean, was also pronounced dead from
an overdose in the exact same apartment in ed Buck's
apartment in West Hollywood. And even after a second death,
ed Buck walked the streets with impunity.
Speaker 5 (03:24):
And that's what I saw ed Buck as being in
this case. He was an offender who had acted with
impunity for nearly a decade. And I was made aware
through the course of this case that ed Buck is
not alone and he is not the only person victimizing
(03:45):
underserved populations in Los Angeles. So this was a really
important bell weather and deterrent for other people who would
victimize these populations.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
This is shattering the system, the rise and fall of
ed Buck. That's after this breaking years ago, when I
was a young local public radio reporter, I went to
(04:26):
a local journalism awards banquet. Didn't have a car, so
a newspaper reporter offered to give me a ride home.
Her name was Linda Lutton. She'd been the big star
of the evening. Actually, she won the prize for investigative journalism.
She had won that award because she helped to put
a local official in jail with her reporter. Now, as
we're driving home to the South Side Chicago, I remember
(04:48):
asking her an important question for me, which was what
made her look into this. I don't know local school
official so closely. What a tipped her off? I asked her,
and she looked at me and matter of factly said,
scenari he was an asshole. It's hard to be an
asshole in only one part of your life, you see.
(05:09):
The thing is you get the sense, at least from
everyone I've talked to in this story. Even before the deaths,
ed Buck was kind of an asshole.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
He was a troublesome kid.
Speaker 8 (05:24):
His mother, interviewed over the years, said she knew when
the phone would ring it would be the school reporting
another problem. But her son, she'd pick up the phone saying, now,
what's he doing? So he was a little bit difficult.
He was a very handsome young man. He became a model.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Hank Scott reported extensively on that book, his political connections
and the deaths in his home. Scott started the local
website Wehillville, which covers West Hollywood. And I always think
the names are important, So let's begin. Edward Bernard Peter
Buck Milter. That's Ed Buck was born in August twenty fourth,
(06:05):
nineteen fifty four, in Steubenville, Ohio, which is just about
a half an hour or so from Pittsburgh. Other famous
residents from Steubenville late Great Dean Mark. Now. When Buck
was six, he moved from Steubenville with his parents, one brother,
and two sisters to Phoenix, Arizona. He went to a
(06:25):
Catholic grade school and North High in Phoenix. By all accounts,
his family is pretty middle class. My childhood was uneventful
as hell. That's at least what Ed Buck told the
Arizona Republic in June nineteen eighty seven. Now, Buck would
later say that he was molested as a child, and
(06:48):
he would describe his father as a longtime alcohol and
when reading about his youth, you kind of get the
sense it was anything but uneventful. Buck came out of
the closet to his family in the early seventies. He
would eventually shorten his name from Buck Melter to Buck.
Let's go back to Hank Scott, the founder of the
local news website Hill vill.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
He spent a number of years in Europe modeling and
touring work, living in Paris and other places.
Speaker 8 (07:15):
And then he came back and he had friend of
his had a small business, an odd business that involved
documenting driver's license information for an insurance company, strange things,
and the business was struggling. Ed stepped in to help
the guy. He bought it from me, and it took off, and.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
Then sold it and he ended up at.
Speaker 8 (07:37):
The age of thirty maybe thirty two, he ended up
a million dollars times pocket and that, you know, that
changed his life.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
It was this money that would allow Buck to launch
a recall campaign against the then governor of Arizona, Evan Meetcha. Now,
at the time, Buck was a registered Republican and the
Republican governor, among other things, was opposed to the Martin
Luther King Holiday. Meechim even defended the use of the
word Picaninny. Anyway, Buck would lead a campaign to get
(08:07):
Meetum recalled. Now, this was alongside of an impeachment and
a federal indictment. Now politics being politics, Buck was attacked
by Beecham, calling Buck and his supporters quote a band
of homosexuals and dissident Democrats. The Arizona campaign will give
Buck his first taste of the spotlight, and in an
(08:27):
interview with the Arizona Republic at the time, when asked
if he would ever run for office, he said, quote,
I think I'd be more effective as a private citizen.
The recall movement has shown how people can get together
and change things. I know how to do that now
it may come in handy later. All of that attention
(08:50):
that Buck received was very unwanted. The bright lights might
just reveal that he had had a few run ins
with law.
Speaker 8 (09:04):
Ed Buck was arrested at one point for using a
fraudulent prescription to get some drugs from pharmacy. Ed Buck
got in trouble in an adult store when a cop
saw him grabbing the crotch of another man nearby. So
you know there were those sorts of issues at the time.
But he then when Meetam was pushed out office, Edbuck
(09:28):
decided to move to where well, Hollywood with better place,
and he moved to a place where he lived for
another thirty years on Lowell Avenue apartment in a fairly
ordinary building, looking very fancy.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
And he slowly got involved in civic life.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Can you discuss, So what is a gay man, an
out gay man getting involved in civic life. Tell me
what that looks like in West Hollywood.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
For ed Buck, Oh, it looks great West Hollywood.
Speaker 8 (10:00):
I mean, you know, out came in with money, getting
involved in civic life. I mean it made him a
welcome figure. There were a couple of causes he cared about.
One was building Terra. You know about that. It's an old,
old building. Who's owner. You didn't sign a written contract
with you orally it gave it to the City of
(10:21):
West Hollywood as long as it would preserve it.
Speaker 4 (10:24):
The city decided it.
Speaker 8 (10:25):
Wanted to turn it into the apartments and build housing
for low income seniors. And of course the neighbors who
owned their own homes bought that and launched a campaign.
Terror took the City of West Hollywood at court. Ed
Buck supported it, and Taror won.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
So let's think about this for a minute. There's a
building called Tara in ed Buck's neighborhood. Now this is Hollywood,
so they call it that because it looks like the Tara,
you know, the one from Gone with the win well
Ed Buck was living in a rent stabilized apartment on
the same street, actively working against and helping to stop
(11:05):
a plan to convert the building into housing for low
income seniors. And he was living again in a rent
stabilized apartment.
Speaker 8 (11:15):
It now remains an empty building. While there's a struggle
for people to find housing in West Hollywood, terras, it
there empty, and so he got involved in that. And
then he had a passion for animal rights and this
was his big, big thing. So he was involved in
an animal rights group, and he decided to form an organization.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
That campaigned for a band and the sale of Furr
in West Hollywood.
Speaker 8 (11:40):
Furr was not something most West Hollywood residents went out
and bought, but a section of West Hollywood adjacent to
Beverly Hill, the design district, was full of very affluent
stores like those in Beverly Hills, and somebody flying in from.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
New York might go by for a.
Speaker 8 (11:56):
Code and had led a campaign to stopped the sale
of her and West taller Wood became the first city
in the nation to ban you know, I haven't been
a resident of West Holloway for a long time, and
I will tell you that I'm so proud of my
city right now.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Ed Buck clearly saw the fur band as a badge
of honor. We'll hear more about his animal rights activism later.
Hank Scott, the journalist, says ed Buck early on developed
a reputation for being difficult.
Speaker 8 (12:28):
Also said he was a really difficult guy.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
So, uh, you know a number of people.
Speaker 8 (12:35):
Steve Martin, who ran for city council long city council,
talked about the difficulty of feeling with it.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
Book, A number of people who difficult difficult.
Speaker 8 (12:44):
He would get angry, he would get nasty, he would
get semi violent. There were a couple of instances where
he appeared at city council meetings and made statements, and
they were one city council member who asked that I
not declared her name, but I think everybody knows.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
She actually had the sheriff.
Speaker 8 (13:01):
Steputies escort with the car after the city now council
meeting to hear the Dead Book to attack her. I
met someone else who was very involved in the animal
rights movement. With that who's no one even lives in
the United States, but she told me that she feared
violence from Medoc. They would get in what she thought
of as a minor disagreement and he would get violent.
(13:24):
So this was a part of his personality, and I
think maybe it.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
Got worse when the drug used took all. But he
was known as a difficult guy to deal with.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
West Hollywood can look on the outside as if it's
some harmonious gighborhood, but there is a long history of
racism and sexism in West Hollywood. Just for example, it
was long a practice that black men would have to
show multiple forms of ID to get into bars, and
the city can be incredibly unwelcoming to lesbians. Also, the
(13:59):
city can be very much a not in my backyard
kind of place, which ed Buck fit right into. Henry
Scott says, there are a lot of divisions in West Hollwood.
Speaker 8 (14:10):
Then the other division that I've found fascinating his division
between what I call the work gays and the old
gay boomers. There's plight a division there that we see,
particularly on the city council right now.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Ed Buck made friends and some enemies in his early career,
getting involved in democratic clubs and donating money. He gave
nearly half a million dollars doing it mainly at one
grand to five grand at a time. One of the
people who benefited was John Duran, a former city council
person and former wehome here.
Speaker 9 (14:44):
When I first met at, he was very talkative, he
had intelligence, but the fact that he'd run for office
and almost took Governor Meetrom of Arizona out made him
interesting to me. But he was out as a gay man,
and if you move into West Hollywood either gay or
presumed to be possibly gay, and so I think by
(15:04):
the time ed got here, he intended this destination to
explore his sexual element.
Speaker 10 (15:11):
I first met ed Buck when I got involved in
city politics.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Lindsay Horvav was a second woman mayor in West Hollywood's history.
She's currently on the LA County Board of Supervisors, and
she began volunteering in West Hollywood in two thousand and seven.
Speaker 10 (15:32):
I volunteered on campaigns for city council he had run
at the time. I did not volunteer on his campaign,
to be very clear, but that's how I met him.
He was running and some of his friends were running
against people I was supporting.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
So what would you say? What was your impressive him?
Speaker 10 (15:49):
At the time, I wasn't politically aligned with ed Buck.
I didn't see I didn't share his worldview, and my
experience was that any bud who was on the other
side of him, he made an enemy.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
It's not clear when ed Buck began using meth, but
there was an influx of drugs into West Hollywood at
the end of the nineties. Again, John Durant, former mayor
of West Hollywood.
Speaker 9 (16:17):
He was very involved with the Democratic Party, the Democratic Clubs,
the Stonewall Democratic Club, but his role in West iod
government has been primarily as a agitator.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
You know.
Speaker 9 (16:29):
He'd come to council meetings on occasion and scream and
yell about development issues.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
That's what I recall.
Speaker 9 (16:36):
Now I'm wondering whether some of those appearances before council
were under the influence of myth because that sort of
anger and agitation, and the sweaty brow, the clenched fists,
the teeth being gritted. I mean, now I recognize all
of that to be the symptoms of somebody under the
influence of amphetamine.
Speaker 8 (17:00):
Crystal meth has had an incredible impact, negative impact on
West Hollywood and other gay communities because West Hollywood is
so much of a quote gay community thirty percent of
the population that's gay. I have lost friends to meth,
and I have seen friends lose their careers. I had
someone I lived with for three years in New York
(17:21):
and was very close to who lost his job almost
committed suicide.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
Amost everything he am.
Speaker 8 (17:29):
And one of the challenges I found in West Hollywood
was the unwillingness for the gay community to acknowledge the
horrors of men.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
It's not clear when Ed Buck began using meth, but
there was an influx of math into West Hollywood at
the end of the nineteen nineties. Over time, Buck began
to become involved in fetish play. His fetish focused on
black men dressed in white underwear. He enjoyed humiliating men,
and according to prosecutors, there were thousands of videos of
(17:58):
Buck smoking up with and eventually slamming or shooting men
up with meth. Neighbors began noticing the parade of black
men going into Buck's apartment. This is shattering the system,
(18:25):
well just the beginning. To do me a favor and
push yourself.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
My name is Ludlow b. Query the Second. I am
a Los Angeles based lawyer. I was co counsel as
Edward Buck's defense.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Council, this is shattering the system. I'm snari Clinton at
this part of the story, we thought we needed to
understand what ed Buck was thinking besides his statements at trial.
What possible excuse would ed Buck have for his behavior now,
so that you all know at the start of the
process for doing this podcast, we reached out to ed
(18:59):
Buck and his family. They declined. We did speak to
one of his lawyers, Chris Darden and Ludlow B. Query.
The second were ed Buck's lawyers. You might remember Chris
Darden from the OJ case. Darden was one of the
prosecutors who tried OJ Simpson for the murder of his
ex wife, Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman.
(19:21):
Simpson was acquitted. Darden, though has since become a very
well paid defense attorney. His co counsel Ludlow B. Query,
also a defense attorney. If less famous, he is very
much la He was bussed to Beverly Hills High. I
have to say that talking to Ludlow Query was possibly
(19:44):
one of the more memorable interviews that I've done in
my career, in part because of how he defends at Buck. Well,
you know, when I think of this case, like, you know,
the average person who might be listening this, like, Okay,
I understand black man is a criminal defense attorney, that's
the thing. But then I have to ask the question
that I feel like the average black of Angelino might say,
(20:07):
which would probably be something like, look, Chris Darden on
the wrong side yet again, is he on the wrong
side you and you and Christy Darden like in this case, Like.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
It depends on obviously, if you look at this case
you were talking about the ed Buck case. Obvious, Yes,
if you look at it outside of the criminal justice
sphere or the criminal justice space, then I can understand
why people would say that. Yes, I mean ed Buck
(20:38):
is accused of court doing horrible things that resulted in
the deaths of two black men. He's accused of exploiting
black men in particular. Those are the allegations. And you know,
it appeared that Jackie Lacy, the district attorney at the time,
wasn't willing to file a case against them. And I
(21:03):
can understand how the public couls see that as, oh, well,
these are just black men and black lives don't matter,
and so you know, wealthy ed Buck is going to
not be prosecuted because the victims happen to be blackmail,
homeless black men, black men who have drug addiction problems,
(21:25):
black men who are in prostitution, so they're to.
Speaker 11 (21:31):
Society, they're looked at is throwaway.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
And to people who are advocating that black lives matter,
and particularly and in this particular insin black gay lives matter,
I can understand how it would be perceived that me
and Chris are on the wrong side yet again. But
(21:59):
lawyers and the criminal justice system doesn't operate, it's not
supposed to operate under the influence of public opinion. You
cannot get justice if you prosecute or don't prosecute, or
(22:21):
convict or don't convict based on what the masses want.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
But our justice system is based on testable evidence. You
know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
You can't bring in a mob.
Speaker 12 (22:34):
A crowd and say to the jury, well, the mob
says they're guilty, so you better convict.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Now, this wasn't necessarily a mob action. Prosecutors would eventually
find thousands of videos of ed Buck in his victims,
both ed Buck injecting them and smoking meth with them.
In addition to that, there was the actual evidence that
was found inside of his apartment, as well as the
willingness amongst his victims to testify if they got immunity.
(23:09):
One of the big questions of the case seems to be, well,
you know, I live around the corner from at Buck's
apartment and I look at one, two, three four, Laurel,
I'm like, is he really a wealthy man?
Speaker 11 (23:21):
Well, you know, I mean, I'm not going to comment on.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
On his assets, you know, but that was certainly what
the public, the public perception of him.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Was one of the things regardless of what you think
about this case, I think about, who's no one to
think of him as a boogeyman?
Speaker 11 (23:42):
Okay, right, so right, this is not a boogeyman. He's
just not.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
He was portrayed as a boogeyman by the prosecution and
by the press.
Speaker 11 (23:50):
But he's not a boogeyman.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
So humanize him for me helped me understand.
Speaker 11 (23:53):
Ed book was.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
In my opinion, ed Buck was a meth amphetamine addict
that is a diction and had gotten control of him
and as a human, as a person, you know, apart
from this horrible drug, he is a compassionate, you know,
civically active, caring man. I mean he howso because you know,
(24:21):
as intent always is to help people. Now it got
twisted by an addiction. Yeah, it got twisted by an addiction.
And you know, doing drugs with people is definitely not
helping him.
Speaker 11 (24:35):
And another thing I mean this is does ed Buck
have a history of victimizing black men?
Speaker 6 (24:42):
No?
Speaker 3 (24:42):
I mean you go back and back in time in
his life, there's none of there's no history of him
abusing and victimizing black men.
Speaker 4 (24:52):
You know.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
So, how do you explain the thousands and hours of
hours of tape that I mean, like.
Speaker 11 (24:58):
How do you make people that is all well, that's.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
All within the context of this crazy world that he
was living in under the influence of this addiction. I
think that the thousands of hours of tape really didn't
speak to what the charges were in the sense that
the things that he was that were the picture of
(25:22):
him that was being painted with the thousands out of
hours of tape was that he was sexually assaulting people,
that he was torturing them.
Speaker 11 (25:32):
Well, he wasn't charged with any of that.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
He was charged with distribution, causing death and bringing somebody
from another state.
Speaker 11 (25:41):
For the purposes of prostitution. That's what he was charged
with that as well.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
But so.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
To prove that he distributed meth amphetamine to these two
gentlemen who passed away, you didn't need thousands of hours
of what I called shit show evident that just made
him look horrible, made him look like a monster, but
it didn't.
Speaker 11 (26:08):
It wasn't relevant to the actual charges. It made him
look like a sexual assaulter.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
It made him look like a torturer, evil man, but
the charges did not reflect.
Speaker 11 (26:22):
Any of that.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
That was just poured on.
Speaker 11 (26:27):
To make the jury hate him.
Speaker 12 (26:29):
Think about what it says that this person, let's say,
in some crazy world that doesn't actually exist, there had
never been any ill will. Two terrible tragedies, two terrible accidents.
Many you find more people ever sick. That's sick. The
best case scenario is almost unimaginably sick.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
In my opinion, it unduly prejudiced the jury against our client,
and so it wasn't even about what he was charged with.
It was just like a monster. Whatever he's charged with,
find him guilty. But we're going to find him guilty.
I'm really just doing my job, you know. I just
happen to be a black lawyer, you know, But I've
(27:13):
represented white supremacists. I have represented white supremacists. Now, does
that mean I believe in white supremacy. No, not by
any means do I believe.
Speaker 11 (27:27):
In white supremacy. So that gets to.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
The your clients, Aret, your friend's trope Again, I'm not
going to go to the clan rally just because I'm
representing somebody who might be a member of the Aryan
Brotherhood or.
Speaker 11 (27:43):
The klu Klux Klan.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
I'm not gonna like join the clan or start espousing
their hate speech.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
No.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
But my job is to make sure that criminal defendants
get due process. So I'm not here to judge him.
I'm here to make sure his rights are protected. Doesn't
mean I'm buddies with him, doesn't mean I agree with
anything he says, doesn't mean I agree with any of
his beliefs, doesn't even mean I like him.
Speaker 11 (28:10):
Doesn't even mean I like him. You know what I mean.
I'm doing my job now.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
I do care about it, Buck, because I got to
know it, Buck, and and and how I feel about
it Buck, and how I feel like he was sort
of portrayed as something that he Wasn't you know that's true?
Speaker 2 (28:29):
You should you cared about uh Ed fuck, and I'm not.
I'm not asking this question in a flippant way.
Speaker 11 (28:36):
Why Because I got to know. I got to know him.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
You know, I have to be careful what I say
because I can't, you know, divulge our conversations, you know,
but I got to know him.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
What's he like as a client?
Speaker 11 (28:54):
He's you know, he's he's easy going. Really, you know,
he's not he's not a person. He's not.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
He's respectful, he's highly intelligent, he's very practical, and he
wasn't he wasn't a problem on any level.
Speaker 11 (29:15):
As a client.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Now, can I tell you that one of the most
surreal things is to hear the lawyer for Ed Buck
getting misty eyed about gay black men. I talked to
Query for two hours in downtown Hollywood. Aside from defending
that Buck, because that's your job. Yes, what do you
say to the young man who's moving to West Hollywood
(29:39):
and Jamelle Moore of today, the young person who's comes
to Hollywood. What advice do you give to that young
person who's arriving today?
Speaker 11 (29:50):
The la is a jungle.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
You gotta be careful.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
I would just, you know, hope that you don't get
involved in anything that involves you, you know, doing drugs,
because that's just a bad it's a cliche path.
Speaker 11 (30:06):
In Hollywood.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
It's a it's an la cliche and it just leads
to nothing good.
Speaker 11 (30:14):
And you matter. You matter.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
The vigor with which you defend mister Bob. Do you
think that that's in the message to gay black men
that they matter?
Speaker 3 (30:34):
I think that I in doing my job. And this
again is the This is where you compartmentalize as a lawyer.
This is what makes this is one of the hard
parts about being a lawyer, and what's so unique about
being a lawyer is you have to compartmentalize because.
Speaker 11 (30:56):
All I had to focus on defending my client. I couldn't.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
Focus on the message I was sending to young gay
black men. I couldn't focus on that and do the
job I was supposed to do. This was not about
callousness or uncaring for young black gay men. This was
(31:27):
about me doing my job for my client and nothing more.
Speaker 11 (31:32):
As a black man, I love all of my brothers.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
But you know what, we know that America did not
love these brothers, the gay black men. Even after Jamal
Moore was found dead in the apartment of a white
man with a troublesome pass ed, Buck continued to walk free.
He had the privilege and he had power, and he
used that to continue to stop his prey, and the
system did not protect them. Later in the series, we
(32:10):
look at what it finally took to get ed Buck arrested.
Speaker 5 (32:14):
I initially reviewed all of the reports and immediately saw
that we had a disturbing pattern of what I later
learned to be party and play, which was Buck luring
his victims to his apartment to inject them with methamphetamine
(32:36):
and then on some occasions sexually assault his victims.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
The team gathers to take down ed Buck. This is
Shattering the System. I'm Snari Glinton. Stick around for the
next episode. Shattering the System is a production of Macro
(33:14):
Studios and iHeart Podcasts. I'm your host, Snari Glenton. You
can follow me on Instagram at Snari plus the Number One.
Our executive producers are Charles D. King, Asha Corpus, Win
Royal Reccio, Jonathan Unger, Lindsay Hoffman, and Sonari Glinton. That's Me.
Our podcast is co written and produced by Ralph Cooper
(33:35):
the Third and ben Corey Jones. Erica Rodriguez is our
Associate producer. Dana Conway is our archival producer, Chris Mann
is the audio engineer, and Lisa Pollock is our consulting editor.
Sound design and music provided by Chris Mann with pod
Shaper Clips provide a courtesy of TV one LLC, All
Rights Reserve and the Damage Report Special thanks to Porsche
(33:59):
Robertson Maigas and Karen Griggsby Bates. We'll be back next
week when we find out that's shockingly another man showed
up in ed Buck's apartment dead and no one filed charges. Again,
that's on the next shattering the system. I'll see you
next time.
In this podcast, we're going to talk frankly but sensitively
about some tough issues including sexual abuse, drugs, and suicide.
Check out this podcast notes page for information on mental
health resources in the queer community.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
This is Shattering the System. I'm Sinari Glinton. In our
previous episode, we learned that a twenty six year old
gay black man, Jamel Moore, was found dead in the
apartment of Ed Buck at one two three four North
Laurel Avenue in West Hollywood. Buck, who is white, was
sixty two years old at the time, and he had
kind of turned his home into a sort of drug
(00:40):
or sex dungeon on the street. They called it the
Gates of Hell. Now in his apartment he displayed photos
of prominent politicians, the trappings that came with being a
political donor. And it's interesting to me how the media
covered Melmore's death. Let's get into it.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
It has been three months since twenty six year old
Will Moore found dead the West Hollywood home wealthy democratic.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
Donor at Buck.
Speaker 5 (01:09):
Initially, his death was ruled accidental, but they better mean overdose.
Speaker 6 (01:12):
Moore's mother, Letitia Nickson, has pressed police to continue the
investigation into worse On Jamil's or theorious death.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Jamel Moore is dead. Then five days later the case
is closed, ruled an accidental overdose. Now that's despite Jamel
Moore's diary. That's despite a bag of evidence. That's despite
other victims who'd been in this very apartment and have
stories to tell. Ed Buck was out in the streets
and he was becoming kind of a local news celebrity.
(01:46):
Jamel Moore's mother would begin a campaign not only to
get ed Buck put in jail, but to get the
politicians who gave them money held accountable. The local news
site U Hillville covered this very vigil held in front
of the Los Angeles County, the Sheriff's.
Speaker 6 (02:00):
Office, the lord to cover this family with club and
peace even in this difficult times.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Now, this is Letician Nixon, Jamel Moore's mother speaking to reporters.
Speaker 7 (02:22):
This is something that shouldn't have happened. It just shouldn't
have happened. My son fouled police reports. It's crazy how
the whole entire situation was handled. My son's dead, and
five days later the case is closed.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
I'm standing in the spot where Letitia Nixon spoke those
very words literally across the Street. A few years later,
on the fourth anniversary of her son's death, she would
get a measure of justice for her son. Ed Bud
would be convicted of federal charges, including the death of
Jamel Moore, but justice was not swift at all. Eighteen
(03:06):
months after Jamel Moore was found dead in his apartment,
another black man, Timothy Dean, was also pronounced dead from
an overdose in the exact same apartment in ed Buck's
apartment in West Hollywood. And even after a second death,
ed Buck walked the streets with impunity.
Speaker 5 (03:24):
And that's what I saw ed Buck as being in
this case. He was an offender who had acted with
impunity for nearly a decade. And I was made aware
through the course of this case that ed Buck is
not alone and he is not the only person victimizing
(03:45):
underserved populations in Los Angeles. So this was a really
important bell weather and deterrent for other people who would
victimize these populations.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
This is shattering the system, the rise and fall of
ed Buck. That's after this breaking years ago, when I
was a young local public radio reporter, I went to
(04:26):
a local journalism awards banquet. Didn't have a car, so
a newspaper reporter offered to give me a ride home.
Her name was Linda Lutton. She'd been the big star
of the evening. Actually, she won the prize for investigative journalism.
She had won that award because she helped to put
a local official in jail with her reporter. Now, as
we're driving home to the South Side Chicago, I remember
(04:48):
asking her an important question for me, which was what
made her look into this. I don't know local school
official so closely. What a tipped her off? I asked her,
and she looked at me and matter of factly said,
scenari he was an asshole. It's hard to be an
asshole in only one part of your life, you see.
(05:09):
The thing is you get the sense, at least from
everyone I've talked to in this story. Even before the deaths,
ed Buck was kind of an asshole.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
He was a troublesome kid.
Speaker 8 (05:24):
His mother, interviewed over the years, said she knew when
the phone would ring it would be the school reporting
another problem. But her son, she'd pick up the phone saying, now,
what's he doing? So he was a little bit difficult.
He was a very handsome young man. He became a model.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Hank Scott reported extensively on that book, his political connections
and the deaths in his home. Scott started the local
website Wehillville, which covers West Hollywood. And I always think
the names are important, So let's begin. Edward Bernard Peter
Buck Milter. That's Ed Buck was born in August twenty fourth,
(06:05):
nineteen fifty four, in Steubenville, Ohio, which is just about
a half an hour or so from Pittsburgh. Other famous
residents from Steubenville late Great Dean Mark. Now. When Buck
was six, he moved from Steubenville with his parents, one brother,
and two sisters to Phoenix, Arizona. He went to a
(06:25):
Catholic grade school and North High in Phoenix. By all accounts,
his family is pretty middle class. My childhood was uneventful
as hell. That's at least what Ed Buck told the
Arizona Republic in June nineteen eighty seven. Now, Buck would
later say that he was molested as a child, and
(06:48):
he would describe his father as a longtime alcohol and
when reading about his youth, you kind of get the
sense it was anything but uneventful. Buck came out of
the closet to his family in the early seventies. He
would eventually shorten his name from Buck Melter to Buck.
Let's go back to Hank Scott, the founder of the
local news website Hill vill.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
He spent a number of years in Europe modeling and
touring work, living in Paris and other places.
Speaker 8 (07:15):
And then he came back and he had friend of
his had a small business, an odd business that involved
documenting driver's license information for an insurance company, strange things,
and the business was struggling. Ed stepped in to help
the guy. He bought it from me, and it took off, and.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
Then sold it and he ended up at.
Speaker 8 (07:37):
The age of thirty maybe thirty two, he ended up
a million dollars times pocket and that, you know, that
changed his life.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
It was this money that would allow Buck to launch
a recall campaign against the then governor of Arizona, Evan Meetcha. Now,
at the time, Buck was a registered Republican and the
Republican governor, among other things, was opposed to the Martin
Luther King Holiday. Meechim even defended the use of the
word Picaninny. Anyway, Buck would lead a campaign to get
(08:07):
Meetum recalled. Now, this was alongside of an impeachment and
a federal indictment. Now politics being politics, Buck was attacked
by Beecham, calling Buck and his supporters quote a band
of homosexuals and dissident Democrats. The Arizona campaign will give
Buck his first taste of the spotlight, and in an
(08:27):
interview with the Arizona Republic at the time, when asked
if he would ever run for office, he said, quote,
I think I'd be more effective as a private citizen.
The recall movement has shown how people can get together
and change things. I know how to do that now
it may come in handy later. All of that attention
(08:50):
that Buck received was very unwanted. The bright lights might
just reveal that he had had a few run ins
with law.
Speaker 8 (09:04):
Ed Buck was arrested at one point for using a
fraudulent prescription to get some drugs from pharmacy. Ed Buck
got in trouble in an adult store when a cop
saw him grabbing the crotch of another man nearby. So
you know there were those sorts of issues at the time.
But he then when Meetam was pushed out office, Edbuck
(09:28):
decided to move to where well, Hollywood with better place,
and he moved to a place where he lived for
another thirty years on Lowell Avenue apartment in a fairly
ordinary building, looking very fancy.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
And he slowly got involved in civic life.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Can you discuss, So what is a gay man, an
out gay man getting involved in civic life. Tell me
what that looks like in West Hollywood.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
For ed Buck, Oh, it looks great West Hollywood.
Speaker 8 (10:00):
I mean, you know, out came in with money, getting
involved in civic life. I mean it made him a
welcome figure. There were a couple of causes he cared about.
One was building Terra. You know about that. It's an old,
old building. Who's owner. You didn't sign a written contract
with you orally it gave it to the City of
(10:21):
West Hollywood as long as it would preserve it.
Speaker 4 (10:24):
The city decided it.
Speaker 8 (10:25):
Wanted to turn it into the apartments and build housing
for low income seniors. And of course the neighbors who
owned their own homes bought that and launched a campaign.
Terror took the City of West Hollywood at court. Ed
Buck supported it, and Taror won.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
So let's think about this for a minute. There's a
building called Tara in ed Buck's neighborhood. Now this is Hollywood,
so they call it that because it looks like the Tara,
you know, the one from Gone with the win well
Ed Buck was living in a rent stabilized apartment on
the same street, actively working against and helping to stop
(11:05):
a plan to convert the building into housing for low
income seniors. And he was living again in a rent
stabilized apartment.
Speaker 8 (11:15):
It now remains an empty building. While there's a struggle
for people to find housing in West Hollywood, terras, it
there empty, and so he got involved in that. And
then he had a passion for animal rights and this
was his big, big thing. So he was involved in
an animal rights group, and he decided to form an organization.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
That campaigned for a band and the sale of Furr
in West Hollywood.
Speaker 8 (11:40):
Furr was not something most West Hollywood residents went out
and bought, but a section of West Hollywood adjacent to
Beverly Hill, the design district, was full of very affluent
stores like those in Beverly Hills, and somebody flying in from.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
New York might go by for a.
Speaker 8 (11:56):
Code and had led a campaign to stopped the sale
of her and West taller Wood became the first city
in the nation to ban you know, I haven't been
a resident of West Holloway for a long time, and
I will tell you that I'm so proud of my
city right now.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Ed Buck clearly saw the fur band as a badge
of honor. We'll hear more about his animal rights activism later.
Hank Scott, the journalist, says ed Buck early on developed
a reputation for being difficult.
Speaker 8 (12:28):
Also said he was a really difficult guy.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
So, uh, you know a number of people.
Speaker 8 (12:35):
Steve Martin, who ran for city council long city council,
talked about the difficulty of feeling with it.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
Book, A number of people who difficult difficult.
Speaker 8 (12:44):
He would get angry, he would get nasty, he would
get semi violent. There were a couple of instances where
he appeared at city council meetings and made statements, and
they were one city council member who asked that I
not declared her name, but I think everybody knows.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
She actually had the sheriff.
Speaker 8 (13:01):
Steputies escort with the car after the city now council
meeting to hear the Dead Book to attack her. I
met someone else who was very involved in the animal
rights movement. With that who's no one even lives in
the United States, but she told me that she feared
violence from Medoc. They would get in what she thought
of as a minor disagreement and he would get violent.
(13:24):
So this was a part of his personality, and I
think maybe it.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
Got worse when the drug used took all. But he
was known as a difficult guy to deal with.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
West Hollywood can look on the outside as if it's
some harmonious gighborhood, but there is a long history of
racism and sexism in West Hollywood. Just for example, it
was long a practice that black men would have to
show multiple forms of ID to get into bars, and
the city can be incredibly unwelcoming to lesbians. Also, the
(13:59):
city can be very much a not in my backyard
kind of place, which ed Buck fit right into. Henry
Scott says, there are a lot of divisions in West Hollwood.
Speaker 8 (14:10):
Then the other division that I've found fascinating his division
between what I call the work gays and the old
gay boomers. There's plight a division there that we see,
particularly on the city council right now.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Ed Buck made friends and some enemies in his early career,
getting involved in democratic clubs and donating money. He gave
nearly half a million dollars doing it mainly at one
grand to five grand at a time. One of the
people who benefited was John Duran, a former city council
person and former wehome here.
Speaker 9 (14:44):
When I first met at, he was very talkative, he
had intelligence, but the fact that he'd run for office
and almost took Governor Meetrom of Arizona out made him
interesting to me. But he was out as a gay man,
and if you move into West Hollywood either gay or
presumed to be possibly gay, and so I think by
(15:04):
the time ed got here, he intended this destination to
explore his sexual element.
Speaker 10 (15:11):
I first met ed Buck when I got involved in
city politics.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Lindsay Horvav was a second woman mayor in West Hollywood's history.
She's currently on the LA County Board of Supervisors, and
she began volunteering in West Hollywood in two thousand and seven.
Speaker 10 (15:32):
I volunteered on campaigns for city council he had run
at the time. I did not volunteer on his campaign,
to be very clear, but that's how I met him.
He was running and some of his friends were running
against people I was supporting.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
So what would you say? What was your impressive him?
Speaker 10 (15:49):
At the time, I wasn't politically aligned with ed Buck.
I didn't see I didn't share his worldview, and my
experience was that any bud who was on the other
side of him, he made an enemy.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
It's not clear when ed Buck began using meth, but
there was an influx of drugs into West Hollywood at
the end of the nineties. Again, John Durant, former mayor
of West Hollywood.
Speaker 9 (16:17):
He was very involved with the Democratic Party, the Democratic Clubs,
the Stonewall Democratic Club, but his role in West iod
government has been primarily as a agitator.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
You know.
Speaker 9 (16:29):
He'd come to council meetings on occasion and scream and
yell about development issues.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
That's what I recall.
Speaker 9 (16:36):
Now I'm wondering whether some of those appearances before council
were under the influence of myth because that sort of
anger and agitation, and the sweaty brow, the clenched fists,
the teeth being gritted. I mean, now I recognize all
of that to be the symptoms of somebody under the
influence of amphetamine.
Speaker 8 (17:00):
Crystal meth has had an incredible impact, negative impact on
West Hollywood and other gay communities because West Hollywood is
so much of a quote gay community thirty percent of
the population that's gay. I have lost friends to meth,
and I have seen friends lose their careers. I had
someone I lived with for three years in New York
(17:21):
and was very close to who lost his job almost
committed suicide.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
Amost everything he am.
Speaker 8 (17:29):
And one of the challenges I found in West Hollywood
was the unwillingness for the gay community to acknowledge the
horrors of men.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
It's not clear when Ed Buck began using meth, but
there was an influx of math into West Hollywood at
the end of the nineteen nineties. Over time, Buck began
to become involved in fetish play. His fetish focused on
black men dressed in white underwear. He enjoyed humiliating men,
and according to prosecutors, there were thousands of videos of
(17:58):
Buck smoking up with and eventually slamming or shooting men
up with meth. Neighbors began noticing the parade of black
men going into Buck's apartment. This is shattering the system,
(18:25):
well just the beginning. To do me a favor and
push yourself.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
My name is Ludlow b. Query the Second. I am
a Los Angeles based lawyer. I was co counsel as
Edward Buck's defense.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Council, this is shattering the system. I'm snari Clinton at
this part of the story, we thought we needed to
understand what ed Buck was thinking besides his statements at trial.
What possible excuse would ed Buck have for his behavior now,
so that you all know at the start of the
process for doing this podcast, we reached out to ed
(18:59):
Buck and his family. They declined. We did speak to
one of his lawyers, Chris Darden and Ludlow B. Query.
The second were ed Buck's lawyers. You might remember Chris
Darden from the OJ case. Darden was one of the
prosecutors who tried OJ Simpson for the murder of his
ex wife, Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman.
(19:21):
Simpson was acquitted. Darden, though has since become a very
well paid defense attorney. His co counsel Ludlow B. Query,
also a defense attorney. If less famous, he is very
much la He was bussed to Beverly Hills High. I
have to say that talking to Ludlow Query was possibly
(19:44):
one of the more memorable interviews that I've done in
my career, in part because of how he defends at Buck. Well,
you know, when I think of this case, like, you know,
the average person who might be listening this, like, Okay,
I understand black man is a criminal defense attorney, that's
the thing. But then I have to ask the question
that I feel like the average black of Angelino might say,
(20:07):
which would probably be something like, look, Chris Darden on
the wrong side yet again, is he on the wrong
side you and you and Christy Darden like in this case, Like.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
It depends on obviously, if you look at this case
you were talking about the ed Buck case. Obvious, Yes,
if you look at it outside of the criminal justice
sphere or the criminal justice space, then I can understand
why people would say that. Yes, I mean ed Buck
(20:38):
is accused of court doing horrible things that resulted in
the deaths of two black men. He's accused of exploiting
black men in particular. Those are the allegations. And you know,
it appeared that Jackie Lacy, the district attorney at the time,
wasn't willing to file a case against them. And I
(21:03):
can understand how the public couls see that as, oh, well,
these are just black men and black lives don't matter,
and so you know, wealthy ed Buck is going to
not be prosecuted because the victims happen to be blackmail,
homeless black men, black men who have drug addiction problems,
(21:25):
black men who are in prostitution, so they're to.
Speaker 11 (21:31):
Society, they're looked at is throwaway.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
And to people who are advocating that black lives matter,
and particularly and in this particular insin black gay lives matter,
I can understand how it would be perceived that me
and Chris are on the wrong side yet again. But
(21:59):
lawyers and the criminal justice system doesn't operate, it's not
supposed to operate under the influence of public opinion. You
cannot get justice if you prosecute or don't prosecute, or
(22:21):
convict or don't convict based on what the masses want.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
But our justice system is based on testable evidence. You
know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
You can't bring in a mob.
Speaker 12 (22:34):
A crowd and say to the jury, well, the mob
says they're guilty, so you better convict.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Now, this wasn't necessarily a mob action. Prosecutors would eventually
find thousands of videos of ed Buck in his victims,
both ed Buck injecting them and smoking meth with them.
In addition to that, there was the actual evidence that
was found inside of his apartment, as well as the
willingness amongst his victims to testify if they got immunity.
(23:09):
One of the big questions of the case seems to be, well,
you know, I live around the corner from at Buck's
apartment and I look at one, two, three four, Laurel,
I'm like, is he really a wealthy man?
Speaker 11 (23:21):
Well, you know, I mean, I'm not going to comment on.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
On his assets, you know, but that was certainly what
the public, the public perception of him.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Was one of the things regardless of what you think
about this case, I think about, who's no one to
think of him as a boogeyman?
Speaker 11 (23:42):
Okay, right, so right, this is not a boogeyman. He's
just not.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
He was portrayed as a boogeyman by the prosecution and
by the press.
Speaker 11 (23:50):
But he's not a boogeyman.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
So humanize him for me helped me understand.
Speaker 11 (23:53):
Ed book was.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
In my opinion, ed Buck was a meth amphetamine addict
that is a diction and had gotten control of him
and as a human, as a person, you know, apart
from this horrible drug, he is a compassionate, you know,
civically active, caring man. I mean he howso because you know,
(24:21):
as intent always is to help people. Now it got
twisted by an addiction. Yeah, it got twisted by an addiction.
And you know, doing drugs with people is definitely not
helping him.
Speaker 11 (24:35):
And another thing I mean this is does ed Buck
have a history of victimizing black men?
Speaker 6 (24:42):
No?
Speaker 3 (24:42):
I mean you go back and back in time in
his life, there's none of there's no history of him
abusing and victimizing black men.
Speaker 4 (24:52):
You know.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
So, how do you explain the thousands and hours of
hours of tape that I mean, like.
Speaker 11 (24:58):
How do you make people that is all well, that's.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
All within the context of this crazy world that he
was living in under the influence of this addiction. I
think that the thousands of hours of tape really didn't
speak to what the charges were in the sense that
the things that he was that were the picture of
(25:22):
him that was being painted with the thousands out of
hours of tape was that he was sexually assaulting people,
that he was torturing them.
Speaker 11 (25:32):
Well, he wasn't charged with any of that.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
He was charged with distribution, causing death and bringing somebody
from another state.
Speaker 11 (25:41):
For the purposes of prostitution. That's what he was charged
with that as well.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
But so.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
To prove that he distributed meth amphetamine to these two
gentlemen who passed away, you didn't need thousands of hours
of what I called shit show evident that just made
him look horrible, made him look like a monster, but
it didn't.
Speaker 11 (26:08):
It wasn't relevant to the actual charges. It made him
look like a sexual assaulter.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
It made him look like a torturer, evil man, but
the charges did not reflect.
Speaker 11 (26:22):
Any of that.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
That was just poured on.
Speaker 11 (26:27):
To make the jury hate him.
Speaker 12 (26:29):
Think about what it says that this person, let's say,
in some crazy world that doesn't actually exist, there had
never been any ill will. Two terrible tragedies, two terrible accidents.
Many you find more people ever sick. That's sick. The
best case scenario is almost unimaginably sick.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
In my opinion, it unduly prejudiced the jury against our client,
and so it wasn't even about what he was charged with.
It was just like a monster. Whatever he's charged with,
find him guilty. But we're going to find him guilty.
I'm really just doing my job, you know. I just
happen to be a black lawyer, you know, But I've
(27:13):
represented white supremacists. I have represented white supremacists. Now, does
that mean I believe in white supremacy. No, not by
any means do I believe.
Speaker 11 (27:27):
In white supremacy. So that gets to.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
The your clients, Aret, your friend's trope Again, I'm not
going to go to the clan rally just because I'm
representing somebody who might be a member of the Aryan
Brotherhood or.
Speaker 11 (27:43):
The klu Klux Klan.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
I'm not gonna like join the clan or start espousing
their hate speech.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
No.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
But my job is to make sure that criminal defendants
get due process. So I'm not here to judge him.
I'm here to make sure his rights are protected. Doesn't
mean I'm buddies with him, doesn't mean I agree with
anything he says, doesn't mean I agree with any of
his beliefs, doesn't even mean I like him.
Speaker 11 (28:10):
Doesn't even mean I like him. You know what I mean.
I'm doing my job now.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
I do care about it, Buck, because I got to
know it, Buck, and and and how I feel about
it Buck, and how I feel like he was sort
of portrayed as something that he Wasn't you know that's true?
Speaker 2 (28:29):
You should you cared about uh Ed fuck, and I'm not.
I'm not asking this question in a flippant way.
Speaker 11 (28:36):
Why Because I got to know. I got to know him.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
You know, I have to be careful what I say
because I can't, you know, divulge our conversations, you know,
but I got to know him.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
What's he like as a client?
Speaker 11 (28:54):
He's you know, he's he's easy going. Really, you know,
he's not he's not a person. He's not.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
He's respectful, he's highly intelligent, he's very practical, and he
wasn't he wasn't a problem on any level.
Speaker 11 (29:15):
As a client.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Now, can I tell you that one of the most
surreal things is to hear the lawyer for Ed Buck
getting misty eyed about gay black men. I talked to
Query for two hours in downtown Hollywood. Aside from defending
that Buck, because that's your job. Yes, what do you
say to the young man who's moving to West Hollywood
(29:39):
and Jamelle Moore of today, the young person who's comes
to Hollywood. What advice do you give to that young
person who's arriving today?
Speaker 11 (29:50):
The la is a jungle.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
You gotta be careful.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
I would just, you know, hope that you don't get
involved in anything that involves you, you know, doing drugs,
because that's just a bad it's a cliche path.
Speaker 11 (30:06):
In Hollywood.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
It's a it's an la cliche and it just leads
to nothing good.
Speaker 11 (30:14):
And you matter. You matter.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
The vigor with which you defend mister Bob. Do you
think that that's in the message to gay black men
that they matter?
Speaker 3 (30:34):
I think that I in doing my job. And this
again is the This is where you compartmentalize as a lawyer.
This is what makes this is one of the hard
parts about being a lawyer, and what's so unique about
being a lawyer is you have to compartmentalize because.
Speaker 11 (30:56):
All I had to focus on defending my client. I couldn't.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
Focus on the message I was sending to young gay
black men. I couldn't focus on that and do the
job I was supposed to do. This was not about
callousness or uncaring for young black gay men. This was
(31:27):
about me doing my job for my client and nothing more.
Speaker 11 (31:32):
As a black man, I love all of my brothers.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
But you know what, we know that America did not
love these brothers, the gay black men. Even after Jamal
Moore was found dead in the apartment of a white
man with a troublesome pass ed, Buck continued to walk free.
He had the privilege and he had power, and he
used that to continue to stop his prey, and the
system did not protect them. Later in the series, we
(32:10):
look at what it finally took to get ed Buck arrested.
Speaker 5 (32:14):
I initially reviewed all of the reports and immediately saw
that we had a disturbing pattern of what I later
learned to be party and play, which was Buck luring
his victims to his apartment to inject them with methamphetamine
(32:36):
and then on some occasions sexually assault his victims.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
The team gathers to take down ed Buck. This is
Shattering the System. I'm Snari Glinton. Stick around for the
next episode. Shattering the System is a production of Macro
(33:14):
Studios and iHeart Podcasts. I'm your host, Snari Glenton. You
can follow me on Instagram at Snari plus the Number One.
Our executive producers are Charles D. King, Asha Corpus, Win
Royal Reccio, Jonathan Unger, Lindsay Hoffman, and Sonari Glinton. That's Me.
Our podcast is co written and produced by Ralph Cooper
(33:35):
the Third and ben Corey Jones. Erica Rodriguez is our
Associate producer. Dana Conway is our archival producer, Chris Mann
is the audio engineer, and Lisa Pollock is our consulting editor.
Sound design and music provided by Chris Mann with pod
Shaper Clips provide a courtesy of TV one LLC, All
Rights Reserve and the Damage Report Special thanks to Porsche
(33:59):
Robertson Maigas and Karen Griggsby Bates. We'll be back next
week when we find out that's shockingly another man showed
up in ed Buck's apartment dead and no one filed charges. Again,
that's on the next shattering the system. I'll see you
next time.
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