Initiation into the Bloods involved a “Blood-in” ritual. Which meant the new member had to draw blood from a victim. This ritual usually took place during robberies, when the new member would viciously slash the cheek of his prey with a razor blade or knife.
To distinguish themselves from the Bloods of Los Angeles, the United Blood Nation adopted the official name of East Coast United Blood Nation. East Coast Bloods exert their identity by means of colours, clothing, symbols, tattoos, jewellery, graffiti, slang and hand signs. The colour of the Bloods is red. They prefer to wear athletic clothing, especially Starter brand jackets from the San Francisco 49ers, the Phillies and the Chicago Bulls. Their number is five, and is reflected in the five-pointed star. Blood gangbangers refer to each other as “Blood” or as “Dawg”, and a dog-paw tattoo is favoured among them – three dots burned on to the member’s shoulder by means of a cigarette. Blood gang members are called “soldiers”, and these soldiers are highly committed and radically brutal.
At this time, Peter Rollack was the unchallenged leader of Sex, Money, Murder. Because of his tendency to shoot first and ask questions later, Rollack was nicknamed Pistol Pete. And usually, Pistol Pete didn’t bother with the questions.
Under Pistol Pete’s generalship SMM spread like a cancer to other locations. SMM found willing recruits in the South Bronx, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brownsville and East New York. In no time at all, SMM soldiers numbered in the hundreds. So eager were black youths to join SMM that the gang soon had lines (local chapters) in Trenton, Newark and Camden, New Jersey, with others in Philadelphia and Baltimore. By 1994, SMM’s soldiers numbered in the thousands. Each soldier was indoctrinated, swore everlasting allegiance and was heavily armed.
Some of the lines included: the Viewside Line, which was out of the Bronx Projects; the Hillside Line, out of the Castle Hill Projects in the Bronx; Killerville, which came of the Van Dyke Projects in Brownsville and Brooklyn; Murderville, which was in Paterson, New Jersey; the Omega Line, which hailed from Jersey City, New Jersey; Murder City Mafia, from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Paper Boys, from Trenton, New Jersey; and Slug Line, which also came from Philadelphia.
Each one of these lines, operating under the leadership of Peter Rollack, proudly traced their Blood roots and were “right”, which meant they banged correctly. Correct banging involved murder, robbery, heroin and cocaine use, possession and distribution; and, of course, the carrying and use of firearms.
By the time he was twenty-four years old, Peter Rollack had personally committed four murders and arranged two other murders that took place in the Bronx. The two Bronx murders occurred on Thanksgiving Day in 1997. Rollack ordered the killings from his prison cell in North Carolina, where he was waiting to face federal narcotics charges: the dead men were two SMM members who were scheduled to testify against him. According to Rollack, “all snitches got to die”.
The reason Pistol Pete was imprisoned in North Carolina went like this. In the early 1990s, he was really building a reputation for himself. SMM was going strong, making noise, getting noticed. Naturally, other heavy-hitters were attracted to his crew. One of those who joined up with Pistol Pete and SMM was Savon Codd, aka “Yaro Pack”, who had a rep as a money man who could move a lot of weight. “Moving weight” was gang-slang for smuggling, distributing and selling drugs. When Yaro Pack joined SMM, things really started happening. Almost overnight, SMM became a major distributor of cocaine and crack cocaine.
Then in 1994, Yaro Pack and his associate David Gonzales huddled with Pistol Pete in the Bronx. Gonzales informed Pistol Pete they could “score some big-time cash” down in North Carolina. The demand for cocaine in North Carolina was “scandalous”. All they had to do was move the coke down south. So Pistol Pete and his SMM crew began making trips to North Carolina in a leased Nissan Quest, which was packed to the gills with drugs. The trips were very, very lucrative. And Pistol Pete and his crew became “hood rich”. The more coke they moved, they richer they got.
Pretty soon, SMM was transporting huge amounts of narcotics up and down the East Coast. Pistol Pete’s drug empire was growing larger every day. He was the McDonald’s of drugs. SMM was everywhere. And if they weren’t there, they soon would be.
By the summer of 1994, SMM had become major players. They were an event all by themselves. Rock, who was a friend of Pete’s back in the day, said, “When he was out there, dude was a millionaire when he was nineteen.”
Pistol Pete wasn’t only swift to shoot, he was also a quick-draw thinker. Sex, Money, Murder’s business was transportation intensive, meaning it depended on cars to get the coke where it needed to be. Which gave Pete an idea. He took the letters SMM and added a C – SMMC. Then he formed a corporation that went by those four letters. SMMC, Inc. was a front company used to lease a fleet of luxury cars from a company in Pittsburgh. SMMC, Inc. quickly became the leasing company’s bread and butter and it made it possible for SMMC to obtain cars by means of prepaid leases, which made everyone happy, because when a lease was paid upfront there were no background or credit checks to worry about. Simply drop a bundle of cash and drive the cars off the lot. Besides that, the leasing company camouflaged outright purchases of vehicles made by some members of the gang. By means of forged paperwork, the company made it look like these purchased cars had also been leased.
Whether the cars were leased or purchased outright, they all had stash boxes (secret, invisible compartments), which were used to transport drugs, money and guns. Many of the leased vehicles were minivans, which were easily modified with stash boxes, and didn’t attract much attention because they were prevalent and usually driven by law-abiding family-types. But boys being boys, SMM also had a number of Hummers, Mercedes and BMWs just for fun. As one former SMM member said, “When Sex, Money, Murder rolled, they rolled in style. They were doing it for sure. Their shit was bubbling.”
Then it all went to hell.
Yaro Pack, Gonzales, Pistol Pete and a fourth SMM member called Leadpipe left New York in a leased minivan, which carried Pennsylvania licence plates. It also carried ten kilograms of coke, both powder and crack. When the van got to Pittsburgh, they delivered six kilograms of coke and collected payment, which was $22,000 per kilo. Which worked out to $132,000. Then they drove to Lumberton, where they picked up money owed for previous deliveries. After taking care of business in Lumberton, they headed for Rockingham, where they were to pick up $90,000 from a dude named Darius Covington.
Darius Covington was a small-time drug pusher who was trying to go big-time, only things weren’t going as planned. Darius had a problem. He didn’t have the whole ninety grand. He only had part of it. Pistol Pete was aware of Darius’s problem, but wasn’t buying it. Pistol Pete didn’t do instalment plans. His motto was “get mine or be mine”. Darius needed to pay up or he needed to die.
When the van pulled up to Darius’s favourite haunt, which was a broken-down billiard parlour, Pistol Pete tapped a pistol against his own forehead and said, “Yo, I’m goin’ in there and murda him.”
Gonzales wasn’t as hardcore as Pistol Pete. Pistol Pete was all about rep, respect and revenge. Gonzales believed in granting grace periods, because he was in it for the money. And, like he said, “Dead bodies don’t pay up.” Corpses also made a mess and attracted cops. So Gonzales made a short, passionate plea to give Darius more time to come up with the money. In the end, Pistol Pete agreed to a twenty-four-hour stay of execution. Darius had one more day to get the money.
Gonzales got out of the van and went inside, where he told Darius the facts of life, according to the Gospel of Pistol Pete. “We got business in Charlotte,” Gonzales said to Darius. “After it’s taken care of, we’ll circle-jerk back here tomorrow. Have the money, dude. Cuz tomorrow Pete’ll be the one ya’ talk to, not me. Ya’ understan’ what I’m sayin’?”
Darius licked his lips, nodding.
Back in the van, Gonzales headed the vehicle toward Charlotte, where the four gangbangers planned on attending a concer
t, then making a delivery. There were still two kilos of coke and some guns in one of the two stash boxes of the van.
After the concert, they drove to Wilmington, North Carolina, where they made another delivery of cocaine. They crashed for a few hours, then headed back toward Rockingham to meet up with Darius.
On 21 October 1994, as they approached the city of Rockingham, Gonzales stopped the van at a pay phone so he could make arrangements for the meeting place, and agreed to meet Darius at a local Burger King.
When they got to the Burger King the gangbangers went inside, ordered food and sat down to eat while they waited to collect their money. Darius never showed, because while he had been on the phone with Gonzales, he had told him he didn’t have the money. Gonzales had suggested he leave town if he didn’t want to learn why Peter Rollack was nicknamed “Pistol Pete”.
Not showing was not cool. As far as Pistol Pete was concerned, Darius was as good as dead. Pistol Pete didn’t let nobody get over on him.
“Look, Pete,” said Gonzales. “The dude didn’t show cuz he’s scared. You got a bad rep, man. Darius, he knows that. He’s probably down in Florida by now, man.” Gonzales laughed. “Ya’ll go on home, back to New York. I’ll stay here an’ see if I can’t find Darius and maybe collect the money.”
“Fuck that shit,” snarled Pistol Pete. “Ain’t nobody going to live in this world who owe me money.”
Gonzales held out his hands and shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell ya’, man.”
“Take me over to Darius’s house,” ordered Pistol Pete. “Because I’m going to murder his wife and kids. I ain’t playing.”
While Gonzales stalled, looking for a way out, the shit hit the fan. A bunch of cops popped up like Jacks-in-a-Box and proceeded to detain the gangbangers.
An anonymous informant had tipped the police that a burgundy Nissan Quest, with Pennsylvania licence plates, carrying four men, was transporting illegal narcotics into North Carolina. The anonymous informant was, of course, Darius Covington, who had decided it was better to be a live snitch than a dead drug pusher.
The police officers escorted the gangbangers out of Burger King to the burgundy Nissan Quest in the parking lot and asked permission to search the van. Yaro Pack nodded, handing over the keys. He also signed a written consent to search the van.
While two officers searched the van, other officers questioned the gangbangers, who gave phony names. Yaro Pack told the police officers that his name was Corey Hines. Gonzales gave his name as David Richards, and Pistol Pete identified himself as Nathaniel Tucker. Leadpipe said his name was John Adams.
The two cops searching the van couldn’t find anything. But they didn’t give up. They called for help, requesting drug detection canines. When the drug-sniffing dogs arrived, they quickly picked up the smell of coke and alerted the officers that there were drugs somewhere in the van. The cops immediately called for a tow truck and had the minivan taken to a police garage. They also got a search warrant.
With the help of a Nissan mechanic from a local car dealership, the cops proceeded to take the van apart, piece by piece. The SMM gangbangers stood nearby, watching. Beneath the front seats of the van, the cops located one of the two stash boxes. Inside, they found nothing. Undeterred, the cops continued dismantling the van. The existence of the empty stash box gave the police grounds to seize the vehicle and to hold the gangbangers for seventy-two hours.
The Sex, Money, Murder crew were handcuffed and transported to the local police station, where they were booked under their alias names. A few hours later, after posting bail, Pistol Pete and his crew were released, but their van had been impounded and was still being searched. This meant they had no wheels and, after posting bail, no money. The bulk of their money was in the second stash box in the van.
Yaro Pack wanted to get out of town as fast as possible, because he knew that when the cops discovered the other stash box – which also contained guns and coke – the game was over. He made a suggestion. “I ain’t liking the way this feels. Let’s get the fuck outta here, go on over to Charlotte. From there we can catch a plane back to Zoo York.”
“Fuck that shit,” said Pistol Pete. “We’ll hang here until the van is released. Get our shit back.”
“Man, didn’t you see them po-lice taking our van apart?” asked Yaro Pack. “Sooner or later, they gonna’ find our shit. Then they gonna’ put our ass in a sling. We need to blow this Ma and Pa town, man.”
“Sheeit,” scoffed Pistol Pete. “These country-ass po-lice so stupid they ain’t findin’ nothin’, man.”
Pistol Pete was wrong. Even as he and Yaro Pack were arguing, the police found the second stash box. This one wasn’t empty. It contained the guns and coke and a pile of money.
The SMM gangbangers walked to a pay phone and made a collect call to New York, informing their members back home of their predicament. While they were on the phone, the police arrived and arrested them again. This time their bail was high. The gangbangers made their phone calls and lingered in jail, waiting to be redeemed.
A few days later, George Wallace, who was a friend of Pistol Pete, and Yaro Pack’s cousin arrived with bail money. Once they were released, the gangbangers got out of town as fast as possible. There was no way they were hanging around this podunk town to face the music. Sooner or later the police would match their prints to their real names, which meant their problems would escalate geometrically.
Pistol Pete decided not to take any more risks. He stopped taking trips. Instead, he stayed in New York and ran his empire from there, telling his crew where to go and what to do.
His tendency to resolve business disputes with his pistol caught up with him in late 1995. Karlton Hines, who was a basketball star at Syracuse University, owed Pete some money for drugs. Karlton decided not to pay what he owed. It was a bad choice. One day, Pete spotted Karlton standing outside a stereo shop on Boston Road. Karlton was with a friend of his named Carlos Mestre. They were waiting while Karlton had a new stereo installed in his car. Pistol Pete opened fire at the two men, killing Karlton and wounding Carlos. Pete didn’t mean to hit Carlos, but his policy was to spray lead everywhere, which meant Carlos got hit because he associated with the wrong people.
Two months later, Pistol Pete finished the job on Carlos Mestre. Pete had nothing against him personally, but Carlos’s status had changed. Now he was a witness to the murder of Karlton Hines, which meant Carlos had to die. As Carlos walked out of a Bronx hip-hop store called Jew Man, Pistol Pete gunned him down.
The police got a tip and arrested Pete for murder a few days later. The tip came from David Gonzales, Pete’s old drug-running buddy, who was pissed off at Pete because he had been shaking him down for money. When Pete was arrested, as usual, he had a gun on him. Possession of a gun demanded a mandatory eight-month jail sentence, which Pete served at the Rikers Island Correctional Facility. When the eight months were up, his mother bailed him out so he could walk free while he awaited trial for the murder charge.
Because there were no witnesses to the murder of Carlos Mestre, Pistol Pete was acquitted. However, instead of walking out of court a free man, he was remanded to custody. Gonzales had fixed Pete’s wagon but good. While Pete was sitting through his murder trial, Gonzales had told the Feds about Pete’s activities in North Carolina, back in 1994. After Pete beat the murder rap, a federal narcotics indictment out of the Western District of North Carolina was waiting for him. The “country-ass po-lice” indicted Pistol Pete for the guns, coke and money they had found in the stash box of the van.
Pistol Pete was moved to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg County Jail in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he would be held until his next trial began.
It was 1996. He was twenty-three years old.
Pistol Pete kept up a good front. He had a rep to live up to, so he pretended like he didn’t care. “A true player will accept the hand he is dealt simply because he did not live a lie,” said Pete.
The Feds went all out in their
case against Peter Rollack, aka Pistol Pete. They hit him with the RICO Act (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act), charging him with drug trafficking, conspiracy to distribute drugs and ongoing conspiracy. The charges portrayed Pistol Pete as an interstate high-profile drug-trafficker, who was the leader of a Bloods gang involved in drug-smuggling and murder.
During the trial, it came out that Darius Covington was an informant for the Rockingham Police Department. Covington testified that he had been a paid informant for years, and that he had purchased drugs from Peter Rollack, watching as Rollack removed the drugs from a secret compartment in the Nissan van.
The jury was informed that after impounding the van, the Rockingham Police Department had thoroughly searched the vehicle. The search process had involved completely dismantling the van. When the police finally opened the second stash box, they discovered unregistered guns, two kilos of cocaine and $250,000 in cash.
Yaro Pack and David Gonzales also testified for the prosecution. Both men stated that Pete accompanied them on the trip to North Carolina, and that the primary purpose of the trip was to deliver drugs and pick up money due for past deliveries of drugs. Yaro Pack stated that Pete acted as the group’s enforcer. In return for their testimony, both men received immunity. As soon as the trial concluded, Pack and Gonzales entered WITSEC, the federal witness protection programme. This was necessary to protect their lives. During the trial, Pistol Pete had put out death contracts on both men. He had written letters in Bloods code from his prison cell, ordering the members of Sex, Money, Murder to kill Yaro Pack and David Gonzales. According to Pete, they were snitches and deserved to die.
The Mammoth Book of Hard Bastards (Mammoth Books) Page 14