Once Upon A Time in Compton

by Brennan, Tim; Ladd, Robert; Files, Lolita

  So now, many afternoons after the gun incident, here Tim and Bob were patrolling the neighborhood, having first seen the Seven O’s gathered at their hangout on Raymond Street, and now seeing the Acacia’s posted up at G-Ray’s house. They knew both groups gathering didn’t bode well.

  Tim and Bob continued to cruise the neighborhood with the intentions of coming back around to check on them again. After about ten minutes of patrolling, they headed back to see how things were with the Seven O’s and Acacia’s. They were driving west on Tichenor Street toward Acacia. Tichenor was two blocks south of Reeve Street, where G-Ray lived.

  As they approached Acacia, a large Buick with about four Seven O’s inside was driving north very fast. Tim and Bob raced after them, and as they turned onto Acacia, they saw G-Ray and his group of about ten Acacia Blocc Crips standing on the northeast corner of Acacia and Reeve.

  As the Buick entered the intersection, a yellow school van with about twenty special needs kids on board was also entering the intersection. The Buick slammed into the school van.

  Tim and Bob drove up and hopped out of their car. The four Seven O’s in the Buick jumped out and ran right into the thick of the G-Ray and Acacia’s and started swinging. They all fought, right there in the middle of the street. The Seven O’s Tim and Bob had seen hanging out on Raymond Street earlier heard the crash and rushed over, joining the melee. The scene was pure mayhem.

  Several of the special needs kids who’d been in the school van were wandering in the street, injured and bleeding. All the while, twenty plus gang members were going at it, and it was guaranteed there were guns among them.

  Racist CV70 graffiti.

  Racist graffiti targeting Latino gangs.

  They radioed for help, then joined in the fighting. One of the gangsters tried to run past Tim. Tim stuck his arm straight out to the side and clotheslined him. The guy’s feet flew up in the air and he landed on his head. Tim and Bob ran into the throng and started swinging batons, their fists, flashlights, anything to stop what was happening. The fight felt like it went on for at least five minutes and didn’t stop until the sound of approaching sirens grew closer. Then both sides dispersed, taking off in all directions. Once the troops arrived, Tim and Bob looked at each other, catching their breaths. They couldn’t begin to figure out how they were going to explain what had just happened. They had seen a lot in their careers, but this was one of the craziest things they’d ever experienced.

  ***

  The violence continued to escalate between the Acacia Blocc Crips and the Seven O’s. Graffiti began to appear around the neighborhood that chronicled their conflict. The Seven O’s tagged walls with the words “Fuck Niggers.” The Acacias responded with walls tagged “Fuck Tacos.”

  Their gang beef had turned into a race war.

  ***

  One Sunday afternoon, two Seven O Veteranos, Boxer and Bull, were driving in their Chevy Impala. They pulled up to a mailbox at Tamarind and Alondra to drop off mail they were sending to some homies in prison.

  A maroon van pulled up alongside them. The van’s side door flew open and two Acacia Blocc Crips jumped out holding AK-47’s. According to witnesses, the two men walked up to the Impala and shot Boxer and Bull at point-blank range, instantly killing them. Boxer and Bull’s bodies were riddled with bullets. Brain matter was splattered everywhere. It was a bloody, horrible scene.

  Acacia Blocc Crip graffiti taking credit for the murders of CV70 Veteranos Boxer and Bull.

  Tim and Bob handled the case and ended up arresting two Acacia Blocc Crips. Their only eyewitness was a scrawny woman who was a heroin addict and knew the two suspects from the neighborhood. She turned out to be a terrible witness. She was high during the trial, and was sick and going through withdrawals just prior to her testimony. They lost the case. To this day, then-District Attorney Phil Glaviano still makes fun of Tim and Bob for bringing him a heroin addict as a witness. He still remembers her, but he was to be commended for attempting to make the case with her as a witness. Many other D.A.’s wouldn’t have even tried.[21]

  ***

  The feud between Latino and Black gangs continues today, having branched out to many other gang feuds in Compton beyond just the Seven O’s and the Acacia Blocc Crips. Violence upon violence, a seemingly endless cycle.

  This violence, spurred on by the Mexican Mafia, had all begun right after the L.A. riots. People had been outraged that fifty-four murders had occurred as a result of those riots. They were outraged at the assaults on innocent citizens, and over the thousands of buildings and structures that were burglarized and burned to the ground. The outrage was palpable. It was outrage born of that verdict. And even though the chaos was over, the fires had been put out, businesses were trying to recover and regroup, and a gang truce had happened, people still wanted someone held accountable.

  Enter the F.B.I., which started the ball rolling to assuage that public outrage and find accountability, someway, somehow. They indicted the L.A.P.D. officers involved with the Rodney King beating. Most cops felt this was double jeopardy - trying someone for a crime for which they’d already been tried and acquitted - all because the verdict in the earlier trial had been so devastatingly unpopular.

  While this was going on, the leaders of the so-called truce between the Crips and Pirus were making appearances on television demanding that jobs and money be filtered to their cause… “Or else.”

  A task force of L.A.S.D., L.A.P.D., Long Beach P.D., Inglewood P.D., Compton P.D., and the F.B.I. - along with the District Attorney’s Office and the State Attorney’s Office - was formed to investigate riot-related crimes. Tim was sent as the representative from the Compton P.D. This was his first task force, and he learned that it was a lot of “hurry up and wait.”

  Tim divided his time between his regular job of investigating ongoing shootings and murders in Compton and conducting investigations for the task force. Thousands of hours of video were reviewed. Hundreds of gang members and others were identified in numerous crimes. Many arrests were made. A good number of those arrested appeared in front of a Long Beach judge, who decided to give everyone probation.

  That pretty much ended the task force.

  The F.B.I. hung around for a while, though, seeking a joint investigation into a murder in Compton during the riots of a Korean businessman. The Compton P.D. gang unit assisted with what they could, but at the time were very limited because the unit consisted of just Tim and Bob. The truce between the Crips and Pirus was over and shootings and murders were once more on the rise.

  One day, several F.B.I. agents came to the gang unit office wanting to canvas an area in Fruit Town. They wanted Tim and Bob to go with them, but the two were overwhelmed investigating several gang shootings, with more shootings coming over the radio. One of the F.B.I. agents grew impatient and kept interrupting as Tim and Bob tried to coordinate responses to the ongoing shootings. The phone kept ringing and they kept answering, while simultaneously manning the radios. The impatient agent wanted them to stop to accompany them as escorts. The F.B.I. agents were all armed, but they felt they needed someone to watch their backs, even though it was daylight.

  “Don’t be scared,” Tim said. “You’ll be okay. We’ll give you a radio.”

  “Can we borrow your raid jackets?” the agent asked.

  She meant the jackets with “Compton Police Department” on the back. She was worried that the F.B.I. raid jackets they were wearing wouldn’t get any respect in the streets.

  “No,” Tim and Bob both replied.

  “It’s the person, not the jacket, that commands respect,” said Bob.

  The impatient agent and the others left the gang unit office in a huff.

  Tim and Bob never saw them again.

  12

  FALLEN SOLDIERS

  After the L.A. riots ended, no one did any time for almost killing Reginald Denny. No one did any time for the destruction throughout the city. People who had protested in the streets were viewed as rising
up against a system that historically had been stacked against them.

  South Central and Compton had long been the scene of social activism and protests, sometimes violent in nature, going back to the Watts Riots. In the wake of the L.A. riots, the tension was higher than ever between the citizens and law enforcement.

  Cops who worked these areas had to walk a fine line between keeping order and being perceived as brutal. As officers who’d served in Compton for a decade, Tim and Bob had to learn how to maintain control during out-of-control situations, all with the possibility of being accused of being cruel and uncaring no matter what they did. This was a complicated time for law enforcement, a learning period where police work and practices of old melded with new social sensibilities.

  The public’s attitude had changed considerably. Black and brown communities in the Los Angeles area had an entirely different perspective on policing than those in predominantly white communities.

  “187” on cops - murder - was being graffitied on walls throughout the city. Cops were getting death threats and being shot in South Central. Everyone seemed to be against the police. The media. Juries. Even good citizens saw cops as the enemy.

  Police departments had to take measures to rebuild and regain the trust of the communities they served. It was a concerted effort they were willing to make, but it wasn’t an overnight process. During this period, criminals took advantage of the public’s backlash against the police to commit even more crimes. Those who were caught would often cry racism or claim they’d been brutalized in order to get out of being charged. While there were some problematic police officers in Compton, the majority had good relationships with the citizens. Even most of the gangs in the city felt the police treated them fairly. The only officer in Compton’s history to lose his life in the line of duty was Dess Phipps, who died during a traffic collision while pursuing a felon in 1963. Thirty years later, Compton police would experience something so heinous, it would leave them all shaken in its wake.

  ***

  February 22, 1993. Veteran officer Kevin Burrell and reserve officer James “Jimmy” MacDonald rode together on the night shift. Kevin - Black, twenty-nine years old, 6’5”, around three hundred pounds - was a giant of a man. Born and raised in Compton, he loved his city and began his career at the Compton P.D. as a teenager in the Explorer program, which allowed young people interested in a career in law enforcement the opportunity to learn more about it through, among many things, observing officers at work in the field. As an Explorer, Kevin loved riding with Tim and Bob, chasing felons. After he finished making the rounds with them on the P.M. shift, he would work the A.M. shift riding with his other favorite cops. As an officer, Kevin was aggressive and loved making a good felony arrest.

  Jimmy - twenty-three years old, white, hard-working - grew up in Santa Rosa, California. He learned about Compton while attending school in southern California. He and Kevin had both been outstanding athletes throughout their school years.

  The night of February 22, 1993 was set to be Jimmy’s last working in Compton as a reserve officer. He’d recently been hired for a full-time position in Northern California.

  That night, Jimmy and Kevin pulled over Regis Thomas, a member of the Bounty Hunters, one of the most ruthless Blood gangs in South Central.

  In the last year, Thomas had been released from jail on a murder charge after the sole eyewitness turned up dead. He had grown up in the Nickerson Gardens housing project where the Bounty Hunters were based. It was a place many cops didn’t go into at night in less than groups of four. Nickerson Gardens, Imperial Courts, and Jordan Downs housing projects were ranked as some of the most dangerous places in the city.

  Kevin and Jimmy likely had no idea the level of danger they were about to confront as they stopped Thomas, who was driving a red pickup truck.

  Tragically, it would be their last night alive.

  ***

  “Shots fired at Rosecrans and Dwight Street! Officers down!”

  This was the last type of radio call an officer ever wanted to hear. The call from Compton dispatch flooded patrol cars, which raced to the scene.

  Arriving officers found Kevin and Jimmy’s car facing west on Rosecrans, the overhead lights flashing. In front of the car in the street lay Jimmy MacDonald. He been shot several times, including a shot to the head at close range. Kevin was over by the curb, also down from several gunshots. Like Jimmy, Kevin had been shot in the head at close range.

  Both men were dead.

  They were rushed by paramedics to MLK Hospital, but those officers who’d been first on the scene already knew Kevin and Jimmy were gone.

  ***

  Tim and Bob had been off that night. They’d rented a cabin in Lake Arrowhead and had taken their families to the mountains for the weekend.

  There was a heavy snowstorm and all they had back then were pagers. Because of the storm, there was no reception. Their boss, Reggie, had no way to reach them and there wasn’t a tv in their cabin. Tim and Bob wouldn’t learn what happened until two days later as they were driving down the mountain, headed home. Their pagers finally picked up a signal and both were suddenly flooded with about fifteen or so “911” pages that had been trying to come in.

  This rush of pages still didn’t prompt them to call and find out what was up. They assumed it had been just another weekend in Compton, rife with shootings and murders, and Reggie had wanted them to come in.

  Tim had gotten sick the last day of their trip, so he definitely wasn’t trying to go in to work. Both men were exhausted from the weekend and looking forward to going home for a good night’s sleep.

  Once he was home, Bob received a call from Scott Watson, a Garden Grove cop who was an old friend from the academy. Scott assumed Bob already knew about Kevin and Jimmy and when he talked about what happened, Bob was devastated. He called Tim immediately. Tim had just gotten off the phone with Reggie and had also just learned the tragic news. Bob swung by and picked him up and they went straight in to work.

  Los Angeles Times article about Burrell and MacDonald murders.

  Vigil for Burrell and MacDonald.

  The entire department was an emotional wreck. This was the first time in the Compton P.D.’s history that officers had been shot and killed. People were so upset by the murders they were unable to get a handle on the investigation. In response, Chief Hourie Taylor made one of the smartest decisions of his career: he asked the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department to step in to help. Two days had already been lost on the investigation because the department had been overwhelmed with clues related to the shootings. The Sheriff’s Department had the means and the resources. The Compton gang unit had local intelligence. A task force was formed that included Tim and Bob.

  ***

  The following months were spent working eighteen-hour days, tracking down clues. The case was finally broken when the Sheriff’s Department was contacted by someone at the county jail about a Bounty Hunter Blood from Nickerson Gardens. The caller told Sheriff’s deputies that he robbed drug dealers for a living and there was no way he could go to prison. He’d surely be killed once he got there as payback for all the people he’d jacked. The man wanted to make a deal in exchange for information about the murders of Kevin Burrell and Jimmy MacDonald. He said Regis Thomas had been bragging about killing the Compton cops and had asked him to get rid of the gun he’d used. He said he had hidden the gun at a dope house in San Pedro and could easily get it back.

  Everyone was skeptical. This was a hell of a confession to have just fallen into their laps. Still, they had to check it out. Nothing about this case was taken lightly. They were running down every lead.

  Undercover officers took the man to a house in San Pedro where he recovered the gun supposedly used in the murder. Lab comparisons were done the next day. To everyone’s amazement, the gun turned out to be the murder weapon. It was a huge breakthrough, one that gave the investigation the momentum needed to effect an arrest.

  Officer Tim
Brennan speaks at Burrell-MacDonald Memorial Dedication in 2008.

  Regis Thomas was taken into custody not long after. A witness who happened to pass by as Kevin and Jimmy were murdered also identified Thomas from a photo line-up. Tim and Bob attended the trial as much as possible to show support for the Burrell and MacDonald families. The families needed it. In addition to it being incredibly tough and emotional for them to sit through, Regis Thomas made it worse, trying to intimidate them. He kept looking back at the family members. He stared at them throughout the trial.

  Tim and Bob sat in front of the family members to intercept Thomas’ glares. They gave him back icy stares that let him know they meant business.

  Almost two-and-a-half years later, on August 15, 1995, Regis Thomas was convicted of both murders. He was given the death penalty.[22]

  Thanks to the efforts of the task force, with special appreciation for the assistance of the Sheriff’s Department, the families of Kevin Burrell and Jimmy MacDonald received justice.

  ***

  After the Burrell/MacDonald task force, Tim and Bob were promoted to gang homicide detectives. Reggie Wright, Sr. was now a lieutenant, but still in charge of the gang unit. Unlike most conventional homicide detectives who worked cases during the day, Tim and Bob still worked during the swing shift. There were many times when they would already be out patrolling the streets when a shooting or murder would take place. They had big jumps on cases because they were often right there on scene, sometimes when the victims were taking their last breaths. Because of their reputations and extensive knowledge of gangs and their rivals, frequently they solved cases the very first day.

  They would typically wait until an informant from the same gang as the suspect(s) provided the details of what happened, including the type of guns used, who bought the bullets, who stole the car, who drove, and everyone involved in the planning and execution of the crime. They then used this information to write multiple-location search warrants to hit several gang spots. They would serve the warrants quickly and take all the suspects into custody, making sure they saw each other being arrested.