Once Upon A Time in Compton

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

Tiny-E had been responsible for the brutal murder of three innocent people. He had to know there would be some street justice coming his way.

  The kid reeked of alcohol and was so drunk, he’d barely felt a thing. Bob and Aguirre had no idea how he’d been able to run as well as he did being in such a condition. He was slurring his words, barely able to talk. Bob was concerned about how his interview would go.

  Before they could take Tiny-E to the station for questioning, Bob and Aguirre had to first take him to the hospital to get him medically cleared. Hospital personnel asked him what happened.

  “I ran from the police and fell down and hit my head,” Tiny-E said.

  The head wound turned out to just be a small laceration that was quickly stitched up. Tiny-E sobered up a bit while they were at the hospital. Bob began to feel him out to see how his attitude would be when they took him back to be interviewed. Surprisingly, Tiny-E was pleasant and conversational.

  He was released with white gauze tape wrapped around his head. Bob and Aguirre drove him back to the station and let him sober up for an hour before they began their interview. As Bob had anticipated, Tiny-E broke, spilling all the details. I'm sorry . It was an indescribable feeling for a cop to have someone confess to a murder he’d committed, especially something as heinous as a triple murder where innocent victims were involved.

  ***

  Based on Tiny-E’s confession and the other interviews they’d conducted, the gang unit was able to piece together the events leading up to the shooting.

  After Shallowhorn’s girl was murdered and the two ATF homies were shot, most of the members of ATF met up in Paramount at the house of a guy named Michael Johnson, aka “Big Mike.” Big Mike was a major drug dealer and a shot caller within the gang. He was a large, heavy-set guy, dark complexioned, with a bald head. Before heading to Big Mike’s place, Lil C had two ATF members go out and purchase 9mm bullets.

  The ATFs at Big Mike’s were pissed about the shooting and wanted payback against the “Nasties,” their derisive name for the Nutty Blocc Crips. When the two ATF gang members arrived with the bullets, everyone headed back to Caldwell Street. The same guys who bought the bullets were then told to go out and find a “G-ride,” the street term for a stolen car.

  The two ATFs went in search of a car to steal, but Shallowhorn was too angry and keyed up to wait. He wanted to go hunt down the Nuttys right then, while his blood was burning hot. He went into an apartment and came out holding an AK-47 declaring, “It’s payback time!” Lil C came out with a Tech-9. They went up to Tiny-E.

  “You’re driving the Cadillac,” he was told.

  Tiny-E got behind the wheel as instructed, but the front passenger door wouldn’t open, so no one sat in the front seat. Shallowhorn and Lil C climbed in the back, armed and ready to kill. They headed into Nutty Blocc territory. When they reached Dwight Street, Tiny-E was told to slow down. Tiny-E saw some people standing to his left. Shallowhorn and Lil C started shooting, emptying their guns. When they finished, Tiny-E sped off and went down what turned out to be a dead-end street. When he made his way back to Caldwell, the Nuttys were on their tail in two cars, shooting at them. Shallowhorn and Lil C shot back in what turned into a car-to-car gun battle. Tiny-E rammed the Nuttys car and struck several other cars as he tried to get away. Once he made it across Wilmington they were safe. The Nuttys stopped giving chase. Tiny-E was driving east on Bennett Street trying to get back to their turf when Lil C called out to him from the back seat.

  “I’m shot.”

  He was bleeding from a bullet that had grazed his head.

  “Stop and let us out,” Shallowhorn said.

  Tiny-E stopped the car on Bennett, let the two out, and drove away. He only made it couple of blocks, then the Cadillac stalled, the engine smoking. One of tires was flat.

  Tiny-E ditched the car and ran all the way back to Caldwell in ATF territory. The homies were there waiting, wanting the details. Tiny-E filled them in on how they’d opened fire on the Nuttys, but Lil C had been shot and he and Shallowhorn were still in the Farms and so was the stalled-out Cadillac. Two carloads of ATF gang members and girls headed off to the Farms looking for Shallowhorn and Lil C. They were found before the police arrived. Shallowhorn and Lil C left their guns stashed in some bushes on Bennett Street.

  When they returned to Caldwell, Shallowhorn was furious at Tiny-E.

  “That motherfucker can’t drive! He took us down a dead-end street, crashed into cars, and the Nuttys are blasting at us!”

  Lil C was still bleeding from the bullet graze. They determined that it wasn’t bad enough to warrant a trip to the hospital and got him cleaned up.

  Around the time this was all going on, Aguirre and Richardson had stopped the red Mazda with the two ATF gang members and the two girls and had also discovered the abandoned murder vehicle. The Cadillac was towed and evidence was recovered from it, and the four ATF associates from the red Mazda were brought to the station. After being questioned all night by Tim, Aguirre, and Richardson, they finally broke, told what happened, and took the guys to where Shallowhorn and Lil C were hiding. Shallowhorn and Lil C were then arrested.

  ***

  The case was assigned to Janet Moore, the D.A. who headed up the Compton Hardcore Unit. It would take two years before it even went to court. There were so many disputed issues of law, numerous motions, and threats of escape that the death penalty trial took several months to complete. Everything about it was so complicated and problematic that, to this day, Moore - now one of the head D.A.s in the District Attorney’s office in downtown Los Angeles - uses all the legal issues that came up to train new deputy district attorneys.

  Alfred Eugene Shallowhorn, Cortez “Lil C” Elliott, and Aaron “Tiny-E” Sealie were convicted of the murders. Tim, Bob, Aguirre, and Richardson had satisfaction in knowing there was some solace for the families of the three innocent victims, even though it could never make up for the loss of their loved ones.

  14

  RAP WARS

  Death Row Records was having a tremendous run of success, and murder seemed to follow in its wake. On September 23,1995, there was an incident at a party at the Platinum Club in Atlanta.

  Members of Suge Knight’s crew, including Jai Hassan-Jamal Robles, aka “Big Jake,” a Campanella Park Piru who was an employee of Death Row and one of Knight’s close friends, had gotten into an argument with Anthony “Wolf” Jones - an employee of Bad Boy Records and a bodyguard for the label’s head, Sean “Puffy” Combs - and members of his crew. Shots were fired and Robles was hit twice in the stomach and once in the back. He was taken to an area hospital where he died two weeks later.[24]

  After the death of Jake Robles, George Williams became Suge Knight’s main enforcer. Williams had ties to the Bounty Hunter Bloods out of Nickerson Gardens, as well as to MOB Piru. As Death Row grew more powerful, Knight needed muscle to back him up. He had grown up with the McDonald brothers in the same neighborhood where Compton gang unit boss, Reggie Wright, Sr. lived.

  Knight didn’t become a full-fledged gangbanger until he had the money and power that came with the success of his growing music empire. Then he was able to hire MOB Piru members as his security and, with them in tow, exercise his power to get what he wanted.

  Knight was also backed by Marcus Nunn, aka “China Dogg,” a founding member of Compton’s East Side Pirus (which evolved into several offshoots including MOB Piru, Lueders Park Piru, Elm Street Piru and Lime Hood Piru). Nunn was also one of the known leaders of the United Blood Nation (UBN), a prison-based network of Bloods with sets in prisons all around the country.

  For further protection, Knight helped Compton P.D. gang unit boss Reggie Wright, Sr.’s son Reggie Wright, Jr. - who had retired from the Compton Police Department due to an injury - start Wright Way Security. Wright Way hired armed, off-duty police, including officers from the Compton P.D., the Compton School District, and the L.A.P.D. Having officers from the Compton P.D. working for Death Row was a blow to the d
epartment’s credibility from which it never recovered. An order was issued by Chief of Police Hourie Taylor that Compton officers were not to work for Death Row.

  Some did it anyway.

  ***

  The rivalry between Bad Boy and Death Row began to make its way into the music, crossing lines that grew increasingly personal. Epic disrespect set to a beat. Diss records, of course, were nothing new, but this was a different type of diss record, one that went beyond studio face-offs. It was a long way from KRS-One and Boogie Down Production’s “The Bridge Is Over,” or even from when Ice Cube broke away from N.W.A and, after being dissed by his former group mates on tracks, dropped the nuclear, no-holds barred “No Vaseline.”

  Tension and occasional fights in the real world may have erupted in the wake of those songs, but for the most part, the conflict remained in the studio. These were wordsmiths firing musical volleys at each other; artists flexing their lyrical skill and letting the public decide who did it better while they cashed the checks from these hits in the process.

  The music that was coming now were attacks on people’s reps, their families, their crews, their women. It was the kind of thing that had no choice but to spill into the streets. In the gang world, to do nothing meant you were a punk. It was only a matter of time before people would be beefing for real, with bullets, behind what was being said on wax.

  ***

  On March 13, 1995, some of the most celebrated stars in hip-hop were in attendance at the Soul Train Music Awards, held at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. Included among those luminaries were the heads of the two biggest labels in hip-hop, their artists, and their entourages. Sean Combs and his Bad Boy contingency were in full effect, along with Suge Knight and his Death Row crew. Both entourages had off-duty police officers from the Compton P.D. and L.A.P.D., as well as gang members from Compton and Los Angeles. The awards show went off without any noticeable hitches to anyone watching it on television, but those who knew how gang rivalries worked saw the subtle and not-so-subtle tensions between the two.

  When it was over, industry insiders and others gathered at an after-party at the El Rey Theater on Wilshire Boulevard. Crips had come to the party despite it being sponsored by Piru-affiliated Death Row. The Crips were there to see rapper Snoop Dogg, a member of the Long-Beach-based Rollin’ 20’s Crips, who had won Best Rap album that night for his debut release, Doggystyle.

  The off-duty cops in attendance were far outnumbered by gang members. A fight erupted involving DJ Quik, Tree Top Pirus and MOB Pirus against a man named Kelly Jamerson, a Crip from the Los Angeles set, the Rollin’ 60s. Jamerson was beaten, kicked, and stomped to death.

  People in attendance at the party swiftly departed. The Compton cops, already defying orders by working off-duty for Death Row, claimed they didn’t know any of the people involved and hadn’t seen what happened.

  L.A.P.D. detectives investigating the killing learned the off-duty officers’ names as well as those of the suspects involved. The detectives were confused about who to call. Reggie Wright, Sr. was in charge of the Compton gang unit. Reggie Wright, Jr. was the head of security for Death Row. The detectives contacted Tim and Bob, who were able to give them the names of the gang members involved.

  Chief Taylor interviewed the Compton officers who’d worked for Death Row against orders. They lied about seeing anything and about even being at the event. Later, in interviews with Internal Affairs, they all admitted to being at the party working for Death Row, but still held fast that they hadn’t seen anything. Chief Taylor could have fired the officers at that time, but chose not to.

  This incident, and others that followed, caused the Compton P.D. to lose most of its credibility with the L.A.P.D., the L.A.S.D., surrounding agencies, and federal agencies. It was a bad choice by Chief Hourie Taylor, who was a compassionate man not fond of firing people, to keep those officers.

  There were too many complications with the El Rey murder case and the investigation soon fizzled out with the usual “we know who did it, but can't get someone to testify” that often came into play regarding gang-related cases.

  An increasing number of off-duty police would end up working as security for Death Row and other rap artists, their names coming up peripherally in investigations into gang-related rap murders cases, including hip-hop stars Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls.

  ***

  Tim and Bob first met Snoop Dogg when he was on trial for the murder of Philip Woldemariam. It was a high-profile case that had drawn international attention. Tim and Bob were on the well-secured thirteenth floor of the Los Angeles Criminal Courts building, on a break from a gang-related triple murder case taking place in the next courtroom. Reggie Wright, Jr. and Snoop walked out of the court and over to them.

  “This is Bob and Tim, or ‘Blondie,’ as they call him,” Wright Jr. said. “The best gang cops in Compton.”

  Snoop was gracious, but seemed worried about his trial, which was understandable. Reggie Wright, Jr. didn’t seem nervous in the slightest and talked about how the prosecution didn’t have a case. The next day, Tim and Bob learned that evidence against Snoop had been lost.

  At a time when the credibility of the Compton P.D. itself was at a low, it was heartening to know the gang unit’s reputation was growing positively within the law enforcement community and beyond. They were providing reliable gang intelligence, training, and testimony across the country.

  ***

  Federal task forces had formed to investigate gang-related narcotics ties within the hip-hop industry, specifically at Death Row. The Federal task force didn’t contact the Compton P.D., which could have been a tremendous source of information. The task force didn’t have the ability to gather the intelligence needed to sufficiently investigate a gang-related narcotics-based industry that was growing rapidly, commonly involved extortion, intimidation, and murder, and touched cities all around the country, but had its roots in Compton.

  Compton had its share of Death Row-related murders that, based on the tangled web of Reggie Wright, Sr. being head of the Compton gang unit and his son being the head of Death Row security, ended up being investigated by Compton P.D.’s traditional Homicide unit. Had those cases, and several others down the line, been able to be investigated more in-depth by the gang unit, using reliable sources, information, and proven techniques, the extent of crimes connected to Death Row Records might have proved mind-boggling.

  ***

  From early in his music career, hip-hop star Tupac Shakur had more than a few brushes and outright encounters with violence and the law. In some of the cases, the charges would be dropped.

  A pivotal moment in his career came in November of 1993, he was charged with sexually assaulting a nineteen-year-old woman he’d met in a nightclub. The woman admitted to having oral sex with Shakur, but claimed that during another visit a few days later, he and members of his entourage had sexually assaulted her. Tupac vehemently decried the charges. A trial was set and commenced the following year.

  On November 30, 1994, the day before the verdict was to be announced, Tupac was ambushed in the lobby of the Quad Recording Studios in Manhattan, shot five times, and robbed of $40,000 worth of jewelry (except for his Rolex watch, which left him more than a bit suspicious). He saw Biggie and his entourage in the building after the shooting and his suspicions grew even more. Tupac believed Biggie had advanced knowledge it was going happen and failed to warn him. The rappers had been good friends in the past, both very supportive of each other. From that point on, however, Tupac considered Biggie, Puffy, and Bad Boy his enemies.

  He was taken to Bellevue Hospital, but checked himself out early against the advice of his doctors. The next day Tupac was back at Manhattan Supreme Court in a wheelchair and was found guilty of first-degree sexual abuse.

  Three months later, in February 1995, he was sentenced to one-and-a-half to four-and-a-half years in prison.[25] That same month, the single “Who Shot Ya” appeared as the B-Side of Biggie’s popular hit
“Big Poppa.” While there wasn’t anything specific in the song that named Tupac, some of the lines seemed to hint at Biggie being aware in advance of the attack on his former friend, even though Biggie insisted the song had been written long before the shooting.

  This further fueled Tupac’s bitterness toward Biggie, Puffy, and all things Bad Boy.

  ***

  In October of 1995, Suge Knight put up a $1.4 million bond to have Tupac released pending the appeal of his conviction in exchange for Tupac signing a three-album, $3.5 million plus contract handwritten on three pages.[26] Tupac immediately began work on what would be the first album under his contract, All Eyez on Me, which would be released in February of 1997 to critical and commercial acclaim (and would -be certified Diamond with ten million copies sold in the U.S.).

  ***

  On June 4, 1996, Tupac retaliated against Biggie for “Who Shot Ya” by releasing the diss track “Hit ‘Em Up” as the B-side to his single “How Do U Want It.” A hard-driving, unequivocal personal attack against Biggie and his crew Junior M.A.F.I.A., the song - which featured his group the Outlawz - was a certified banger from the very first note, sampling Dennis Edwards’ 1984 hit R&B tune “Don’t Look Any Further” with its highly-recognizable bassline. It had a deliberate riff off lines from the hook of Junior M.A.F.I.A.’s 1995 hit song “Get Money” (saying “Take money” instead), and the video featured lookalikes of Biggie, Lil’ Kim, and Puffy. Before he launched into his vicious lyrics, Tupac first spoke on having been intimate with Biggie’s wife, Faith Evans…

  I ain't got no motherfuckin’ friends

  That's why I fucked yo' bitch, you fat motherfucker

  …then warned Biggie and his crew to “grab your Glocks when you see Tupac, call the cops when you see Tupac.”

  A flaming gauntlet had been thrown, one that further widened the chasm between the former friends.

  ***

  The South Side Compton Crips (SSCC) first began in an area at the south end of Compton. Prior to the late seventies, that area had been unclaimed by a gang, then was briefly staked by the Burris Block Bloods. Then came the South Side Crips. Some of their originators included Kevin Davis, his brother Duane Keith “Keefe D” Davis, and Rodney “Fink” Dennis.