South Side Crip house.
Tim and Bob had been to the spot, a duplex, hundreds of times. Every type of gang-related incident had occurred there. Gang parties, murders, drive-by shootings, narcotics raids, gang raids, and more. They’d taken down gangster after gangster at the duplex, yet somehow, when one would go down, another would pop up able to keep the criminal activities going.
This was the same location where, during his rookie years, Bob and his partner, Duane Bookman had hidden in the bushes, then rushed the place and took it down.
Glencoe Street was notorious not just in Compton, but in surrounding areas as well, known for drug sales and gang violence. After receiving the call from their informant, Tim and Bob headed over to the location. Luck, timing, and good instincts were all working in their favor because Jerry “Monk” Bonds was walking out the door when they pulled up. He spotted them and took off running. It was a clumsy, graceless kind of a lope, something Tim and Bob were very familiar with and called the “gat run.” They could tell if a suspect had a gat - a gun - on his person by the way he ran. Without a gun, the suspect sprinted away, arms pumping to help increase his momentum. With the gat run, the suspect held his waistband or a pocket as he ran so his gun wouldn’t fall out. It was awkward and obvious, a dead giveaway to anyone who’d seen it as many times as Tim and Bob.
Bonds was holding on to his waist. That meant Bonds was packing heat.
Tim took off after him, hot on the chase as Bonds ran toward the rear of the house. Tim lost sight of him for a brief moment - enough time for Bonds to toss the weapon away - then Tim caught up with him, tackled him to the ground, and took him into custody.
***
Bonds had left the front door wide open when he took off running. While Tim was off chasing him, Bob took advantage of the open door and went in, gun drawn. He was quickly able to detain five South Side Crips.
Tim and Bob waited for backup to arrive, then proceeded to search the place. Weapons and ammunition were everywhere. It looked like the South Side Crips they’d detained had been loading up in preparation to go out and do more drive-bys. By acting on instinct and rushing over to the location when they did, Tim and Bob prevented what would have been an even bloodier situation in the streets than what was already happening.
They found a large cache of ammunition, including .40 caliber rounds, which they would later learn were for the kind of gun used to shoot Tupac and Suge. There were several handguns, rifles, seven full-face ski masks, and several gang photos. They collected it all.
This was a good bust. One that would hopefully provide valuable clues and information.
Their most significant discovery, however, was the black duffel bag their informant had reported seeing. Attached was a Southwest Airlines nametag that had been filled out:
Neka
2109 Haveling Street
Las Vegas, NV
phone # 646-6009
2109 Haveling Street. It was the same address that had come up for David Keith, the driver of the burgundy Blazer filled with South Side Crips that Reggie Sr. had come upon in South Park earlier that afternoon.
For Tim and Bob, this was big. It meant the location on Haveling Street in Las Vegas was most likely a safe house used by the South Side Crips to store weapons. This explained how the South Side Crips visiting from Compton had gained such quick access to weapons that night in Vegas.
***
Back at the station, Tim and Bob interviewed Bonds using an old-but-proven tactic of theirs that would tell them if their subject was lying. They had the stack of photos of South Side Crips they found at the duplex on Glencoe. Tim and Bob already knew each gang member in the stack. One-by-one, they showed him a photo, asking…
“Who is this?”
Bonds answered truthfully, giving the correct name each time. Until they got to one photo in particular.
“Who is this?” Bonds was asked once again.
And that’s when Bonds decided to lie.
It was a photo of Orlando Anderson. Bonds had said a false name. That meant he was trying to cover up for him.
Tim and Bob knew that if the South Side Crips had been responsible for shooting Tupac and Suge in Las Vegas, they already knew which South Side Crip was the shooter. All the other photos Tim and Bob had shown Bonds were of OG South Side Crips, but the only one he chose to lie about was Anderson. Tim and Bob asked him about the picture again.
“Who is this?”
Bonds repeated the false name he’d given.
The question was repeated. He responded the same.
They pressed him.
“C’mon, Monk. You know who this is.”
Bonds held fast, repeating the same wrong name a few more times.
“You know that’s not his name, Monk. We know this is Orlando Anderson and so do you.”
Bonds finally relented, admitting it was Orlando in the photo.
“Why’d you lie?”
“Because he’s my cousin,” Bonds said.
Based on experience, Tim and Bob knew how this drill went. They had interviewed thousands of gang members over the years. Nine out of ten times, a gang member would lie to cover up for someone they knew who had just committed a crime. Didn’t matter whether that person was a relative or not. Lying to cover for them was instinctive. Bonds could have lied about any of the other photos of South Side Crips, but he only chose to do so for Anderson.
What Bonds didn’t know was that about an hour before Tim and Bob had gone over to the duplex on Glencoe and discovered the cache of ammunition, weapons, and the black duffel bag, Tim had seen Bonds and Anderson in a car together going to the same place. It further cemented the fact that Bonds knew what had happened in Vegas and had deliberately tried to throw Tim and Bob off the idea of Orlando Anderson.
Tim and Bob spent a long night booking evidence and stayed in touch with Vegas P.D. for any new developments.
***
DAY FIVE: Wednesday, September 11, 1996
At 9:05 a.m., Bobby Finch walked out of his house at 1513 South Mayo Street in Compton, an area claimed by the South Side Crips, and went to his vehicle. A red vehicle with two Black males inside pulled up, opened fire, and gunned Finch down. He died in front of his house, killed by suspects witnesses said were MOB Piru.
Tim and Bob believed Finch’s murder was a case of mistaken identity. Finch, who had been a bodyguard for several high-profile singers, had ties to South Side Crips Corey Edwards, Keefe D, and Darnell Brim, but he wasn’t a member of the gang.
He lived next door to Corey Edwards. Both men were similar in appearance - the same race and the same size - and could easily have been confused. Edwards’ name had come up several times in the Tupac investigation. This was yet another violent strike in the gang war that erupted in the wake of the Vegas shooting.
***
At 5:00 p.m., Sergeant Baker received information that Jerry “Monk” Bonds and another Black male had been seen driving a white Cadillac to Melvin’s Auto Shop on Alondra Boulevard, the same place Brim had been leaving when he was shot. Per Baker, his informant had noticed the white Cadillac because word on the street was it the kind of car used in shooting in Las Vegas. The informant had seen the car driving into the auto shop on September 9th, two days after Tupac was shot, but had waited before reaching out to Baker. The same informant was contacted later and said that Orlando Anderson was with Monk.
Tim and Bob followed up on the informant’s lead, but no Cadillac was found at the auto shop. Per another informant, one of Suge Knight’s bodyguards, Alton “Buntry” McDonald, had shot back at the Cadillac that night in Vegas, so there was possibly a bullet hole in the car.
Despite their best efforts chasing down leads, Tim and Bob would never find this elusive white Cadillac.
***
Homicide Investigator Stone Jackson contacted Tim and Bob at 5:30 p.m. after he received information that several South Side Crips, including Keefe D and his nephew Orlando Anderson, were seen in front of 14
09 S. Burris Avenue with handguns and an AK-47. This was Keefe D’s residence. It was also a known hangout for South Side Crips, particularly the SSCC clique known as the Burris Street Crew.
Keefe D was a well-known leader in the clique and a major drug dealer in the city of Compton who had also been known to provide protection for hip-hop star Biggie Smalls whenever the artist came to town. Tim and Bob had been dealing with him since the early eighties when he was a teenager selling drugs on Burris Avenue, having arrested him several times for drug and weapon charges.
Tim and Bob were swamped, but there was a war going on in the streets and they couldn’t afford to not check into this information from Jackson. They went over to the house on Burris Avenue, accompanied by gang unit members Aguirre and Richardson. Once again, it turned out to be a case of showing up at the right place at just the right time.
Orlando Anderson and Deandre Smith were both possible suspects in the murder of Tupac. When Tim and Bob arrived, five members of the Burris Street Crew were out front, including Anderson and Smith. Anderson took off running the moment he saw them, heading toward the house next door at 1405 S. Burris. Aguirre and Richardson detained the gang members at 1409 while Tim and Bob chased Anderson. They were well aware that he was a suspect in the shooting of Tupac and Suge, as well as several other shootings and murders in Compton.
Anderson fled into the house, leaving the door open as he did so. Tim and Bob raced inside, thinking he was either armed or going for a weapon. They lost sight of him for a few seconds, then he reappeared, now running toward the rear of the house. They caught up with him and tackled him to the ground. By this point, several women inside had appeared and were now screaming at the detectives.
“Get the fuck out!”
“You can’t just come up in our house!”
“Get out, motherfuckers!”
As Tim and Bob were cuffing Anderson, who wasn’t armed, he told them that he lived next door at Keefe D’s house.
Tim and Bob called for backup as gang unit member Aguirre rushed inside to assist them. The screaming women began to calm down. This gave Tim and Bob a chance to observe their surroundings.
Guns and ammunition were all over the living room. Two shotguns, a fully-loaded AK-47, a fully-loaded MAC-11 subcompact machine pistol, and a .38 caliber handgun. There was more than enough ammunition for all the weapons, literally hundreds of rounds.
Nothing about this was normal in terms of what Tim and Bob were used to seeing in standard house raids and drug busts. Between the guns they had retrieved from the duplex on Glencoe the day before and what they were now seeing here on Burris, this gang war had ratcheted up to a major level. The guns from Glencoe and this place were from just one side, the South Side Crips. Who knew how much weaponry MOB Piru and Lueders Park Piru had stockpiled on theirs? They had the backing of Suge Knight, who had an immense amount of money and the ability to get whatever they needed.
Based on what they were seeing, Tim and Bob both felt a tremendous sense of dread at the amount of firepower that was about to hit the streets.
The MAC-11 matched the description of the weapon used in the murder of Palmer Blocc Crip Elbert “E.B.” Webb five months earlier in April.
***
DAY SIX: Thursday, September 12, 1996
Noon. Tim received a call from Gang Detective Paul Fournier from the L.A.S.D. at Century Station. He and Bob had worked with Fournier often in the past. Fournier was an excellent detective and his information was always reliable.
Fournier told Tim and Bob that he had an informant who’d received information that Keefe D’s nephew was the person who shot Tupac in Las Vegas. Tim and Bob knew Orlando Anderson was Keefe’s D nephew. Fournier’s informant also had close ties with MOB Piru, Lueders Park Piru, and Elm Lane Piru, as well as Death Row.
***
At 4:30 p.m., Tim and Eddie Aguirre met with Fournier and his informant, while Bob and Ray Richardson continued to investigate the recent gang-related shootings. Fournier’s informant had been an eyewitness to events and provided Tim with enough information to write a large-scale search warrant.
According to the informant, after Tupac and Suge were shot in Las Vegas, that same night members of Death Row and their bodyguards met up at Club 662, Suge Knight’s establishment at 1700 E. Flamingo Road. The numbers 662 spelled out M-O-B on a telephone keypad. Trevon “Tray” Lane, an associate of Death Row, told the group that the shooter had been the same person they’d beat down at the MGM Grand. They didn’t know Orlando Anderson’s real name at that time. They only knew he was Keefe D’s nephew.
Per the informant, the shooting that night in Las Vegas had been set in motion a month and a half earlier by an incident at the Lakewood Mall. Orlando and seven or eight South Side Crips were hanging at the mall when they spotted three Pirus in a Foot Locker sporting goods store. One of those three was Trevon Lane, who was wearing a gold Death Row chain, a prized possession given to him by Suge Knight. Seeing an opportunity where they outnumbered the enemy, the South Side Crips took advantage of the moment, lit into Trevon, and purportedly snatched his necklace.
The South Side Crips had done to Trevon one of the worst things someone could do to a gang member: they’d disrespected him. To gangs, respect in the streets was paramount. Nothing mattered more. Not even power, because in their minds, a person couldn’t have power without respect. Everything they did - how they dressed, how they moved, how they tricked their cars out, how they tagged buildings, how they dealt with each other within the hierarchies of their organizations, even the women they sported - was about respect. Being disrespected was an act most foul, one that was often addressed with great severity. If one was disrespected, all were disrespected, which was why gang sets were quick to mobilize and exact justice when it happened to one of their own. Many a gangster had been maimed, disfigured, or murdered because of real or perceived disrespect. In many instances, there wasn’t even a sliding scale. A person could be murdered just as quickly for giving someone the wrong look as they could for something that was much more egregious. This situation was no different.
That Saturday night in Las Vegas had probably been a very bad case of Orlando Anderson being at the wrong place at the wrong time. As Tupac, Suge, and their entourage, which included Trevon, made their way through the MGM Grand lobby after the Tyson fight, Trevon spotted Anderson, recognizing him as one of the South Side Crips who had jumped him and taken his chain.
Tupac, down to stand up for his Death Row crew, rolled up on Orlando, asked him if he was South Side, and from there it was on as he, Suge, and MOB Pirus lit into Orlando right there in the lobby. This was something that could have easily been handled by their bodyguards. Tupac and Suge could have hung back and let them do the dirty work of beating up Anderson, but that wasn’t how things worked. The fact that both Tupac and Suge were well-known celebrities didn’t matter. In that moment, they were a part of the same gang, Death Row, and one of their associates, Trevon, had been wronged.
Disrespect one, you disrespect all.
Anderson - bloodied, beaten, and grossly disrespected by Tupac and Suge - now had a vendetta of his own, and based on what Tim and Bob had already learned about the residence at 2109 Haveling Street, the South Side Crips had a safe house in Las Vegas, a place with a stash of weapons. A place where Anderson could round up the South Side crew who had come from Compton with him that weekend, strap up, then head back out into the night looking for the men who’d disrespected him. Who those men were in terms of power and celebrity didn’t matter. What mattered to Orlando Anderson and the gang members with him in the white Cadillac was the disrespect.
Disrespect one, you disrespect all.
It wouldn’t be hard to find Tupac and Suge. Everyone in the rap and street game in Vegas, including the South Side Crips, knew Suge’s Club 662 was the hangout for him and MOB Pirus whenever they were in town.
Tim and Eddie, listening to Fournier’s informant, were surprised to learn that the shooting had be
en so simple in motive, even though they’d seen this kind of thing hundreds of times. Someone got dissed, so someone got shot, maybe even killed. A more complicated explanation had been expected at first because high-profile stars were involved. But when you stripped everything away, this was basic stuff. Gang Activity 101.
Others would later put forth what Tim and Bob saw as complex, wild-stab theories such as Suge Knight wanting Tupac dead because Tupac was leaving the label, so he set up the shooting in Las Vegas, putting his own life in the hands of what would have to be an Olympic-level marksman. That theory could never be supported because it didn’t have legs, although it made for engaging, often heated, conspiracy talk.
People, especially fans, loved a good conspiracy theory, especially when it came to their idols. It gave them something to hold onto, something to keep them connected to the artists they admired. In the absence of real answers, sometimes even a contrived one would do.
In Tim and Bob’s eyes, this was a simple and straightforward case. The simpler explanation was more often the correct one.
Trevon Lane had been disrespected when his Death Row chain got snatched at the Lakewood Mall. That, from the way Tim and Bob saw things, had been the initial falling domino that set in motion everything, culminating in Tupac’s death.
***
Paul Fournier’s informant shared details about meetings involving Pirus planning to do drive-bys as payback for the Vegas shooting. The informant detailed how several Compton Piru sets had formed an alliance to go to war against the South Side Crips. Tim would include all of this when he wrote up his expansive search warrant affidavit.[26]
He showed the informant photos of several South Side Crips. The informant immediately pointed out the man he knew as Keefe D’s nephew.
It was Orlando Anderson.
***
DAY SEVEN: Friday, September 13, 1996
This day had been the busiest of all since the Vegas shooting. The Compton gang unit was overwhelmed from the rash of shootings that had happened during the past few days, so they split up the work between the four of them - Tim, Bob, Ray, and Eddie. There was so much to do. They had to show photo line-ups, send out guns and casings to the crime lab, submit requests for cars to be fingerprinted, and pay additional visits to victims and witnesses who hadn’t been cooperative the first time they were visited. There was a tremendous amount of work that went into investigating one shooting, and they were dealing with multiple shootings, with even more expected.
Once Upon A Time in Compton Page 19