***
Later, in 1999-2000, the Compton Police Department would find itself embroiled in a fight with then-mayor Omar Bradley over being merged into the L.A.S.D. It lost that fight. In September 2000, the Compton P.D. was absorbed into the Sheriff’s Department and ceased to exist as a separate police department for the city of Compton.
A year and a half later, on a Wednesday afternoon in April 2002, one of Suge’s main associates, Alton “Buntry” McDonald, was shot and killed at a gas station in Compton[35] when a truck pulled up and opened fire. The person who was with McDonald fled the scene. At the time of his murder, the local news stated that the vehicle McDonald was in was registered to Death Row Records.
Tim immediately contacted Reggie Wright, Sr. and learned that the vehicle was registered to the head of Death Row security, Wright’s son Reggie Wright, Jr. Wright, Sr. told Tim the victim was Alton McDonald and not his son. Informants said that George Williams and Roderick Reed - aka “Lil Rod,” a leader of the Fruit Town Pirus - were behind Buntry McDonald’s murder as a part of an ongoing feud with Suge.
***
George Williams had switched sides against Suge and become an enforcer for Roderick Reed. In the years since he’d been arrested by Tim and Bob for low-level drug dealing, Reed had evolved into a powerful cross-country PCP dealer. He’d recently had a large amount of drugs stolen. As a result, Reed was hell-bent on revenge. The theft had involved a friend of Wardell Fouse named William Walker.
Around the time all this was occurring, Suge had a falling out with Death Row’s head of security, Reggie Wright, Jr. Reggie, in turn, went to work for a rival rap producer. Rumors began to circulate that a hit had been put out on Wright Jr. Reggie Wright, Sr., upon hearing this, immediately contacted Suge and warned him that nothing had better happen to his son. Wright Sr. had been like a father to Suge when he was growing up in the neighborhood, so he assured Wright Sr. that Wright Jr. would be safe.
Meanwhile, the McDonald brothers were looking to exact revenge for the murder of their brother, Buntry. They believed former Death Row enforcer George Williams, Lil Rod, and Eric Daniels - aka “Scar” - were the ones behind the murder. Williams didn’t live in the area, but Scar hung out with Lueders Park Pirus in the 1100 block of Bullis Road in Compton. MOB Piru members armed with automatic weapons and wearing ski masks walked up on Scar and shot him several times, killing him. They all got away.
Several informants told Tim and Bob that McDonald brother, Timmy Ru had been behind the hit. This shooting deepened a growing rift between Pirus throughout Compton who’d been aligned since their inception in the seventies.
William Walker, the man Lil Rod suspected of stealing his drugs, was killed and Wardell Fouse was shot, but he survived. Both men had been near Lil Rod’s house when it happened and everyone on the streets seemed to know that Lil Rod had been behind the hit.
Lil Rod’s friend, a man named Vince Buchanon, was subsequently kidnapped, tortured, murdered, then dumped in Compton. Tim and Bob’s informants told them Buchanon’s killing was in retaliation for what had happened to Walker and Fouse. Fouse and (possibly) a man named David Dudley were allegedly responsible.
Lil Rod and a Jerome Jordan, aka “Snake,” were allegedly caught by William Walker’s brother Erik Walker and Wardell Fouse on the 91 freeway. Several AK-47 rounds were fired into Lil Rod and Snake’s car and Snake was killed. In return, in 2001, Lil Rod’s people caught David Dudley in front of Buntry’s house and murdered him.
All these shootings, killings, and retaliations happened prior to Suge being released from prison.
***
After the murders of Buntry and Scar, Henry Smith, aka “Hen Dog” - an employee of Death Row Records and member of MOB Piru - was shot and killed in Inglewood in what turned out to be an unrelated gang murder. Shortly afterwards, Timmy Ru was caught while trying to do a drive-by on the neighborhood in Inglewood where Hen Dog was killed.
***
Lil Rod allegedly gunned down Wardell “Poochie” Fouse in a hail of gunfire from an AK-47 as Fouse rode his motorcycle down Central Avenue in Compton.
***
While all the shooting and retaliations were going on amongst Pirus, the South Side Crips battled internal feuds of their own that began when several members went to jail. The clique, the Burris Street Crew, had brought heat on the entire gang, particularly with Orlando Anderson’s actions in Las Vegas.
On November 12, 1997, an aspiring Compton rapper named Lavar “Legs Diamond” Rogers who had reportedly signed a record deal with Dr. Dre was killed. He had gone to a spot in West Los Angeles with a man named Flentard “Flint” Coleman. Once they were inside, Coleman sent Rogers back outside to move the vehicle. When Rogers went out, a tall thin Black man shot Rogers several times, killing him.
An investigation into the murder revealed that Rogers had allegedly been having an affair with Keefe D’s wife. Supposedly Rogers and Keefe D had argued about the affair just before Rogers was killed. They had been associates in drug trafficking. Detectives received information that Rogers’ killer was Keefe D’s nephew, Orlando Anderson. An eyewitness identified Anderson from a photo lineup.
“He looks a lot like the suspect,” the eyewitness said.
***
After Biggie’s murder, Keefe D was imprisoned on federal charges for drug trafficking. Tim and Bob had a case against Keefe D and Deandre Smith at the D.A.’s office for the murder of Elbert Webb (but nothing on Orlando Anderson). The D.A. filed on Deandre Smith, and Tim and Bob arrested him as he stood on Mayo Street with Corey Edwards, who figured prominently in both the Tupac and Biggie investigations. Smith’s attorney was somehow able to convince the jury that Smith was only being charged for the murder of Webb because Tim and Bob had been unable to prosecute Anderson and Smith for the murder of Tupac. Smith was acquitted. Once out, he started a record label, reportedly from money he’d made from selling drugs.
In 1999, a short time before Smith started his record company, Tim and Bob were near one of his drug houses on Greenleaf and Temple. They were talking to a South Side Crip member when they heard a volley of gunfire about four houses away. They called for backup and ran down to Smith’s dope house. Several South Side Crips immediately ran inside.
A woman was lying in the driveway, her leg bleeding from a gunshot wound. Bullet casings were everywhere. Tim and Bob ordered all the Crips out of the house and went inside. They found police scanners, gang photos, kilos of cocaine, crack, large amounts of marijuana, assault weapons, and sixteen handguns. They also found paperwork in Deandre Smith’s name. Several South Side Crips were detained and taken to jail. The evidence Tim and Bob found in the house was confiscated and held for fingerprints.
This same dope house, a few years later, made national news when Yetunde Price, the older half-sister of tennis champions and former Compton residents Serena and Venus Williams, was shot in the head as she sat in front of the location in an SUV talking with her boyfriend. She later died at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center. South Side Crip member Robert Maxfield, aka “Baby Spank,” received a fifteen-year prison sentence for the crime.
***
Once Deandre Smith had his record label up and running, they held a party at the Conga Room in the Miracle Mile district in Los Angeles. The club, owned by celebrities Jennifer Lopez and Edward James Olmos, was a popular spot for events for those wanting to be seen. That night - October 19, 2002 - a fistfight broke out between members of the party and Jerry “Monk” Bonds. Monk was shot to death during the fight at the Conga Room[36]. Per Tim and Bob’s informants, Deandre Smith had returned fire on the suspected shooter’s vehicle as it was leaving.
Monk had been the man Tim and Bob’s informants said brought the white Cadillac used in the Tupac shooting in Las Vegas to be repaired after the crime had taken place. L.A.P.D. detectives handling Monk’s murder case contacted Tim shortly afterwards. This was yet another rap-related murder with hundreds of witnesses. Tim provided the detectives with backgr
ound information on certain people and passed on what he’d heard about what happened that night at the club.
Monk’s family sued club owners Jennifer Lopez and James Edwards Olmos for wrongful death, suggesting the event organizers should have been able to foresee that criminal acts were likely to occur and precautionary security measures should have been taken.
Tim was hired by the club’s owners and Def Jam Enterprises, as a gang expert/consultant in this civil case. He reviewed the claims made by South Side Crip members who were depositioned for the case, was able to dispute those claims, and a settlement was reached.
***
Former Death-Row-enforcer-turned-Suge-Knight-enemy George Williams, along with Roderick “Lil Rod” Reed, both received life sentences for their part in helming a PCP and weapons ring that stretched across the country.
***
Suge Knight throwing up a MOB Piru gang sign.
As for the man himself, Suge Knight’s fall from what-wasn’t-actually-grace-to-begin-with was more like a sustained plummet down what seemed a bottomless karmic abyss. In the spring of 1996, Dr. Dre left the label he’d cofounded to start a new label, Aftermath Entertainment. In September 1996, the world lost Tupac Shakur. In 1998, Snoop Dogg left the label and signed with then New-Orleans-based No Limit Records, owned by Master P. Dre, ‘Pac, and Snoop had been Death Row’s cash cows. Without them, the label would never again be the storied hit-making machine it once was.
In 2002, Knight was sued by Lydia Harris,[37] the wife of gangster Harry-O (the founder of Godfather Entertainment who, along with Lydia, had helped set up and fund Death Row Records), for her half of the label. The judge awarded Harris $107 million dollars. Knight filed Chapter 11 two years later, in 2005.
Suge Knight never regained the level of success he experienced in the nineties, nor would continue to wield the degree of power and menace with which he dominated others, both inside and outside of the hip-hop and music worlds, during that decade.
Heron, Buntry, Suge, George Williams, and Hen Dog throwing MOB Piru gang signs. Suge and George Williams are the only ones still alive.
Some people would always fear him, but too many things had happened, including being shot six times while attending a party in Los Angeles hosted by Chris Brown in August 2014. Suge recovered, but in January 2015, he was charged with murder for a hit-and-run in Compton where he drove over his friend and business associate, Terry Carter, killing him, and documentary filmmaker/actor/activist Cle “Bone” Sloan, who was hospitalized. The incident put Suge behind bars again with him adamantly claiming self-defense and that he drove over the men while trying to get away because he feared for his life.
For many, it was further proof that his larger-than-life mojo was waning.
There had been many fell blows delivered over the years, and while Suge Knight could never be counted out, it would be a hard climb back to the top of the mountain where he once held sway.
18
ORLANDO’S LAST STAND
May 29, 1998.
A typical Friday afternoon in Compton, if there was such a thing, as Tim and Bob stood in the back lot of the Compton police station with their gang unit partners, Ray Richardson and Eddie Aguirre. It was somewhere around 3:00 p.m. The guys were about to hit the streets for the usual drill - contacting gang members to gather intelligence about rivalries and crimes - when they heard over fifteen gunshots fired several blocks due south.
All four men sped to the location. As they raced through the streets, calls were coming in about a shootout between rival gang members at Rob’s Car Wash at Alondra and Oleander, six blocks from the police station. Two black SUVs had been seen leaving the location. Gunshot victims were in both vehicles. A gunshot victim was also at the car wash.
The detectives arrived at the scene, along with paramedics and assisting officers. It was chaos. Bullet casings, blood, and bullet holes were everywhere.
Rob’s Car Wash had a reputation for being a meeting place for high roller drug dealers. This day, one such meeting had occurred, but this time things had gone badly awry.
Michael Stone, aka “Big Stone” - a 6’8”, three-hundred-pound OG from the Corner Pocket Crips - lay dying in the car wash’s driveway. He’d been shot several times.
Tim and Bob spotted a witness they knew at the scene. The witness was able to lay out the drama that had unfolded.
A shootout had taken place between Michael Stone, his nephew Jerry, and Orlando Anderson and Michael “Lil’ Owl” Dorrough. Anderson had pulled up his vehicle and confronted a man in the SUV with Michael Stone. They had argued and, in short order, Dorrough fired off the first shot. Things escalated as Michael Stone’s nephew Jerry, who was a few feet away, fired back. More shots were fired in response.
Four men caught bullets.
For three of them, this would mean the end of the road.
Jerry Stone had been in one of the black SUVs that fled the scene. Anderson and Dorrough had been in the other, a black Chevy Blazer, and took off toward Compton High School. Anderson had been mortally wounded by the barrage of gunfire and was slumped over the wheel. Dorrough, also wounded, had attempted to drive from the passenger seat. The vehicle ultimately crashed into a fence down the street,[38] then went on a little farther until it stopped. Dorrough handed his 9mm handgun to a Latino teen who was at the scene and told him to get rid of it.
The Compton gang unit detectives - Tim, Bob, Richardson, and Aguirre - responded to the crashed vehicle, which was a block north of Rob’s Car Wash. The black Blazer was riddled with bullet holes. Paramedics treated Anderson and Dorrough for gunshot wounds. When the detectives checked the vehicle, there were bullet casings and blood, but no sign of a gun.
The gang unit detectives looked on as Orlando Anderson lay dying. Tim and Bob in particular had quite a long arc with the young man, even though he was only twenty-three, just two-and-a-half months shy of what would have been his twenty-fourth birthday.
Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson had brought a great deal of infamy to the city of Compton, far beyond the infamy it already had for being the birthplace of gangsta rap and a gang-ridden murder capital. In the almost two years since Tupac’s death, amid the various theories that emerged about who’d pulled the trigger and why, legions of people the world over had come to believe Anderson was the man who’d fired those fatal shots from the back seat of a white Cadillac that fateful September night at the intersection of East Flamingo Road and Koval Lane in Las Vegas.
And although Anderson constantly denied any involvement, the streets told a different story, one of him bragging about being “Makaveli’s”[39] murderer. In interviews, he claimed to be in constant fear for his life[40] and said he was even afraid to go outside, but away from cameras and reporters, he reputedly basked in the stratospheric level of street cred that came with being the presumed killer of a megastar who was at the top of his game.
The suggestion brought with it a rather curious reverence, an awe that someone so seemingly pedestrian would dare take down such a lofty figure. The idea that someone who didn’t come across as “hard” or menacing would commit such a bold act made Anderson a wild card, someone to be feared. He had, in people’s minds, transcended in a way that was both perplexing and fascinating. The image of the man who’d done this deed didn’t line up at all with that of a gangbanging killer.
The act, or the belief that he’d done it, had made him an instant legend. He’d allegedly snuffed out the life of a hip-hop god, and, in the process, had become an unlikely street god himself.
Yet now, at this crash scene, the street legend’s life was fading. A bullet had pierced his heart. His essence, his everything, was slipping away. That he had survived this long in the wake of so many believing him to be Tupac’s killer was in itself a curiosity, a conundrum even, grounds for much theorizing and speculation about how and why that had even been possible.
Tim, Bob, and Ray Richardson watched as he took his last breaths, the light in his eyes slowly going o
ut.
The paramedics transported Anderson and Michael Stone to Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, but Anderson had already lost the fight.
This time, unlike in the legend of how he’d murdered Tupac, there would be no going back to a safe house or some other meeting place to gather his boys, strap up, and hit the streets cruising for payback.
This time, he had lost the fight for good.
***
The secured crime scene was two blocks long. Aguirre and Richardson managed the large area while Tim and Bob went to Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center to try to get information from the victims. They arrived just as the doctors were pronouncing Jerry Stone and Orlando Anderson dead from multiple gunshot wounds.
Tim and Bob talked to Michael Stone, but he was uncooperative.
He later died in surgery.
***
Michael Dorrough had been taken to St. Francis Hospital for his injuries. Tim, still at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, immediately radioed to have a unit head there to place Dorrough under arrest.
As Tim and Bob exited MLK/Drew Medical, several South Side Crips, along with Anderson’s mother Charlotte Davis and Deandre Smith (who’d allegedly been in the car with Anderson when Tupac was shot) were gathered. They had just learned of Orlando Anderson’s death and directed their ire at the detectives.
“Are you happy now?” cried Anderson’s mother. “You’ve been trying to get him since the Tupac murder and now he’s dead! I’ll bet you’re happy!”
Tim and Bob were anything but happy.
They did, however, already have a file at the D.A.’s office on the murder of OG Palmer Blocc Crip Elbert “E.B.” Webb, and had been seeking to get charges against Orlando Anderson and Deandre Smith for the crime. Four eyewitnesses to that murder, including Nutty Blocc and Palmer Blocc Crips, had been shot to death within a year after it happened.
Once Upon A Time in Compton Page 23