“When we get there, rookie, you choke this one out.”
What?
They arrived at the scene. It was just like the other one. Tim, once more on the ground, wrestled with a man hopped up on a drug that gave him superhuman strength. After several tries, Tim subdued the man and they took him into custody.
Tim had immediately jumped into the trenches. His blood was racing. This job was already turning out to be more exciting than he could have expected.
***
You choke this one out.
The phrase echoed in Tim’s head. It was surprising to hear it as an order from his training officer, but that was the way it was as a police officer in Compton in the eighties, specifically with dusters, whose extremely violent and erratic behavior was unlike anything the Compton P.D. had encountered. L.A.P.D. had banned the chokehold after being under scrutiny for the deaths of several dusters who were put in chokeholds as they were arrested. Chokeholds could crush the Adam’s apple, and the person being arrested could die of suffocation.
There were rules on paper about what police officers could and could not do, but in practical application, other rules - the unwritten ones that were collectively viewed as “that’s just the way we do it” - prevailed. Coming up against someone strung out on a hallucinogenic drug so powerful it could drive him to kill someone with his bare hands, necessitated strong measures if a cop wanted to come out alive. Cops back then weren’t taking deadly measures. They weren’t rolling up, firing on dusters. That was never a first option.
A duster being killed was an extreme that rarely happened. The cop was more mano y mano. They would put themselves in harm’s way, jumping on dusters, tackling them, and tumbling around until cuffs could be put on. The goal was to get these guys off the streets and give them a chance to come down off a high that made them a danger to everyone. Nothing about this was an easy feat.
Being plunged so viscerally into the job that first night was an adrenalin rush for Tim, who had come out west in search of real police work. Compton, he would soon realize, was the greatest city in America for someone who was serious about wanting to fight crime and make a community safer.
It didn’t get much realer than it did in Compton. That remained the case all throughout the eighties and nineties during his time on the force.
***
Riding around in those early days on the P.M.shift, there were mostly gang members repping their colors, the sound of gunshots ringing out all night in neighborhood after neighborhood, and the victims of those gunshots - the wounded and the dead. Everybody wasn’t built to handle this kind of job, which was why some rookies didn’t make it through training and why others could only last a few years. Tim had the DNA for it. Something in him found Compton to be a perfect fit.
Cop culture was very similar to gang culture. A cop couldn’t be “soft.” Anybody who was viewed as such would be quickly winnowed out. “Soft” meant unwilling to step up and fight. Win or lose, cops had to be willing to fight. In reality, though, there was no “lose.” They always had to win. In cop culture, if an officer was hurt, a gangbanger had to be hurt worse. If someone resisted or fought against a cop, odds were high that person was going to end up in the hospital. Gangs ruled over the neighborhoods and created an atmosphere of fear among the people who lived there, so the police had to find a way to rule over the gangs. They had to create an atmosphere of fear. Policing in those days was brutal, violent, but it was an ecosystem understood by the players involved, both cops and criminals.
It was a well-known unwritten rule that if someone ran from the police, fought, and then got caught, that person could expect an ass kicking. It was the cops’ form of street justice. It wasn’t “right,” and the legality of it might have been more than fuzzy, but it was a part of the old “that’s just the way we do it” order of things. The Rodney King incident in 1991 turned the tides, bringing this type of activity to national attention. Cops doling out beatdowns continues around the country, as evidenced by videos posted on YouTube, although the dynamics and why the police violence occurs may differ wildly from what they were during the era of policing the gang-dense, violent streets of Compton.
That, for Tim and his colleagues, wasn’t their driving motivation or M.O in their day. It wasn’t something that was being done to the public at-large or just because they had the power to do it. Cops weren’t out there kicking ass on the good citizens of Compton. Their form of street justice was solely aimed at gang members who preyed on the weak.
Most of the surrounding cities in Los Angeles County - those outside of Compton, South Central, Watts, and Inglewood - didn’t have people driving around with automatic assault rifles with thirty-round clips shooting up neighborhoods every night. Most surrounding cities - the Torrances, the Redondo Beaches, the Rancho Palos Verdes, and other quieter suburban enclaves, and the people who lived in them - were oblivious to or didn’t care about the high instances of violence and crime that were happening in the poorer urban areas of Los Angeles.
None of this meant that cops doing beatdowns on gangsters in Compton was cool. Legally, police weren’t supposed to exercise brutality, but the ones in Compton felt they were navigating a war zone, facing people who weren’t afraid of dying to prove they were hard or to protect their criminal operations or merely “rep their set.” The police had to find a way to level the playing field, and that meant inducing fear. They had to let gangs know they were just as hard. When suspects bailed out of stolen cars, it wasn’t unusual for cops to cap a few rounds over their heads. It made the gangbangers think they were crazy. Crazy was a great equalizer between cop and gangbanger.
This kind of thing was happening all over South Central. The presence of gangs, gang violence, and the crimes and drug activity driven by them was a broad, pervasive hand with a long reach. One could never argue that handing out street justice to a fleeing, combative suspect was a thing of merit. Assaults on police officers, however, were rare during this era. There seemed to be a direct correlation between police handing out street justice and the low rate of assaults against them.
This, in the Compton that Tim was learning, was the code of the streets. If a cop was injured while chasing and fighting with a criminal, that criminal knew what was going to happen. Many of them ended up in emergency rooms with broken bones, but the criminal almost never complained. Most would be right back at their criminal endeavors a day or so later. It was a brutal time in a brutal world, but everyone knew the rules and accepted what came with them if they chose to play the game.
As a rookie, Tim absorbed all of this. He immersed himself in understanding the lay of this violent land where he had chosen to do what would become his life’s work.
Rookies were treated like outcasts until they proved themselves in one of those street justice fights. None of the other cops would even talk to a rookie until that happened. Veteran cops also had to be assured a rookie was trustworthy and wouldn’t snitch. The code of silence was everything. The peer pressure to adhere to it was strong.
By the time Tim’s training was over, he had developed a taste for chasing gangsters in stolen cars who dealt drugs and were heavily armed. He was good at it.
They knew him and he knew them. They knew he wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t afraid to hop out of his car when they hopped out of theirs and would continue the chase on foot, even dive through windows, if need be. Gangsters came to respect him, even though sometimes just seeing him patrolling the streets pissed them off.
Tim worked with several partners over the next two years, then eventually paired up with Robert Ladd, who, as it turned out, would be his perfect match.
3
FREEZE!
Robert Ladd was born in 1959 in Hawthorne, California, but was raised in and has spent his whole life in Garden Grove, a small city in northern Orange County, about thirty-four miles south of Los Angeles.
Bob and his wife, Kathy went to junior high and high school together and were married right after graduatio
n. He worked an assortment of construction jobs, then decided to become a police officer.
Bob graduated from the academy in 1983. Suddenly there he was, twenty-four years old - ready, eager to be a cop. He began working as a reserve officer at the Garden Grove Police Department. They didn’t hire him for a position, but he was learning and doing police work alongside members of the force.
By this time, he and his wife had a son, Brian, and Kathy was pregnant with their daughter, Shannon. They were like most young couples starting families, struggling financially, doing their best to get by and work toward something better. Bob had a construction job at Miller’s Outpost where he made two hundred dollars a week. It wasn’t enough, not for what was about to be a family of four. Kathy was waitressing at Coco’s, a local chain restaurant.
They were barely eking by.
He was putting in several days a week at the Garden Grove Police Department learning as much as he could, but he needed more. He needed to be hired for a full-time position, but Garden Grove had a hiring freeze.
Bob felt he had to do something; he was determined to be a cop. There had to be a police force out there where he would be a good fit.
He started applying everywhere, then he remembered Barry Case from the Huntington Police Department. Barry had been one of Bob’s arrest and control tactical training instructors at the academy. Barry told war stories about where he started his career at the Compton Police Department. It was apparent to anyone listening that he loved his time there.
“If you want to be a real cop,” Barry said, “go work for Compton.”
Bob wanted to be a real cop and he needed a real job. He decided to follow Barry’s advice. He applied for a job on Compton’s police force. In a move that seemed like no less than fate, the Compton Police Department was the first to offer him a position. It meant steady money and insurance coverage. His wife, Kathy wasn’t too happy, but she understood it was necessary for the stability of their family.
This wouldn’t be Bob’s first experience in Compton. He had worked with his brother, Jim several years prior at a liquor store at the corner of Alondra Boulevard and Central Avenue. A&A Liquor. His time there had left an indelible impression. Jim was the manager and their cousin owned the store. Jim had been making great money at the time and let Bob work there to earn some extra cash.
Being at A&A Liquor gave him a preview of what he would be dealing with as a police officer in Compton. A ton of shit went down at the store. Shootings in the parking lot. People coming in wielding guns, wasted on PCP. It was a dangerous job, but the extra money allowed Bob to take care of his family.
It gave him a taste of Compton and, ready or not, as a newly-hired cop, he was about to be plunged headlong into what he’d experienced at A&A Liquor, a thousandfold…and worse.
***
Most people can recall their first day on a new job, especially one that ends up becoming a lifelong career. Bob was no different. That first day at the Compton P.D. would always be crystal-clear in his mind.
He was nervous as hell as he walked into the locker room. He didn’t say a word, which wasn’t something that would stand out as unusual. It was pretty well-known that rookies kept as low-key as possible, not trying to draw too much attention to themselves to avoid becoming the target of the seasoned cops. Being singled out by them was inevitable, but Bob didn’t want to expedite that happening, so when he came in, he didn’t say shit.
There was a heightened energy in the air that day. A veteran cop named Henry Perez had just shot and killed a suspect, so the locker room was already buzzing. Officer-involved shootings were a big deal. A Black guy wasted on PCP had, for no known reason, run up to Perez’s parked car as he sat inside and began attacking him through the open window. Perez and the guy fought over Perez’s gun. Perez shot him in the head and killed him instantly.
It was tragic, but not hard to understand how it happened. The duster, high out of his mind, had been oblivious to what he was doing and fought relentlessly.
PCP was one of the worst things to ever hit the streets, and its effect on the people who used it, the cops who were called in to deal with them, and the community at-large was no small matter. Folks would buy this stuff, dip their cigarettes in the liquid, then smoke the cigarette. Once it kicked in, the transformation was complete. The person would become wild, Herculean.
These were the early days of PCP. It was just starting to become an epidemic. It wouldn’t be long before Bob really got to see what this drug was all about.
From the excitement in the locker room that first day, he reported to his first shift briefing. These were standard meetings that happened before each new shift. Roll call was usually taken and each officer was told their beat or assignment for the day (which area to patrol, radio call numbers, etc.), and updated on any other important information from the shift supervisors.
Bob learned during that first shift briefing that the veteran cops ran the show. The supervisors were just trying to keep up.
It was the P.M. shift, which was from 4 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. He sat in the front row, the area designated for rookies.
The room was filled with salty veteran cops. Guys like Jack McConnell and John Wilkinson. These guys savored fucking with rookies. They considered it their job to do so during the briefings.
Two sergeants came into the room.
“Okay, let’s get started,” one of them said.
The first topic on deck was Henry Perez shooting the man on PCP. This was discussed for a while. Bob listened intently.
“Hey rookie!” a voice yelled from the back row. “Stand up and introduce yourself!”
Bob looked around. He was the rookie.
Shit, he thought, nervous as hell. He stood, facing the guys.
“Hi.” He cleared his throat. “I’m Robert Ladd. You can call me Bob. I’m from Orange County—”
“Pussy!”
The entire room erupted in a thunderclap of laughter.
Bob stood there, unsure of what to do. He looked toward the sergeants. They were just letting it happen.
Young Bob Ladd in uniform.
OG Compton P.D. Briefing. Front row: Rene Fontenot. Second row, right to left: Bud Johnson, John Kounthavong, George Betor. Third row, right to left: Ron Thrash, John Wilkinson. Fourth row, right to left: Joey Reynolds, JJ Jackson, Marcos Palafox. Back row, right to left: Reggie Wright Sr., Rich Rivera, and Lt. Bunton.
“You got any sisters?” someone else shouted.
More raucous laughter. That comment was actually funny. Bob fought back a chuckle and continued. “I’m excited to be—”
“Sit the fuck down, rookie!”
And just like that, it was over.
He sat the fuck down.
The briefing went on like that interruption had never even occurred.
Bob learned that this was how every rookie got treated in the Compton P.D. Like shit. You were a nobody until you proved yourself. Then, and only then, would the veteran cops treat you with respect. When it came to dealing with the streets, there was an “us vs. them” mentality. The veterans needed to know the rookies understood that “us vs. them” meant cops looked out for each other. Even if you couldn’t stand the guy sitting next to you, in the streets, you were supposed to have each other’s backs.
***
That first day, Bob was supposed to ride with one of the veteran cops who loved to taunt rookies. Jasper Jackson. Everyone called him J.J. He was a 5’11 dark-skinned Black guy with a strong, solid build, super-buffed. Skinny waist, huge arms. He was an ex-Marine who’d served in Vietnam. A real badass of a guy who carried a chrome-plated .357 magnum. Bob had never seen anyone with presence like him. J.J. could actually make gangbangers cry just by looking at them. Bob would later see proof of this.
But J.J. wasn’t at work that first day, so Bob was placed with another veteran cop: Mikey Paiz.
Mikey was a Latino guy of medium build, about 5’10 with a mustache and curly black hair. He was cool, but he w
asn’t a training officer like J.J., so he wasn’t too happy about having to ride around with someone brand new.
“I’m driving,” he said as Bob walked with him to the patrol car. They got inside. Mikey looked at Bob. “I like to work dope. You ready?”
“Yeah,” said Bob.
He thought he knew what Mikey meant by “work dope”, but Bob was super-green. He didn’t know anything. Not about Compton, outside of what he had encountered at A&A Liquor, and not about being a cop.
That was about to change.
***
They drove five blocks north to Elm Street. This was an area where Pirus were known to sell PCP. They made a left turn and saw three Black guys walking toward them. Mikey suddenly sped toward the guys, then slammed the brakes and jumped out of the car. He rushed over, grabbed two of them, and threw them to the ground.
“Get the other one and handcuff him!” he yelled at Bob.
The rookie did as he was ordered. It all happened so fast.
What the fuck is going on here, Bob thought as Mikey got on the radio and called for backup.
Within what seemed like just a couple of minutes, two units came speeding around the corner. Bob and Mikey searched the three guys and tossed them in the back of the patrol car.
Mikey walked over toward something on the ground. It was a small clear bottle with an amber-colored liquid. He came back and held it up, showing it to Bob.
“This is PCP,” he said. “I saw one of those guys drop it when we first turned the corner.”
He took the cap off and waved it under Bob’s nose. The rookie leaned in, taking a whiff. It was strong, like ether. Bob reared back.
Who the hell smokes this shit, he wondered. A person would be brain dead behind that stuff.
Mikey said, “Those other two, the ones I tackled? They’re dusted.”
“What’s that?” Bob asked.
“It means they’re high on this stuff.”
Bob glanced at the guys in the back seat, then back at Mikey. He hadn’t noticed any of the things Mikey had seen. Not the guy tossing the PCP, nor the erratic behavior of the other two.
Once Upon A Time in Compton Page 4
