Once Upon A Time in Compton

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

  Compton’s gang unit laid the foundation for how a gang unit should be run, paving the way for the work Tim and Bob would do later.

  Their unit was dismantled in 1987. The Compton P.D. had a manpower shortage and had to cut back. If there was ever a place that desperately needed a gang unit, it was Compton in 1987. Since 1983, the city racked up seventy-plus homicides a year, and those numbers were steadily climbing. Compton was consistently ranked among the most dangerous cities in America. It couldn’t afford to be without a gang unit.

  6

  BABY LANE & LIL’ OWL

  In the eighties, while Tim and Bob were learning the streets, establishing their partnership, and eventually being appointed to the Compton P.D.’s gang unit, two teenagers whose lives would frequently intersect with theirs over the next several years and whose fate as friends would forever be linked were also learning the streets and establishing a partnership on the opposite side of the law.

  Orlando Anderson and Michael Dorrough were both born in 1974. Their mothers met at Roosevelt Junior High School in Compton (now Roosevelt Middle School) in the seventh grade. Dorrough’s grandmother and Anderson’s aunt were both nurses. Because they had this in common, their families became close, like one big family. In the summer, Anderson’s mother would sometimes stay with Dorrough’s grandmother in the Nickerson Gardens housing projects. Dorrough’s mother was often referred to as Anderson’s aunt, and he her nephew. Both boys were very close.

  By the time they were around fifteen or sixteen years old at the end of the eighties, the boys were drawn to the allure of gang life, specifically as members of the South Side Crips. Dorrough, always a neat dresser, had begun to wear the gang’s colors. Next he got a tattoo that undeniably identified him as a part of the SSCC. As a juvenile, when he would get arrested, Tim and Bob would go to his house and pick up his mother - who didn’t own a car - and take her to the station. She would sign the papers to get Michael released and Tim and Bob would take mother and son back home.

  Michael was called “Lil’ Owl,” sometimes just “Owl,” and wasn’t afraid to be violent or to kill. Between him and his best friend, he was the hard one. Orlando was called “Baby Lane,” sometimes “Lil’ Lando.” Even though he was a South Side Compton Crip, he was seen as a nice kid, not someone who came across as tough or “gangster.” He graduated from high school and even took a few courses in community college.

  Michael Dorrough, left, and Orlando Anderson, right.

  Lil’ Owl was a bonafide badass, but Baby Lane would be the one who became legendary.

  ***

  By the mid-nineties, Tim and Bob would have many encounters with Anderson and Dorrough for narcotics trafficking, shootings, and other assorted crimes. They would become a part of what was known as the Burris Street Crew in the South Side Crips, Burris being the street on which they lived. The other members of the Burris Street Crew - Anderson’s uncle Duane Keith “Keefe D” Davis, Kevin Davis, Deandre “Dre” Smith, Terrence Brown (aka “T-Brown” or “Bubble Up”), Wendell “Wynn” Prince, and Corey Edwards - would all have varying degrees of infamy, together and apart.

  7

  ROCKS, PAPER, KILLERS

  In the seventies, cocaine had a certain cachet. It was for the well-to-do, rock stars, and celebrities. An expensive drug that appeared on mirrored platters at tony parties, in the VIP sections and bathrooms of discos, and piled high on coffee tables in high-end hotel rooms as bacchanals raged in the background, it was the ultimate high for “The In Crowd.” It was chic to have tiny silver and ivory spoons and tightly-rolled hundred-dollar bills to snort powder, gold razorblades to chop it, diamond-rimmed vials of it hanging from necklaces, and long pinky nails for dipping into mounds of the stuff for a quick bump. This wasn’t a drug of the inner city. It was an elixir for the elite.

  The eighties came along, and with the era came rock cocaine, also known as “crack” - a form of the drug cooked down to a potent alkaloid crystal that could be smoked. Its arrival changed everything. Cheap and readily available, rock cocaine’s presence would send a shockwave throughout the streets of Compton and, in time, all across America.

  As the demand for the drug grew, a partnership developed between the cocaine cartel and the leaders of the gangs in Compton. Crips, Bloods, and the Latino gangs all had enough members and muscle to traffic the product and help its spread. Dope had always been a mainstay for the gangs. With the rise of crack, the money they would see would reach unprecedented levels.

  Tim and Bob first began to notice rock cocaine in 1983, and things quickly began to spin out of control. The first signal that there was a change happening on the streets occurred when they drove down a block that was well-known for being a place where a particular gang sold drugs. They were used to gang members scattering and throwing the product to the ground when the cops appeared so they wouldn’t be caught with it. Up to this point, it was usually bottles of PCP. Now there were small, white hard rocks on the ground.

  The two didn’t know what the stuff was at first. Then, almost overnight, those small, white hard rocks were everywhere. All the gangs seemed to have this stuff. The number of sellers in the community increased tenfold.

  Items confiscated from a drug bust.

  Each gang in Compton had an established place where they dealt their drugs. These spots were identified by the graffiti in the area that marked their turf and by them crossing out preexisting graffiti and writing “187” over it. It was well known that 187 was the California penal code for murder. It meant death to their enemies and rival gangs who dared to trespass. People from surrounding cities knew where these dope spots were located and had been venturing into Compton for years to buy PCP, heroin, and marijuana. The traffic coming into these areas soared once rock cocaine was on the scene.

  In each gang, there was a hierarchy of who did what in the drug game. Most of the Black gangs had formed in the early seventies and had cliques within them based on age. The most elite level was the older members who’d been around since the founding days or not long after. They were referred to as OG’s - Original Gangsters - and Veteranos in the Latino gangs. They commanded the highest level of respect, usually based on past deeds where they’d proven themselves on the streets. The more violent the crime, the greater the respect. If someone was a known killer with one or more bodies that could be attributed to him, that person was top shelf, respected by members and rival gangs alike. Murder was the pinnacle when it came to gangbanging.

  The next level were the Gangsters. They were typically sixteen to twenty-three years old and had also made names for themselves, usually through assorted crimes and murder.

  The lowest level was the Baby Gangsters (BG’s) and Tiny Gangsters (TG’s). These were the youngest members in the gangs, ranging from around twelve to seventeen years old.

  The OG’s and Veteranos handled the manufacturing and distribution of the drugs. They were often referred to as “High Rollers” and “Ballers.” They were the big dogs and it wasn’t unusual for them to cross color lines and consort with rival gangs in order to make money. Gang colors and rivalries mattered, but money green trumped all.

  The Gangsters were involved in selling and distribution. The BG’s and TG’s, however, were the frontline. They were the ones in the trenches selling the drugs on the street and acting as lookouts. Because BG’s and TG’s were all under eighteen, they were considered juveniles, so it was easier for them to incur the risk of being caught by the cops. This worked well within the gang’s operation because these kids were usually released to a parent or only received probation. They would be back out on the streets selling rocks before their paperwork was even finished.

  There would be ten to twenty gang members working the corners in their territory where they sold rocks. Cars would be lined up like at a McDonald’s drive-thru. The gangsters would rush the cars, going right up to the driver’s window peddling their wares. The idea of that now might not be so shocking, but back then it was a surreal thing
to witness. Anyone who ever watched the HBO series The Wire’s depiction of Hamsterdam, the protected area where illegal drug transactions were allowed without consequence, would have an idea of what this looked like.

  Except here it wasn’t protected. Here it was illegal as hell.

  Cops called these dope spots “cherry patches.” They could drive or walk into them and arrest both buyers and sellers. They had to be caught first, though, because folks broke out in every direction when the law showed up.

  People poured into Compton from everywhere for rock cocaine. They came from adjacent cities like Long Beach, Paramount, Carson, Gardena, and Torrance, even traveling from Orange County. Their presence was conspicuous. It wasn’t hard to figure out what was going on with a nervous-looking white guy driving away from a known block where rocks were being dealt. Buyers risked a lot coming into these areas to get a fix. Some were robbed, carjacked, even murdered.

  In addition to these outdoor drug markets where dope was being sold on the corners, rock houses began to spring up over the city. These headquarters, where the gang leaders could often be found - usually with stashes of drugs, caches of weapons, and stacks of money - would be how Tim and Bob came to make a name for themselves. When they made a bust, they would get everybody at these houses, gang members from the top level on down.

  ***

  Everyone was making money. The amounts coming in as a result of how much people loved rock cocaine were astounding.

  Fourteen-year-old kids were being stopped with five hundred dollars in their pockets. The so-called High Rollers at the top of the food chain were driving brand new Mercedes, Cadillacs, SUVs, and tricked-out lowriders through the neighborhoods, showing off the spoils of the dope game. They wore expensive clothes and lots of gold jewelry. It was all very impressive to people who’d never seen this kind of money or ever thought it was possible to attain. The message being sent was clear: they could have all this stuff too, if they were down to bang and slang to get it.

  ***

  Because all the gangs were flush with money made from selling rock cocaine, it was possible for them to buy more than just flashy clothes, jewelry, and expensive cars. They could now also purchase arsenals of weapons, arming themselves militia-style. They weren’t just buying handguns, either, but new, sophisticated equipment unlike anything that had been used before on the streets by civilians. The rise in popularity of these types of guns would lead to one of the most violent and destructive times in American history.

  Assault weapons seized during gang unit raid.

  ***

  Prior to rock cocaine, whenever Tim and Bob went to the scene of a drive-by shooting, there might be one or two victims who had been injured. Typically, they’d have four or five bullet wounds from shots fired from a pistol or a shotgun.

  Once crack arrived, the entire dynamics of rivalries and payback changed. Now when drive-bys happened, there was no longer just a victim or two with treatable injuries. There were multiple victims as well as dead bodies. Gangs were armed with AK-47s, M-16s, Uzis, and MAC-10s with thirty-round clips. They could roll up on a scene and just spray bullets, taking out everything in their path. Houses were turned into Swiss cheese by high-powered weapons. Innocent bystanders, caught off-guard in their yards or inside their homes, were taken out in the process.

  Compton had become a full-fledged war zone.

  Neither Bob nor Tim, when they were hired, could have been prepared to see this kind of carnage. Not in a present-day American city. But there it was, and it was happening every day, particularly at night.

  The crime scenes during this period were unimaginable. Throngs of people would be gathered around the cordoned-off areas screaming at officers. Family members and friends of the wounded and dead would be crying, hysterical, trying to burst through the yellow tape. Some of the grief-stricken managed to break through and had to be intercepted by cops, sometimes even tackled, to keep them from getting to the loved one they were mourning.

  Then there were the dogs.

  Wild packs of them roamed the streets of Compton in the eighties and nineties. Called “ghetto dogs” and “Compton dingoes,” they would sometimes show up at crime scenes where someone had been shot or killed and the body still lay bleeding. While cops were busy restraining and tackling distraught relatives of the deceased, dogs would dart past them, run to the body, and start lapping up the blood. The crowd would scream, gasp, some collapsed. The cops had to chase the dogs away.

  As if crime scenes weren’t complicated enough. Cops were dealing with paramedics, trying to make sure they didn’t trample over anything that might be important to the investigation, as well as instructing other cops working the scene. Add to that the arrival of higher-ups like captains, lieutenants, and sergeants, all wanting to see what had gone down and have their say about what should happen next.

  Then the news media would show up and there’d be a swarm of choppers flying overhead. People screaming over the dead and the dying, medics, cops, bosses, and the deafening sound of aircraft. It was a surreal kind of chaos that could easily overwhelm someone who wasn’t prepared. It was one of the reasons some cops didn’t last and moved on to quieter suburban cities. Ones without bodies piling up in the streets.

  Sometimes a victim’s body would lie in the streets for hours until the coroner showed up. The area around the body would be marked off with yellow tape, but that didn’t stop people from sometimes driving right through it and almost running over the body.

  Gang members would often be among those screaming at crime scenes over their “homie” who had been shot or murdered. Tim and Bob knew their faces and which sets they repped. It was no secret to the gangbangers as to who’d been the perpetrators. They would angrily declare they were going to take revenge, jump in their cars, and speed away. They were going to strap up, then head out for payback. They’d go looking for the perpetrators in the rival gang’s neighborhood, but if they couldn’t find the right person, that didn’t stop them from shooting up the place. Somebody was going to pay. Sometimes they would go from rival neighborhood to rival neighborhood looking for the instigators, eager to exact an eye for an eye, a body for a body.

  Cops felt powerless. Barrages of gunfire would explode in the distance as they worked to clear a crime scene. They knew it was the sound of retaliation for the victims at the current location, but they couldn’t just abandon the scene and rush over to try and stop further bloodshed, and the department didn’t have enough cops to go around. All units were often busy at violent crime scenes throughout Compton. They just had to let it happen. Once officers were finished processing a crime scene, they headed to the next one to deal with more bodies, more devastated loved ones, more bloodthirsty dogs, more medics, cops, bosses, and, in short order, more swarming media choppers overhead.

  For the department, it was a terrible position to be in; to be so outnumbered by crime, there was no possible way a shooting could be stopped, even with advance knowledge that it was about to go down.

  Logic would suggest that after a night of rushing from crime scene to crime scene, cops on the P.M. shift would all be eager to go home and pass out once it was quitting time. Many of them, however, were so keyed-up after being in one frustrating adrenalin-fueled moment after another, they still had adrenalin pumping through their bodies and needed to calm themselves a bit before heading home.

  There was a bar in Long Beach called The Thirsty Isle, famous for their thirty-three ounce schooners of beer. It was the favorite watering hole for many of the guys on the P.M. shift. Tim, Bob, and several of their co-workers would head there, down a schooner or two, and try to wind down from hours of frustration working the streets. There’d be lots of talk and waxing hopeful about a time in the future when there was enough manpower on the Compton police force to stop gangbangers before they could retaliate. A time when they could get ahead of the rising body counts, instead of just dealing with the aftermath. They’d drink, talk, and dream.

  On especia
lly wild and violent nights, the entire P.M. shift could be found in The Thirsty Isle, trying to take the edge off.

  ***

  These drug wars would go on for years. Thousands died on the streets of Compton as gangs battled over turf, power, reputations, and money. The rock cocaine business was booming. By the mid-eighties, it had expanded far beyond the city to the rest of the country as gangs began to see a broader potential for commerce that came with this highly-addictive drug.

  Compton gangsters started showing up driving cars with out-of-state license plates. Oregon. Washington. Kansas. Arkansas. Louisiana. Texas. Oklahoma. Colorado. Nevada. Compton’s Crips and Bloods had realized it was smart to start branches of their organizations in other states and sell rock cocaine in those places. They could command higher prices, sometimes double what was being made in Compton. These proved to be easy transitions, as most of these places didn’t have gangs that were formidable enough to challenge their presence.

  It was similar to the picture rapper DJ Quik painted in his song “Jus Lyke Compton, where he described his tour stops in cities that now had the same kind of gang activity and violence popping off like what was going on back in his hometown.

  Places that had never heard of a Crip, a Blood, or even the city of Compton now had gang members on corners in neighborhoods selling crack to streams of eager buyers. With the gangs and the crack came drive-by shootings and a level of violence that was unprecedented in some of these areas.

  The Compton P.D. received calls from police departments around the country asking for information. They hadn’t been prepared for the arrival of gangs and drugs in their communities and the hell that was subsequently unleashed.

  Los Angeles and Compton had formed gang units ten years prior and had a level of expertise law enforcement agencies desperately needed. Narcotics units were also involved since Crips and Bloods were now trafficking rock cocaine across the country.