CommentsURBAN PERSPECTIVE--On the one year anniversary of the death of 26-year-old Gemmel Moore at the West Hollywood home of Democratic donor Ed Buck, Moore’s family, friends and advocates will renew their calls for justice and for criminal charges to be filed against Buck.
Moore’s mother LaTisha Nixon will lead a vigil and community update on her son’s death including details of the Sheriff’s Department sham investigation. New video from May 5, 2018, of Buck with another young Black gay man who claims Buck gave him meth that only Buck was allowed to administer to him will also be released. The community update and vigil will take place on Fri., Jul. 27 at 7 p.m. in front of the West Hollywood Sheriff’s Station (780 N. San Vicente Blvd.).
Gemmel Moore was found dead of a crystal meth overdose in Ed Buck’s West Hollywood home on July 27, 2017. His death was immediately classified as an accidental methamphetamine overdose by the coroner, but published and other young men stepped forward recounting similar stories about a man who they say has a Tuskegee Experiment like fetish which includes shooting drugs into young Black men that he picks up off the street or via dating hookup websites, the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department’s opened a homicide investigation.
The coroner’s report on Gemmel Moore’s death corroborates Gemmel’s chilling words from his journal describing the violence he experienced at the hands of Ed Buck.
“In his journal, Moore wrote, ‘I honestly don’t know what to do. I’ve become addicted to drugs and the worst one at that,’ a December entry reads. ‘Ed Buck is the one to thank. He gave me my first injection of crystal meth it was very painful, but after all the troubles, I became addicted to the pain and fetish/fantasy.’
“‘My life is at an alltime [sic] high right now & I mean that from all ways. I ended up back at Buck [sic] house again and got munipulated [sic] into slamming again. I even went to the point where I was forced to doing 4 within a 2day [sic] period. This man is crazy and its [sic] sad. Will I ever get help?’
“His last entry, dated Dec. 3, 2016, reads: ‘If it didn’t hurt so bad, I’d kill myself, but I’ll let Ed Buck do it for now.
According to the coroner’s report stated that the police found in Ed Buck’s apartment, sex toys, syringes and “clear plastic bags with suspected methamphetamine in a tool box roll-cabinet in the living room” and that a coroner’s investigator found 24 syringes with brown residue, five glass pipes with white residue and burn marks, a plastic straw with possible white residue, clear plastic bags with white powdery residue and a clear plastic bag with a “piece of crystal-like substance.”
Ed Buck has contributed thousands of dollars to the California Democratic Party, candidates running for office and those in elected office including Senator Kevin de Leon, Gavin Newsome, Governor Jerry Brown, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey. For a list of Buck’s political donations, please click here.
Advocates for Gemmel Moore and Ed Buck’s victims have requested that money be returned to a fund set up for justice for Moore and the other young men and that the California Democratic Party condemn Buck’s actions.
For more information on the investigation, please visit www.justice4gemmel.com.
(Jasmyne Cannick is a nationally known writer and commentator on political, race and social issues .. and a contributor to CityWatch. She is a political consultant working on the LA County ballot measure to Reform LA Jails.Patrisse Cullorsis the New York Times bestselling author of “When They Call You a Terrorist” and the co-founder of Black Lives Matter, Dignity Power and Now and JusticeLA. She is a proponent on the Reform LA County ballot measure to provide subpoena power to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Civilian Oversight Commission.)
-cw
