How many black gay men must die before the Democrat Party shuns Ed Buck? How many donations to Hillary Clinton and other top Democrats will be accepted by a man connected to the deaths of gay black men? How many events of the Democrat Party and the Progressives will Ed Buck is allow to host, co-host and attend?
““If another young, Black gay man overdoses or worse dies at Democratic donor Ed Buck’s apartment it’s going to be the fault of the sheriff’s dept and L.A. District Atty for not stopping him when they had the opportunity to,” Cannick wrote on Twitter in late July.
In July 2017, Gemmel Moore, a 26-year-old black man, died from a methamphetamine overdose in Buck’s apartment. Shortly afterward, Cannick followed a tip from a colleague and reached out to Moore’s friends and family, who had discovered a journal among the possessions returned with Moore’s body. They were disturbed by what they said they found: Moore’s journal said that Buck got him hooked on meth and had drugged him against his will.
Now, another gay black man died at the home of Ed Buck—and the Democrats are silent—and the Republican leadership refuses to say a word, how about” Hillary, give the money back? Would be a nice start. Since no other Republican will say it, I will—Democrats need to give the money back and stop inviting Ed Buck to participate in their events.
‘Serial predator’: L.A. writer has been sounding alarm on Ed Buck for over a year
Long before a second man died in the political donor’s home, writer Jasmyne Cannick has been publishing accounts from his alleged victims.
By Tim Fitzsimons, NBC News, 1/10/19
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When authorities in Los Angeles found Timothy Dean dead in the apartment of Ed Buck, a Democratic activist and campaign donor, early Monday morning, Jasmyne Cannick was not surprised. Just six months ago, Cannick had posted a warning on Twitter that something like this might happen.
“If another young, Black gay man overdoses or worse dies at Democratic donor Ed Buck’s apartment it’s going to be the fault of the sheriff’s dept and L.A. District Atty for not stopping him when they had the opportunity to,” Cannick wrote on Twitter in late July.
In July 2017, Gemmel Moore, a 26-year-old black man, died from a methamphetamine overdose in Buck’s apartment. Shortly afterward, Cannick followed a tip from a colleague and reached out to Moore’s friends and family, who had discovered a journal among the possessions returned with Moore’s body. They were disturbed by what they said they found: Moore’s journal said that Buck got him hooked on meth and had drugged him against his will.
Since Moore’s death, Cannick has collected a trove of information in an attempt to make the case that Ed Buck is a “predator” who preys on down-on-their-luck black men by by inviting them to his apartment and suggesting they try methamphetamine injections, or “slamming.”
Cannick conducted interviews with first-hand sources: men who said they went to Buck’s apartment for paid sex and drugs, several of whom told her that Buck offered them more money for the chance to administer an injection of crystal methamphetamine, the most dangerous way to take a dangerous drug. All of her reports are published on her personal website.
Cannick also published journal entries from Gemmel Moore in which he writes that Buck gave him his first meth injections and got him addicted. Cannick published photographs and videos taken by the men who said they were taken inside Buck’s apartment that corroborate key details from the initial death report and contemporaneous journals: a rolling red toolbox filled with sex toys and drug paraphernalia, a sportswear fetish, and an aversion to sexual intercourse.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department confirmed Thursday that homicide detectives are currently investigating Timothy Dean’s death. On Friday, the L.A. District Attorney’s office declined to comment “due to the pending investigation.”
Earlier this week, Seymour Amster, Buck’s attorney, told NBC News in what appeared to be a prepared statement that his client was not in custody and hadn’t been charged in connection with the death of Timothy Dean, whom he said was a “longtime friend” of Buck’s who had asked to come over.”
“Ed was reluctant, but the friend was insistent,” Amster claimed. A short time later, Dean “began exhibiting bizarre behavior,” which prompted Buck to call 911, Amster said.
NBC News’ follow-up calls and texts to Amster over a span of four days were not returned.
Now, over a year after Cannick first started to investigate Moore’s death and warn authorities that Buck is a “predator,” friends and family members of the deceased, along with LGBTQ and black activists in L.A. and beyond, are speaking out and asking why authorities did not more aggressively investigate Moore’s fatal drug overdose in Buck’s home.
While neither an autopsy nor a toxicology report has been released in Dean’s case, the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office ruled Moore’s death an accidental overdose of crystal methamphetamine. The coroner’s report noted a puncture wound on each of Moore’s elbows when his body was found naked on a mattress in the center of Buck’s living room.
“Our stories aren’t told and our lives are seen as expendable. It’s very easy to write off someone who dies of a drug overdose who was working as a sex worker, but Gemmel was as much a part of our community as the many other young men like him,” said Cannick, who like both Moore and Dean is black and gay. “It may not be pretty, but white gay men taking advantage of young Black men in our community is not unusual—it’s just not talked about in mainstream America.”
FOLLOWING A PATTERN
Cannick, 41, an award-winning social commentator and former Congressional press secretary, started to investigate Buck just a few weeks after Moore’s death. Cannick said a tip from a colleague led her to look into the prominent political activist.
LaTisha Nixon, Moore’s mother, told Cannick “she had a lot of concerns and was not getting a lot of answers from the authorities,” Cannick recalled. Cannick then spoke to friends of Moore, several of whom told similar tales: that Buck uses gay dating websites to invite black men to his apartment to use or try methamphetamines.
“We started to figure out there was this pattern and practice where he solicited and went after young, gay, black men — usually men who were homeless, HIV-positive, who were in need of food or money,” Cannick said, citing in-person interviews she conducted and published with people who say they met Buck for sex and drugs.
“Not all of these men were on drugs when they met Ed Buck,” Cannick added, “but Ed Buck got them on drugs.”
Fox 11 published a news report soon after Moore’s death that showed security camera footage of a second black man attempting to buzz into Buck’s apartment while police were still in the process of removing Moore’s body from the scene. Buck’s attorney, Seymour Amster, told Fox 11 at the time that Buck and Moore were “good friends” and claimed Buck is a kind man who reaches out to troubled youth who are often homeless.
Shortly after authorities ruled Moore’s death an accidental overdose, Cannick published several pages of a journal that was recovered by the coroner along with Moore’s belongings, in which Moore wrote: “I ended up back at Buck house again and got manipulated into slamming again — I even went to the point where I was forced to doing 4 within a 2 day period.”
Less than a month after Cannick and Moore’s family released pages of his journal in early August 2017, authorities opened a homicide investigation into Buck that was then closed without charges in July 2018.
In addition to Moore’s journal, Cannick published a detailed interview with “Blake,” another man who said he knew Ed Buck over four years, the same period Buck knew Moore. Blake and Buck, according to Cannick — who published Blake’s chat logs, photos, and interviews on her website — smoked meth together often and eventually, during a period of homelessness, Blake let Buck pay him $500 to inject him with meth. Neither Buck nor his lawyer has ever publicly addressed Blake’s claims.
Cannick said Lindsey Horvath was the only West Hollywood council member that lent unqualified support to her efforts to further probe Moore’s death. Horvath, who stressed she has never accepted campaign contributions from Buck, told NBC News she found the Buck case “deeply disturbing” and suggested that power and race may have played a role in the investigation.
“I think the question is worth asking: If roles were reversed, would different choices have been made throughout the investigative process and would have an arrest have been made?” Horvath said.
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