Crime

For LaTisha Nixon, latest death is more than deja vu

WAVE NEWSPAPERS — LaTisha Nixon’s trip to Los Angeles was supposed to be a commemoration of what would have been her son Gemmel Moore’s 28th birthday.

Published

6 years ago

January 18, 2019

Pluria

By Cynthia Gibson

WEST HOLLYWOOD — LaTisha Nixon’s trip to Los Angeles was supposed to be a commemoration of what would have been her son Gemmel Moore’s 28th birthday. Instead, it turned into her worst nightmare all over again.

Moore was found dead at the home of Ed Buck, a prominent Democratic Party donor, in July 2017. An autopsy concluded that Moore’s death was caused by an overdose of methamphetamine. Due to a lack of evidence, the county district attorney’s office did not press charges against Buck for Moore’s death.

Eighteen months following Moore’s overdose, paramedics responded to another 911 call from Buck’s apartment regarding an unconscious man who was not breathing. Timothy Dean was pronounced dead in the early morning hours of Jan. 7. The cause of death has not been released.

Friends, co-workers and neighbors were shocked and saddened to hear about Dean’s death.

Ottavio Taddei, Dean’s roommate for the past three years, said Dean stayed away from narcotics and was very neat with “everything in a specific spot and nicely folded.”

“I’ve never seen him doing drugs or taking drugs,” Taddei said. “He doesn’t even smoke weed or cigarettes. … If he drank something, it was at the end of the day, after work. Not someone who had a problem.”

At a candlelight vigil in front of Buck’s apartment Jan. 11, Dean’s longtime friend Mark Chambers felt compelled to speak up for his friend.

“I’ve known Tim for 30 years,” Chambers said. “He’s not an angel and he’s not a devil. He is in between, just like everybody else.”

In the past, Dean performed in adult films. An online database of adult films credits Dean with more than a dozen roles.

“I knew he did it, but when we were coming up, a lot of people did it. It was like, OK, so what?” Chambers said. “Just because he did porn doesn’t equal a drug addict.”

According to Dean’s friends, he had turned his life completely around. He was a fashion consultant at Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills, had joined a church and was baptized. He had even gone back to school and earned his associates degree from Santa Monica College.

Dean also played in the Lambda Basketball League and last summer traveled with Chambers and others to Paris to compete in the Gay Games.

Buck’s attorney, Seymour Amster, says his client had nothing to do with Dean’s death.

According to Amster, Buck and Dean been friends for 25 years. Dean had “ingested some type of substance” before arriving at Buck’s apartment Jan. 7 and Buck had tried to perform CPR after Dean fell unconscious.

“This is not a situation where Mr. Buck had caused the death,” the attorney said. “This is a situation where Mr. Buck has had longtime friends who, unfortunately, do not handle their life well then succumb when they are in the apartment of Mr. Buck.”

Dean’s death has put a spotlight on the issues of wealth and privilege — specifically white privilege — that some say exists even within the liberal gay community of West Hollywood.

Following the vigil in from of Buck’s apartment, West Hollywood resident and queer artist Lex Ryan posted on Instagram:

“White people — and especially those white queer folx who live in West Hollywood and party in West Hollywood — let this be a wake up. West Hollywood is not safe for everyone. It is not the progressive, inclusive place we like to believe it is. It is a place where two black men can die of overdoses in a wealthy white man’s apartment — a man known to pay black men so that he can inject them with meth — while the white man walks free. This is West Hollywood. This is where we celebrate Pride. Pride in what? Pride that only white lgbtq folx are safe? This is unacceptable. We can do better. We need to do better.”

For Latisha Nixon, the death of Timothy Dean conjures up painful similarities to her son’s death.

Moore and Dean died in the apartment of Ed Buck and he had been present at the time of their deaths. Both men were black and gay. Buck, 64, is white, gay, wealthy and politically connected.

According to the personal testimony of several escorts who say they have had experiences with Buck, he intentionally seeks out gay black men who are financially vulnerable and pays them to do drugs with him, specifically methamphetamine.

Dean’s death is also the realization of the dire prediction Nixon made in front of the West Hollywood Sheriff’s Station on the first anniversary of her son’s death, one day after prosecutors declined to file charges against Buck.

“The media always refers to my son as a homeless black gay prostitute,” Nixon said at the time. “He wasn’t homeless. He wasn’t a prostitute.

“They call Ed Buck a ‘wealthy white Democratic donor.’ He’s a predator. He preys on vulnerable black men. If they don’t stop him, he’ll do it again and the blood will be on their hands.”

This article originally appeared in the Wave Newspapers.

Pluria

Posts by Pluria

Up Next

Still Unsolved: The Cold Cases of Biggie, Tupac and Jam Master Jay

Don't Miss

Inglewood residents ask City Council for rent control

Pluria

Click to comment

Bo Tefu

California Assembly Passes Bill to Strengthen Penalties for Soliciting Minors

The revised version of Assembly Bill 379, authored by Assemblymember Maggy Krell (D-Sacramento), now allows prosecutors to file felony charges against adults who solicit sex from a 16 or 17-year-old, provided the accused is three or more years older than the minor. If the offender is within three years of the minor, the charge would remain a misdemeanor.

Published

4 days ago

May 19, 2025

Oakland Post

iStock.

By Bo Tefu, California Black Media

The California State Assembly has agreed to amend a controversial bill that would increase penalties for adults who solicit sex from minors ages 16 or 17, following a wave of criticism from Republicans and concerns raised by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

“From a prosecutor’s standpoint, this bill strengthens California law and gives us the felony hammer to prosecute the creeps that are preying on teenagers,” Krell said in a statement supporting the amended bill.

The new amendments also include provisions for a state grant program aimed at improving the prosecution of human trafficking and sex trafficking cases, as well as a support fund for survivors partially funded by increased fines on businesses that enable or fail to address human trafficking.

The bill faced significant opposition last week after the Assembly removed a provision that would have treated solicitation of 16 and 17-year-olds as a felony for all offenders.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Activism

BOOK REVIEW: The Afterlife of Malcolm X

Betty Shabazz didn’t like to go to her husband’s speeches, but on that February night in 1965, he asked her to come with their daughters to the Audubon Ballroom in New York. Did Malcolm X sense that something bad would happen on that night? Surely. He was fully aware of the possibility, knowing that he’d been “a marked man” for months because of his very public break with the Nation of Islam.

Published

4 days ago

May 18, 2025

Oakland Post

Book Cover of the Afterlife of Malcolm X. Courtesy of Simon & Schuster.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer

Author: by Mark Whitaker, c.2025, Simon & Schuster, $30.99, 448 pages

Who will remember you in fifty years’ time?

A handful of friends – at least those who are still around – might recall you. Your offspring, grandkids, and greats, maybe people who stumble upon your tombstone. Think about it: who will remember you in 2075? And then read “The Afterlife of Malcolm X” by Mark Whitaker and learn about a legacy that still resonates a half-century later.

As the news of his murder spread around New York and around the world, his followers and admirers reacted in many ways. His friend, journalist Peter Goldman, was “hardly shocked” because he also knew that Malcolm’s life was in danger, but the arrest of three men accused of the crime didn’t add up. It ultimately became Goldman’s “obsession.”

Malcolm’s co-writer for The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Alex Haley, quietly finished the book he started with Malcolm, and a small upstart publishing house snatched it up. A diverse group of magazines got in line to run articles about Malcolm X’s life, finally sensing that White America “’needed his voice even more than Blacks did.’”

But though Malcolm X was gone, he continued to leave an impact.

He didn’t live long enough to see the official founding of the Black Panther Party, but he was influential on its beginning. He never knew of the first Kwanzaa, or the triumphs of a convert named Muhammad Ali.

Malcolm left his mark on music. He influenced at least three major athletes.

He was a “touchstone” for a president …

While it’s true that “The Afterlife of Malcolm X” is an eye-opening book, one that works as a great companion to the autobiography, it’s also a fact that it’s somewhat scattered. Is it a look at Malcolm’s life, his legacy, or is it a “murder mystery”?

Turns out, it’s all three, but the storylines are not smooth. There are twists and tangents and that may take some getting used-to. Just when you’re immersed, even absorbed in this book, to the point where you forget about your surroundings, author Mark Whitaker abruptly moves to a different part of the story. It may be jarring.

And yet, it’s a big part of this book, and it’s essential for readers to know the investigation’s outcome and what we know today. It doesn’t change Malcolm X’s legacy, but it adds another frame around it.

If you’ve read the autobiography, if you haven’t thought about Malcolm X in a while, or if you think you know all there is to know, then you owe it to yourself to find “The Afterlife of Malcolm X.”

For you, this is a book you won’t easily forget.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Bay Area

Grand Jury: Richmond Police Short-staffed Amid Budget Cuts, Council Inaction

In recent years, RPD was described as severely understaffed in two independent reports, one by Raftelis Financial Consulting (2024) and another by Matrix Consulting Group (2023). Raftelis recommended the hiring of 27 more officers and Matrix recommended hiring 30. Despite these findings, “neither report has been fully discussed by the City Council in a public meeting,” the Grand Jury report notes.

Published

4 days ago

May 18, 2025

Oakland Post

RPD headquarters. Courtesy image.

The Richmond Standard

A newly released Contra Costa County Civil Grand Jury report raised concerns about public safety in Richmond caused by an understaffed police department.

The Grand Jury ultimately recommended that the Richmond City Council reverse its actions to defund the Richmond Police Department, which remains below the approved level of 146 sworn officers with a current vacancy of 23 officers, according to the report.

In 2014, when the RPD under Chief Chris Magnus gained national recognition for implementing a community policing model that drove down crime, the department boasted 196 sworn officers.

Meanwhile, crime is on the rise. While homicides were down from 18 in 2021 to 11 in 2024, violent crimes overall jumped 22.6% in that time. Robbery and aggravated assault both increased by nearly 20%, with sexual assaults up 21%, according to the grand jury report’s findings.

Those numbers are likely higher since RPD’s limited staffing means police are unable to respond to all calls for service, according to RPD authorities.

The Grand Jury report noted a pivotal moment for the police department occurred in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020.

Jumping aboard a national trend to defund police, the City Council, led by the Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA), reallocated $3 million away from the RPD budget, leading to downsizing or elimination of RPD’s specialized investigative units.

The funds were redirected to support the YouthWORKS Program, unhoused services, the Office of Neighborhood Safety (ONS), and a new alternative non-police community response team.

The latter strategy, known as the Community Crisis Response Program (CCRP), aims to reduce the number of calls to dispatch that require a law enforcement response. But the program has yet to be fully implemented and is being challenged by the RPD’s union, which takes issue with CCRP employees becoming members of SEIU Local 1021, a separate city union that routinely helps to elect RPA members to the City Council.

The Grand Jury recommends that the city use a portion of the $550 million Chevron settlement funds to hire and retain more officers. The City Council recently expressed interest in using those funds to address the city’s unfunded pension liabilities. To read the full, 10-page Grand Jury report, go to https://www.cc-courts.org/civil/docs/grandjury/2024-2025/2503/2503-DiminishingFundsandFewerOfficers.pdf?fbclid=IwY2xjawKR1AVleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFxeW1vUTFXNWNWazZCZmxIAR6FJYmFEfK098FXFhC4lvSCMSbHr5aEVno_sZqukzhZKI9iEvsu8kr_KoKX6g_aem_Xp15VG4_irpJqDWBcAI7-g