In the wake of the death of Gemmel “Juelz” Moore–a second victim of Ed Buck’s has come forward to tell his story. Moore, a 26-year-old Black man, was found dead in the West Hollywood home of Buck–a 63-year-old wealthy, white, Democratic donor. The cause of death was immediately classified as an accidental meth overdose by the Los Angeles County Coroner.
Moore’s mother LaTisha Nixon has been trying to get the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to investigate Ed Buck who she says has a history of violence against her son and is known for his Tuskegee Experiment like fetish where he shoots drugs into young Black men to watch how they react to it.
Since the WeHo Times initially broke the story, young Black men are beginning to come forward and recount their experiences with Buck in his West Hollywood home. He’s 28-years-old and he goes under the name of Damar Love and under three separate occasions he visited Ed Buck’s West Hollywood home. In confirming his story he showed me photos and videos of him inside of Ed Buck’s home and of Ed Buck that he could only have if he had actually been in Buck’s home. Additionally, he gave me an email from Ed Buck to him with Buck’s invitation to Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s inauguration. Damar says that Buck had invited him to attend with him but changed his mind and decided he’d rather stay home with him instead.
I, along with the Los Angeles Times and ABC7 met Damar Tuesday and this is what he told us about his last experience with Ed Buck:
Damar Love and Ed Buck
Around July 3 Ed Buck calls me over and initially he gives me a large number amount to come hang out with him for a couple of hours.
Yeah okay, I’ll come hang out.
And–mind you–I’ve already–at this time I’m already working. I just started my new security job. I’m dead tired. Been working a 13 hour shift. And when I get there I let him know I don’t want to stay here too long so whatever you want to do–if you want to take pictures again this time let’s get ‘em over with because I want to go to sleep.
Eventually he goes let me go in the backroom and get the camera together.
By then I was rushing him.
I’m sleepy. I don’t want to fall asleep around you. Please come get your pictures so I can go on about my business.
Took his pictures. He asked me if I wanted something to drink and at that moment I was nervous and then I was like yeah pour me some water. Because I can see in the water if there’s anything in it and that was kinda my mistake. Because what I thought I could I didn’t. Basically water has no taste whatsoever. This water that I tasted gave me a tingling sensation. What water do you know makes that tingling sensation in your mouth?
The next thing I know I’m waking up from taking a deep breath. My arms are immediately hurting and I’m tied down to the couch. Just my arm. My arm was hurting. And at that moment he sees me kind of enraged. So he kinda like ran back in his hallway and when he reappeared he had a long metal black flashlight. Once he turned it on I actually seen what it really was. It really was a flashlight which had a taser attached to it.
The moment he grabbed something I was looking around tryin’ to find something for me to grab. Looked under the couch. What do you know. Another flashlight sticking out. I grabbed that one. Once I grabbed that one it was a standoff. Somebody’s going to tased. Somebody’s going to get beat with this flashlight or I’m gonna go get myself some help. And I feel like if I didn’t take that aggressive stance I may have been Gemmel. I felt like I was held captive because what the purpose of me having my arms tied up. I don’t know what he injected me with.
When I went to the hospital and ambulance with my heart rate–too high. And they said gots to be partially overdose or was on the verge of being overdosed.
Once he knew I was about business he opened the door and let me run out.
So I go there [West Hollywood Sheriff’s Station] and I basically let them know I’m coming from an older friend’s house–at the time I didn’t want to speak his name. But I did initially say that I feel like I was drugged. And because I was talking rapidly and constantly looking around tryin to watch my back to see if someone was approaching me the only thing they would say is you’re tweaking. You’re under the influence and if you don’t get away from here I’m going to take you to jail for being under the influence. They didn’t care to ask who it was or where did it happen and I said well just let me write a statement down you guys can give me a number for that I can use if I need to come back it’d be available. He said okay. He gave me a paper. I wrote it down. Sat there for about ten minutes and because I was still rambling about the situation they did not want me standing in the front lobby of the department they told me to leave.
I need to pull the car over for a second right here.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department West Hollywood station did not take Damar Love seriously when he did what the police always tell us to do–say something. They took one look at him–a Black man who was under the influence of something–and immediately wrote him off as a tweaker. That is unacceptable. Had they taken Damar seriously chances are Gemmel Moore would be alive today. This incident happened to Damar on July 3 going into July 4. Gemmel died July 27.
Let us continue…
I ended up back with my girlfriend. She was hysterical because once again I was rambling. I ended up leaving her. I went to Inglewood PD. I went to Hawthorne PD. Same situation. The difference is, Hawthorne PD put me on a bus that led me in the wrong direction that I wanted to go. I asked them to put me on a bus that was going to get me to Crenshaw–Manchester. Crenshaw and Century. Somewhere around there so I could maybe walk to my family’s home. The put me on the wrong bus. The bus never went that way. I ended up on Manchester and Western. And that’s when I actually got assistance. And even when I got that assistance the ambulance told me that they heard over the radio that if this was a call for the same guy to take him jail for being under the influence. And then that’s when I kinda gained a little composure to explain myself and what was going on to a guy that was actually my age. The EMT said I don’t think you’re lying I’m going to take you to the hospital. It took me a minute to be seen but it happened eventually.
I feel like Ed Buck is a monster.
Below is a text message between Damar and his mother after the news of Gemmel Moore’s death broke.
Damar Love text message
Like Gemmel at the time of his death, currently Damar Love and his girlfriend are homeless and in need of a room to rent.
To date Ed Buck has not been arrested or charged with a crime in the death of Gemmel Moore.
A memorial service will be held on Saturday, August 19th at 2:30 p.m. at Simpson’s Family Mortuary located at 5138 S. Broadway in South Los Angeles.
To contribute to his funeral expenses, please click here.
To read my complete series on Ed Buck, please click here.