ON THE NIGHT SHIFT
Tim and Bob spent their careers on the swing shift, or the P.M. shift, as it was known. This was before they became partners and after. Everything went down on the P.M. shift, and that wasn’t an understatement.
Because gangbangers were often out during the night, they didn’t start to appear until around noon and later. That’s when most criminal activity happened. By nightfall, things would be popping.
Compton was a predominantly Black city. That included the mayor, the council, the police chiefs, and the police department. The latter was unusual in that regard. Police departments around the country, irrespective of demographics, tended to be predominantly white. Most of the officers who were promoted or received special assignments in Compton were Black. That didn’t bother Tim and Bob. They loved patrolling. The streets were where the action went down, so that was where they wanted to be.
***
Early in his career, Tim worked with a guy named Bobby Baker. Baker was considered the best dope cop in the department. He was sharp. Street smart. Small, thin, and only about 5’9” or so, Baker was fearless, a formidable presence.
The Black guys in the department used to say that a white guy couldn’t work dope, not in a place like Compton, but when Baker came along he proved them wrong. He brought in more dope dealers, larger amounts of cocaine, and shut down more PCP labs than anybody, often besting the work of the actual narcotics team. Baker passed his skills on to Tim, teaching him how to work dope as well. Whenever they had a break in patrolling, Tim would drop Baker off in an area near drug dealers. Baker would hide in bushes or in a tree and watch them make their transactions. Whenever someone drove up and made a purchase, Baker would radio the description to Tim, who waited around the corner to make the arrest. After they made three or four busts, Baker would radio Tim to close in and the two of them would arrest the dealers and seize their product and any guns.
Working dope meant working the gangs. Dope was typically their main source of income. With gangs came guns and violence. Once caught in the act, hardly anyone ever surrendered without drama. It was typical for arrests to involve long foot chases and fights. Baker and Tim’s uniforms were often torn, dirty, or bloody.
One evening, circa 1985, Baker and Tim were on their patrol sometime around dusk, driving the 500 block of West Elm. This was the turf of the Tree Top Pirus (TTP), whose main trade was PCP sales, which were heavy in that area.
Baker and Tim spotted Carlos Moore, a known drug dealer, walking away from a car after just making a sale. They could smell the PCP in the air. The scent was strong, undeniable. They sped over to Carlos and hemmed him up.
Carlos took off running. Baker, riding shotgun, jumped out and took off after him on foot, heading northbound, cutting through a rear yard. Tim sped around to Cedar Street to try to head Carlos off. Just as he turned onto Cedar, he heard shots fired from the yard Baker had cut through.
Tim thought Baker must have popped off some warning shots over Carlos’ head to get him to surrender, but suddenly there was Carlos running past the front of the car, across the street, onto the grounds of a school just ahead. Carlos scaled the fence, then turned toward Tim and fired off several shots. Tim realized it must have been Carlos who fired the shots he’d heard earlier. Shit! Where was Baker? Had he been shot?
Just that quickly, Carlos was ghost, having disappeared into the bushes around the school. Tim, panicked, radioed for help.
“Shots fired at officers! Code 9!” A request for immediate backup. Tim’s heart was pounding. What if Baker was dead?
“No backup available,” the dispatcher responded.
“What!”
It was a surprise, and yet not. This was Compton. On many occasions during the P.M. shift, the department often found itself understaffed, with only three or four two-man units. There were plenty of times when there was more crime happening than the teams were able to handle. If multiple shootings or homicides occurred at the same time, all units might be busy at crime scenes. That meant if a team needed backup, they were shit out of luck.
Cops working in Compton learned fast that sometimes a unit had to get situations handled alone. They had to be prepared for that as a very real option.
Tim’s panic was escalating. He had to go find Baker. Just as he was about to get out of the car, Baker radioed that he was okay. Less than a minute later, he ran over to their vehicle and got inside.
An L.A.S.D. helicopter had been monitoring Baker and Tim’s frequency.
“Did I hear that you guys are being shot at and there’s no units available?” an incredulous voice asked over the radio.
“Yes!”
“I’ll come and help,” said the voice.
That was the difference between the Compton P.D. and the Sheriff’s Department. In Compton, sometimes there was no backup. The sheriffs, however, were always down to help everyone from surrounding stations.
The helicopter soon appeared overhead. It spotted Carlos and put lights on so he could easily be seen. Baker and Tim went after him on foot, hopping over the fence. He was in plain sight now, but they hung back, thinking he might open fire again. Carlos spun around, gun in his hand. Before they could react, he dumped it. He had already spent six rounds; the gun was empty. That didn’t mean he was finished. He still wanted to fight. He rushed at Tim. Tim had a gun and a flashlight. He pulled out the flashlight, using it as a weapon. Baker jumped in. Carlos gave up quickly, bleeding from the blows he’d taken.
Tim thanked the L.A.S.D. Air Unit, recovered the gun that Carlos had dumped, and handled the shooting scene investigation. When the shift ended, before he left, he made a point of letting the rest of the guys know that he wasn’t happy about him and Baker being on their own with no backup, especially in a situation where the suspect was shooting at them.
It was what it was. It was what came with the territory working the P.M. shift in Compton.
Over the course of Baker and Tim working together, they arrested many suspects and took down several dope houses, including large amounts of PCP, cocaine, and guns.
It was a big part of how Tim learned about gangs, and furthered prepared him for the work he would do once he was partnered with Bob.
***
Bob also worked with other partners during his early years. Like Tim, he too found himself in plenty of situations where he and his partners were caught out in the streets without adequate support. The shortage of radios was a continuous problem. A dangerous one. Sometimes there were no radios at all, which was ridiculous.
Bob was riding with Bud Johnson on a night where they didn’t have a handset when a call came in for a family disturbance on 133rd Street. When they arrived, yelling and screaming could be heard inside the house. This kind of thing wasn’t uncommon.
As soon as they were inside, the family that had been fighting teamed up and directed their rage at Bob and Johnson. Things escalated to where the two cops needed backup. It was just them against a whole family.
This was one of those moments when having a handset was crucial, but this was classic Compton, circa the eighties. A handset was a luxury. There was only the radio outside in their car.
“Go ask for a Code 9!” Johnson shouted at Bob.
Bob didn’t want to leave Johnson by himself to possibly get fucked up by this very riled-up family where he was now seen as the enemy, but there wasn’t much of a choice. Bob dashed out to the car and grabbed the mic.
“Code 9!” he yelled, and ran back inside to help Johnson. By this time, the fighting had commenced. All the family members were in on it, including the women, who were attacking both Johnson and Bob. They jumped on the cops’ backs, throwing blows in what was now a full-on melee. Bob and Johnson kept flinging them off, fighting them back as long as they could, which seemed like forever. Backup arrived pretty quickly, but a couple of minutes was a long time when it was just two people fighting an entire pissed-off family.
It was insane. Being out in the field like that without radios put police officers in life-or-death situations or, at the very least, dangerous moments where they could potentially get clobbered. It happened enough times to the point where the cops came together and complained. The city finally broke down and purchased handsets. The fact that a basic and necessary piece of equipment had to be begged for was quite telling in terms of what it was like working Compton in the eighties.
***
Bob would have several good partners during that period. He worked with Eric Perrodin, Angie Myles, Juan Pena, and Duane Bookman.
Bookman was a 6’2 dark-skinned Black guy with a short afro. He was senior to Bob and funny as hell, but he had a reputation on the streets - where he worked dope - for kicking ass.
One night while working together, Bookman and Bob decided to stir up some action on the 1300 block of East Glencoe Street. The area was known for drug sales. There was one particular dope house run by a Samoan gang aligned with the South Side Crips.
Bookman and Bob donned jackets over their uniforms. Bob carried a twelve-gauge shotgun under his. They parked on Greenleaf Street, cut through some yards, then hid in the bushes across the street from the Samoan gang house. Two marked units were around the corner on Long Beach Boulevard, waiting to be called.
Several gang members, about six or so, stood out front doing drug transactions. The main dealer was among them, a huge Samoan guy who ran the whole operation. Bookman and Bob remained in the bushes, watching it all go down.
Bookman looked at Bob. “You ready?”
Bob was ready.
They emerged from the bushes and walked across the street. They knew the gangsters would be armed. Bookman and Bob were in plain jackets so it wouldn’t be clear right away who they were. Since Bob was white, he walked behind Bookman so they wouldn’t see him. The gangbangers would see the Black guy first and maybe not go on the offensive as quickly.
The gangbangers noticed them, startled. It was as if Bookman and Bob materialized from nowhere. They stared as Bookman and Bob approached. Once they were within fifteen feet, Bob whipped out the shotgun from under his jacket and racked in a round.
“Police, motherfuckers!” he yelled. “Get on the ground!” Bookman called in the backup as Bob went full Dirty Harry.
Three of the gangbangers dropped to the ground. Bob noticed one of them toss away a gun. The other three - including the main dealer, the huge guy - headed for the house. They made it inside, shutting the door behind them. Bookman was on their heels as the two marked cars that had been waiting screeched up to the house.
“Watch the guys on the ground!” Bob told the arriving cops as he rushed over to help Bookman, who was busy kicking in the door of the dope house.
Bookman burst inside and caught the main dealer in the living room. He slammed the guy to the ground. Bob, still holding his shotgun, kicked one of the other gangbangers. The guy went flying over the couch. When he landed, Bob was leaning over him, the barrel of the shotgun right in his face.
“You move and I’ll blow your fucking head off!” he said.
What would eventually become the fever-pitch War on Drugs was starting to get its footing. Gangbanging dope dealers like the guys at this house, helped create addicts and brought guns and violence into the community. They were seen as death merchants, and were treated as such.
Bookman handcuffed the main dealer as more backup arrived. The house was full of people who were known back then as “cluck-heads” - users, someone hooked on cocaine. A huge cache of weapons and drugs was also discovered in the house. Bookman and Bob were both riding an adrenaline high from what they’d accomplished by taking this place down.
They high-fived each other.
This was cowboy stuff, what real crime-fighting was all about, and Bob loved it. He was making a name for himself in the department for not being afraid to chase down gangsters.
***
For a while, Tim worked with an officer named Myron Davis. The two of them had a lot of fun together doing high-octane, action-packed policing. Myron was energetic and a super-fast runner. That worked out well because dope dealers and people who carried guns loved to run when they were about to be arrested. A lot of people weren’t built for giving chase, but Myron and Tim were. They built a reputation for catching criminals.
Myron sometimes did undercover work for the Narcotics Bureau where he would accompany an informant and do drug buys. In one instance, Myron had to smoke some cocaine so the dealers, who were armed, wouldn’t know he wasn’t a cop. This set off a downward spiral where he eventually became hooked. Tim had no idea Myron had developed an addiction to rock cocaine. He was a hyper to begin with, so when his behavior became erratic, Tim assumed it was in keeping with his high-key personality.
One day when Tim and Myron had just left after the shift briefing, a call came over the radio about shots being fired on the west side. Tim and Myron were about a block away from the station, heading east on Compton Boulevard from Willowbrook Avenue. It was around 5:00 p.m., rush hour. Myron was behind the wheel.
“Shots fired” calls were so common in Compton, they didn’t even warrant a Code 3, which meant turning on lights and sirens. Units still rushed over with a sense of urgency, but without the fanfare that signaled to drivers and pedestrians to clear the way.
Back then, the department still had paper police logs, and Tim was in the process of filling in one when the call came in. His head was down. Myron made a sharp U-turn and was speeding through a red light at the intersection. Tim glanced up just as community bus slammed into him, demolishing his side of the police car. The top of the doorframe caved in on his head. Tim’s body was badly banged up and bruised and he ended up with twelve stitches in his face, but he went back to work the next day. Myron, however, complained of chest pains and was off for several weeks.
A short time after that, Myron called a lieutenant, admitting to his coke addiction and requesting help with his problem. He was unceremoniously fired. Back then, there wasn’t much empathy in the department for someone with a drug problem.
Myron wasn’t the only one. Another cop who’d gone to the academy with Tim, a guy named Ted Brown, also got hooked. He, too, was fired.
Tim was then partnered up with a cop named Ed Jackson. They also worked well together.
The two were having hamburgers on the hood of their police car one night in the parking lot of the Jack in the Box on Central Avenue. There was a loud crash at the drive-thru of the Kentucky Fried Chicken next door. As usual, Tim and Ed didn’t get to finish eating. A Black teen, a member of the Carver Park Crips, ran right toward them, a purse in one hand, a revolver in the other.
Tim and Ed saw him. The teen saw them. The kid’s getaway car pulled up. Whoever was inside saw Tim and Ed, too. Tim and Ed began firing at the suspect and the vehicle. The shot-up getaway car took off, sans the passenger. The kid, literally left holding the bag and bleeding from a .45 caliber bullet wound to his arm, ran into a yard across the street. Tim and Ed caught him and took him in.
A great partner and a damn good cop, Ed eventually tired of working for a police department where he could never finish his lunch. He moved on to calmer pastures at the Redondo Beach Police Department and joined Tim’s academy partners Bud Johnson, Rene Fontenot, and Tom Eskridge.
Tim continued to eat his meals interrupted.
He had no plans to leave the wild and crazy ride that was the city of Compton.
***
During all of this, Tim met Joanna Ramirez, a pretty, petite nineteen-year-old Latino girl who worked as a Records Clerk at the Compton P.D. It was the fall of 1982.
Two and a half years later, he and Joanna were married. Three years later, in 1987, the entire department celebrated the birth of their son, Brian. Three years after that, in 1990, they celebrated the birth of daughter, Jamie.
Joanna Brennan, née Ramirez.
The Compton P.D. family also gathered around Tim in support in 1990 when he was struck head-on by a vehicle while he was on the freeway driving to work. The vehicle had catapulted over the center divide and crashed right into him. Tim’s fellow officers drove Joanna to the hospital, and they were there to support him during the three months he went through rehabilitation.
They rallied around him again in 1994, when, during an outing in the desert, Tim was thrown from his truck and it rolled over him. He suffered a massive skull fracture, a severely swollen neck, broken ribs, collarbone, and vertebrae, a torn artery in his chest, and his scalp was pulled from his head. He would also contract pneumonia as a result of the trauma to his body.
His Compton P.D. colleagues drove Joanna five hours to the hospital where he was taken. The department took up a donation and gave her several hundred dollars to cover her hotel stays while Tim was in the hospital. He was in Intensive Care for eleven days and Joanna was by his side the whole time.
“He’s probably not going to live through the night,” the doctor had told her when Tim was first brought in.
Tim lived through many nights. After four months of rehabilitation, he returned to work, back to the Compton P.D., which had stood by him and his wife like family.
Tim and the city were alike in many ways. Rough and tumble. Through all the bumps, bruises, traumas, and near-deaths, they both constantly proved resilient, always determined to push through and be right back at it again.
***
By the eighties, Compton had become more violent than it was in the seventies. Pirus had spread throughout the city from the west side to the north side to the east city limits. They all had rivalries with their Crip counterparts.
The Crips, who vastly outnumbered Pirus, also fought against each other. Pirus, however, maintained alliances among their various sets until the nineties. The names adopted by the sets of both gangs were based on streets in their neighborhoods or parks in their area. Acacia Blocc Crips. Holly Hood Piru. Kelly Park Crips. Lueders Park Piru (to which Death Row Records head Suge Knight had strong ties). There was even a set on the east side known as the Spook Town Crips, in reference to Compton being a then-predominantly Black city.
Tim and Bob worked with several Black and white cops who had grown up in Compton. People like John Wilkinson, Jack McConnell, Hourie Taylor (who would play a major role in their careers), Bobbie Knapp, Red Mason, and Betty Marlow.
All of them had great memories of the “Hub City” in the sixties, describing it as “the place to be.” In the sixties, there had been car dealerships up and down Long Beach Boulevard, which used to be the big cruising spot on Saturday nights.
John Wilkinson, “Wilk” - a tall, thin, chain-smoking white guy with sandy brown hair and a thick mustache - had grown up on Tichenor Street and Willowbrook in the heart of the city, and had seen firsthand all the changes Compton had gone through. He was a true one-of-a-kind who loved his beer and his Harley. Wilk was an honest, straightforward guy, but he was extremely set in his ways. He told stories of how Compton used to be and how it had changed as he’d grown up as one of the last white guys in the city. He’d started working at the Compton P.D. in 1972. His mom, who was there when he joined, had been a civilian employee for the department for many years. Wilk spoke of how Compton had changed drastically after the Watts Riots in 1965. By the late seventies, he had saved enough money to buy a house for himself and his parents in Long Beach. Like so many other whites who’d moved out of the city before him, Compton was no longer where Wilk wanted to be.
***
Despite all the stories of the way things used to be, the Compton Tim and Bob were dealing with when they joined the force was the only one they knew and, as such, the only one that mattered.
They individually earned reputations for being daredevils - fearless, willing to dive through the windows of dope houses and chase and fight gangbangers. Neither was the type to give up when it came to pursuing a criminal. Both men liked to win.
It was inevitable they would eventually come together as partners. Each had made their bones on the P.M. shift, learning the ins and outs of gangs, understanding the pulse and rhythm of the city.
Joining forces to dive through more windows and crash more dope houses would turn out to be more business as usual.
All in a night’s work.