XPost: la.general, alt.politics.media, rec.arts.tv.comedy.colbert-report   
   XPost: dc.politics   
   From: nobody@dizum.com   
      
   On July 27, 2017, 26-year-old Gemmel Moore was found in the   
   bathroom of a West Hollywood, Calif., apartment belonging to Ed   
   Buck, 62. Moore was young, black and poor. Buck was white,   
   wealthy and powerful.   
      
   That’s all we know.   
      
   Moore’s family is searching for answers. Buck has not spoken   
   publicly about the incident. Police have not charged anyone with   
   a crime, even though multiple reports have surfaced that Buck   
   had a predilection for young, black men. Even after a number of   
   young, black male sex workers have stepped forward with apparent   
   photographic evidence that Buck was one of their clients. Even   
   after each one of those men separately told the same story: Not   
   only did Buck have a fetish for black men, but he was known in   
   West Hollywood’s gay community as someone paying top dollar for   
   the company of 20-something black escorts ...   
      
   But only after injecting them with drugs.   
      
   West Hollywood is known as the “symbolic heart” of LGBTQ Los   
   Angeles. During the 1930s, gay men and women gathered in bars in   
   the then-unincorporated part of the city to skirt federal and   
   state Prohibition laws. In 1967, two years before New York   
   City’s Greenwich Village Stonewall riots put the fight for gay   
   and lesbian rights on the map, a protest organized by the   
   Personal Rights in Defense and Education organization kick-   
   started the West Coast movement in West Hollywood.   
      
   Since then, the West Hollywood area has been incorporated as a   
   city and is known nationwide as a home for a thriving, affluent   
   gay population. The city is a liberal enclave and has recently   
   rebranded itself as WeHo.   
      
   Buck was born in 1954 and came out to his parents at the age of   
   16, according to WeHoville. In the 1980s, after living and   
   traveling as a male model and actor, Buck began working in   
   Arizona for a company that provided information for driver’s   
   licenses. According to WeHoville, in a 1987 interview with the   
   Arizona Republic, Buck said that he saw so much potential in the   
   struggling company that he bought it out of bankruptcy for   
   $250,000. Five years later, he sold the company for more than $1   
   million profit.   
      
   In 1987 Buck, described by the Arizona Republic in the same   
   article as a “millionaire, self-acknowledged homosexual and   
   registered Republican,” launched himself into politics by   
   leading an effort to impeach Arizona Gov. Evan Mecham.   
      
   Even though Buck’s campaign led to the successful impeachment of   
   the governor, Buck left the Republican Party because of its   
   intolerant stance on LGBTQ issues. According to the profile in   
   WeHoville, after arrests on narcotics and public indecency   
   charges, Buck eventually left Arizona and moved to West   
   Hollywood.   
      
   It was in West Hollywood that Buck became a major political   
   backer. He helped Democrat John D’Amico win a seat on the West   
   Hollywood City Council and pushed for the nation’s first ban on   
   the sale of fur products.   
      
   Although donations to political action committees don’t have to   
   be disclosed, Buck gave $2,700—the maximum amount possible—to   
   the Hillary Clinton campaign, and online sources show he has   
   donated more than $250 million to Democratic candidates. A quick   
   Google Images search turns up pictures of Buck with some of the   
   most powerful Democratic politicians in the country, including   
   Clinton and California Gov. Jerry Brown.   
      
   “If there was ever anybody in West Hollywood whose bed you   
   expected a dead body to turn up in, it was Ed Buck.” —former   
   West Hollywood Councilman Steve Martin   
      
   In 2017, Gemmel Moore relocated from Texas and moved to West   
   Hollywood. Numerous friends of Moore confirmed his struggles   
   with drugs, which, many say, were fueled by the fetishes of one   
   of his most frequent clients—Ed Buck.   
      
   Moore’s roommate and best friend, Samuel Lloyd, alleges that   
   Buck had an unhealthy obsession with Moore. “He went out there   
   searching for other men that were struggling and on the streets   
   and had no money ... men who had never experienced drugs   
   before,” said Lloyd at an October 21 community meeting. “This is   
   the kind of guys Ed Buck searched for.”   
      
   Lloyd added that Moore had grown afraid of Buck in the days   
   before his death, saying that “Gemmel was scared of this man. He   
   came and he laid in my arms and he was scared. Scared that this   
   man was going to hurt him.”   
      
   Lloyd said that Moore went to West Hollywood police a number of   
   times to warn them about Buck to no avail.   
      
   Lloyd’s allegations seem to be backed up by other men who   
   provided photographic evidence of Buck’s drug use with male   
   escorts. Damar Love provided the WeHo Times with photographs of   
   himself inside Buck’s home. According to the Times, the pictures   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)