Comments on: Chuck Philips Again Attempts to Discredit Witness Who Accused Him of Corruption — Without Disclosing the Allegations the Witness Made

By: Patterico

Patterico — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 04:12:36 +0000

Guess I should. Thanks.

By: DRJ

DRJ — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 02:07:00 +0000

Do you also want to take out or strike through the following italicized sentence from the first update?

[Actually, I take that back. See the 4-7-08 update below. — P]

By: Patterico

Patterico — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 01:43:05 +0000

I briefly (I think for a day or two) had a second update saying that my update above was wrong, and that I was originally right — the story referred to Hackie. Thing is, I soon concluded that the update above is right. So I just took the second update down, to avoid a confusing scenario where I ping-pong back and forth between updates saying the previous update was wrong. But I thought I’d memorialize the whole silly thing somewhere, hence this comment.

By: Kevin Hackie

Kevin Hackie — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 05:55:24 +0000

Chuck Phillips, was present at Death Row events,I
had never implied that he was on the payroll,
I worked as a undercover Agent for the F.B.I, while being a sworn Police Officer at no time in my reports, wiretaps, dose it say that Phillips was on the take. My Investigation went on for 3 years.

By: Susan

Susan — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 03:28:05 +0000

I was surprised to see Chuck Phillips’ byline on the article this morning. I’ve followed this case closely & have been mystified how the Times has never rebutted the charges (detailed in the Sullivan Rolling Stone article) against Phillips. Even WITHOUT that background, one could read today’s article & suspect bias:

Calling Poole a “junior investigator” who first advanced the theory that Mack, Muhammad & Knight were involved. There’s no such thing as a “junior investigator” at the LAPD, and Poole with 18 years on the job & lots of detective experience, certainly wasn’t a novice.

Phillips writes that “The leading theory being pursued by the LAPD task force involves the possibility that Wallace was killed by a member of Compton’s vicious Southside Crips gang” according to (unnamed) law enforcement sources. Throughout the article he also poo-poos the theory that Mack & the others were involved. The whole TONE of the article is “there’s NOTHING To THAT theory” and now the suspicion is rightfully on the gang involvement.

Yet Phillip also writes that “The FBI… closed its investigation of Wallace’s murder, finding there was ‘no basis for prosecution’ after spending 18 months investigating the possibility that Mack, Muhammad and Knight orchestrated the killing.”

If the FBI took 18 months, finally deciding that there was “no basis for prosecution” I would say there was (& is) LOTS of evidence pointing the way of Mack et al.

(Phillips seems to be impressed by the fact that one of the “new” gang-suspects in the case had a black impala, just like the Smalls’ shooter. Of course he fails to mention that Mack had a black impala, too!)

Anyway, all this said, because Phillips was personally implicated… maybe unfairly… but the charges are (at least) somewhat credible & have never been addressed, its hard not to be critical of his reporting.

As an aside, for those hoping that this new Task Force will find some answers about this case, don’t hold your breath! The new captain, Kyle Jackson, has an extremely poor reputation inside the Department, and it is being said that those working for him are upset & frustrated– not necessarily those working this Task Force– I haven’t heard anything specifically about them. As an interesting sidenote to Jackson, his son was recently arrested for armed robbery, and was caught using his mother’s duty weapon (she’s on the department, too.)

By: Les Jones

Les Jones — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 03:19:47 +0000

Patrick, no one else is commenting, so I will. Keep up the coverage on the whole Tupac/Biggie/Suge Knight/LA Times/Gaines/Mack/Perez story. Some of us are still very interested.