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This is Later with Lee Matthews,
The Lee Matthews Podcast more of what you

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hear weekday Afternoon's on the Drive.
He's a pioneering auto journalist. You've seen

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him a lot, un hurdling him
a lot on the programs like This,

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American Life and All Things Considered.
He has produced a new podcast that can

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be heard everywhere you get podcasts,
including the iHeartRadio app Shattering the System.

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Basically, he covers how it is
possible for criminals of all kinds to get

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away with many unthinkable things and I
gather Scenari Glinton. This is not just

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another true crime podcast. No,
it's not you know, wealthy people laughing

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at the misfortunes of crime victims.
And it's not looking at the crime for

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pleasure. It's looking at what happens
so that we can find out what what

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are the sources that underlie this problem
of somebody being able to you know,

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two men going into your house on
two different occasions and they both died in

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the same way, and multiple people
you know say that you know, you're

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a partner is the gates of hell, But nothing happens like why, why

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is why is that? And what's
behind that? And a lot of that

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is to do. You know,
it's a tale as actually as old as

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Hollywood or really as old as time. Uh, and you you have I

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don't know if I'm more amazed that
you have several episodes of stuff like this

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or that it it seems to be
an ever present problem. Well, you

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know what the thing is is when
you look, when you look at a

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story like this, Jamal Moore and
Semiptein were three people who were who died

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of of meth overdoses essentially, and
they were you know ed Buck was convicted

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of injecting them. Right, this
is we at first on the surface,

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this story seems strange and unusual,
right that these two men would die.

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And then you look and you think, well, actually, when you stand

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on a corner there and you when
I do the math, and I think,

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well, actually this is you know, this is a story about housing,

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This is a story about drugs.
This is a story about power,

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And you think, oh, up
the street is where John Belushi passed away.

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You know, a couple of blocks
away is where Marilyn Monroe was traffic

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when she was a team. You
know, like this this part of Hollywood,

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this the using of bodies and of
people. Is not jef of gay

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bodies. It is of a lot
of bodies. There's a trap. You

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know. Los Angeles is a center
of trafficking, of human trafficking and lost

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and West Hollywood is one of those
centers and is not necessarily you know,

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gay men. But but when we
look at we often don't see these things

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that are just right under the surface, right, And that is that is

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what this is about, Like,
oh, you see this tragedy about gay

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people, and it uncovers things that
are really true about West Hollywood, the

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Hollywood system and greater Los Angeles,
one of the biggest cities in America.

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And when we look to see how
these crimes are overlooked, we can figure

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out how they're overlooked in other places. When we understand how power works in

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a place like Hollywood, we definitely
will understand how power works in a place

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like Pelsa. Right, those things
are It's about the real important thing,

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which is all politics is local.
And I believe the connection to that is

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all politics is local and all power
is local. And so if you want

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to look, when you look at
these local stories, they are about power

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and what and who's powerful in your
community, and that is that's why local

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is important. Right this man was
able to influence elections with half of a

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million dollars right in one of the
witchest cities in the country. That's all

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it took, right that. So
this is this is a show that's really

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about power, what is underlying these
crimes, and hopefully we'll get beyond you

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know this just these in future seasons. Let's hope we get to there,

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that we'll get to you know,
corporate crime or you know, uh,

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political corruption that gets overlooked, these
things that need eyeballs and you know,

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journalistic brains because you know, in
many ways we're running behind the daily,

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daily news the things that are happening, and we're not taking the time to

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do what I've always wanted to do
in public media, which is deeper asked

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the sharp questions and look for the
connections between homelessness, the drug, academic

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fentnel. All of those things come
ahead right in this apartment. If you

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just look beyond just the headline,
you'll see the stories of today. So

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Nari Glinton, the podcast is shattering
the system. Available on the iHeartRadio app

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and everywhere you get podcasts. You
deal a lot with a man named Ed

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Buck. Can you touch a little
on who Ed Buck is and what attracted

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the you to his story? Well? Ed Buck was was born ed Bernhard

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Peter Buck Melter in Steubenville, Ohio, also known for bringing us Dean Martin

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in nineteen fifty four. He's almost
seventy and he was a wealthy political donor.

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He made about a million dollars in
the nineties and he spent you know,

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over twenty years, almost thirty years
in West Hollywood, you know,

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becoming sort of a man about town
by donating money and becoming really involved in

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the founding of West Hollywood, which
is only about forty years a little the

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thing. Things sort of went awry
when Jamal Moore, twenty six year old

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gay black man, turned up dead
in his an apartment and within five days

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the case was closed and there were
still people going inside of that apartment telling

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stories of being you know, assaulted
or forced to being forced to do drugs

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in exchange for money or shelter or
even food at times. You know,

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this man was praying on a vulnerable
community right in a time when we see

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homelessness. You know, they have
seventy six thousand homeless people in the County

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of Los Angeles, and so he
had a lot of people to choose from

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while he was praying on homeless people
while he was living in a rent stabilized

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apartment. Right, this is I
mean it is. This is a story

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about Hollywood. It's about race,
it's about power, you know, it's

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about sexuality and drugs, and it
hits all of consent. You can just

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go through the wheel of issues that
should be dealt with on your local radio

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stations and it's in this story.
And that that is why we figure use

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storytelling to get to issues that are
bigger. And that is you know,

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when you have this happening in Hollywood, you know, you get the flash

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of Hollywood for people that make it
interesting and you see that this man was

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praying on vulnerable gay black men and
also that that is he is not alone,

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and it is that it is a
pattern that happens, that is happening

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across the country. We've seen and
we've seen, you know, an awareness

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of the violence that gay black men
endure, right when you don't have And

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this part of this podcast is about
representation. Right, I was often the

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only black man in Congress covering Congress, I was only black man covering you

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know, the auto industry for you
know, like I was often the only

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black man in the room, and
the issues that I find frightening or horrified

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might be a little different than other
people's. And it might be a little

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different when I cover a story about
gay black men than when someone else does.

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I mean, we see this because
it took me years to get any

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one to think it was important.
We've been It was in well over four

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years of you know, two years
of really trying to convince people that this

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is a story. And luckily,
you know, we I was able to

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hook up with Macro and which is
you know, a new interesting product auction

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company in Hollywood that's doing films like
Nope and they clone Tyron and giving black

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creators like myself the ability to tell
stories that are really really important to my

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community. And that's why I got
into media, That's why I got into

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radio, to tell intimate stories,
to get up close and to give a

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little time and not just the quickest
sound bite. And hopefully we find out

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about not just Ed Buck and what
happened in his apartment and what happens is

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to Melmoree and Timothy Dean, but
what are the systems that allows someone to

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do this, What allows this man
to abuse is as people? What puts

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these young people in this situation and
how do we keep it from happening again.

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Sonari Glinton, I'm very interested in
what you found in relation to homelessness

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because we've seen it kind of really
explode in our area over the past four

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years. And if there's a connection
between what you talk about in your podcast,

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Shattering the System, and what is
happening right here in our own backyard.

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Sonari Glinton, I'd love to talk
to you more, but we'll have

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to catch you on the podcast.
Thanks for joining us, Thank you for

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having Thanks for listening to Later with
Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast,

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and remember to listen to The Drive
Live weekday afternoons from five to seven and

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iHeart Media Presentation