Remembering Gemmel Moore Two Years Later

Please join the family and friends of Gemmel Moore as we remember him two years after his death in the apartment of Ed Buck. We will renew our call for District Attorney Jackie Lacey to prosecute Ed Buck for the deaths of Gemmel Moore and Timothy Dean as well as his other crimes committed against countless Black gay men.

Gemmel Moore was 26 when he died of a crystal meth overdose in Democratic donor Ed Buck’s West Hollywood home on July 27, 2017.

His death was immediately classified as an accidental methamphetamine overdose by the coroner. 19 days later after Moore’s journal was publicly published by journalist Jasmyne Cannick and appeared in news reports, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s homicide bureau opened an investigation.

In his journal, Moore wrote, “I honestly don’t know what to do. I’ve become addicted to drugs and the worst one at that,” a December entry reads. “Ed Buck is the one to thank. He gave me my first injection of crystal meth it was very painful, but after all the troubles, I became addicted to the pain and fetish/fantasy.”

“My life is at an alltime [sic] high right now & I mean that from all ways. I ended up back at Buck [sic] house again and got munipulated [sic] into slamming again. I even went to the point where I was forced to doing 4 within a 2day [sic] period. This man is crazy and its [sic] sad. Will I ever get help?”

“Slamming” refers to gay men injecting drugs such as mephedrone, GHB, or crystal meth.

Moore’s last entry, dated December 3, 2016, reads, “If it didn’t hurt so bad, I’d kill myself, but I’ll let Ed Buck do it for now.”

According to the coroner's report, paramedics found Moore naked on a mattress in the living room with "a male pornography movie playing on the television."

According to the report, a coroner’s investigator found the following items in Buck’s two-bedroom apartment: 24 syringes with brown residue, five glass pipes with white residue and burn marks, a plastic straw with possible white residue, clear plastic bags with white powdery residue and a clear plastic bag with a “piece of crystal-like substance.”

Since Moore’s journal was published, other young Black gay men have come forward with photos, emails, and text messages recounting similar stories involving Buck and accusing him of being a sexual predator, kidnapping, forced drug use, injecting unconscious black gay men with crystal meth, filing false police reports to cover his crimes, coercion, pimping, and pandering.

On July 26, 2018, prosecutors declined to file charges against Ed Buck in connection with Gemmel Moore's death, citing insufficient evidence.

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said that the “admissible evidence is insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt” that Buck gave Gemmel Moore drugs or is responsible for his death.