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Sex Money Murder: A Story of Crack, Blood, and Betrayal
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Bronx had one of the highest per capita murder rates in the country. The use of crack cocaine surged, replacing heroin as the high of choice. Drug dealers claimed territory through intimidation and murder, and families found themselves fractured by crime and incarceration. Chronicling the rise and fall of Sex Money Murder, one of the most notorious gangs of its era, reporter Jonathan Green creates a visceral and devastating portrait of a New York City borough, and the dedicated detectives and prosecutors struggling to stop the tide of violence.
The setting is Soundview, one of the city’s most dangerous projects, where we encounter the gangsters Suge and Pipe, and the charismatic leader of Sex Money Murder, Pistol Pete. We also meet the dedicated policemen, like rookie housing cop Pete Forcelli and seasoned Detective John O’Malley, risking their lives to make a difference. It’s a world in which dealers get their hands dirty simply by counting the hundreds of thousands of dollars of cash they make on a monthly basis, watch Scarface while smoking spliffs between shootings, and coolly assassinate rivals during a neighborhood football game; and where nothing is more important than preserving your honor and expanding your domain—with force. Breaking up the gang is a legal feat, but their murderous reputation and the expansion of their drug operation across state lines means that Sex Money Murder draws the attention of the Feds—the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol and Firearms—and the persevering federal prosecutors Liz Glazer and Nicole LaBarbera, who will use RICO (the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) to go after the drug crews.
Drawing on years of research and extraordinary access to gang leaders, law enforcement, and federal prosecutors, Green delivers an epic character-driven narrative and an engrossing work of gritty urban reportage. Magisterial in its scope, Sex Money Murder offers a unique perspective on the violence raging in modern-day America and the battle to end it.
The setting is Soundview, one of the city’s most dangerous projects, where we encounter the gangsters Suge and Pipe, and the charismatic leader of Sex Money Murder, Pistol Pete. We also meet the dedicated policemen, like rookie housing cop Pete Forcelli and seasoned Detective John O’Malley, risking their lives to make a difference. It’s a world in which dealers get their hands dirty simply by counting the hundreds of thousands of dollars of cash they make on a monthly basis, watch Scarface while smoking spliffs between shootings, and coolly assassinate rivals during a neighborhood football game; and where nothing is more important than preserving your honor and expanding your domain—with force. Breaking up the gang is a legal feat, but their murderous reputation and the expansion of their drug operation across state lines means that Sex Money Murder draws the attention of the Feds—the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol and Firearms—and the persevering federal prosecutors Liz Glazer and Nicole LaBarbera, who will use RICO (the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) to go after the drug crews.
Drawing on years of research and extraordinary access to gang leaders, law enforcement, and federal prosecutors, Green delivers an epic character-driven narrative and an engrossing work of gritty urban reportage. Magisterial in its scope, Sex Money Murder offers a unique perspective on the violence raging in modern-day America and the battle to end it.
432 pages, Hardcover
First published May 15, 2018
159 people are currently reading
1583 people want to read
About the author
Jonathan Green
3 books77 followersJonathan Green is an award-winning author and investigative journalist specializing in narrative non-fiction.
Sex Money Murder: A Story of Crack, Blood and Betrayal tells the story of the infamous Bronx gang through inside access to gangsters and the federal agents, police officers and prosecutors who took them down. It was an Edgar finalist by Mystery Writers of America and a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Pick.
His first book, Murder in the High Himalaya, won the coveted Banff Mountain Book Competition in the Mountain and Wilderness Category and the American Society of Journalists and Authors Outstanding Non Fiction Book of the Year. The book is endorsed by the Dalai Lama and actor Richard Gere. It was translated into Polish in 2016. (Trivia: The book and the story of Kelsang Namtso served as the inspiration for the song Absconders by Canadian Metal band Gorguts on their critically acclaimed album, Colored Sands.)
Green has reported from Sudan on jihadist militias, the guerilla-controlled jungles of Colombia on the cocaine trade, corruption in oil-rich Kazakhstan and the destruction of the rainforest in Borneo among many other demanding assignments around the globe. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Men's Journal, British Esquire, Fast Company, and British GQ among others.
He has been the recipient of the Amnesty International Media Award for Excellence in Human Rights Journalism, the American Society of Journalists and Authors award for reporting on a significant topic, Environment Story of the Year by the Foreign Press Association and Feature Writer of the Year in the Press Gazette Magazine and Design Awards among many others. His work has been anthologized in the Best American Crime Writing. On winning Exclusive of the Year at the Magazine Design and Journalism Awards the judges said, "It shows Green's painstaking research and dogged determination and belief that a story must be followed to the bitter end."
Jonathan has been interviewed about his work on CNN, the BBC and NPR among others.
Sex Money Murder: A Story of Crack, Blood and Betrayal tells the story of the infamous Bronx gang through inside access to gangsters and the federal agents, police officers and prosecutors who took them down. It was an Edgar finalist by Mystery Writers of America and a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Pick.
His first book, Murder in the High Himalaya, won the coveted Banff Mountain Book Competition in the Mountain and Wilderness Category and the American Society of Journalists and Authors Outstanding Non Fiction Book of the Year. The book is endorsed by the Dalai Lama and actor Richard Gere. It was translated into Polish in 2016. (Trivia: The book and the story of Kelsang Namtso served as the inspiration for the song Absconders by Canadian Metal band Gorguts on their critically acclaimed album, Colored Sands.)
Green has reported from Sudan on jihadist militias, the guerilla-controlled jungles of Colombia on the cocaine trade, corruption in oil-rich Kazakhstan and the destruction of the rainforest in Borneo among many other demanding assignments around the globe. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Men's Journal, British Esquire, Fast Company, and British GQ among others.
He has been the recipient of the Amnesty International Media Award for Excellence in Human Rights Journalism, the American Society of Journalists and Authors award for reporting on a significant topic, Environment Story of the Year by the Foreign Press Association and Feature Writer of the Year in the Press Gazette Magazine and Design Awards among many others. His work has been anthologized in the Best American Crime Writing. On winning Exclusive of the Year at the Magazine Design and Journalism Awards the judges said, "It shows Green's painstaking research and dogged determination and belief that a story must be followed to the bitter end."
Jonathan has been interviewed about his work on CNN, the BBC and NPR among others.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 83 reviews
January 29, 2023
Because a writer draws satisfaction from his labors.
June 16, 2018
This book reads like a mashup of David Simon's HOMICIDE and Jill Leovy's GHETTOSIDE, but with even greater compassion for young men who turn to crime out of desperation, greed, or simply because it's what they know how to do. Highly recommended.
May 4, 2018
If you think you know the story of crack, gangs and violence in New York City in the 1980s and '90s, think again and read Sex Money Murder, a powerful chronicle of the rise and fall of one of the most violent modern gangs in New York. Richly detailed and meticulously documented, SMM reflects years of research and dogged reporting from author Jonathan Green, a seasoned journalist with an eye and an ear for taut storytelling. I was one of Green's readers for the book, and watched with excitement as SMM took shape. This is no run-of-the-mill, true crime history based on police blotters and court documents. Extensive interviews Green conducted with gang members, detectives and prosecutors who brought down SMM anchor the book and give a vitality and clarity that would otherwise be impossible to capture. In one section, for example, Green describes how Emilio "Pipe" Romero stood over the corpse of a man named Kiron, who had been shot by another SMM member. "Pipe noticed that a single spot of blood had landed and spread on the clean white toe of Kiron's Nikes." Such vivid moments routinely made their way into Green's notebook, and from there, into the pages of the book.
At the heart of SMM -- both the book and the gang -- is a place dear to its members but virtually unknown in the wealthy avenues of Manhattan: the Soundview Houses, a geographically isolated, economically throttled public housing development in the Bronx. Green puts the flourishing criminal enterprise of SMM into the context it deserves, documenting how the racist architect of modern New York, Robert Moses, deliberately cut off Soundview from the rest of the city, creating an environment in which opportunity withered and poverty and crime flourished. It's in Soundview's bleak alleys and rank stairwells that SMM sprouted, its teenage founders giddy with the allure of drug wealth and drunk from the fearful respect that accompanied their willingness to unleash violent retribution for the most trivial slight. From Soundview's pebbly rooftop, the gangsters look down on the domain they terrorize, and they like what they see.
It is a head-spinning cast of characters, but the book largely revolves around five characters. On the gangster side of the ledger are SMM founders Shawn aka "Suge," "Pipe" Romero and Peter "Pistol Pete" Rollock, who came up together in Soundview. On the law enforcement side, there's U.S. prosecutor John O'Malley and New York City police detective Pete Forcelli. Make no mistake: Green doesn't fall into the trap of portraying the characters as one-dimensional "super-predators," to use the flawed 1990s shorthand for ultra-violent youth. Yes, SMM is ruthless and merciless, but the gang also lived by a code -- albeit a flawed one -- that revolved around a kind of twisted loyalty to Soundview, their island of geographic and economic isolation. The gangsters fetishize violence, but they also have loves and regrets, remorse and -- in some cases -- redemption of sorts. Some of the most surprising moments in the book come when the orbits of SMM members briefly intersect with well-known names in pop culture -- Nas, Puff Daddy, Tyra Banks -- bringing into relief how the influence of the gang reached far beyond the Bronx.
Green's sympathetic storytelling also extends to the prosecutors, depicting them as hard-nosed but willing to pierce the gang's veil of secrecy and violence to appeal to the good -- as well as the thirst for self-preservation -- in the young men they prosecuted. Perhaps most importantly, Green reveals how prosecutors realized that they could apply federal conspiracy laws in new and creative ways to bring down SMM, in much the same way as the Italian mob.
The book is as unflinching as the triggermen and OGs that Green writes about, and SMM can be hard to read -- the violence is real and graphic, and the lack of remorse for odious actions can be infuriating. But it combines the best elements of narrative journalism with the history and context that this fraught moment in the 1990s demands. It's a complex and nuanced story that deserves to be told with the advantage of hindsight. Green achieves that, and much more.
At the heart of SMM -- both the book and the gang -- is a place dear to its members but virtually unknown in the wealthy avenues of Manhattan: the Soundview Houses, a geographically isolated, economically throttled public housing development in the Bronx. Green puts the flourishing criminal enterprise of SMM into the context it deserves, documenting how the racist architect of modern New York, Robert Moses, deliberately cut off Soundview from the rest of the city, creating an environment in which opportunity withered and poverty and crime flourished. It's in Soundview's bleak alleys and rank stairwells that SMM sprouted, its teenage founders giddy with the allure of drug wealth and drunk from the fearful respect that accompanied their willingness to unleash violent retribution for the most trivial slight. From Soundview's pebbly rooftop, the gangsters look down on the domain they terrorize, and they like what they see.
It is a head-spinning cast of characters, but the book largely revolves around five characters. On the gangster side of the ledger are SMM founders Shawn aka "Suge," "Pipe" Romero and Peter "Pistol Pete" Rollock, who came up together in Soundview. On the law enforcement side, there's U.S. prosecutor John O'Malley and New York City police detective Pete Forcelli. Make no mistake: Green doesn't fall into the trap of portraying the characters as one-dimensional "super-predators," to use the flawed 1990s shorthand for ultra-violent youth. Yes, SMM is ruthless and merciless, but the gang also lived by a code -- albeit a flawed one -- that revolved around a kind of twisted loyalty to Soundview, their island of geographic and economic isolation. The gangsters fetishize violence, but they also have loves and regrets, remorse and -- in some cases -- redemption of sorts. Some of the most surprising moments in the book come when the orbits of SMM members briefly intersect with well-known names in pop culture -- Nas, Puff Daddy, Tyra Banks -- bringing into relief how the influence of the gang reached far beyond the Bronx.
Green's sympathetic storytelling also extends to the prosecutors, depicting them as hard-nosed but willing to pierce the gang's veil of secrecy and violence to appeal to the good -- as well as the thirst for self-preservation -- in the young men they prosecuted. Perhaps most importantly, Green reveals how prosecutors realized that they could apply federal conspiracy laws in new and creative ways to bring down SMM, in much the same way as the Italian mob.
The book is as unflinching as the triggermen and OGs that Green writes about, and SMM can be hard to read -- the violence is real and graphic, and the lack of remorse for odious actions can be infuriating. But it combines the best elements of narrative journalism with the history and context that this fraught moment in the 1990s demands. It's a complex and nuanced story that deserves to be told with the advantage of hindsight. Green achieves that, and much more.
July 10, 2018
The story was good, but I found myself wanting more depth. I never felt as if I got to know the gang members. I learned of their crimes and the details around them, but I wanted more depth, more introspection from someone. After a while, it just started to feel like a dry recitation of facts, even if the facts are juicy.
August 12, 2018
This book is fantastic. Brilliant, character driven portrait of the crack epidemic and the gangs that animated the streets in parts of NYC in the late '80's and nineties. Long overdue piece of history.
November 14, 2018
HBO's most overrated show The Wire was best when showing the intricacies to the management and development of crack dealers in the towers. $MM follows youth in the Bronx back in the 90's who followed the same business model of The Wire's Baltimore counterparts. What makes the book so much greater than the wire is that 1/4 of the story isn't about fat chuds at the shipping yard or Littlefinger trying to progress into a prominent government role.
$MM showcases the titular gang from when they were just kids trying to get theirs to when they are slightly older kids rolling in the skrilla and bottling Nas in the nightclub.
If you like true crime, and inside look at gangs as a successful business, and can stomach some moderately detailed murders, this is a book for you. If that's not your jam, are we even friends?
$MM showcases the titular gang from when they were just kids trying to get theirs to when they are slightly older kids rolling in the skrilla and bottling Nas in the nightclub.
If you like true crime, and inside look at gangs as a successful business, and can stomach some moderately detailed murders, this is a book for you. If that's not your jam, are we even friends?
July 17, 2018
This was an excellent book. The rise of a vicious gang in the Bronx in the dawning of the Crack epidemic. The inside story from the gangsters, detectives and prosecutors. It reads like a deadly, sprawling saga and that is exactly what it all was. On the streets, in jail and in prison. Gangsters turning "rat" on their gang brothers. Some of the earliest rap superstars and big models of the time are on the periphery. I absolutely loved it. I would have happily read another 400 pages. 5 years in the writing and the reader is lucky for such an extensively researched book that is a fascinating read.
February 22, 2018
This is a compelling read. Part social history, part personal history of some of the members of the Sex Money Murder gang on the Bronx. Perhaps one of the most shocking points is just how young these boys are and why they did what they did.
June 25, 2018
The review in the NYTs for SMM describes Jonathan Green’s latest work best. Green successfully followed all the players in this period of history on both sides of the law in a way that, while completely unbiased, caused me to empathize and attach to all of their lives. This story is unbelievable, literally unbelievable, so often I had to remind myself that this was sadly all true. As much as I enjoyed SMM, it also taught me many aspects of our urban infrastructures-the “how” and “why “ behind the failures of what was intended to raise the marginalized from despair. Green also chronicles the infiltration of SMM into smaller inner cities like Springfield, Massachusetts and Buffalo, New York. The demise of SMM was a unique result of multiple law enforcement divisions on federal, regional, and local levels forming a brilliant and successful collaboration. If the review in NYTs is of interest, this piece of literature will be impossible to put down and will undoubtedly be a favorite book for all to read while enjoying a few lessons along the way.
June 21, 2018
This is one hell of a true story, an example of nonfiction at its purest and very best. The level of reporting that went into this is exceptional, far beyond what you'll find in most any other book. The skillful way Green weaves the narrative together reveals an important American story that resonated with me long after I finished the final page.
June 18, 2018
Really good book. Well written and captivating. Found it fascinating to see the inner working of a gang and some of the things they experienced. The betrayal and young age of all the people was staggering. A whole different world that I can't imagine growing up in.
June 8, 2018
Last week I was browsing through my usual sections at Barnes looking for something new to read on my list. This book wasn't even on my radar until I passed by it. It looked right up my alley from the cover, so I opened it up and read the first page. I knew it was a must have.
If you're interested in books about gangs, crimes, drugs, murder, basically all the underworld elements America embraces through gangster rap music, this is for you. It even features brief encounters with Puffy at the early rise of Bad Boy.
I enjoyed this book thoroughly, Green really took his time to research this book and give you a direct look into a notorious Bronx Street Gang from their infancy up to the induction into the United Blood Nation and how it all went down.
I won't say anymore as I don't want to spoil or give anything away.
If you're interested in books about gangs, crimes, drugs, murder, basically all the underworld elements America embraces through gangster rap music, this is for you. It even features brief encounters with Puffy at the early rise of Bad Boy.
I enjoyed this book thoroughly, Green really took his time to research this book and give you a direct look into a notorious Bronx Street Gang from their infancy up to the induction into the United Blood Nation and how it all went down.
I won't say anymore as I don't want to spoil or give anything away.
June 12, 2018
An exceptional piece of reporting about a dark period of history in the Bronx.
June 12, 2018
Gangs and drugs in the Bronx--fascinating read.
May 24, 2018
Fantastic book.
February 17, 2018
An interesting read.
December 13, 2024
It’s an ambitious book with plenty of ground to cover. It succeeds in some critical areas, laying out the place, the people, the crime and the aftermath.
This book wants to be Black ‘Good Fellas’ with Pipe, Sugar and Codd playing the role of Ray Liotta, and LEAs like O’Malley, Forcelli, Bourroughs, and task force attorneys like Glazer, La Barbera coming across as clean-cut as the Untouchables. That should please Pistol Pete Rollock, enamoured with Italian mafia and the movie ‘Scarface’, though chances of him getting it are slim.
The book took 5 years to write and publish and yet, no one from the projects spoke to the author, not even people from the local church! His only two Soundview ‘informants’ / interviewees are Sugar, introduced by O’Malley, and Pete, introduced by Sugar. And they are from SMM, not ordinary citizens.
SMM comes across as a small-fish petty drug running gang of 12 teenagers from Soundview housing projects who are not very bright and get caught only because it was easy to catch them under RICO laws and Weed and Seed program.
The consumer side is left untouched. I don’t know who SMM’s customers were (apart from some rappers) if all they were doing was selling crack etc. on Cozy Corner (corner of Randall and Rosedale Avenues), and then in night clubs, or laundering money via autoshops or rap music. I didn’t find out how they got their guns. I didn’t find out how the gangs of Castle Hill and Soundview kept the streets and citizens hostage. All the murders are of people associated with the drug business minus the killing of a man, Tony Morton, looking for directions, essentially at the wrong place.
And I found out that deaths of these kids reported in NY media glossed over their lives, not giving full details of who they were and what they actually did for a living, underplaying or fudging the reality of life in these neighborhoods.
The book has no maps, and no pictures of any key individual, not even the convicted, and no table of ‘who’s who’.
Karlton Hines, Anthony Dunkley and David ‘Twin’ Mullins are written and remembered in this book as if each were the second coming of Jesus Christ and had futures as bright as his, cut short by Brutuses.
The women of Soundview are the real heroes of this book, their resilience to survive, do anything to thrive, is inspiring and nauseating.
I thought O’Malley taking Pipe on a tour of Soundview to show he grew up in the same place but had a different result as a classic case of white privilege: O’Malley came from a settled, non-divorced, middle class family with police officers as relatives, only son with 2 siblings, living in a good neighborhood called Clason Point, got a peer-pressure-free uneventful peaceful education till college from good institutions, married an officer’s daughter, together they could afford to move into a better location through a house loan from her mother - a sum they returned in a year’s time - and then moved to yet another house and location on his paltry detective salary and her nursing income! What did he have in common with a black boy cooking food for his 6 younger siblings in a shabby apartment, with trips to foster care, a drug-addicted mother with a low-paying job who stole stuff from stores to pay bills, father a career criminal who was in and out of jail all the time, relatives poor and criminal, no educational structure or authority figure other than a 14-year old Pete, who was by contrast a well-to-do privately schooled son of a gangster, who wanted an 11-year old Pipe to join his petty drugs-delivery business! When he joined his mother didn’t even bat an eye and no one came to ‘rescue’ him from the streets! And by the age of 24, he was facing a life sentence. It’s a miracle Pipe made a semblance of a normal ordinary life without any help and is still alive.
I felt Pipe was treated despicably by LEAs during his time as an ‘informant’, he didn’t get the support he deserved, though everyone is a nice person trying to do the right thing.
The paragraphs on comparing the deteriorating Soundview housing project and how ‘Oscar Newman giving residents a greater stake in their homes in Clason Point Gardens’ made a difference, needed to be explained.
I started understanding the correlation between great rap and drug gangs and why murdered men from both are considered martyrs.
Quotable Passages:
When I started this book, I hoped to interview members of the Soundview community, but most attempts to reach ordinary residents met with defeat. I called those who had been at the Weed and Seed ceremony. No one returned my calls. I emailed; no one answered. I called the Catholic Church. No one called back. I met with prominent local activists who derided my attempts to write about the neighborhood as ‘poverty porn.’ Promises of help never materialized.
Black drug dealers murdering black drug dealers was a problem one wanted to deal with.....the murders of black kids barely made the papers.....Forcelli had seen boys in the (Soundview) neighborhoods come of age in the early days of crack, carrying out shootings before they’d been through puberty. They reminded him of child soldiers in Africa, hardened to violence by years of exposure, eyes bloodshot from weed, and unquestioningly subservient to neighborhood gangsters who acted like rebel commanders. Forcelli had chased down kids armed with machine guns who had enough money stashed in their apartments to pay his salary for five years.
To Pipe, the police had always represented the corrupt and repressive hand of the state. Ever since he could remember they had torn his family apart. Some in the neighborhood believed that the poverty, the violence, the drugs - all of it was the result of the white man’s efforts to keep them down, to quarantine them in squalor and deprivation. Some asserted crack had been brought to the neighborhood by the CIA ad the government so that young black men would kill each other off or be set to giant prisons run by white men. By rights O’ Malley and Pipe should be at war forever.
“I’m sorry for those women but their sons weren’t angels, some of them had murder charges too. I’m sorry that the other mothers lost their children but it’s not my son’s fault that he was quicker. Anyone of them would have killed him first had they gotten the chance.” - Rollock’s mother, Don Diva magazine
“Urban Legend Fell Victim to His Own Myth” - NYP headline on Crackhead Bemo’s killing
“Niggas bust in the crib and I’m butt naked.” - Nut on being arrested.
When I asked why he wanted to tell his story, he (Pipe) replied flatly: ”People need to understand we’re not animals. Yes, we sold crack and we killed people, but I only played the hand I was dealt. I had moms, sisters I loved. I want people to know that anyone caught up in gang life is a human being.”.....Suge followed Pipe’s lead: “We want people to know that the streets don’t love you. They never did.”
Pipe explained the appeal of his old life. “You become addicted to the money...to the celebrity status....to all the fame and attention you get from these bitches, know what I’m saying? So the power you get, even the love that you get from your dudes.”
Fox News was broadcasting a wave of protests aimed at police treatment of African Americans. In some ways, O’Malley felt relief that his father-in-law wasn’t around to witness the backlash, and eventual murders of policemen, after the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. In the course of his career O’Malley had seen 800 to 1,000 dead bodies - all beyond the glare of TV cameras or social activists who had never been inside a New York City housing project controlled by a gang. He wished that people could walk in his shoes for one day, make an arrest of a violent felon like Justice, explain to grieving mothers in the projects about their slaughtered loved ones, all the while being treated with a scorn as they attempted to find the killer.
Bevins and Tadeo were looking for proof of SMM enterprise. They found it in songs (written by Pete Rollock): “Makin moves nigga, you hesitate and you lose, bust my Gun paid my dues, paved the way for my crew. I made move’s Nigga you hesitate and your history. I’m a Sex Money Murderer Motherfucker till the death of me.”
“Yo, it’s Sugar,” came that husky and resilient voice. “I beat the case. Nothing like a little incarceration to focus your mind.”
Video Review: https://youtu.be/yf8CghCQNFg
This book wants to be Black ‘Good Fellas’ with Pipe, Sugar and Codd playing the role of Ray Liotta, and LEAs like O’Malley, Forcelli, Bourroughs, and task force attorneys like Glazer, La Barbera coming across as clean-cut as the Untouchables. That should please Pistol Pete Rollock, enamoured with Italian mafia and the movie ‘Scarface’, though chances of him getting it are slim.
The book took 5 years to write and publish and yet, no one from the projects spoke to the author, not even people from the local church! His only two Soundview ‘informants’ / interviewees are Sugar, introduced by O’Malley, and Pete, introduced by Sugar. And they are from SMM, not ordinary citizens.
SMM comes across as a small-fish petty drug running gang of 12 teenagers from Soundview housing projects who are not very bright and get caught only because it was easy to catch them under RICO laws and Weed and Seed program.
The consumer side is left untouched. I don’t know who SMM’s customers were (apart from some rappers) if all they were doing was selling crack etc. on Cozy Corner (corner of Randall and Rosedale Avenues), and then in night clubs, or laundering money via autoshops or rap music. I didn’t find out how they got their guns. I didn’t find out how the gangs of Castle Hill and Soundview kept the streets and citizens hostage. All the murders are of people associated with the drug business minus the killing of a man, Tony Morton, looking for directions, essentially at the wrong place.
And I found out that deaths of these kids reported in NY media glossed over their lives, not giving full details of who they were and what they actually did for a living, underplaying or fudging the reality of life in these neighborhoods.
The book has no maps, and no pictures of any key individual, not even the convicted, and no table of ‘who’s who’.
Karlton Hines, Anthony Dunkley and David ‘Twin’ Mullins are written and remembered in this book as if each were the second coming of Jesus Christ and had futures as bright as his, cut short by Brutuses.
The women of Soundview are the real heroes of this book, their resilience to survive, do anything to thrive, is inspiring and nauseating.
I thought O’Malley taking Pipe on a tour of Soundview to show he grew up in the same place but had a different result as a classic case of white privilege: O’Malley came from a settled, non-divorced, middle class family with police officers as relatives, only son with 2 siblings, living in a good neighborhood called Clason Point, got a peer-pressure-free uneventful peaceful education till college from good institutions, married an officer’s daughter, together they could afford to move into a better location through a house loan from her mother - a sum they returned in a year’s time - and then moved to yet another house and location on his paltry detective salary and her nursing income! What did he have in common with a black boy cooking food for his 6 younger siblings in a shabby apartment, with trips to foster care, a drug-addicted mother with a low-paying job who stole stuff from stores to pay bills, father a career criminal who was in and out of jail all the time, relatives poor and criminal, no educational structure or authority figure other than a 14-year old Pete, who was by contrast a well-to-do privately schooled son of a gangster, who wanted an 11-year old Pipe to join his petty drugs-delivery business! When he joined his mother didn’t even bat an eye and no one came to ‘rescue’ him from the streets! And by the age of 24, he was facing a life sentence. It’s a miracle Pipe made a semblance of a normal ordinary life without any help and is still alive.
I felt Pipe was treated despicably by LEAs during his time as an ‘informant’, he didn’t get the support he deserved, though everyone is a nice person trying to do the right thing.
The paragraphs on comparing the deteriorating Soundview housing project and how ‘Oscar Newman giving residents a greater stake in their homes in Clason Point Gardens’ made a difference, needed to be explained.
I started understanding the correlation between great rap and drug gangs and why murdered men from both are considered martyrs.
Quotable Passages:
When I started this book, I hoped to interview members of the Soundview community, but most attempts to reach ordinary residents met with defeat. I called those who had been at the Weed and Seed ceremony. No one returned my calls. I emailed; no one answered. I called the Catholic Church. No one called back. I met with prominent local activists who derided my attempts to write about the neighborhood as ‘poverty porn.’ Promises of help never materialized.
Black drug dealers murdering black drug dealers was a problem one wanted to deal with.....the murders of black kids barely made the papers.....Forcelli had seen boys in the (Soundview) neighborhoods come of age in the early days of crack, carrying out shootings before they’d been through puberty. They reminded him of child soldiers in Africa, hardened to violence by years of exposure, eyes bloodshot from weed, and unquestioningly subservient to neighborhood gangsters who acted like rebel commanders. Forcelli had chased down kids armed with machine guns who had enough money stashed in their apartments to pay his salary for five years.
To Pipe, the police had always represented the corrupt and repressive hand of the state. Ever since he could remember they had torn his family apart. Some in the neighborhood believed that the poverty, the violence, the drugs - all of it was the result of the white man’s efforts to keep them down, to quarantine them in squalor and deprivation. Some asserted crack had been brought to the neighborhood by the CIA ad the government so that young black men would kill each other off or be set to giant prisons run by white men. By rights O’ Malley and Pipe should be at war forever.
“I’m sorry for those women but their sons weren’t angels, some of them had murder charges too. I’m sorry that the other mothers lost their children but it’s not my son’s fault that he was quicker. Anyone of them would have killed him first had they gotten the chance.” - Rollock’s mother, Don Diva magazine
“Urban Legend Fell Victim to His Own Myth” - NYP headline on Crackhead Bemo’s killing
“Niggas bust in the crib and I’m butt naked.” - Nut on being arrested.
When I asked why he wanted to tell his story, he (Pipe) replied flatly: ”People need to understand we’re not animals. Yes, we sold crack and we killed people, but I only played the hand I was dealt. I had moms, sisters I loved. I want people to know that anyone caught up in gang life is a human being.”.....Suge followed Pipe’s lead: “We want people to know that the streets don’t love you. They never did.”
Pipe explained the appeal of his old life. “You become addicted to the money...to the celebrity status....to all the fame and attention you get from these bitches, know what I’m saying? So the power you get, even the love that you get from your dudes.”
Fox News was broadcasting a wave of protests aimed at police treatment of African Americans. In some ways, O’Malley felt relief that his father-in-law wasn’t around to witness the backlash, and eventual murders of policemen, after the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. In the course of his career O’Malley had seen 800 to 1,000 dead bodies - all beyond the glare of TV cameras or social activists who had never been inside a New York City housing project controlled by a gang. He wished that people could walk in his shoes for one day, make an arrest of a violent felon like Justice, explain to grieving mothers in the projects about their slaughtered loved ones, all the while being treated with a scorn as they attempted to find the killer.
Bevins and Tadeo were looking for proof of SMM enterprise. They found it in songs (written by Pete Rollock): “Makin moves nigga, you hesitate and you lose, bust my Gun paid my dues, paved the way for my crew. I made move’s Nigga you hesitate and your history. I’m a Sex Money Murderer Motherfucker till the death of me.”
“Yo, it’s Sugar,” came that husky and resilient voice. “I beat the case. Nothing like a little incarceration to focus your mind.”
Video Review: https://youtu.be/yf8CghCQNFg
July 31, 2018
This outstanding book continues the drumbeat of other books in recent years that demonstrate how blacks in America suffer from institutional racism that leads to endless cycles of poverty and crime. The Soundview neighborhood in the Bronx is the focus, initially isolated by the policies of the powerful and racist city builder Robert Moses (he kept the one public pool in NYC that blacks could easily access unheated because he had heard that they didn't like cold water). By the time that crack epidemic arrives in the late 1980s, children growing up in Soundview have become accustomed to drugs, violence and tragedy on a scale that most couldn't possibly imagine.
Children in neighborhoods like Soundview often join gangs to survive, and Soundview produced one of the most infamous of the crack era--SMM, or Sex Money Murder, so named by gang leader Peter "Pistol Pete" Rollock, son of a notorious Bronx gangster who helped bring heroin to the neighborhood in the 1970s. Dealing drugs meant a lot for the members of SMM--money, power, status. It also meant food, clothing, and other necessities for boys who found themselves providing for siblings, single moms, and grandmothers.
Pistol Pete wanted more for SMM, though--he wanted them to be famous. Pete's ego leads to expansion of the group's activities and territory, which brings violence and murder (a.k.a. "catching a body"). At their apex, the group was arguably the largest and most feared on the East Coast, mixing crime and celebrity, rubbing shoulders with rappers like Tupac, Biggie and Nas while committing ever more brazen violence.
As with most criminal enterprises, success breeds paranoia, as those who reach the top realize that there's nowhere to go but down, with plenty of hungry young guns looking to replace them. As the law closes in, violence once focused outward for solidarity and strength turns inward with fatal consequences. SMM begins to devour itself, and once gang members start talking to the Feds, a once-mighty empire dissolves.
SMM looks at the children who grew up to rule the gang, and the law enforcement officers and attorneys who utilized federal racketeering laws to finally bring them to justice. The gang members aren't innocent, but you're left wondering if innocence was ever even an option for rudderless young people born and raised at such a disadvantage. Tragically, the victims of their drug peddling and violence are other young black men and the people in their own communities, entire neighborhoods living in terror while cops chase an ever-shrinking Mafia and ignore the soaring crime rates in the Bronx.
The book makes clear that street gangs don't just happen, and that leaving 'the life' behind is crushingly difficult. It's a powerful portrayal of young people with few options choosing the worst ones, and the consequences for their communities. Author Green never asks the questions, but they are there nonetheless: how complicit is our society in creating such devastation? Is our dismissal of these young men as aberrations (or worse) a race-based refusal to acknowledge the corners we've forced them into? SMM is an unsettling and powerful indictment of an America that would leave an entire segment of its citizenry to fend for itself.
Children in neighborhoods like Soundview often join gangs to survive, and Soundview produced one of the most infamous of the crack era--SMM, or Sex Money Murder, so named by gang leader Peter "Pistol Pete" Rollock, son of a notorious Bronx gangster who helped bring heroin to the neighborhood in the 1970s. Dealing drugs meant a lot for the members of SMM--money, power, status. It also meant food, clothing, and other necessities for boys who found themselves providing for siblings, single moms, and grandmothers.
Pistol Pete wanted more for SMM, though--he wanted them to be famous. Pete's ego leads to expansion of the group's activities and territory, which brings violence and murder (a.k.a. "catching a body"). At their apex, the group was arguably the largest and most feared on the East Coast, mixing crime and celebrity, rubbing shoulders with rappers like Tupac, Biggie and Nas while committing ever more brazen violence.
As with most criminal enterprises, success breeds paranoia, as those who reach the top realize that there's nowhere to go but down, with plenty of hungry young guns looking to replace them. As the law closes in, violence once focused outward for solidarity and strength turns inward with fatal consequences. SMM begins to devour itself, and once gang members start talking to the Feds, a once-mighty empire dissolves.
SMM looks at the children who grew up to rule the gang, and the law enforcement officers and attorneys who utilized federal racketeering laws to finally bring them to justice. The gang members aren't innocent, but you're left wondering if innocence was ever even an option for rudderless young people born and raised at such a disadvantage. Tragically, the victims of their drug peddling and violence are other young black men and the people in their own communities, entire neighborhoods living in terror while cops chase an ever-shrinking Mafia and ignore the soaring crime rates in the Bronx.
The book makes clear that street gangs don't just happen, and that leaving 'the life' behind is crushingly difficult. It's a powerful portrayal of young people with few options choosing the worst ones, and the consequences for their communities. Author Green never asks the questions, but they are there nonetheless: how complicit is our society in creating such devastation? Is our dismissal of these young men as aberrations (or worse) a race-based refusal to acknowledge the corners we've forced them into? SMM is an unsettling and powerful indictment of an America that would leave an entire segment of its citizenry to fend for itself.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 25, 2018
Jonathan Green tells the story of the rise and ultimate fall of Sex Money Murder, which is the name of a Bronx gang which operated in the Soundview projects during the late eighties and early nineties. He does this by telling the stories of the main individuals involved on both sides of the law. SMM dealt crack cocaine on their own turf which they defended with murderous force but they also expanded out with NYC and into other cities where they knew they would meet little resistance from the local gangs. As the gangbangers empire grew they became minor celebrities in their own right and mixed and partied with New York’s glitterati. Not only did New York have a crack epidemic but also a murder epidemic, as the gangs battled over turf and minor slights which were met with fatal retaliation. The NYPD and the local judicial system was overwhelmed and the only way forward was for law enforcement to go for Fedral assistance and the gangs were tackled in a similar manner to the Mafia by using RICO laws to try to take them down. Once they flipped a few of the gangstas they soon fell like dominoes, each seeing that by ratting they could save themselves from a life spent in prison.
Green’s book is a triumph and is obviously exhaustive in its research. It reads like a novel at times and is a real page turner, as you race to see happens next. I also got caught up in the characters stories and despite their murderous natures, I found myself feeling some kind of empathy for them at the same time. The story of the gangs demise is equally as thrilling as their rise and in confessing their crimes it appears that some of the players felt that a weight had been lifted from them and some kind of redemption was maybe possible. Overall a thoroughly engrossing and riveting read that I think will stay with me for some time.
Green’s book is a triumph and is obviously exhaustive in its research. It reads like a novel at times and is a real page turner, as you race to see happens next. I also got caught up in the characters stories and despite their murderous natures, I found myself feeling some kind of empathy for them at the same time. The story of the gangs demise is equally as thrilling as their rise and in confessing their crimes it appears that some of the players felt that a weight had been lifted from them and some kind of redemption was maybe possible. Overall a thoroughly engrossing and riveting read that I think will stay with me for some time.
October 13, 2018
This was a great book about SMM, a group I knew nothing about but grew fascinated with. At the end of the book you realize the enormous dedication Green has invested to bring this story to light – not just in years of time but also in putting himself personally at risk by venturing into the projects and meeting with volatile individuals who remain in and out of difficulties with the law. We are the beneficiaries of his years of dedication. This book helped me better understand the difficult and often hopeless circumstances inner city youth faced in the 90’s. At the same time, it was a time and place where individuals’ greed and penchant for gratuitous violence served to ruin not only their own lives but also entire communities. It was very good to know that conditions in NYC have improved a lot since SMM’s heyday in the 90’s.
This book is action-packed, balanced, and very well-written. I recommend it to all.
This book is action-packed, balanced, and very well-written. I recommend it to all.
May 29, 2019
Well researched non-fiction story about the rise of one of the most violent gangs in the Bronx housing projects. Truly amazing when you consider that the main players were 10 or 11 years old when they started dealing crack and shooting people eventually becoming an organization focused on "Sex, Money, and Murder". SMM gradually evolved into a division of the Bloods national organization as the members needed protection in prison. At one point the dozen or so SMM members were making $40k to $50k per day selling crack- all before any of them were even 20 years old. The legal ramifications get interesting as the Feds step in to prosecute SMM using RICO statutes designed for organized crime. The Federal programs were much more effective because they could remove the criminals from the projects and give tham a chance at rehabilitation versus the revolving door of being released only to be rearrested later for the same crimes. The entire story is about the nature/nuture question: "Is a criminal born with aberhent behavior inbred into his DNA or is he merely a victim of his environment"? When you add crack into the mix, you get groups like SMM partying with Puff Daddy, Biggie, and other rappers spending thousands a night in New York clubs only to be out on the streets the next day poisoning their community with crack. The resulting money at best created a code of honor amoungst SMM allowing the gang to essentially become a surrogate family for the boys. At worst the money promoted murder to protect turf, take over new territory, and maintain street credibilty. Life becomes really cheap. This book is a peak into a world not many people get to witness. The scary part is that the SMM model is being replicated in cities throughout the U.S.
November 14, 2018
I remember following the news about the situation in the Bronx in the 1980's. Heroin was out, and a new drug, crack, was making a huge impact on life and crime. The author follows three paths: the kids growing up in the projects, a police officer new to the force, and a lawyer who works for the FBI. The violence is intense and upsetting, but I don't doubt its authenticity. The kids grow up hard and fast, and drugs are the temptation around to make lots of money--fast.
Not for those with a queasy stomach.
Lots of twists and turns keep the reader on his/her toes to follow all the characters.
Sobering and intense.
Not for those with a queasy stomach.
Lots of twists and turns keep the reader on his/her toes to follow all the characters.
Sobering and intense.
February 24, 2019
Incredible reporting and storytelling by the author, Jonathan Green. The book drops you into the Bronx neighborhood of Soundview introducing you to a group of teenagers that would go on to create the ultra violent Sex Money Murder gang. Green also offers inside details on the law enforcement side where a shift in prosecution strategy was needed to combat the rising murder rate in NYC.
I am thankful to have been introduced to this book by ESPN’s Ryen Russillo. On his podcast, Russillo mentioned it was the best book of 2018 that he read and had Mr. Green on for a fascinating discussion. I enjoyed every page of this book and look forward to diving into Murder in the High Himalaya.
I am thankful to have been introduced to this book by ESPN’s Ryen Russillo. On his podcast, Russillo mentioned it was the best book of 2018 that he read and had Mr. Green on for a fascinating discussion. I enjoyed every page of this book and look forward to diving into Murder in the High Himalaya.
January 23, 2019
Plenty of fascinating stories about the gang life of Sex Money Murder during the 80s and 90s in New York, yet somehow, despite all of those crazy stories, nothing compares to Tyson Beckford, when getting questioned by police about his involvement with the gang, replied that all he does "is f*** Tyra Banks and lift weights." This is now the only way I will respond if ever a part of a police investigation.
July 13, 2018
Just an awesome book. It's kind of like the non-fiction version of the wire. It's focus is fairly narrow, but you really get an insight into what it was like being a broncs cop or a gang member in the 90's.
August 8, 2018
Great read about the Sex Money Murder gang, one of the most murderous, brutal Bronx gangs of the 80's and 90's. Through the eyes of gang members and the police who pursued them we get a glimpse of a grim, tough life on New York City streets and ultimately a look at an America leaving so many behind. If you're a fan of 'The Wire' and liked David Simon's books this is a must read.
October 5, 2018
THE WIRE. In real life. This is a perfect piece of nonfiction. Gang members vs police vs the judicial system. I have no idea how the author managed to gain such trust as to be able to tell this story, with its admitted multiple murders. Brilliant.
October 2, 2018
In a word. Gripping. Green does a fantastic job of weaving different stories amongst a slew of characters on both sides of the drug wars. Excellent work.
November 3, 2018
This sh*t will f*ck up your day but you should read it.
March 2, 2019
An incredibly fascinating story behind a gang that I never heard of. A fantastic piece of entertaining history into this kind of life.
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