The star witness doesn’t want to be here, but it’s too late for that. His name is Daveion Ervin, but since he was in a jerkin’ crew as a teenager, everyone just calls him Solo. For the better part of a week, Solo takes the stand to alternately implicate and exonerate the members of his former crew.

He was the only one actually identified at the crime scene — the tall, dreadlocked, light-skinned male standing outside in the parking lot, minutes before the murder. And because everyone else has either pled the fifth or refused to testify, it’s his retelling that will be the only one entered into the public record. Should you believe him, it’s likely the closest that outsiders will ever get to knowing exactly what went down at that party on December 10, 2016. Of course, no one was supposed to talk, but the police have long mastered the art of making people cough up blood.

About two weeks after the January 2017 raid on Drakeo’s apartment, Solo wound up handcuffed in the Men’s Central Jail. Hardiman had served a search warrant on all of the Stinc Team’s social media pages, trawling for even the most mundane crime. He found one on Kellz’s Facebook: a several seconds-long video of Solo pointing a .38 revolver at his head and firing into the ceiling. It was either an accident, a dumb clout gag, or both. It was all the cop needed.

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Acquiring a search warrant, the detective went to the apartment, ordered the popcorn ceiling removed, and discovered a bullet still lodged there. The Sheriff’s forensics teams concluded that it matched the make of the .38 fired at the crime scene. Enough to have Solo arrested for negligent discharge of a firearm and the illegal possession of a firearm by a felon.

In the interrogation room, the officers told him that the gun charges would lead to a third strike conviction, meaning life in prison. Without the money to hire a good attorney, Solo didn’t realize that he wasn’t even eligible for a third strike (with only one adult felony conviction for residential burglary). They told him that they had witnesses placing him at the scene, and footage of him holding the murder weapon. If he didn’t confess, they might try him for the slaying of Gregory too.

During his initial interview, Ervin lied incessantly. He said he wasn’t at the party, the gun was a fake, and that he hadn’t seen Drakeo in eight months. The façade lasted roughly 30 minutes after they returned him to his cell. Racked with anxiety, aware that they already knew too much, Solo cracked. Requesting another interview, he eventually copped a plea deal, and depending on who you believe, told the detectives everything he knew. Had he not, they were ready to sentence him to 13 years in jail for accidentally firing a gun.

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So there he is, 18 months later, slumped over on the witness stand, unspooling his life story in an Adidas Tracksuit. There is a sad, hangdog expression to his face, which looks uncannily like J. Cole. His sense of shame is unmistakable. The government paid $1,500 for his relocation out of state, a comically insignificant sum, considering his name will be immutably stained on the streets of L.A. He eventually returned home against their will and acquired a misdemeanor charge for receiving stolen property. In the wake of his flip, threats have poured in via DM and text. His testimony could fatally sink both Boyd and Buchanan, his one-time friends. Conversely, if Drakeo is acquitted, it will unquestionably be due to Solo’s testimony.

It’s easy to see him as a hapless victim of circumstance: raised poor in the 60s and all over L.A.; not a gangbanger, but his proximity and familial links to Crips put a half-dozen bullets in his body by his early 20s; multiple convictions for burglary, most as a teen. In the late ‘00s, he met Drakeo in when they danced for different jerkin’ crews, but they didn’t become close until 2015, when Drakeo put out a call for juice and Solo delivered. A close friendship was sparked. Solo officially became a member of the Stinc Team. He was all up in the videos and on stage at the shows, dancing and waving pistols to look “extra cool.” Because Drakeo didn’t want to be bothered, he’d give people Solo’s number and have him operate as the de facto call screener. The Turtle of the entourage.

The night that destroyed it all started out exactly like any other. The Stinc Team was just kicking it at Drakeo’s place on Aviation: Drakeo, Ralfy, Solo, Philly, Kellz, Young Bull, Ketchy the Great, Good Finesse. People wander in and out of the apartment, smoking, drinking, sipping, whatever. At some point, Solo claimed that Drakeo shows him the party on Instagram and they all make plans to go. Before they leave, Solo receives a call from Jaidan Boyd. He tells him about the party and that if he makes it to Drakeo’s in time, he can roll with them there.

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Before they make it to Carson, they post up for 20 minutes in a random parking lot down the road from Drakeo’s, so Good Finesse and another Stinc Team member can fight. It immediately winds up on social. No one is hurt and none of it matters. I’m only telling you because the D.A. showed the videos in court as part of her ceaseless quest to stereotype them as brainless savages rather than as young adults, barely out of adolescence, raised on WorldStar.

The Stinc Team caravans in five cars to the party. Drakeo drives in the Benz with Solo riding shotgun, Kellz sitting directly behind. It’s in Carson, 15 minutes away, a semi-industrial big box city of 90,000 on the fringes of L.A. County, best known for producing Brandy and Ray J. Even though you can’t actually see the murder, the parking lot video is played dozens of times, until it’s ingrained in the collective courtroom memory. Solo is asked to explain who is who and what is what: untangling a mess of a surveillance footage, glaring headlights and shadow figures. We see Drakeo’s car roll past and park off-screen. Solo pops out and directs Boyd where to park; Boyd gets out of his car, puts on a jacket, and drives outside the camera’s purview. They all return to their cars.

In Solo’s recollection, they are sitting in the car, sitting, talking, and smoking. At some point, 2Shitty approaches the window and tells them “the [Inglewood] Families is here.” Solo claims that Drakeo says, “Let’s get out of here.” Within seconds, the football players and Red Bull (Davion Gregory) walk past the car. Their eyes briefly lock. The next thing he remembers is the sound of shooting.

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“When I heard the shots, I ducked down,” Solo tells the courtroom. “Drakeo ducked down too. People ran…there was a lot of commotion. I looked out the window...still a lot of commotion, more shots. I didn’t see anyone firing. I only heard firing. We thought we was under attack.”

“Why?” the prosecution glares.

“Because of everything that was going on?”

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“With the Blood Gangs?”

“Yeah,” Solo responds. “After the shooting stops, I’m like shit, what the fuck! Drakeo is like ‘what the fuck?!’ And Kellz says, ‘I emptied a clip on them niggas.’ That’s when I looked up and seen the boy AB [Boyd] shooting with the .38. So I’m like we gotta’ get up out of here.”

Solo maintains there is silence the whole way back to Drakeo’s place. Back at the apartment, no one knows whether anyone was actually hit. Boyd drops by briefly, but never actually enters the building. Solo eventually goes to sleep, waking up at 3 a.m. to the news.

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“Boy got manned down.”

He’s told by 2Shitty.

“Who?” Solo asks.

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“Red Bull.”

“Oh well.”

He never sees the guns after that night. The .40 is found several months later in a Gardena Middle School by a student who claims to be a member of the Inglewood Families. From there, Solo claims that begins to distance himself from the crew, disappearing to Victorville for a week or two before returning. The D.A. plays an old Snapchat of Kellz bragging that he’s sipping on a “Dead Bull.”

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The next time, they’re all chilling, Solo claims that Kellz tells them, “if you snitch, you know what’s up.”

“Meaning you’ll die?” the D.A asks.

“Yes.”

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“How bad is snitching on a scale of 1 to 10?”

“Shit…worse than that,” Solo sighs. “It’s a 25.”

* * *

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Fear is a universal currency. It can be manipulated for the purposes of power and sex, societal conformity, and religious control. It’s a nexus to our primitive savannah wiring, an atavistic reminder of how the species survived. It is why our political situation is so bleak and why racism persists as one of the chief blights of an entire species. Fear is formidable, yet filled with weaknesses.

The superficial veneer of the District Attorney’s case is to seek justice for a senseless murder. But it is really a referendum about fear. It boasts a more professionalized tone, but a similar goal as the hard right demagoguery that governs the Trump era. It’s deeply rooted in a colonialist fear of the other — typically brown and black, but also Native American and Asian and Jewish and anyone who refuses to adhere to the arbitrary notions of civility set long ago by dry white corpses. When deputy D.A. Shannon Cooley interrogates Daveion “Solo” Ervin, she is after much more than merely who did it, she is attempting to indict an entire culture as something irredeemably criminal.

We see photo after photo of the Stinc Team posing in the iron-barred slums of L.A., squat stucco boxes huddled beneath towering palm trees. They’re throwing up the Stinc Team’s hand sign. In each, the D.A. asks Solo to confirm that they’re throwing up “2 Greedy Family,” her way of semantically twisting the crew’s name to make it sound more sinister. She shows us mugshots of the crew, asking Solo to identify his former best friends. They’re gloomy and passport-sized; everyone seeming glazed and somber, unsure exactly why they’ve been so viciously targeted.

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Cooley shows shots of the Stinc Team with Adam22 of No Jumper and Rami the Jeweler, as though it’s her way of revealing how deeply they’ve infiltrated. There is a photo of the Stinc Team with 03 Greedo and Shoreline Mafia and the Hit Mob producers. It looks like the best commemorative cover of XXL that never was. In her contorted electric chair mindset, it’s supposed to show the jury what lawless heathens lurk in their city. She could be describing any street rap crew, or even Odd Future or A$AP Mob. There is no sense of nuance because that would require empathy.

There are photos of Drakeo pouring up, and a forlorn Solo is forced to identify what’s in his hand.

“Lean.”

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“What is lean?”

“Promethazine…codeine.”

“And then you mix it with soda!?”

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Gasp.

She reads the transcript back from Solo’s grand jury testimony: “You told the court that the 2 Greedy Family gets money by stealing, hitting licks, robbing, scamming, and committing fraud.” He affirms it, visibly disgraced.

There is little mention of rap. Instead, Cooley shows us tattoos: the Stinc Team cat and the Buddha. As though there aren’t 10,000 greying white 40-somethings walking around in cargo shorts with Wu Tang tattoos. Mostly, there are guns. Guns of all shapes and sizes. AK’s that are clearly props and .38s and .40s and .30s. Gun barrels aimed at the camera. The classical poses of L.A. gangsta rap, refracted into this funhouse distortion, where to the District Attorney, it’s only art if it’s done by someone who doesn’t look like them and dress like them.

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* * *

In response to the withering idiocy of the D.A.’s Footloose demonization, Blacknell, the attorney for Ralfy, cross-examines Solo. One by one, he lays the foundation of the hallowed hollow-tip tradition that spawned the Stinc Team. There is 2Pac throwing up the Westside. Dre and Eazy toting massive assault rifles. Ice Cube on the cover of the Kill at Will EP, passing a giant Glock to the camera. Dre, now benefactor of the high school across the street, pointing a pistol at his temples on the cover of The Source.

“Is it true that some people from 2Greedy would commit crimes?”

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Blacknell asks Solo.

“Yes.”

“Is it true that some had regular jobs?”

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“Yes.”

“Is it true that some made money from music like Drakeo and Ralfy?”

“Yes.”

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“Did anyone share proceeds from crimes?”

“No.”

“Have you ever been a part of a flocking crew?”

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“No.”

“Have you ever been a part of a burglary crew?”

“No.”

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“Is Drakeo a gang member?”

“No.”

“Were you from 2Greedy?”

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“Yes.”

“Were you ever from a gang?”

“No.”

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The evisceration of the gang allegations continues. Blacknell asks the prosecution’s key witness whether if he’s familiar with the idea that many rap groups have their own hand signals. Solo nods.

“You’re familiar with Jay-Z.”

“Yes.”

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“What’s this?”

The attorney shows a photo of Volume 3 era S. Carter, rocking a durag and throwing up the Roc.

“That’s his Roc-A-Fella-Sign,” Solo answers.

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“Is it common in hip-hop culture for people who are part of the same rap group to make the same hand sign.”

“Yes.”

On a projector screen, the attorney shows Jay and ‘Ye at a GQ party throwing up the Roc. Then he shows LeBron throwing up the Roc; then Kobe making a diamond with his hands. Finally, he shows a candid shot of Warren Buffett.

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“Do you know who Warren Buffett is?” the attorney asks the witness. The witness seems very confused.

Blacknell shows a slide of Jay and Warren Buffett in black tie. The rap mogul attempts to teach the billionaire investor how to throw up the Roc. The courtroom explodes in a paroxysm of laughter. Everyone but the D.A. and the detectives.

* * *

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If the proceedings often feel like a tragicomic farce, the most visceral A Few Good Men moments occur during Solo’s cross-examination by Kellz’s attorney, Keith Bowman. This is when the courtroom is the most crowded, word of Solo’s Judas turn having traveled through the asphalt grapevine.

If Kellz is going to beat the case, there is the obvious need to sow reasonable doubt in the juror’s minds that he wasn’t the shooter. It seems that his attorney’s plan is to attempt to convince people that it might have been Solo blasting in tandem with Boyd.

The exchange begins with a long litany about how the word on the street was originally that Solo shot Red Bull. He asks why he didn’t go to law enforcement in the first place.

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“Have you went to the police with every problem?” the witness fires back.

“I’ve never been involved in a shooting,” Bowman booms.

“It doesn’t have to be a shooting. I didn’t go to the police. The police came to me.”

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The attorney attacks Solo’s claims with wild haymakers. They lightly graze the witness but don’t quite connect. He alleges that Solo gave Boyd the .38 in the first place. Solo denies it, getting agitated and demanding that they replay the video for everyone to see.

They talk about all the times that Solo was shot. He intimates that Solo never liked Kellz and this is his chance to enact revenge. The former firmly denies it. More sparring back and forth. The room is wracked with stress but riveted.

“I didn’t want it to come to this,” Solo confesses his sins, hoping for sympathy but aware that he’ll receive very little for a very long time. “But I knew that if I didn’t tell, I would go to jail and while I was inside, the people who actually did it were going to be outside living their best lives.”

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“Why didn’t you tell my client at the time that you had a problem with his actions?”

“Oh, I’m supposed to let him know what I think, so he can plot on me?”

Bowman baits Solo, trying to get him to crack, to change his story, to reveal an even more fatal lapse of character. Finally, he detonates.

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“You know damn well this ain’t fine and dandy!! This ain’t no cup of tea!!” Solo spits daggers at the imposing attorney. “You know and I know what I’m facing after this when the police ain’t there to protect me…you know what my family is going to have to deal with after this!!”

“You a rider, right,” the attorney taunts him, honing in on the guilt and wounded pride that he feels.



“Why would I snitch if I didn’t have to!” Solo retorts.

“I thought you was a rider…right?” Bowman continues.

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“I ain’t never said I’m a rider,” he shoots back. “You trying to insinuate that.”

The girl in front of me whispers to the entire back row: “That’s because he a bitch. He ain’t no rider!”

