Philips spent a majority of his career writing for the
Los Angeles Times, beginning as a
freelance writer in 1990 and joining the staff in 1995. Philips continued relentless coverage and other media outlets followed suit. A follow-up interview in which a victim graphicly describes her experience led to more women sharing their stories. By 1995, all six major record labels had updated their sexual harassment policies. -->
Gangsta rap battle of 1992 In the summer of 1992, Philips provided a platform to rapper
Ice-T, who had just released one of the most controversial songs of all time, "
Cop Killer." Ice-T was under fire from police and politicians, including President
George H. W. Bush, who called the song "sick." In his first interview after the controversy broke, the artist defended his role in a
culture war. On the front page of the
Los Angeles Times, in a Q&A about rock, race, and the "Cop Killer" furor, Ice-T counterattacked his critics, saying: "
Arnold Schwarzenegger blew away dozens of cops as the
Terminator. But I don't hear anybody complaining." Despite the song being a product of Ice-T's
heavy metal band
Body Count, it was ensnared in a campaign to ban
gangsta rap. He complained: :"The one thing I wish is that the media would quit calling this a rap record. You'd think if they were going to do stories on 'Cop Killer' that they might at least listen to the song. But they obviously haven't, because anyone who has knows it's a rock record. I hate to get on the racial thing because that's something I've always been totally against. But the problem with the media is that they think that the word rock means white and the word rap means black." :And politicians "want to shut rappers down. They want to silence us. The Supreme Court says it's OK for a white man to burn a cross in public. But nobody wants a black man to write a record about a cop killer." Ice-T had been accused of inciting violence against police officers. He illuminated Philips and his readers on the message of the song: "No way all I'm doing on this record is playing a character I invented who's fed up with police abuse. He's not the average person who just figured out after the
Rodney King incident that police brutality exists. This particular character has seen it too long and he loses it and goes on a rampage. What I'm trying to tell people is that police brutality in the 'hood is nothing new. And the thing is that whether this guy, the cop killer in my song, is real or not, believe it, there are people at that point. OK? But anybody who says that my record is going to make them go over that point, that's bulls---. No record can take a man to that point. :"Don't these politicians realize the country was founded on the kind of revolutionary political thought expressed in my song? I mean, haven't they ever listened to the national anthem? Anybody knows that the '
Star-Spangled Banner' is really just a song about a shoot-out between us and the police. Have they forgotten that
Paul Revere became a
Revolutionary War hero for warning everybody, 'The police are coming, the police are coming?'" Anti-censorship advocate,
Rock the Vote co-founder and then
Virgin Records executive
Jeff Ayeroff called attention to the hypocrisy, "It's not like the White House expresses any interest in trying to resolve the polarization that this song reflects. They just want to exploit the fear of this potent black artist to their own political advantage." Philips himself surmised: :"When it's all over, the 'Rap Battle of 1992' probably won't rank up there in American history with the Revolutionary War or the
War of 1812. But it has reopened the old American wounds of race and class. And the debate—which had been couched as a conflict between free expression and moral responsibility—has degenerated into an uncivil war of words enveloping politicians, business people, artists and others."
Murder of Tupac Shakur theory On September 7, 1996,
Shakur was shot in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas. He died six days later due to the wounds inflicted. In 2002, following a yearlong investigation into the murder by the
Los Angeles Times, Philips concluded that Shakur was killed by purported suspect
Orlando Anderson, a member of the
Southside Compton Crips gang. Philips made an additional claim: "The murder weapon was supplied by New York rapper Notorious B.I.G., who agreed to pay the Crips $1 million for killing Shakur." In the days following the story, friends and family members denied any involvement by the late Wallace. The Wallace family issued a statement expressing outrage and called the article "irresponsible journalism." Friends provided alibis claiming Wallace was not in Las Vegas on the night of the shooting. In an online chat in 2008, Philips told the participants that unidentified sources placed Wallace in Nevada on the night of Shakur's murder. To support his theory, Philips relied on unidentified sources and FBI transcripts of an interview with a confidential informant. Both Rosemond and Combs responded swiftly with statements denying Philips' claims. The extended bombshell piece began: :"The Times appears to have been hoaxed by an imprisoned con man and accomplished document forger, an audacious swindler who has created a fantasy world in which he managed hip-hop luminaries, conducted business with Combs, Shakur,
Busta Rhymes, and The Notorious B.I.G., and even served as Combs's trusted emissary to Death Row Records boss Marion "Suge" Knight during the outset of hostilities in the bloody East Coast-West Coast rap feud. The con man, James Sabatino, 31, has long sought to insinuate himself, after the fact, in a series of important hip-hop events, from Shakur's shooting to the murder of The Notorious B.I.G.. In fact, however, Sabatino was little more than a rap devotee, a wildly impulsive, overweight white kid from Florida whose own father once described him in a letter to a federal judge as "a disturbed young man who needed attention like a drug." On March 26, 2008, the
Los Angeles Times announced an internal investigation and published an apology from Philips that read, "In relying on documents that I now believe were fake, I failed to do my job. I'm sorry." This would be the last article Philips would write for the
Los Angeles Times. On July 15, 2008, it was reported that he was let go in a round of layoffs.
Subsequent witness statements In the intervening years, there have been several developments with the individuals, named and unnamed in Philips' article, and others involved in the incident. • Dexter Isaac – In June 2011, the prison inmate confessed to being a perpetrator in Shakur's attack and claimed to have been paid $2,500 by Rosemond to rob Shakur. • Philips confirmed Isaac as a source for his 2008 article and demanded an apology and a retraction of the retraction from the
Los Angeles Times. • Rosemond claims Isaac is a confidential informant who cannot be trusted. • During opening remarks at Rosemond's 2011 trial, the prosecutor said Rosemond had implicated himself in the shooting of Shakur at Quad. • Rosemond's attorney
Gerald Shargel "categorically and emphatically" denied the claim. Referencing the 2008
Los Angeles Times article, Shargel implied Philips had engaged in a smear campaign. He added, "[The prosecutor's] statement was positively and absolutely false whether intentional, or not intentional. I think not intentional. She was not the prosecutor who sat in on any of the proffer sessions with Mr. Rosemond." • The prosecutor continued, "If Mr. Shargel is going to argue that this was a fabricated article, it's the government's position that we can put in the defendant's own admission about that particular shooting. In saying it is not true, when in fact it is true, the government should be able to rebut that argument that he's making, [and introduce] that the defendant actually admitted to this 1994 shooting." • James Sabatino – The document forger is still pulling cons from prison. • Zayd Malik – A friend of Shakur who accompanied him that night categorically rejects Isaac's confession in a rare interview in 2018. He also denies a setup by Rosemond, but alludes to NYPD involvement. Following the Isaac and Rosemond court revelations, Philips penned an exclusive to the
Village Voice in which he claimed, "Rap's longest running crime mystery has finally been solved — and pretty much the way my March 2008
Los Angeles Times article reported it."
MediaBistro's Fishbowl LA, which covered news related to the
Los Angeles media, called Philips'
Voice piece a "must-read essay that paints a very sorry picture of how the
LAT dealt in a moment of crisis with an employee who faithfully served them for 18 years."
Alleged interference with official investigations Wallace family civil suit On April 9, 2002, the Wallace family filed a lawsuit against Los Angeles and LAPD chiefs claiming they "willfully and recklessly prevented a full and thorough investigation" in the murder of Christopher Wallace aka Notorious B.I.G. During an investigation in the late 1990s, Waymond Anderson testified that
disgraced LAPD gang officer
David Mack was involved in the
1997 killing of Wallace. In 2002, when deposed in the
Wallace family civil suit brought against the
City of Los Angeles, Anderson recanted his previous testimony. In 2008, while testifying in his own appeal of a 1993 arson murder conviction, Anderson reversed his recantation claiming he had lied at the deposition because he had received threats passed to him through Philips. Philips was covering Anderson's appeal, exploring his innocence. Kevin Mackie, another witness deposed in the Wallace civil case, confirmed Mack's attendance at Death Row events and added, "Chuck Philips was frequently at Death Row functions and received payments from Death Row Records." The Wallace family attorney claimed Anderson's changed testimony was influenced by Philips. Philips and the
Los Angeles Times described the claim as "idiotic" and "utterly groundless."
FBI investigation into LAPD cover-up In 2002, the FBI opened an investigation into the LAPD and potential civil rights violations in connection with Christopher Wallace aka Notorious B.I.G. In 2005, Philips revealed the identity of a confidential informant in the
Los Angeles Times, referencing his moniker "Psycho Mike." Michael Robinson is described as a "reliable gang informant who had testified in federal court against the
Bounty Hunter Bloods and worked as an informant for the
Los Angeles County Sheriff Department's Major Crimes Bureau for more than 15 years." Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD) Sergeant Richard Valdemar criticized the
Los Angeles Times in a 2010
Police Magazine article for exposing and endangering confidential informants. He believes Robinson was outed in response to his testimony implicating Death Row boss Suge Knight, LAPD gang officers Mack and
Rafael Perez, and Amir Muhammad in Wallace's murder. Following the revelation, Robinson was attacked repeatedly and his family was targeted. FBI special agent Philip J. Carson, the lead investigator on the case, confirms Philips' relentless pursuit for information and interference with the investigation. Prior to the article's publication, Philips had demanded an interview with Carson. Since Carson could not comment on the active case, he connected Philips to the FBI press office. Carson recalls the follow-up from FBI PR rep Cathy Viray, "Well, the good news is we met with Chuck Philips. The bad news is, he doesn't care what we have to say. He's going to ruin you in an upcoming article and it's going to ruin this case and it's going to ruin your career." Recorded phone conversations confirm the threats. Carson contends that he solely briefed LAPD Chief Mike Berkow and that Berkow fed information undermining the case to Philips. While revisiting the FBI's investigation with Carson in
The Dossier : The LAPD Cover-up of the Murder of Biggie Smalls podcast, investigative filmmaker
Don Sikorski says he "uncovered sourced proof that Philips was in bed with one of the top brass at LAPD, Mike Berkow. Berkow was feeding him information to print in the paper. To go further, Philips wrote in upwards of five stories that created false narrative surrounding the investigation into Biggie's murder." The article was about Harlem drug dealer Eric "Von Zip" Martin and his alleged connection to
Sean "Diddy" Combs. The latest post on his website, about the death of Alesia Thomas while in LAPD custody, was published on October 15, 2012. ==Cultural Influence==