Sullivan, Randall 1951-

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SULLIVAN, Randall 1951-

PERSONAL: Born December 1, 1951, in San Pedro, CA; son of Howard W. (a longshoreman) and Elaine V. (a secretary; maiden name, White) Sullivan; married Karen Kuhlman, 1971 (divorced, 1981); married Tara Fields, 1985 (divorced, 1988); married Joy Candace Welp, September 13, 1995; children: Gabriel and Grace. Education: University of Oregon, B.A., 1974; Columbia University, M.F.A., 1980. Politics: Independent. Religion: "Catholic (come lately)." Hobbies and other interests: Carpentry, woodworking, sculpture.

ADDRESSES: Agent—Jeanne Field, Windfall Management, 4084 Mandeville Canyon Rd., Los Angeles, CA90049. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: New York Daily News, New York, NY, reporter, 1978-79; Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Los Angeles, CA, columnist, 1979-83; Rolling Stone, New

York, NY, contributing editor, 1983-91, 2003; Men's Journal, contributing editor, 2003; freelance writer, 1991—. Screenwriter.

MEMBER: Writers Guild of America (West), Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS: Los Angeles Press Club Award for best feature, 1979; Hearst Writing Award for best feature, 1980; second prize, R. F. Kennedy Journalism Awards, 1980.

WRITINGS:

The Price of Experience: Power, Money, Image, and Murder in Los Angeles, Atlantic Monthly (New York, NY), 1996.

LAbyrinth: A Detective Investigates the Murders of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls, the Implication of Death Row Records' Suge Knight, and the Origins of the Los Angeles Police Scandal, Atlantic Monthly (New York, NY), 2002.

Contributor to books, including Best of California Magazine, 1987, and Best of Rolling Stone, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1993. Contributor of articles and stories to magazines, including Esquire, California, Redbook, Epoch, Rolling Stone, and BOPP.

WORK IN PROGRESS: The Miracle Detective, Atlantic Monthly Press (New York, NY), 2004, about religious mystics and set mostly in a small village in Bosnia at the height of the war there.

SIDELIGHTS: Randall Sullivan is a journalist who specializes in exposing the tawdry underworld of glamorous Los Angeles, where he lived for a time. In LAbyrinth: A Detective Investigates the Murders of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls, the Implication of Death Row Records' Suge Knight, and the Origins of the Los Angeles Police Scandal, Sullivan turns his reportorial skills on police corruption in the Los Angeles Police Department after the Rodney King race riots of the 1990s. Relying on documents provided by theL.A.P.D. and on the testimony of former L.A. police detective Russell Poole, Sullivan begins with the murder of one undercover cop by another in an incident of road rage, and connects the death to a legion of L.A. police officers who illegally worked as security guards for Suge Knight's Death Row Records company. The connection to Knight shed light on other connections between L.A. police officers and the notorious Crips and Bloods gangs, corruption within the Ramparts division of the L.A.P.D. (an anti-gang task force) and the revelations of rogue cop Raphael Perez, and finally to the murder of two of rap music's most successful performers, Tupac Shakur, in 1996, and Biggie Smalls, in 1997, the latter thought to be a revenge killing for the first. Reactions to LAbyrinth ran the gamut, from disdainful to laudatory, but Los Angeles Magazine writer R. J. Smith, who surveyed the range of responses Sullivan and his book provoked within the city and its government, concluded: "Whatever response LAbyrinth gets in Los Angeles—indignant outrage or the cold shoulder—it would be too bad if it didn't kick-start some kind of public conversation."

Much of the praise Sullivan garnered for LAbyrinth centered on his control over his material. "The author shrewdly focuses on the experiences of veteran LAPD detective Russell Poole," remarked a contributor to Kirkus Reviews, a connection that gives a structure to Sullivan's extremely complex story, including a cast of characters that extends to 130 individuals. Poole was assigned to investigate the murder of an off-duty undercover cop and stumbled into evidence of police officers working as security personnel at Death Row Records, including officer David Mack, who while under arrest for bank robbery was visited by the prime suspect for the murder of Biggie Smalls. Because of scandal-leery higher-ups in the police department, Poole was first discouraged from pursuing his investigation further and then removed from the case. He eventually resigned from the police force and sued the department. But in Sullivan he at last found an audience for his story, and reviewers remarked that in his rush to tell it, Sullivan does not bother to mince words. Smith observed, "LAbyrinth is a jeremiad, leveling everything in its path: the police department, politicians, and liberals. After the [Rodney King] riots, Sullivan writes, political correctness dictated that evidence of bad black cops had to be concealed. And it was the local media, especially the [Los Angeles] Times, that generated the cover-up."

Some reviewers noted that Sullivan is not the first reporter to tell this story, "but no single source presents so complete or damning a record as LAbyrinth, " contended Evan Serpick in Entertainment Weekly. Other reviewers emphasized the success with which Sullivan tackles a hugely complex set of information, setting his story against effectively conveyed backdrops, including the world of hip-hop music, Los Angeles politics post Rodney King, and gangland criminality. "A fictional thriller with LAbyrinth's Byzantine plot, deadserious social agenda and beyond-the-pale characters would be laughed out of publishing," argued Zach Dundas and David Walker in W Week. "But Sullivan's book … makes a compelling case that law enforcement officials conspired to stymie investigations of [Shakur's and Smalls'] murders' most probable solutions."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

Booklist, March 15, 2002, review of LAbyrinth: A Detective Investigates the Murders of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls, the Implication of Death Row Records' Suge Knight, and the Origins of the Los Angeles Police Scandal, p. 1195.

Entertainment Weekly, April 19, 2002, Evan Serpick, "Crime Story: The Murders of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls Remain Unsolved. A Tenacious Journalist Says He Has the Answers," p. 66.

Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2002, review of LAbyrinth, p. 242.

Library Journal, March 15, 2002, Sarah Jent, review of LAbyrinth, p. 95.

Los Angeles Magazine, May, 2002, R. J. Smith, "Conspiracy Theory: A New Book Picks a Fight over Rampart and How the Press Covered the Scandal,"p. 46.

Publishers Weekly, March 18, 2002, review of LAbyrinth, p. 90.