Tootie Reese

Thomas C. "Tootie" Reese was the alleged king of cocaine in black Los Angeles during the 1970s, before the arrival of crack transformed the market.¹ By the early 1980s, when cocaine began seeping into the inner cities in noticeable amounts, Reese was already a relic of an earlier era - primarily a heroin and marijuana dealer.

Reputation and Reality

Former LAPD narcotic detective Steven Polak described Reese as the dominant figure: "When you mentioned drugs, whether it was heroin or coke, you heard Tootie's name. He was the kingpin, especially in the fifties and sixties. Everybody was working Tootie Reese. Tootie Reese was probably one of the first blacks who really did big dope."¹

But the man himself downplayed his stature. After his arrest in December 1983 for selling two kilos of cocaine to undercover officers, Reese told the L.A. Times: "I ain't never been big." Evidence gathered during the investigation backed his claim that his cocaine-dealing prowess had been greatly overrated. During a taped conversation with undercover agents, Reese told them that "most of his customers purchase only five ounces or 10 ounces and that he had only five kilo-size customers." That admission was made at a time when Danilo Blandón was moving dozens of kilos a month through just one customer.¹

Overtaken by the Crack Era

Ex-detective Polak said the new generation of dealers rendered Reese obsolete: "These new kids, once the eighties hit and these gangs hooked up with this dope, he was nothing anymore. He was just an old grandpa who'd lost his teeth and wasn't worth anything anymore." A 1989 L.A. Times Magazine piece wrote him off in similar terms: "The amounts of cocaine he allegedly dealt were infinitesimal contrasted with the tonnage now sold monthly by his successors in the black community." Reese's first major successor would be "Freeway" Ricky Ross.¹