Video After The Jump
Freeway Ricky Ross' real life is the kind of story Hollywood has made fictional movies about and rappers (one in particular) have fantasized about in their rhymes.
Born Ricky Donell Ross, Freeway was actually a very good tennis player at Dorsey High School in Los Angeles. He dropped out as a senior after his coach told him he wouldn't be able to get a college scholarship because he couldn't read or write.
After that he enrolled at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College, a vocational community college where a friend told him about the booming cocaine business.
From there the legend began. Freeway built a cocaine empire that brought in anywhere from $1-2 million dollars a day through distribution from the west coast to the midwest.
Ross was brought down after trying to purchase more than 100 kilos of cocaine from a police informant. Which led to his 1996 conviction.
But as you will read and see in this interview with Streetgangs.com, Freeway's story is much bigger than it appears on the surface. It reaches all the way to the steps on the White House.
"I didn't think I would be living when I was 24-25 years old, I didn't know how long. I lived a dangerous life. Right now just to be living and be free is..[mind blowing]," he says.
Street Gangs: You think the U.S. Government might have some concerns about you that now you're a free man, but you're also a part of an expose of nefarious activities of our own goverment?
"The government know that I'm not the one that exposed it. They know that I didn't know anything about it. They know that all I was doing was selling drugs. They know that {journalist] Gary Webb is the one that put it all together. Some people try to say I put it together. The government know....I wish it would have been me that did all the stuff that Gary did. I don't think they really have any concerns for me."
The Gary Webb that Freeway refers to was an investigative journalist who wrote a series of articles for the San Jose Mercury News titled the "Dark Alliance". In the articles Gary investigated Nicaraguan CIA-backed Contras who were smuggling cocaine into the U.S. and distributing it as crack in L.A. with profits going back to the Contras. Gary asserted that the Contras started the crack epidemic in the U.S. with full CIA knowledge and were shielded from prosecution by the Ronald Reagan administration.
Gary died in 2004 at the age of 49 from two gunshot wounds to the head. His death was ruled a suicide.
Gary Webb
Street Gangs: Gary Webb died before you was released from prison. If you had an opportunity to meet him face to face what would you say to Gary Webb?
"That would have been amazing to see Gary, because he wanted me to be free bad. Gary thought that I got a raw deal all the way around the board. He felt that I was a victim in the whole thing and that I had been taken advantage of. I didn't feel like that, but that was his personal opinion. He felt that if I was in jail then the rest of those guys that was involved should be in jail to."
Street Gangs: I guess he was talking about guys like [Oscar] Danilo Blandon?
"Blandon, [Norwin] Meneses, Oliver North, Bush [George Sr], [Ronald] Reagan, the list goes on. There was quite a few of them he felt was more culpable than I was."
Oliver North
Street Gangs: Now you personally knew Denilo, that was like your connection?
"Yeah, Denilo that was supposed to be my man."
Street Gangs: How did he treat you and how was he in the beginning when you guys were making all this money?
"Oh we were cool, we were like brothers, father-son type of relationship. He taught me what needed to be done, I stayed at his house when I went to Miami. I mean we were just cool, stayed at each other's houses."
Street Gangs: So were you shocked when you caught that case at the end there and he turned out to be a witness against you?
"Very shocked, even after he set me up, I still couldn't believe that he would testify. I still couldn't believe that he would walk in the courtroom in front of 12 people and point the fnger at me knowing that I was going to get a life sentence in prison."
Danilo Blandon
As you can see, Freeway Ricky Ross has quite a story to tell. He is currently working with 'Blow' writer Nick Cassavetes to bring his story to the big screen.
It's going to be one hell of a movie.
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