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The Bmf Documentary: Blowing Money Fast - Season 2 Episode 1 - Tale Of Two Brothers
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00:00I had a saying, police men get shot, firemen get burned, and gangsters go to prison or get killed.
00:25When you're hustling, those things come about. So I knew what I signed up for. The streets, violence. Everybody don't make it to go to prison. Prison is the lucky stage. But it was life's choices that made us lean toward hustling.
00:55A pair of infamous brothers known for heading up an international cocaine empire called the Black Mafia family.
01:01Who began their drug trafficking career selling crack in the mid-80s.
01:04It all came crashing down when they were convicted of running a criminal enterprise.
01:08The BMF story is one of rags to riches to wretchedness. The American dream and nightmare at the same time.
01:20BMF!
01:21Nobody did it like BMF.
01:23There ain't no other fool like this in the world. There never will be another.
01:27They weren't being influenced by the culture. They were the culture.
01:32They was hiding in plain sight because who you would see with that kind of jewelry? Hip-hop artists.
01:36These are two brothers like Cain and Abel.
01:39BMF was the largest cocaine organization in U.S. history.
01:43Money was just everywhere.
01:45There's always somebody that wants more. Somebody has to be fucked up. It's a bad apple.
01:49We're playing the chess game. They can never make a mistake.
01:53Meek was so respected. And he also paid like he weighed.
01:58Harry Flannery operated as a ghost.
02:00He was always about his business. This dude was a genius.
02:04He wondered, is this real or is this just urban legend?
02:07And then all of a sudden the break we needed happened.
02:11Harry and Demetrius Flannery were sentenced to 30 years.
02:14One of those brothers got released.
02:19Everybody moves like brothers.
02:21Everybody's shining like blue money.
02:38There ain't nobody who's like this in the world.
02:48world and never will be.
03:05Demetrius and Terry Flannery were very close growing up.
03:09They had personalities that complemented each other.
03:12We've been had money.
03:13Money ain't nothing.
03:14Demetrius was the definition of charismatic.
03:17He knew how to sell the vision.
03:21I met the Black Mafia family prior to 2003.
03:25People really wanted to be down with them and gravitate to them.
03:29We got our own cars.
03:30We got our own hoes.
03:31We got our own clothes.
03:32You know what I'm saying?
03:32And we can't be stopped.
03:34They really bought into Meech's theology.
03:36Everybody move as one.
03:38Everybody is prospering in some kind of way.
03:42Harry was more reserved, quieter.
03:44He had a tremendous mind for logistics.
03:48Terry was the boss.
03:49He was in the background calling shots.
03:52I'm going to tell the car you.
03:53That's who you're fucking with.
03:55Quit doing what you want to do and do what I tell you to do.
03:58Yes, sir.
04:00You could just tell by the aura.
04:02He was the Don.
04:03He was the brains of the whole shit.
04:05Terry and Demetrius' diverging personalities is what allowed them to build Black Mafia family
04:11into the biggest drug organization in American history.
04:15But that push and pull and that dynamic is what also led to their downfall.
04:19During the rise and the fall of BMF, the only real storyteller you had from within was Demetrius.
04:29You never heard from Terry.
04:32He's kept it so close to the vest for 30 years.
04:35You might have heard of me, but you've never seen me.
04:41My name is Terry Flinnery, and this is my story.
04:47This is the first time you're on camera telling your story.
04:51Why do you think the BMF story resonates with so many people?
04:54The American dream is always talked about, but not everybody gets a chance to live it.
05:03When you come up in southwest Detroit, as poor as Mitch and I came up, family is everything.
05:10When I was a child, being poor in school, I knew the answers to the questions often when
05:17the teachers would ask the class, but I didn't want anyone to focus on the outfit that I had
05:24on or the shoes that I had on wanted to be invisible.
05:29But I often looked up to my brother because despite our poverty, people would always recognize
05:36him.
05:37They would always look up to him as being a leader.
05:40Me, I just kind of always used to be a Mitch little brother.
05:43For all the crew and all the people around, I was my brother's only protector.
05:48It used to be him and I.
05:50This college son.
05:51Demetrius Flinnery.
05:52An inmate at a federal prison.
05:55Me and my brother, we was poor, man.
05:58You got to keep switching clothes.
06:00You know, he wears his jeans and on a shirt one day, I wear it the next day.
06:04You just, you know, that's what you're mentally, you know.
06:07Like, for the most part, you know, it was about being cheap, sticking together and making
06:13it happen, you know.
06:16Terry and Mitch did everything together.
06:18When you saw one, you saw the other.
06:21And a lot of times you saw me as the third wheel.
06:24Demetrius and Terry and Nicole, in the earlier years, they were inseparable.
06:29As time went on, though, they managed to kind of develop their own, you know, personality,
06:37their own ways.
06:38Poverty being so bad kept my parents fighting and arguing with each other.
06:47When they get to arguing, Mitch would try to either block out, would cover his head with
06:53a pillow.
06:53So, I kind of stayed there to try to, like, make sure it wouldn't get into nothing violent.
07:00So, I grew up being my mom's protector.
07:04We knew that it was hard times and poor times.
07:08I had no idea that, you know, the times that we were going through had affected them in the
07:14way that it did.
07:15Poverty, arguing, made me often think that the answer was somehow getting some financial
07:24gain to stop them from even having to argue or fight.
07:28So, I was already programming myself young to feel that the answer was getting to money.
07:34It's called rap music, and few thought it would last.
07:45When hip-hop hit, we felt the music because it related and resonated with the streets.
07:51Hip-hop was an education because they were telling their story, and they related to that
07:56story.
07:57Hip-hop was a protest.
07:59The rage of a generation.
08:01Hip-hop has always been a form of empowerment.
08:05We ate, drank, slept it.
08:07It was ours.
08:08People spoke like us.
08:09The people who were in reform schools like us.
08:12It was just our music because it was all about what the times were.
08:16Something we had not seen before, and it took off in Detroit.
08:25Run DMC did a free concert in Detroit.
08:28We would skip school that day and caught the bus downtown and actually seen a free-run
08:33DMC.
08:34I said,
08:35DMC!
08:38We was amazed by these guys in the crowd, wearing the Panama straws and the big chains.
08:44These guys drive these Mercedes or these Jaguars.
08:48These were the hustlers.
08:50That type of money and that type of influence, he had to get on the ball.
08:53He had to do something fast.
08:56You know, we wanted a better way of life.
08:58And that's what started us coming up in the game.
09:01We talked about it all the way back home on the bus ride.
09:04Kind of like dreaming.
09:05And that's when Meech and I made a decision to start hustling.
09:10Your dreams have now been fulfilled.
09:16Detroit at the peak of the crack era, the 80s, was the Wild West.
09:21You could be a low-level foot soldier and make a million dollars in a couple months.
09:27There had never been a time where getting rich was so easy.
09:33It proved an inspiration for Terry and Demetrius that were looking to dive into the game themselves.
09:39Before selling Coke, we were selling weed.
09:43We'd roll up 100 joints out of ounces.
09:47While we were DJing out of the club, the guys would come up and make a request.
09:51And then we'd sell them a couple of joints.
09:53At first of all, they'd start selling weed.
09:55Start selling little bags of weed.
09:56That didn't do anything.
09:58Demetrius was tired of, you know, not having nothing.
10:02So he started working for a guy named E.D.
10:09The game is an addiction, you know, just like the drug.
10:13The money, the fame, the shine.
10:16And you see that, you're like, oh, that's what I want.
10:20E.D. was a guy in the neighborhood.
10:22He the one to talk to because he was out there giving work out.
10:27I would ride up and down the street and Meech would be like on the next block.
10:31Every time I ride down the street, you know, he'd be like, what's happening, what's happening?
10:36And he always stayed on that corner waiting for me.
10:39He was sharp.
10:40We had a lot of people jealous of him.
10:42He was a good guy, you know what I'm saying, for the most part.
10:45That's it to me and my brother.
10:48We learned a lot.
10:49Messing with him for the time that we was with him.
10:52E.D. was always fly.
10:54He was from New York.
10:56We looked up to him.
10:57So one day, Demetrius was going to meet him, but Terry wanted to come, and Demetrius didn't
11:02want him to come.
11:04So Demetrius told Terry to stay home.
11:07And like I say, Terry is the type of person, he's not going to listen to you.
11:10And he ended up going to sell.
11:13Meech and I left my mom's house and went through the path and met him at the gas station.
11:18And he just wanted to hire one person.
11:20And I was like, no, we do it together for the same pay.
11:25At the time, it was like me, T, and D-Meet.
11:28We took off from there.
11:31Me, Terry, Demetrius, and Edric had the same heart, which is rare to find.
11:37And so when we found out he was cool like that, we was good to go.
11:41I have respect for all of them, because everybody played their part.
11:45Everybody had a part to play, and they played it.
11:48Terry had to have the business part.
11:49I had the street part.
11:52Demetrius had all the cruising shit.
11:54Demetrius and I didn't start off selling crack.
11:57We started off selling powder.
11:59We were selling gram for gram, $100 grams of powder.
12:02Then later on, we started selling $50 packs of powder.
12:07There was no crack there.
12:08That come along later when we hit the block.
12:11In the summer of 1984, everything turned on its head.
12:17Crack cocaine hit Detroit.
12:19Powder cocaine had always been around.
12:21It was a drug for the rich and powerful, very exclusive.
12:25Cocaine, it was selling well.
12:27That was the cool drug.
12:28That's when the guys, black and white, Latino, and whoever wanted to get high,
12:33you know, it was more a superfly.
12:35You know, you want to snort?
12:36That was cool.
12:41Then somebody got smart and started cooking the cocaine, making it go much farther,
12:47and they sold it as crack.
12:49Crack cocaine.
12:50In Detroit, the problem has reached epidemic proportions.
12:55He wanted to know why these kids keep selling drugs.
12:58They don't realize that we just walk out your house, make $1,000 in an hour.
13:03So how you tell these kids not to do it?
13:07Somebody's distress is another man's opportunity.
13:10Just like in any business, you got to climb the ladder, and the first couple rungs of
13:15the ladder in the drug game is selling small quantities, hand-to-hand buys.
13:20I give you the package, you give me $50.
13:22And in the world of the drug game, that's where Terry and Demetrius had to start.
13:25When the crack trickled in, we observed the guys that were selling crack, noticed that
13:31a lot of them wouldn't have a lot of packs on them.
13:34They would always have to go home.
13:36Me always being in tune with business, I came up with the concept.
13:41We just have packs already cooked to make them a little larger, and we sell them for $50
13:46a pack.
13:48Sure enough, for about a week or so later, we had like $10,000 worth of crack rocks and
13:54$50 packs.
13:56That's how we got the name 50 Boys.
14:0050 Boys come from a name that people gave in the street.
14:03People would say, man, the 50 Boys, go ask the 50 Boys, man, they got them 50s.
14:08So the name just came from out the street.
14:11By word of mouth, you know, we had the 50 Rocks, and they were like bigger than everybody
14:16else, so our competition couldn't handle what we were selling.
14:21Our 50 Rocks were so big to where you can take it and cut it down and make $200 out of
14:27a 50 Rock.
14:30The money like that, it's become an addiction, you know what I'm saying?
14:34You got everything from the clothing, the money, the jewelry.
14:38Come on, man, I'm living seven days.
14:39Demetrius was a big dreamer.
14:41Anything he's seen, just touch it, he wanted.
14:44A new diamond ring, a new chain.
14:47Demetrius was ready to go get a bunch of Adidas track suits.
14:51I'm an out-front person.
14:53I'm just trying to enjoy myself and have everybody around me, enjoy the moment.
14:57You know, the jealousy came with us getting money.
15:01Okay, you can go get that, but I'm going to go put my eyes up.
15:04I'm going to get a safe, and I'm going to start saving the $100 bills.
15:08They make a joke.
15:10Every time they see the light on in Demetrius in our bedroom, they say, I'm up there ironing
15:15my $100 bills and putting them in the safe.
15:19I didn't think we'd make money again.
15:21Terry wouldn't do nothing but save money.
15:25One day, we pull up.
15:27Terry opened up the window and say, take me to get my car.
15:31And we looked at each other, me and Demetrius, and ran in the house.
15:35Man, that boy had $100,000 in the hand on the bed.
15:39We like, damn, we got the stuff I gave him up.
15:42We fucking up.
15:43Terry didn't drink, didn't smoke, none of that type of stuff.
15:46The perfect person to have Meech back, because, you know, Terry always held it down.
15:51If Meech would mess it up, he could always know Terry had his back.
15:55We often be able to help our parents out with the bills.
15:59Probably paid all the bills.
16:01When I found out that Demetrius and Terry were in the streets, I would do my best as a
16:08parent to try to discourage them that that was not the way to go, that was not the way
16:13to turn.
16:13It don't nobody like for their kids to sell drugs.
16:16They didn't like it.
16:17I'm not going to sit up and say they was for it.
16:19They didn't like it.
16:21Being Christian kids coming up, my goal was making my parents proud, at least graduating,
16:28and perhaps being the first to go to college, until we started making all the money.
16:33After that, just never going to complete school.
16:36So you change with the money.
16:41It made me open up.
16:42It made me feel good.
16:43It gives you a surge of power.
16:47My self-esteem started loosening up.
16:50I was able to buy things that I never had before, thought I'd never get.
16:55Jewelry, alligator shoes, pants, suits, for new Mercedes.
17:00Big T was cold.
17:04Now, when it was time to go out, Misha go step for step with him.
17:08But Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Big Boy got on the Coojies with the slacks,
17:12with the gators.
17:13Big Boy was cold.
17:14Believe that.
17:15Me, Misha, and Terry always got more money than everybody.
17:19So we was hated.
17:20Then plus we was three nice looking guys.
17:23All the women loved us.
17:24Well, Terry is not the ladies' man.
17:27Terry more business.
17:28You know, he got one woman in mind, and that's about it.
17:31So he's a one-woman man.
17:35Rhonda, I was 17, maybe 18 when I met Rhonda.
17:40I met Terry through Meech.
17:42I was Meech homegirl.
17:43I used to drive for Meech, ride him around.
17:47Then from there, I became T-homegirl, driving him around, taking him to school.
17:58Now, Rhonda was just cool, round-the-way girl, street savvy.
18:02By her living one or two streets over from the projects, it kind of fit into what I had going on.
18:09I used to stash to work over her house.
18:13As we got into a relationship, he showered me with jewels, furs.
18:19That was the first guy I brought home to my mom.
18:22We ended up having our son.
18:24It was life-changing.
18:25It's different when you got kids now, because it made me focus more on rising above street level of the gang.
18:33Terry was a provider.
18:34He was really there, real supportive.
18:37He would look out for myself and little Terry.
18:40But he tried to keep us away from the gang, what he was doing.
18:44He tried to keep everything separate.
18:45Later on, I learned, you know, being in the game, different things came with that.
18:49No one knew back then what crack was going to do to the culture or the community.
18:57Meech and I never liked the fact that people would bring their microwaves, their TVs, because they didn't have the money.
19:07If they wanted it that bad, sometimes we'd just give it to them.
19:10We never dehumanized the people.
19:13It was just strictly about the money.
19:15Detroit, at the peak of the crack epidemic, was like something out of the Wild West.
19:21And as Terry, Demetrius, and their 50 Boys crew are growing bigger by the second, this put Terry and Demetrius on the radar of law enforcement.
19:29I've always wanted to be a cop, you know, since I was young.
19:39I was just kind of fascinated about the police.
19:42And so I went and signed up, got into the state police.
19:46But I came up in Detroit, so I wanted to be in the streets, you know, a street cop.
19:52So they sent me to gang squad.
19:54Like what they say, when citizens get in trouble, they call the police.
19:57Police get in trouble, they call gang squad.
19:59That was the baddest unit in the city.
20:03Our job was to build intelligence, get information on everybody at a lower level.
20:09In the early days of the 50 Boys, in the 80s, with crack cocaine, they were middle management, boots on the ground.
20:17The law enforcement knew who they were, but the intelligence they were getting was very piecemeal, and it was coming in drips.
20:24Vic Meach and his brother, we have heard about them.
20:27We know they were talking and dope and doing really, really well.
20:30All of a sudden, they're on the radar.
20:32Law enforcement, they needed to get in from the inside, which means developing confidential informants.
20:38But what people didn't realize, Southwest Detroit was its own culture.
20:43Guys down there, they did a lot of everything, but they didn't do a lot of talking.
20:46Probably how they got big so quick.
20:48As Demetrius and Terry climbed their way up the criminal food chain in Detroit, working for E.D. Boyd, they were getting rich and getting rich quick.
21:02So, with this newfound wealth came newfound jealousy and newfound enemies.
21:07And they started to have beefs in their neighborhood.
21:10By us making a lot of money, our names was ringing out there.
21:15Terry and Demetrius saving money, got money.
21:18And all the other guys looking at them like, you know, oh man, here they come.
21:23In the early era of the Flannery's, their number one adversary would be Leighton the Beast Simon.
21:32Leighton was a tough guy.
21:34Pull a gun on you, he'll fight you.
21:36He used to torment the shit out of us.
21:39Leighton Simon was in jail for five or six years.
21:41He came out and all the territory that had once belonged to him was now swallowed up by the 50 boys.
21:49Leighton Simon was of the opinion that that was his rightful territory.
21:54When you start losing a lot of money and it's going to somebody that's in your same neighborhood, you're really pissed.
22:03Our beef with Leighton starts the night that Hagler retired from boxing.
22:09We went to watch the fight, closed circuit TV at a place called Crystal Gardens.
22:15After the fight, Leighton and his brother was at the light.
22:22They seen Demetrius.
22:23Leighton's brother, Elvis, was talking about, you young ass motherfuckers don't know nothing.
22:29And Demetrius and them were like, man, fuck you, man, fuck you, so.
22:34Leighton said, man, get out the car.
22:36Leighton's brother, Elvis, he said, I don't fight, I shoot.
22:40And then they pulled off.
22:41Meech and Roland got me off that night and they went to the bar.
22:49One night at the club, everybody partying, a bunch of women.
22:54Leighton and his brother come in, talking shit, he talking to Meech.
22:59They got into it.
23:01Then that's when somebody shot Elvis and Leighton.
23:06Everybody ran out of there.
23:07Elvis was the only person laying on the ground.
23:09The spring of 1987, Leighton Simon saw his brother, Elvis, murdered in cold blood in front of his eyes.
23:17I woke up to him and it was a shootout and people were dead at the bar.
23:22But I actually wasn't on the scene.
23:24Leighton's beef had nothing to do with me.
23:27The rumor on the street was that the hit had come from the Funnery crew.
23:31And that was a declaration of war between Leighton Simon and the Funnery brothers.
23:36You selling drugs, you're going to have a beef.
23:39You can't stop that.
23:41Somebody messaged your crew and they try to take him out.
23:44What makes you think they want to try to take you out?
23:47Sometimes retaliation is a must.
23:49After a tragedy happened with Leighton and his brother, one night I see my brother at the
23:57County Island.
23:58I'm talking to Meech.
24:01This car pulls up.
24:04Meech rolls down the window and we see it's Leighton.
24:07And the look in his eyes, we knew it was just a problem.
24:11Meech actually gets shot in the neck.
24:19When my chain fell from around my neck, that's how I knew I was shot in the neck.
24:23I seen that I was shot in the shoulder.
24:26That night I focused on getting him to safety, getting him to the hospital.
24:31Police ended up taking him.
24:35To see your big brother, somebody you look up to, getting shot, knowing that he could
24:40lost his life that night, you're angry, you want revenge.
24:46Fortunately, he was okay.
24:48He was released that night.
24:51Selling drugs, there comes consequences at times.
24:56Growing up with Terry and Meech, you were always looking over your shoulder.
25:00My parents were just trying to get their children to do the right thing.
25:05and get a hold of their sons because they didn't want them to be in the street life.
25:22Back then, we always knew Leighton was coming back.
25:25We knew he was a threat.
25:28Terry really had nothing to do with this beef, but he was brought into it.
25:33It began this pattern where Terry was sucked into Demetrius' mess.
25:39It would be something that would foreshadow their relationship dynamic for the next 20 years.
25:47One night, I was with Rhonda.
25:50We went to a movie theater.
25:52I happened to run into Demetrius' at the theater.
25:55Meech patted me down, playing with me, saying,
25:57Where's your gun? I bet you don't got your gun on you.
26:00And I said, No, it's in the car. It's under the seat.
26:02He said, See, you don't do you no good in the car.
26:04When I got home, I was so tired, I passed out in the living room.
26:10We got home, and Terry laid on the couch, took a nap.
26:13And shortly after that, Meech was trying to get in touch with him.
26:17Demetrius was calling me and beeping me and calling me and beeping me.
26:20I wasn't answering, so finally, he calls Rhonda's house.
26:24And he told me he was going to meet Meech.
26:26I was leaving out of Rhonda's house, and I was getting into my Mercedes.
26:32I watched him get in the car, and on his way to shutting the door,
26:35I seen a shadow come up.
26:38I looked up, and the guy ran up on me with the pistol
26:43and tried to place it to my temple.
26:45My mind's racing. I'm thinking I don't deserve to die.
26:49I'm thinking I don't deserve to die.
27:19I don't deserve to die.
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