Thirty-year-old Joe Cole was the son of well-known actor Dennis Cole, and was making quite a name for himself in his own right. An actor and writer, Joe also worked as a roadie for Black Flag, the Rollins Band, and Hole, and shared a house in Venice Beach with Black Flag and Rollins Band frontman Henry Rollins.
In the early morning hours of December 19th, 1991, Joe and Henry had been attending a Hole concert at the Whisky A Go Go, and after the show was over, stopped by an all-night grocery store on their walk back home.
But no sooner had they arrived in front of their house than they were set upon by two armed individuals, who ordered them onto their knees and demanded money, further telling them to keep quiet or they would be shot.
Once Joe and Henry were on the ground, the assailants went through their pockets, and expressed their displeasure that the two men had less than fifty dollars between them. They told Henry to go into the house and get more money, but as Henry approached the front door, the attackers shot Joe in the face at point blank range. They also shot at Henry’s back as he fled into the house, but missed, and thereafter ran off on foot as Henry escaped out the back door of the house.
Henry quickly phoned the police, but by the time officers arrived, Joe was already dead. The suspects were described as two African-American males in their late twenties or early thirties, one of whom was about five-foot-eleven, weighed approximately one-hundred-sixty-five pounds, had a trimmed beard and mustache, and wore a baseball cap.
In the years since the senseless crime, Henry Rollins has written and spoken of the death of his friend many times, and published a book of Joe Cole’s writings, called Planet Joe, in 1997. Joe Cole’s murder has also been the inspiration for two Sonic Youth songs, “100%” and “JC,” and footage and interviews with Venice Beach residents that Joe filmed before his death was later compiled into a documentary titled Raves – God’s Movie, Volume 1.
Crime Immemorial 