Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - The Snoop Dogg / Peanut Butter Jelly Time Hostage Situation

Episode Date: May 6, 2025

Jermaine Fuller, the brother-in-law of rapper Snoop Dogg, was involved in a tragic incident in Las Vegas in August 2002.On the night of August 12, 2002, Las Vegas police responded to reports of gunfire near Maryland Parkway and Reno Avenue. An officer approached Fuller, leading to a confrontation during which Fuller allegedly shot the officer in the head and chest. The officer survived, thanks in part to his bulletproof vest. Another officer was also fired upon but was not injured. Following the shootings, Fuller fled to a nearby apartment complex, forcibly entered a unit, and took hostages. The hostages managed to escape unharmed.

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Oh! Marvel Studios The Fantastic Four First Steps, now streaming on Disney Plus, we did PG-13. What time is it, Ben? It's Clubber Time! So Snoop Dog was involved in a hostage situation and it somehow connects to the song, It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time? It's all starts with this guy, Germain.

And Germain is 29 living in Las Vegas and we don't know much about him other than what happens to him on this night. So on this night in 2002, for some reason he goes absolutely insane. Because he's out on the town doing something and he ends up confronting this random bystander for some reason. And Germain is all pissed off. And suddenly he pulls out a pew-poo. And blam, he fires it. And the bystander is, of course, scared.

And he runs away. Moments later, he sees a police officer, and he flags him down. And he's like, this crazy guy is on the street, and he's shooting a pew-poo. And so the officer gets in his car, and he goes looking for Germain. And after a bit, he spots him near a bus stop. So he gets

out, and he approaches him, and he knows he's armed. And so he's like, You're being detained. And the officer grabs him and they get into some kind of fight and they struggle. And then, boom, Germaine pulls out the pu-poo and blam, blam, he fires it. And one bullet flies through the air and it grazes the officer's head. The other bullet hits the officer in the chest and the officer goes down. But luckily, he survives because he's wearing a bulletproof vest.

But right then, another cop pulls up in his car. And so blam, Germain shoots at him. And the bullet goes through the wind. windshield and grazes the shoulder of his uniform, but luckily it doesn't hurt him. And of course, Jermaine knows he's in trouble now. And so, boom, he takes off running, and he runs to a nearby apartment complex. And there, I guess he finds a random apartment, and ca-pow! He forces his way in. And there, there are two tenants just chilling, and they're like, oh shit, who's this guy? And Jermaine points the Pugh-Pew at them, and he says...

Actually, I don't know what he says. I couldn't find any information on what exactly he says, but he knows the police are after him, so he takes these two men hostage, and he barricades the front door with a bunch of furniture so that no one can get in. And pretty quickly, police figure out where he is, and they send in a SWAT team, and so now they've got the place surrounded, and it's a whole scene, and police, they go around beating on every door, telling everyone to get out, because they've got to evacuate the whole building until they can apprehend this crazy man. So about an hour goes by, and Germain is still.

in the apartment and he's still holding these guys hostage. And at some point, I guess he gets thirsty and he leaves the hostages to go in the other room and get a glass of water. And I guess the two men, they see this as their opportunity and boom, they raise up a nearby window and they each jump out of it and they run to safety. Now, since the hostages are now clear, police really want to go busting into this apartment so that they can grab Germain and arrest him. But not only is the door still barricaded, but, Germain is in there firing shots off. So to avoid any casualties, police are holding back thinking that they can talk him into surrendering. They got a police negotiator there and everything.

But despite that, it's just not working. Germain is just not listening. Now, here's where shit gets really weird. At some point during this standoff, Germain gets a phone in the apartment and he calls several news stations in the area. I'm not sure why he's calling them specifically or what his goal is, but he calls them. And he informs them that he has a famous brother-in-law that he wants to talk to. That brother-in-law? The D-O-D-O-G Snoop Doggy Dog.

Apparently, Jermaine's sister is actually married to Snoop. So Jermaine wants to talk to him. I guess he thinks Snoop can help him out of this. So, of course, the new stations contact the Vegas Police. Vegas Police hits up the Los Angeles Police to help them out, since Snoop apparently lives in Los Angeles County. And so then the Los Angeles police show up to Snoop Dog's house, like in the middle of the night.

And I imagine that they're beating on his door. And bro is probably inside, just chilling, smoking some of that zaza, and he answers the door, he's probably all tired. And the police are like, uh, Mr. Dog, your brother-in-law shot a cop, broke into a random apartment and took some hostages, and he specifically wants to talk to you. And I guess Snoop hears all this, and he's like,

Fos shizzle. And so police put Snoop in touch with the police negotiator in Vegas. Police negotiator is like, Mr. Dog, could you talk to Germain and maybe encourage him to give himself up? And so Snoop, he decides to record a message for him. Now, this is in 2002, so there aren't camera phones everywhere. So Snoop makes an audio recording. And in this recording, he tells Germain to cooperate and give himself up.

And his exact words are, do what they say, we've got lawyers to take care of this, we'll take care of it. And then they send that tape to the police in Vegas and somehow I guess the Vegas police play it so that Jermaine can hear it. But Jermaine doesn't respond. And now at this point hours have gone by. It's 10 a.m. So this standoff has been going on for around 11 hours and Jermaine is still in there. So finally police are like fuck this, we gotta go in. And so they gather the SWAT team and boom, they bust into that apartment and they swarm the place. But now, Jermaine is hiding in the bathroom and he's barricaded himself in there somehow.

And police, they can't see him in there, but they can hear shots going off of Blam, Blam, Blam, Blam. And somehow the SWAT team finds an opening to the bathroom. Maybe through a window, I don't know. But they find an opening and they start throwing tear gas and concussion grenades in there. And... Okay, so I'm going to pause the story for a second because this is where the peanut butter. and jelly song comes in. And so the song, peanut butter and jelly, peanut butter jelly time,

that one. Peanut butter jelly time. You know it, it's a viral song. It was a meme song, before meme songs were even a thing. This song is a huge hit during this time. It's been used in commercials. They even made fun of it on Family Guy. Dudea peanut butter jelly, peanut butter jelly. Well right after this song dropped and started blowing up on the internet, some internet lore started to a emerge because the internet is just a weird place full of misinformation and bullshit. But the lore says that the guy who sang the song, the guy who sang the vocals that you hear on the peanut butter and jelly time song is Snoop Dog's brother-in-law. And that he ended up going

crazy one night, started shooting at police and broke into an apartment building and took some guys hostage and then called Snoop Dog himself to come and help him out. And to this day, you can find this story on blogs and local news websites. And at this point, this is like internet lore canon. But here's the thing. It's not true at all. Yes, Snoop Dogg's brother-in-law, Germain, did go crazy one night and create a hostage situation and call Snoop for help. All that's true. But what's not true is Germain did not sing the peanut butter and jelly song. He wasn't involved with the song or the group that made it. In fact, as far as I know, Germain isn't connected to making music like at all. I don't know how that rumor got started, but there is zero truth to it. Anyway,

back to the real Germain. So I guess at this point in the story, Germain is still barricaded in the bathroom, which is now slowly filling up with tear gas. And I guess he finally realizes that Snoop can't really do much for him and that there's no way he's getting out of this. And that is when he turns the pew-poo on himself and blam. He also. He also. He also unalives himself. That is wild.