news story / By Bob Doran

Manifest Destiny

The Saga of Pistol Pete

(Jan. 11, 2007)  I should have seen it immediately. The clues were right there in Chris Durant’s splashy piece in the Times-Standard at the end of December. The headline, “Crooks pull elaborate casino heist” was accompanied by a clever graphic with the three suspects’ mug shots embedded in a slot machine. The photo of Peter Daniel Collins wasn’t very big - it took a call last week from one of my son’s friends to make me look at it again and realize that I know Collins; in fact I’ve known him for five years.

“What’s up with Manifest robbing that casino?” was the question asked. When I reread the story it came to me: Peter Collins, aka Pistol Pete, is also known in Humboldt hip hop circles as Manifest, one of the most audacious rappers around, notorious for grabbing the mic at every hip hop show possible.

Screen capture from a Manifest music video.

GALLERY >

In case you missed the story, Collins is the alleged mastermind behind a $198,000 Halloween night robbery at Cher-Ae Heights Casino last year. Reports indicate that authorities believe Collins, initially identified as “Disguised Man,” worked with Daniel Ivan Porter, a casino security guard who slipped him keys to the casino vault with the assistance of one Emily Katherine Weitzel, a former HSU softball player who used the alias “Julie Andrews.” Collins and Weitzel made off with a duffel bag stuffed with the casino’s cash. Porter stayed behind and was subsequently arrested, basically because the crime and a prior dress rehearsal were caught on tape by the casino’s 150 camcorders.

The runaway couple was later traced to Marysville, Wash., based on clues including text messages, records of money transfers to Porter totaling $1,900 and a cell phone message machine that said, “This is Pistol Pete. Leave a message.”

When they were apprehended in December authorities found a quantity of heroin, sawed-off shotguns, a pistol and a pair of pit bulls in a sports car they said Collins had just bought for $21,297 cash. According to Durant’s report, “a silver briefcase with $151,495 in cash” was discovered under a bed at the suspects’ residence.

Despite the drugs, guns and the stash of bills with wrappers consistent with those used at the casino, Collins and Weitzel somehow talked their way out of jail and went on the lam.

Between the nickname, Pistol Pete, and the silver briefcase, I should have recognized the Manifest connection instantly. In my first encounter with him, in March 2001, Collins was carrying a locked silver briefcase containing flyers for a show he was promoting and lyrics he had written. He had called not long after returning to Humboldt from the East Bay insisting I had to meet him because he was about to “take Humboldt hip hop to a new level.”

When we met in the parking lot of the Bayshore Mall (his idea), he spoke of his childhood in Oakland living with adoptive parents, of a rough-and-tumble “life on the streets.” As he told the tale, it eventually led to being shot by an undercover drug agent at the tender age of 16. (He has a scar to go with the story.)

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