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| “ | Welcome home, Carl. Glad to be back? You haven't forgotten about us, have you, boy? | „ |
| ~ Frank Tenpenny "welcoming" Carl back to Los Santos. |
| “ | Now, you get this straight. We own you. You're ours. We could shit on you from such a height, you'll think God himself has crapped on you. You understand? | „ |
| ~ Tenpenny's threat to Carl. |
Officer Frank Tenpenny is the main antagonist of the 2004 action videogame Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, the seventh installment of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto franchise.
He is the corrupt senior police officer of the Los Santos Police Department, specifically the leader of their C.R.A.S.H. unit. Throughout the course of the game, Tenpenny is consistently orchestrating events to accumulate more power in Los Santos, all while eliminating any individuals or evidence that would expose his corrupt activities. He is the archenemy of CJ, who he coerced into fulfilling his dirty work after threatening to frame him for the death of Officer Pendlebury.
He was voiced by Samuel L. Jackson, who also played Gator Purify in Jungle Fever, Greg Meeker in White Sands, Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction, Ordell Robbie in Jackie Brown, Elijah Price in Unbreakable and Glass, John Mills in Twisted, Derrick Vann in The Man, Gin Rummy in The Boondocks, Roland Cox in Jumper, Officer Abel Turner in Lakeview Terrace, Octopus in The Spirit, Stephen in Django Unchained, Chaney in Oldboy, Richmond Valentine in Kingsman: The Secret Service, Mr. Barron in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, Preston Packard in Kong: Skull Island and Marcus Banks in Spiral: From the Book of Saw.
History[]
Backstory[]
Frank Tenpenny was a corrupt senior police officer of the LSPD who was leading the department's corrupt unit, Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums (or C.R.A.S.H. for short). He has his colleague and right-hand Eddie Pulaski and their new recruit, Jimmy Hernandez, by his side. He also works alongside the Ballas in dealing drugs, resulting in the entire city being flooded with them and their rival gangs ruined due to the members becoming addicts.
Before the events of the game, Tenpenny convinced Big Smoke to betray his gang, the Grove Street Families, and help in assassinating Sweet Johnson: Smoke then got Ryder to also switch sides. In the assassination attempt on Sweet, the assassins missed and accidentally killed his mother Beverly in the process. Sometime after that, Tenpenny has Hernandez kill his old partner, Ralph Pendelbury, who threatened to reveal C.R.A.S.H.'s corruption.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas[]
Barely ten minutes after Pendelbury's death, Tenpenny pulls over Carl Johnson - who arrived to Los Santos for his mother's funeral - and accuses him of having drug money. He threatens to frame him for Pendelbury's murder if he doesn't follow Tenpenny's orders, before dropping him off in the territory of his rival gang, the Ballas, aware they could kill him despite him not representing the Grove Street Families for five years. Following this, Tenpenny and Pulaski would regularly appear, such as telling CJ and Ryder a train with weapons would be coming, leaving Big Smoke's house, and ordering CJ to kill a foreigner in a warehouse. Later on, he and Pulaski assist the Ballas run the drug industry in Los Santos.
After Cesar Vialpando alerts CJ to suspicious activities he found, Tenpenny is seen in the garage of the Green Sabre with Big Smoke and Ryder, revealing that he had orchestrated the hit that killed CJ's mother, firmly establishing how corrupt Tenpenny is and revealing the betrayal of Smoke and Ryder. After a gang fight with the Ballas which ended with Sweet being shot, Tenpenny arrests CJ and takes him into the mountains. From that point on, he orders him to murder or arrest anyone who would try to expose his evil deeds or he will have Sweet be put in a Ballas cell block, where he would be raped and killed.
From that point on, Tenpenny and Pulaski occasionally appear to give CJ missions, all while Smoke becomes Los Santos' crack kingpin. Eventually, Tenpenny has CJ meet him and Pulaski in the deserts in Las Venturas, where they order CJ to bury Hernandez's unconscious body due to him betraying them. While Tenpenny is off "getting drunk and getting laid", Pulaski kills Hernandez before being killed by CJ.
Later on, he faces trial wherein he and Pulaski (unless CJ knows otherwise who previously killed Pulaski) were charged with corruption, sexual assault, dealing and using narcotics and racketeering, but the charges are dropped to the murders or disappearances of the people who try to expose him. This triggers massive riots in Los Santos, meant to be a rather obvious nod to the infamous 1992 Los Angeles Riots. Once CJ kills Big Smoke, Tenpenny confronts him in Smoke's hideout, revealing he plans to leave town while having new recruits.
He attempts to kill CJ by shooting him with a shotgun, but CJ tricks Tenpenny by yelling Sweet's name, making him think the man is behind him. The officer then escapes, but not before setting the crack palace on fire. Once CJ fights his way through the remaining Ballas members, he and Sweet proceed to chase Tenpenny throughout Los Santos. He eventually loses control of the firetruck he was driving, causing it to fall off a bridge right into the middle of Grove Street.
Tenpenny's corpse after his death. It was subsequently stripped and mutilated by homeless people.
Tenpenny rants about how he was the one protecting Los Santos and that he feels no remorse for his actions. CJ tries to finish him off, but Sweet stops him so that his death could be blamed on no one, just a "traffic accident". With Tenpenny having died of his injures, everyone present leaves the scene to get something to eat, with CJ sarcastically telling his corpse "see you around, officer".
After the riots subsided and ended, it was later revealed that Tenpenny's corpse was stripped and mutilated by the homeless.
Personality[]
Frank Tenpenny is a corrupt police officer who is defined by his manipulative, egotistical, and ruthlessly violent approaches in fulfilling his goals. He is constantly seeking ways to accumulate more power for himself in Los Santos, engaging in manipulative acts that brought the Ballas, Vagos, and even Big Smoke into serving his interests. Due to his position of authority and the sense of entitlement that carries with it, Tenpenny can be easily angered if anyone disobeys him or if affairs occur in undesirable ways.
Two of Tenpenny's defining characteristics are his egocentrism and arrogance, as he demonstrates enjoyment in constantly lording over others and coercing others to fulfill his bidding. He constantly prides himself over the borderline tyrannical power he holds over other individuals and groups in Los Santos, a trait demonstrated by his consistently abusive attitude towards CJ. Tenpenny seems to especially enjoy bragging about his control over him, as showcased in the many threats and taunts he makes to CJ in any interaction they both have together. His own subordinates are also not spared from this, as he insisted that his sycophantic cohort Eddie Pulaski refer to him as "Officer Tenpenny" instead of his first name. Ultimately, anyone around him in Los Santos were merely pawns for him to do as he pleased, as well as to dispose and eliminate once they had lost their usefulness to his goals.
Tenpenny's position of authority as the leader of C.R.A.S.H. fuels some of his self-serving narratives used to justify his corrupt activities. Seeing himself as a police officer "taking the trash out" in Los Santos, Tenpenny believed himself to be an exceptional police officer cleaning up the streets by effectively ruling over its criminal underworld, all while engaging in ruthless acts in order to supposedly achieve the greater good. This is an attitude that Tenpenny usually attempts to instill in any of his subordinates who enlist in CRASH, as seen in the way he and Pulaski pressure Jimmy Hernandez to murder Ralph Pendlebury, an Internal Affairs officer investigating Tenpenny's illegal activities. In Tenpenny's final moments, he loudly claims that Los Santos would be a better place if there were "fifty of him" in charge of the city, as well as boasting that he would gladly engage in his atrocities again if he had the opportunity to.
Ultimately, Frank Tenpenny was a glorified bully with a badge who constantly intimidated and abused those around him for his own self-centered goals. Due to his manipulative acts of partnering with the Ballas in their drug-dealing operations as well as manipulating Big Smoke in betraying the Grove Street Families, Tenpenny was effectively a tyrannical drug kingpin who was responsible for much of the crime and corruption that occurred in the Los Santos.
Quotes[]
| “ | Intimidate those who intimidate others, Carl. It's my job. | „ |
| ~ Tenpenny to CJ. |
| “ | You still don't get it, do you Carl? This ain't about keeping some f-ckin' badge! | „ |
| ~ Tenpenny to CJ. |
| “ | CJ: F-ckin' Smoke. Oh, Sweet! Tenpenny: Sweet is alive. Alive and inside. He's in a prison hospital, being treated for gunshot wounds, awaiting trial. Now you stay the f-ck away from Smoke and stay the f-ck away from us. Otherwise, Sweet's gonna find himself in a Ballas cell block, getting in touch with his feminine side. |
„ |
| ~ Tenpenny ordering CJ not to kill them or Big Smoke. |
| “ | YOU SNITCH PIECE OF SHIT! YOU VATO ASSHOLE! YOU SOLD US OUT! | „ |
| ~ Tenpenny’s violent breakdown, attacking Hernandez with a shovel for ratting him and Pulaski out. |
| “ | Tenpenny: You know, you're gonna thank me one day — for opening your f-ckin' eyes. OH, I almost forgot, Carl! Time to die. CJ: Uh, Sweet! Tenpenny: What?! Mother... It ain't over, Carl. It ain't over! |
„ |
| ~ Tenpenny planning to have CJ killed but failed. |
| “ | Carl, you motherf-cking piece of shit gang-banging cocksucker! | „ |
| ~ Tenpenny cursing out Carl before trying to kill him by shooting a generator and causing an explosion. |
| “ | (Coughs) Come on assholes! (Coughs) I'll take you all! You're mine! Mine! I run this town! (Coughs) Hey, over here! Hey! Officer down, come on! Hey! (Coughs) Assholes! You never understood what I did! Fifty of me, and this town would be okay. (Coughs) I took the trash out! I DID! (Coughs) And I'd do it all again… (Coughs) | „ |
| ~ Tenpenny's second breakdown and final words before he dies of his wounds. |
Gallery[]
.png "Tenpenny (Remaster).png (3.25 MB)")
Trivia[]
- Frank Tenpenny is based off a real-life LAPD officer named Rafael Perez, who was a key figure in the LAPD Rampart Scandal in the late 1990s. That being said, he was seemingly inspired by Alonzo Harris from Training Day.
- Tenpenny and Molly Schultz are the only two antagonists not to be killed by the protagonist; instead, they both are killed accidentally. However, Tenpenny is the only main antagonist to die in this fashion.
- Tenpenny, Eddie Pulaski, Steve Haines, Andreas Sanchez, Molly Schultz and Sergeant Jerry Martinez are the only antagonists of the GTA series who are corrupt law enforcement officials; Tenpenny and Pulaski are corrupt police officers, Sanchez and Haines are corrupt FIB agents, Schultz is a corrupt Lawyer and Martinez is a corrupt soldier.
External Links[]
- Frank Tenpenny on the Pure Evil Wiki
- Frank Tenppeny on the Grand Theft Auto Wiki
