An Army of Normal Folks - Memphis Allies: The Frontlines of Violence Prevention (Pt 1)

Episode Date: August 20, 2024

Florence “Flo” Brooks and Renardo Baker used to live the street life. Today with Memphis Allies, they’re on the frontlines of helping folks just like themselves to find a better way. Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I have a little thing I told around. I keep my federal prison ID and I keep my indictment papers. I'm not a rat, never will be, so they respect that we're not the police. We're here to stop you and help you change, turn your life around and do something different. Welcome to an Army of Normal Folks. I'm Bill Horton. and different. Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney. I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father, I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach in inner city Memphis.

And the last part, it somehow led to an Oscar for the film about our team. That movie's called Undefeated. I believe our country's problems will never be solved by a bunch of fancy people in nice suits talking big words that nobody understands on CNN and Fox, but rather by an army of normal folks. That's us, just you and me deciding,

hey, maybe I can help. That's what Florence Flo Brooks and Renardo Baker have done. They were both living the gang life in Memphis until they just couldn't do it anymore and they transformed their lives. And now, through a great initiative called Memphis Allies, they're committed to helping other vulnerable citizens avoid the same fate and lead flourishing lives. I cannot wait for you to meet Flo and Renardo right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors.

Hi, I'm Molly Conger, host of Weird Little Guys, a new podcast from Cool Zone Media on iHeartRadio. I've spent almost a decade researching right-wing extremism, digging into the lives of people you wouldn't be wrong to call monsters. But if Scooby-Doo taught us one thing, it's that there's a guy under that monster mask. I've collected the stories of hundreds of aspiring little Hitlers of the suburbs, from the Nazi cop who tried to join ISIS, to the National Guardsman plotting to assassinate the Supreme Court,

to the Satanist soldier who tried to get his own unit blown up in Turkey. The monsters in our political closets aren't some unfathomable evil. They're just some weird guy. And you can laugh. Honestly, I think you have to. Seeing these guys for what they are doesn't mean they're not a threat. It's a survival strategy. So join me every Thursday for a look under the mask at the weird little guys trying to destroy America. Listen to Weird Little Guys on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm David Eagleman from the podcast Inner Cosmos, which recently hit the number one science podcast in America. I'm a neuroscientist at Stanford and I've spent

my career exploring the three-pound universe in our heads. We're looking at a whole new series of episodes this season to understand why and how our lives look the way they do. Why does your memory drift so much? Why is it so hard to keep a secret? When should you not trust your intuition? Why do brains so easily fall for magic tricks? And why do they love conspiracy theories? I'm hitting these questions and hundreds more because the more we know about what's running under the hood, the better we can steer our lives. Join me weekly to explore the relationship between your brain and your life by digging

into unexpected questions. Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. For decades, the mafia had New York City in a stranglehold with law enforcement seemingly powerless to intervene. It uses terror to extort people. But the murder of Carmichael Lonti marked the beginning of the end, sparking a chain of events that would ultimately dismantle

the most powerful crime organization in American history. It sent the message to them that we can prosecute these people. Discover how a group of young prosecutors took on the mafia and with the help of law enforcement, brought down its most powerful figures. These bosses on the commission had no idea what was coming their way from the federal government. From Wolf Entertainment and iHeart Podcasts,

this is Law and Order Criminal Justice System. This is Law and Order Criminal Justice System. Listen to Law and Order Criminal Justice System starting August 22nd on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, I'm Andréa Gunning, host of There and Gone South Street. In this series, we follow the case of Richard Patrone and Daniel Imbo, two people who went missing in Philadelphia

nearly two decades ago and have never been found. Unlike most cases, there is not a single piece of physical evidence connected to this crime, but the FBI knows there was foul play. I'm excited to share that you can now get access to all new episodes of There and Gone South Street, 100% ad free and one week early with an iHeartTrueCrimePlus subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts,

search for iHeartTrueCrimePlus and subscribe today. It was December 2019 when the story blew up. In Green Bay, Wisconsin, former Packer star Kabir Vajabiamila caught up in a bizarre situation. KGB explaining what he believes led to the arrest of his friends at a children's Christmas play. A family man, former NFL player, devout Christian, now cut off from his family and connected to a strange arrest. I am going to share my journey

of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite. I got swept up in Kabir's journey, but this was only the beginning in a story about faith and football, the search for meaning away from the gridiron and the consequences for everyone involved. When you fall in love with the faith, you're on fire for the faith. You mix homesteading with guns and church and a little bit of the spice of conspiracy

theories that we liked. Voila! You got straight away. Listen to Spiraled starting August 27th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Lawrence Brooks flow and Renardo Baker Nardo. What's up? Welcome. Welcome. Well, thank you.

It's an honor to be here. I'd say an honor to have you. So we're going to talk about a great thing going on in my hometown called Memphis Allies, which you guys are, you know, you are you are what it's about. And, you know, I just I want I want to kind of jump ahead almost and tell our listeners what Memphis Allies is and then unfold the importance of folks like you that actually make it work. So why don't you take it first Flo? What is Memphis Allies? Memphis Allies is community intervention to

reduce gun violence in our communities. We are definitely growing. We have a Fraser, Raleigh area site. We have Orange Mound, recently Hickory Hill, and soon South Memphis. It is a gun violence prevention program where we are targeting the highest risk individuals in our communities that will either commit gun violence, been a victim of gun violence, and just trying to stop the violence.

It is our goal to reach our young people. And sad to say they're getting younger and younger. Our main projected age bracket is 17 to 35. However, we do have intervention for our younger youth with our switch youth department. They deal with the younger kids. It is my goal for us to expand over to the younger generation as well because I feel like our outreach team and foot soldiers for the adult side, they just get down into the grind of what's really going on in our community. You know, first of all, and I mean, we're out the gate, but my goodness, talking about having to get

into a community of people under 17 to stop gun violence in and of itself is a disgusting notion that we have to do that. Not that we don't, but the fact that we're talking about 12, 13, 14 year olds engaging in gun violence, to me that says so much about a part of our society that is just lost. And it's one of the reasons why I think Memphis Allies is amazing. And that's a good summary. And I want everybody listening to us to understand that's what it is.

It's about getting to the most at risk people for gun violence and trying to curtail the violence before it happens. curtail the violence before it happens. Also when people hear Hickory Hill, Orange Mound, I think you said, Frazier Raleigh, and South Memphis. For those of you not from this area, those are our Compton and Watts.

Those are our gang ridden neighborhoods. Those are our largely predominantly black and brown neighborhoods who are largely also surrounded with blight and poverty. And unfortunately, all of the taglines that seem to be grouped up together when you talk about gun violence. And I can't help but call you Nardo. I know your name is Nardo, but but on the street, you're known as Nardo.

The kids know you as Nardo. Pick up where Flo left off just a little bit on that under 17 thing, because under 17 years of age and gun violence, those two things should never be mentioned in the same sentence yet. It's an unfortunate reality. And not just Memphis, but many and most of our large urban areas. Talk about that.

Talk about what you're seeing and what you're doing, what you're trying to do. Well, from what I'm seeing is a large number of young people. We ain't just talking about males, we talking about females also. There's a venture and often to a lifestyle that consists of them making money, but at the same time, they hurting people to make this money.

And so the key thing is, what's the driving force for them to seek resources in the way that they're seeking it. And you can think we can talk about jobs, we can talk about all that, but at the end of the day, we have a hip hop culture that signifies that you need to get your money. You need to make money. And yeah, some ways is illegal, and some ways are legal. But at the same time, violence is pushing in both directions. It don't matter if you're doing it right or if you're doing it wrong. And so when we get to talking about teenagers, they feel like they need to drive a car, they

need to wear designer clothes, or they need to have this jewelry on, and all these type of things. When you set the prices on that, and they look at it, and they like, I'm gonna afford this. There's really minimum wage. It's a picture that can be set before them and say, I will be able to do this.

Or, the teenager probably ain't even got a parent at home. And grandma and two older keep over. So now they have to fend for their own. They connect with other young people that fit that same criteria. They say, we're gonna live by all means necessary. We gotta get something to eat. We gotta get clothes on our back.

We gotta put a roof over our heads. All right, and so that culture exists, and Memphis Allies' goal is even in the culture of under 17 is to reach them to interdict before they go using those guns. Exactly. All right, so everybody listen. We're gonna come back to that.

So we understand exactly how they're doing it, because that sounds great. But the how is the secret sauce, right? So, and we'll get to that. But I think it's important to understand before you get to the how is the who is who's doing this and it's y'all and I think there's 80 people inside Memphis allies now or so But that's what I think is so interesting about what youth villages has done in starting this Memphis allies thing and While this is scalable. This could be done in Baltimore, Chicago and every other city. And. You know, as I as I read your stories,

I thought about my time working in the inner city, and we're just going to be real. Why do I'm a white dude who has a business and although I did not come up that way and I came up without much of nothing, the fact is I'm a white dude with a business living in the suburbs, a nice house with a wife and four kids and one of my biggest struggles working in inner city was credibility. To sit down with a black 16 year old kid from Smokey City and for him to try to relate with me and feel me and candidly me feel him, regardless of how consistent I was and how hard I wanted to work

and how genuinely authentic my attempts were. It wasn't until my third and fourth year that people started to actually trust that I was the real deal. And I didn't show up with credibility. I had to earn it. And although I was never gonna get the street cred, I could at least get the credibility

that I was for real and consistent and everything else. And that's when things started, but it did. It took three, four years for kids really wanted to buy into what I was talking. And Memphis Allies, I think has a really poignant approach, which is don't put people like me out there on the face of it. Put people who have lived the

experience of the very people you're trying to reach. Flo, tell me about your experience. Tell me about how you came up. That's definitely one of the key things being able to relate to the people that we reach out to. I can honestly say and I love sharing my story with them because I want them to know I am genuine. I'm an open book. I definitely was what you considered a participant who we serve. Coming up in the Memphis area, North Memphis and South Memphis, I was a member of the Gangster Disciples.

So I helped tear down the same neighborhood I fight so hard for today to save. So when you're talking and meeting these individuals, you're meeting them where they're at per se, but in my mind I'm trying to meet you to where you need to be. So I'm showing you that I did the same thing you did, I'm not better than you and I'm not judging, but there's a better way.

How'd you grow up, where'd you grow up? North Memphis predominantly. You grew up North Memphis? Where, New Chicago or Smoke City? Hollywood. Hollywood? Hollywood. That ain't really North Memphis.

That's kind of Northeast Memphis. North Memphis is Smokey City, Green Law, New Chicago. I talked from an old neighborhood. I bet you did. Harkville is the area. Yeah, I know. How many white folks you ever talked to actually know all that?

Oh! I know. Well, I worked it for area. Yeah, I know. How many white folks you ever talked to actually know all that? Yeah. I know. Well, I worked it for seven years, so I know it. So, I know, so North Hollywood, for those, again, not from this area, New Chicago, Smokey City, Green Law is like just north of downtown a couple of miles. And then if you go east a little bit,

you get into the Douglas Hollywood area and that's what Flo's talking about, but it is all still the hood. Yes it is. It is, so you grew up. Most of my childhood split between Chicago, Illinois, the west side of Chicago. My dad was originally from Chicago.

My mom is originally from Memphis. How the two met, I'm still unsure and I'm 51 now because she was a Baptist preacher's daughter and he was the head governor for GDs on the west side of Chicago. Okay, see, I read that. Now let's just, this one of those squirrels, I gotta trace up a tree.

Now you've got a Baptist preacher's daughter hooking up with not a gang member, but the governor, the governor of the disciples, and a GD governor is like high ranking. And to be high ranking, they just don't have a vote because you're the guy with the biggest smile, you earned that. So I mean, I ain't talking about your business,

but your dad was... Most definitely was one of the driving forces of my rough side because I was the only girl with 11 brothers. So it was my desire to be exactly like my dad and brothers. So you split time between Memphis and Chicago. So what was that like? What was formative? It was crazy because when I come to Memphis, I have to downplay who I am when I'm in Chicago because my mom was not going for the street life and it was a battle. So I didn't have

the, I don't want to say I didn't have the power to tell her that I preferred to stay with my dad because I could do what I wanted to do, live this wildlife and everybody was scared of me, so I thought that was cool. But at home, she was giving me the planting the seeds, so there's a different way, different way of doing things, different way of life.

It wasn't until I was molested by my uncle that my mom put a stop to me going to Chicago altogether. How old were you? I was seven when it started and I was a little under 13 when I finally was able to express what was going on with my mom. Did your dad know? He didn't know until I told my mom and when she found out, all hell broke loose, I suppose. And I was not allowed to go back to Chicago because that was his brother.

Unfortunately, it cost my dad and my uncle to get into a physical altercation where my uncle, my dad killed my uncle and he went to prison for it. So I was angry but yet still confused as to why she was keeping me away from my dad because he was not the one who did it. But as I got older I understood it was just the whole atmosphere though he wasn't able to sit there and raise us because he was running the streets and he was raising everybody else's kids in the streets because he was high ranked. And now a few messages from our generous sponsors. But first, please consider signing up to join the

army at normalfolks.us. By signing up, You'll receive a weekly email with updates about the army and short episode summaries in case you happen to miss an episode or you prefer reading about our incredible guests. Please sign up the more numbers the more impact. We'll be right back. people you wouldn't be wrong to call monsters. But if Scooby-Doo taught us one thing, it's that there's a guy under that monster mask. I've collected the stories of hundreds of aspiring little Hitlers of the suburbs, from the Nazi cop who tried to join ISIS

to the National Guardsmen plotting to assassinate the Supreme Court, to the Satanist soldier who tried to get his own unit blown up in Turkey. The monsters in our political closets aren't some unfathomable evil. They're just some weird guy. And you can laugh.

Honestly, I think you have to. Seeing these guys for what they are doesn't mean they're not a threat. It's a survival strategy. So join me every Thursday for a look under the mask at the Weird Little Guys Trying to Destroy America. Listen to Weird Little Guys on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm David Eagleman from the podcast, Inner Cosmos, which recently hit the number one science podcast in America. I'm a neuroscientist at Stanford and I've spent my career exploring the three pound universe in our heads. We're looking

at a whole new series of episodes this season to understand why and how our lives look the way they do. Why does your memory drift so much? Why is it so hard to keep a secret? When should you not trust your intuition? Why do brains so easily fall for magic tricks? And why do they love conspiracy theories? I'm hitting these questions and hundreds more, because the more we know about what's running under the hood, the better we can steer our lives. Join me weekly to explore the relationship between your brain and your life by digging into unexpected questions.

Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. For decades, the mafia had New York City in a stranglehold with law enforcement seemingly powerless to intervene. It uses terror to extort people. But the murder of Carmichael Lonti marked the beginning of the end, sparking a chain of events that would ultimately dismantle the most powerful crime organization in American history.

It sent the message to them that we can prosecute these people. Discover how a group of young prosecutors took on the mafia, and with the help of law enforcement, brought down its most powerful figures. These bosses on the commission had no idea what was coming their way from the federal government.

From Wolf Entertainment and iHeart Podcasts, this is Law & Order Criminal Justice System. Listen to Law & Order Criminal Justice System starting August 22nd on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, I'm Adria Gunning, host of There and Gone South Street. In this series, we follow the case of Richard Patrown and Daniel Imbo, two people who went missing in Philadelphia nearly two decades ago and have never been found. Unlike most cases, there is not a single piece of physical evidence connected to this crime. But the FBI knows there was foul play. I'm excited to share that you can now get

access to all new episodes of There and Gone South Street, 100% ad free and one week early with an iHe True Crime Plus subscription available exclusively on Apple podcasts. So don't wait. Head to Apple podcasts, search for I Heart True Crime Plus and subscribe today. It was December 2019 when the story blew up. In Green Bay, Wisconsin, former Packer star Kabir Vajabiamila caught up in a bizarre situation. AGB explaining what he believes led to the arrest of his friends at a children's Christmas play.

A family man, former NFL player, devout Christian, now cut off from his family and connected to a strange arrest. I am going to share my journey of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite. I got swept up in Kabir's journey, but this was only the beginning in a story about faith and football, the search for meaning away from the gridiron, and the consequences for everyone involved. When you fall in love with the faith, you're on fire for the faith. You mix homesteading with guns and church and a little bit of the spice of conspiracy theories that we liked.

Voila! You got straight away. Listen to Spiraled starting August 27th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The vast majority of people listening to us right now certainly watch the news and read the newspapers and gangs and gang activity and all of it is so, you know, heavily reported on movies, music, and it is in one sense sensationalized. And in another sense, it is so often reported on and sensationalized. I mean, how many times we turn on the news and see another gangland shooting and all

that. And I think part of the problem to all that is, is that people think they know what gang life is because they've seen it on TV or a movie as a seven to 13 year old child, growing up the time you spent in Chicago with a father who's a leader of the GDs. And I want you to be as real with me as you can. You know, my assumption is that's drug dealing, that's banging, fighting in the streets, that's guns, that's prostitution, that's racketeering, that's fraud with bank fraud and check writing.

It's an illustration to a child of a way to live, not a right way to live, but a way to live. So tell me from a child's perspective, what that is to grow up in that. Well, one, I thought it was all right because a child loves their parents. So if your parent is the leading force of what you're learning, nobody could tell me that way of life was not the correct way of life. And everything you just said is exactly true. All of that came with living that life. So carjacking, shootings for no apparent reason. But in my mind, said as a child, that's the right way to live because my daddy said so. That's what dad showed me. That was I was supposed to.

That's the way my mind was prepped, so I was confused. When I got to the South, and my mom said one thing, but when I'm with my dad, it's another way of living. Can I say something to you that I don't want you to take the wrong way? Mm-hmm. I think it's abuse. Mm-hmm.

I think it's abuse. I think it's literally child abuse. You went to school, right? Yeah. I know you had teachers and principals and people around you saying that ain't right. So where's the disconnect? I don't, I truly don't understand.

What you said was poignant. My daddy says it's the right thing to do, it's the right thing to do. Y'all know Melvin Cole? Pure Academy. Melvin, what'd I say? Melvin Cole, right? Yeah, Pure Academy.

All right, well, Pure Academy is a school he started here in Memphis, reaching out to kids from really rough areas, but he grew up in the gang life too. He said the same thing to me. His uncles, his brothers, that's what he saw, that's what he grew up in until he got shot and ended up in jail and everything else and thought, well, maybe this isn't right.

But I guess what I'm saying is where's the disconnect? Because I know you're seeing some positive stuff. Is it the allure of the power and the money as well? I mean, those were definitely some of the elements that kept me, but coming from a culture of Chicago native, loyalty was the ground thing of it. You loyal to this life no matter what. You're teaching me this, I'm a kid, so that's in my head.

So I felt like I was being this loyal if I didn't stick to the teachings that I was taught by my dad. It wasn't until I got to federal prison that I did start to feel disdain against him or I was, he actually passed away when we were not on speaking terms because I was so angry with him for exposing me to that lifestyle. How'd he grow up?

The same way. His dad was a big gang banger. That's, it was just false. That's the, that's the thing. It's now a generational thing. So in some regard, he was a victim to it too. That he ended up perpetuating, but. He still, that's why I cut ties because even at 70 years old, he still had the mindset.

Like when is enough enough? When I got shot, I got shot when I was 18, that made me not wanna be a part of the gang life. Let's get to that. So your mama says no more. And I mean, let's be honest, you were molested and abused for six years. Good for your mama, enough's enough.

But the problem is now you come back to your mama but you got all the Chicago left in you. So and I was the trouble child like my sister. My sister never not exposed to the things that I was. So when I came home, I dealt with things the only way I knew how fight. So I was very angry. Were you fighting in school? Fighting in school. Were you going to school? Yeah. My mom didn't play that. Where'd you go to school? Advanced when I was in junior high. I got kicked out of there. I initially went to Humes, got kicked out of there. So I ended my school year at Comprehensive

Pupil Service Centers. They used to be called Tech High School. And they start putting all the trouble kids in one place. Yeah. My great grandfather played football for Tech High School anyway, but I know what it is. It's over there next to the BP station, right? They had to put me over there because I kept getting expelled. I just wanted- For fighting? For fighting. Um, after I realized what my uncle did, and I felt like I was a child and I couldn't do nothing about it,

I made a vow to myself nobody else would hurt me. So I had this persona of being like angry all the time, bully, they know me for fighting, they know I'm not gonna talk, I'm gonna fight. And if it get to the point, I'm gonna shoot, I'm gonna stab, whatever the case was gonna be, that's what my mindset was set at. Were you carrying?

Yeah. How old were you? My first gun was given to me by my dad, was a Dillinger, I was nine years old. Are you kidding me? And taught to shoot kids, so, you know. So, now you're in Memphis, you're getting through high school, the troubled high school, you're

fighting. Where does it lead to? I met my husband. Unfortunately, you're attracted to what you know. So I found the bad guy. And I'm at 13, finished turn 14 at this time. I got pregnant with my first son, which was by my husband. We ended up getting married when I was 17.

My mom was like, she couldn't control me. I would run away to be with him, get in trouble. All the time she would get a call. It was a juvenile call. Now, we got your daughter. So she realized that you can't hold me in the house. Now I got a one baby. I thought I was grown.

So when I got pregnant with my second child, I was 15. He asked my mom and dad could he marry me. Of course, my dad was in prison. So my mom, they did agree to let me get married. And that side of my, I thought I was gonna stop the street stuff because my husband was the type of guy that he's the head. He didn't want me in the streets. He wanted me in the house,

but we butted heads because all I knew was to be stubborn and strong, you're not gonna tell me what to do. And then we moved from Memphis to Mason, Tennessee to his family is predominantly from there. When we got there, I didn't have so much to worry about with the gang side of things or being,

but he was an alcoholic that didn't realize he was one or didn't want to admit that he was one. So the violence, he started being very abusive. By the time I was 21, we had four kids. So here I am a 21 year old with four kids married since I was 17, no real education except for the streets. since I was 17. No real education, except for the streets. That's it. In an abusive relationship.

So the anger, I had so much trauma at that time. I didn't identify it as trauma, but now I know that's what it was. I was traumatized so much that I started to become so depressed that I didn't want to address because again, from my culture, it was not talked about to go see nobody and talk about nobody.

No, that was like the no-no. You talk to God. That's what you talk to. You don't talk to no doctors. You don't get on no medicine. So I started doing what I felt like was best for me. And I just being angry, violence was the only thing that curved it. And that was just to see me being honest.

I felt like if I could hurt somebody and show them, I'm not scared, I'm not pumped, like they know what's up, I'm not to be played with. And that was my mindset. Not thinking that this is really sick to think like this, but then I didn't think like that. It wasn't until my son, that's now 33, he was five, and he had a cat.

He tortured this cat that I knew something was wrong in our whole household because as a five-year-old, he was just beating this cat. And the only thing he kept saying was, I was like, why did you do that? And he was like, that's what dad did to you. You and dad was fighting. That broke me out.

That was my first attempt for suicide. Because one thing I did say to myself was that my kids, I don't ever get hurt by nobody. Little did I know, I'm the fine one hurting them because I didn't know how to be a parent because I tried to be grown before my time and because my mom was offering the advice of a mother.

And I was like, yep. You know, I didn't want to listen to that or receive it. I closed myself off in my own household and I thought what I was doing was right. Long as they don't get molested, nobody can touch them. That's the right thing to do, but that's not the case. They still were exposed to violence. They was exposed to being angry all the time, depression.

Like my daughter now just turned 35 last week. We have, we're this close now because she opened up to me about things she never told me when she was small about they were tired of the fighting. My husband shot at me, I shot at him, he stabbed me, I stabbed him. It was just me and my own gang laying in my own household. So I still was in my mindset. So to leave him and his words to me were, he was a provider but he was also a abuser. I had never had

a job. I've always been at home with the kids. I grew up with the kids because I had them young. So his thing to me was you will never make it every time I attempted to leave. You got kids, you ain't got no job, you ain't got no education. What you gonna do? That was how I got right back into interacting with people from Chicago cousins that were into fraud. And that's, that's when my journey began. I'm a show him. I can give money. I don't need. So, so now you started messing with checks. Yes. And I thought I was doing it. I mean,

fine cars, we had a house, we doing this and it's all me, not him. So I attempted to leave him and get my own place. I got a place in East Memphis, and our home was in Frayser. So I was like, I don't need him no more. I'm done with it, I got this. But I found myself, my kids were always at my mom's house, or his mom's house.

I'm out of town, doing all this stuff. And now I'm becoming the person I said I'd never be because I grew up with my kids, we were close. So now you're neglecting them just to get money. And I thought buying them materialistic things was being a parent. So my justification was they got everything new they got the nice.

So you got arrested for fraud? I skipped over state and went straight federal. I got caught in a federal indictment. 59 count indictment. I played it out to 17 counts. I was the ringleader. So my first sentence was 10 years. Had never been in trouble other than juvenile here and there for petty thefts fighting. They gave me 10 years. I did my time in Tallahassee Florida from 2000 to 2007. I wasn't out two years and I was back in federal prison because I came home. I had already made a vow to myself I wasn't going back to my husband.

So that was out of the question. I came home with the intentions. I really did try to change. There was nothing resource-wise that was fit for me and my situation. It was one door after another I'm closing. Okay, I did the crime, I played again, I did the time, and now I'm having trouble not only getting housing, but a job too. That's two of the major things I'm gonna need to sit down somewhere. We'll be right back.

We'll be right back. taught us one thing. It's that there's a guy under that monster mask. I've collected the stories of hundreds of aspiring little Hitlers of the suburbs. From the Nazi cop who tried to join ISIS, to the National Guardsmen plotting to assassinate the Supreme Court, to the Satanist soldier who tried to get his own unit blown up in Turkey. The monsters in our political closets aren't some unfathomable evil. They're just some weird guy. And you can laugh. Honestly, I think you have to. Seeing these guys for what they are doesn't mean they're not a threat. It's a survival strategy. So join me every Thursday for a look under the mask at the Weird Little Guys Trying to Destroy America. Listen to Weird Little Guys on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm David Eagleman from the podcast Inner Cosmos, which recently hit the number one

science podcast in America. I'm a neuroscientist at Stanford and I've spent my career exploring the three pound universe in our heads. We're looking at a whole new series of episodes this season to understand why and how our lives look the way they do. Why does your memory drift so much? Why is it so hard to keep a secret? When should you not trust your intuition? Why do brains so easily fall for magic tricks?

And why do they love conspiracy theories? I'm hitting these questions and hundreds more because the more we know about what's running under the hood, the better we can steer our lives. Join me weekly to explore the relationship between your brain and your life by digging into unexpected questions. Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. For decades, the mafia had New York City in a stranglehold with law enforcement

seemingly powerless to intervene. It uses terror to extort people. But the murder of Carmichael Lonti marked the beginning of the end, sparking a chain of events that would ultimately dismantle the most powerful crime organization in American history. It sent the message to them that we can prosecute these people.

Discover how a group of young prosecutors took on the mafia, and with the help of law enforcement, brought down its most powerful figures. These bosses on the commission had no idea what was coming their way from the federal government. From Wolf Entertainment and iHeart Podcasts, this is Law and Order Criminal Justice System. Listen to Law and Order Criminal Justice System starting August 22nd on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey guys, I'm Adrey Gunning, host of There and Gone South Street. In this series, we follow the case of Richard Patrone and Daniel Imbo, two people who went missing in Philadelphia nearly two decades ago and have never been found. Unlike most cases, there is not a single piece of physical evidence connected to this crime. But the FBI knows there was foul play. I'm excited to share that you can now get access to all new episodes there and gone South Street 100% ad free and one week early with an I Heart True Crime Plus subscription available exclusively on Apple podcasts. So don't wait.

Head to Apple podcasts, search for iHeartTrueCrime Plus, and subscribe today. It was December 2019 when the story blew up. In Green Bay, Wisconsin, former Packer star Kabir Vajabiamila caught up in a bizarre situation. Hey, GB, explaining what he believes led to the arrest of his friends at a children's Christmas play.

A family man, former NFL player, devout Christian, now cut off from his family and connected to a strange arrest. I am going to share my journey of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite. I got swept up in Kabir's journey, but this was only the beginning in a story about faith and football,

the search for meaning away from the gridiron and the consequences for everyone involved. When you fall in love with the faith, you're on fire for the faith. You mix homesteading with guns and church and a little bit of the spice of conspiracy theories that we liked. Voila, you got straight away.

Listen to Spiraled starting August 27th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I ended up waking up with some new friend of mine that said, let's get out of Memphis. I moved to Springfield, Missouri. Thinking that's gonna save me. Where I eventually met my daughter, my last child. I have five kids now, four were by my husband. Have a 15 year old when I met her dad.

Okay, I thought I was doing something different. He was a, he wasn't a gang member. He didn't do that, but he was a drug dealer. So now I'm into a different world. All my life, my dad and I sold drugs. I was never the one to do that. I just liked to collect money, but I never knew about the process of that. But I knew it was money.

So getting with him, I was like, okay, I ain't got to do nothing now. He's going to do this, he's going to do that. Well, I'm still exposed to things I'm not, I should be exposed to because with drug dealing comes you need guns. Not supposed to be around guns. So my son moved, I moved him from Memphis because he started getting in trouble. Come to Springfield, get away from Memphis. He decided to be a Crip.

So he was a kitchen, kitchen crip. Brought him to Missouri. He started getting into all kinds of stuff there. And I had been there a year before I brought him. Nobody knew me on my street. He was there a week. Everybody knew him. Traffic started.

So he ended up getting in some trouble where they had a criminal complaint. It wasn't a warrant, it was criminal complaint to come talk to him or whatever about a situation that happened at a store. And when they came, of course, you give him probable cause, he's in the garage, garage up, guns in the garage, drugs in the garage. And you're on probation, so you're going back to jail.

And that's exactly what happened. Okay. So, we got you up to a point. Now we're going to get Nardo to that same point. The point is though, as I hear your story, I hear sexual abuse, I hear sexual abuse.

I hear surrounded by gangs, drugs, guns. I hear poor education. I hear locked up twice. I hear five children who honestly grew up seeing some of the same things you saw. And that has to lead to a bunch of heartache for a while. But all of that says you really do understand the today's most vulnerable communities to gun violence and gangs, as you have absolutely lived. We'll get to the redemption part on you in a second, but now it's time to go to Renardo.

What's your background, man? Well, when I was born in Gary, Indiana, my mother brought me down here probably when I was about two or three. Down to Memphis. Mm-hmm, down to Memphis. My mother and father got divorced when I was like four years old. And that part of my life,

that's where the hurt and the pain came. Missed my father, wanted my father around, but he wasn't able to be. He moved to California because he had a job opportunity with FedEx. So my mother, we in Orange Mound, single mom, trying to raise a young man. She got to work.

I got free time. And I mean, the free time started like when I was in the fourth grade going to Cherokee Elementary. I had my own key to get in the house. She'll call and check on me to make sure that I'm at the house. But then after that, I'm free to do whatever I want to do. Orange Mound, for those of us listening, is really a historical black Memphis neighborhood. And at one time was kind of a bustling black business

center. Melrose High School is the high school that anchors that place. And there at one time was an enormous amount of pride, of black pride with entrepreneurship and community and everything else in Orange Mound. And over time, a lot of that has disintegrated. But unfortunately, I mean, I think there's still a lot of pride in Orange Mound, but that sense of community and everything that's happened there disintegrated. So the fact that when you were coming up in fourth grade, walking home, having your own key

to your home in Orange Mound, that wasn't uncommon at all, was it? Well, no, it wasn't uncommon, but the main things that I seen when I was walking home was drug dealers. Seeing the drug dealers in the new Lexus with gold rims on it, sitting across the yard. They standing on the corner, you know, during that time, that's when the hip-hop culture

was growing. You had to be, rope necklaces on, golds in your mouth, all that. And it was, at my age, it was inviting. It was fly. Yeah. You know, you got the troop jogging suits back then. I forgot about those, but yeah. That with a grill and a big rope chain

and some gold spinners on a Lexus. Trues and Vos and all that on Cadillacs. You know, those are the things that I seen. But my push and drive was football. And I love playing football because me and my dad, and we used to play catch. He always throw the football to me. He'll show me how to get into three point stand

and all that type of stuff. And so I was connected to football because my dad had played football for Meadows at school. And so when he left, there was like a big part of me just like was empty. So when I started playing football, when I was like in the fourth, fifth grade,

my momma signed me up to this peewee team called the Cherokee Dolphins. And that was my journey in playing football. But I really played football mad. I didn't, I really didn't tap into the joy of it because I was always mad because my father wasn't there, my mother couldn't be there because she had to work. So in my madness, I just love to hit people.

So coach put me from playing defensive tackle, defensive end to playing linebacker. And I just love hitting people. And the crazy part about it is that every time I hit somebody hard, coach would come slap me across my head and bang, good job, good job. And I found the sense of approval when it happened.

So all the way through Pee-wee, through middle school to high school, I made it my business to hit somebody hard so that I can get that hat on the back from the coast because my father wasn't there. And my mama, she tried to be there as much as she could, but she couldn't. There was times I walked from Orange Mound to,

what's the name of that park? Well, the park was by Cherokee. from Orange Mound to what's the name of that park. Well the park was by Cherokee. And I'm just walking with my helmet, pads, and just being dedicated to getting up. I used to run from Airways Middle School all the way to Melrose to make it to the practice. That's across the interstate. Yeah, almost.

Yeah. And so it was like, but that was the drive I had and I wanted to play. And so, doing that time, again, I had a lot of free time. I had, you know, and my uncles, they was the ones that really showed me how to be a man or gave me an example. You need to do this or you need to do that as a young man.

And so one thing they planted in my head that even right now today I'm like, that was a bad plan, was to knock off as many women as you can. Don't fall in love, just knock off as many women as you can. So guess what? At the age of 16, I had my first son.

And I was still in middle school. I was in my last year of middle school. The young lady, she was a year older than me. And she was already going to mail road. And so that moment right there was a change of moment in my life, because her and her father came over to my mother's house to tell my mother that, you know, she was pregnant.

And I'll never forget this moment when that happened. Me and my mother, we was in her room, sitting on the bed, and I was just crying, and she just hugged me. She said, we gonna make it through this. I gotta ask you a question. In what, man, I don't understand. So, you know, some of this content,

some of this content is culturally. Gosh, I'm choosing my words so carefully here. The cultural ethos among people who only live five miles from one another is so distinct, so different. And even though my mom was brain divorced five times, my father left when I was four years old and I never saw him again and he died a year ago and I got a phone call. All right, so that's mine. I lettered in six sports in high school. I also have a very, a serious kinship with you because I know what it's like

to be carrying your helmet and shoulder pads and walking around and watching, and I was a dog if you wanna know the truth, and watching all those kids walk off the field with their daddies and their mamas carrying their stuff for them and there I am I just scored the winning touchdown I'm walking by myself and I know that hurt I feel it all right but there wasn't anybody telling me to go get girls pregnant to knock up as many girls you can don't fall in love with them just Just be a alpha male and, and do all that.

I don't even understand that culture. Why, how, what sense does that make? And why would a grown ass man be telling a kid that stuff? That's disgusting. I mean, now I've just went and said how I feel about it. And I don't want people to hear that. I'm not casting judgment on you or your family or where you come from, from just a judgmental perspective.

But damn, that's wrong. And I don't even understand why anybody would ever tell a kid. Where does that come from in that culture? Can you tell me? Well, the only thing I can tell you from my perspective is that they had plenty of different women and I watched it. I done watched my uncle have a woman over my momma house

and just because she wouldn't do it, he'd say, dude, he put out the house and I watched her walk up the street, walk out. So those were the things I seen. And if you- Okay, but where does that come from? Even before, okay, where did that illustration come from? What I'm saying is,

it seems to me that yeah, we got a crime problem. And Flo, it seems to me we yeah, we got a crime problem. And Flo, it seems to me, we've got a gang problem. And it seems to me we got a drug problem. And it seems to me, and I can keep saying this, everybody's like, well, all right, you're master of the obvious. All right. But what really seems to me that I don't think we talk about enough is we got a morality problem Definitely Definitely and you know what if we're gonna be real with each other a white man can't say that in a black community But every time I hear these stories, I feel it.

And it hurts me. I mean, it genuinely does. And I see y'all both looking at me, shaking your heads up and down, having lived this life. And it's real, it's real. And you hearing us, just imagine what the generation going through now when it's put out through music and movies and all that. All of the pop culture stuff you're saying is perpetuating this morality problem.

You see it. And you hear it. And that concludes part one of my conversation with Flo and Renardo. And you do not want to miss part two that's now available to listen to. Together guys, we can change this country. But it starts with you. I'll see you in part two. Hi, I'm Molly Conger, host of Weird Little Guys, a new podcast from Cool Zone Media on iHeartRadio. I've spent almost a decade researching right-wing extremism, digging into the lives of people you wouldn't be wrong to call monsters. But if Scooby-Doo taught us one thing, it's that there's a guy under that monster mask. The monsters in our political closets aren't some unfathomable evil.

They're just some weird guy. So join me every Thursday for a look under the mask at the weird little guys trying to destroy America. Listen to Weird Little Guys on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Andrea Gunning, host of the all new podcast There and Gone. It's a real life story of two people who left a crowded Philadelphia bar, story of two people who left a crowded Philadelphia bar, walked to their truck and vanished. A truck and two people just don't disappear. The FBI called it murder for hire. But which victim was the intended target and why?

Listen to There and Gone South Street on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. For decades, the mafia had New York City in a stranglehold with law enforcement seemingly powerless to intervene. It uses terror to extort people. But the murder of Carmichael Lonti marked the beginning of the end. It sent the message that we can prosecute these people. Listen to Law and Order Criminal Justice System

starting August 22nd on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm David Eagleman from the podcast Inner Cosmos, which recently hit the number one science podcast in America. I'm a neuroscientist at Stanford, and I've spent my career exploring the three-pound universe in our heads. Join me weekly to explore the relationship between your brain and your life, because

the more we know about what's running under the hood, the better we can steer our lives. Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, from Wonder Media Network, I'm Jennifer. lives. Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, from Wonder Media Network, I'm Jenny Kaplan, host of Womanica, a daily podcast that introduces you to the fascinating lives of women history has forgotten. Who doesn't love a sports story? The rivalries, the feats of strength and stamina. But these tales go

beyond the podium. There's the teen table tennis champ, the ice skater who earned a medal and a medical degree, and the sprinter fighting for Aboriginal rights. Listen to a manica on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.