An Army of Normal Folks - Memphis Allies: The Frontlines of Violence Prevention (Pt 2)

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.

Hey guys, it's Bill Courtney with An Army of Normal Folks, and we continue now with part two of our conversation with Flo Inardo, 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 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, 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. 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. This month, we're bringing you the stories of athletes. There's the Italian race car driver who courted danger and became the first woman to compete in Formula One. The sprinter who set a world record and protested racism and discrimination in the US and around the world in the 1960s, the diver who was

barred from swimming clubs due to her race and went on to become the first Asian-American woman to win an Olympic medal. She won gold twice, the mountaineer known in the Chinese press as the tallest woman in the world, and the ancient Greek charioteer who exploited a loophole to become the first ever woman to compete at the Olympic Games. Listen to Wamanica on the iHeartRadio 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 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 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 I Heart True Crime Plus and subscribe today. Alright, so now you got somebody pregnant. Your mama says you're getting through it, but you didn't.

Well, I got through it the best way I could, you know. I worked every summer with my mother's boyfriend who had a construction company. So I worked every summer to help try to provide for my son at the time. They ended up putting me on child support. I paid like $76 a month. And then right after I graduated,

I was playing football and working at Dixie Cafe. In high school. In high school. With a baby. With a baby. And so- I mean, all you gotta do is hear that to realize the prospects of a future is pretty rough I mean you already loaded up

a mountain of crap on top of you that keeps you from being able to try to go down a normal track but you're trying working playing ball trying trying so doing a doing the offseason when football wasn't going on I worked from fire to close every day almost, Monday through Friday. And then on the weekend I tried to do my work. But then when football season came in, I do football through the week

and work on the weekends from five to close. Where I do double shifts, eight to three, then five to close. So I can already hear where this is going. You're killing yourself. And no matter what you do, there ain't enough money. So you gotta have a different way to get some more money. And so, and can we be just candid?

You're a victim of your own circumstance, but the fact is you don't have access to anything else. So you remember the guys with the rope chains The fact is, you don't have access to anything else. So you remember the guys with the rope chains and the grills and the spinners on the Lexus and the jumpsuits. They was always there. And they was always, you know, and they knew I played football.

And, but I never got involved with what they was doing. And they respected me. And so after I graduated, I ended up, you know, buying me a car, I bought a Ford Maverick for $350. 73. 73. Roll it. Roll it.

Yeah. I put some music in it, two toils, it was bumping loud. And I was in 11th grade during that time. And went on and the car started catching on fire on me. So my father in Obama, he told me of Corolla for graduation. Got that car, graduated. Now I got another son on the way. And this time, I'm working at FedEx,

that ain't enough money. So I worked FedEx and Dixie Cafe back to that same rhythm, working myself to death. I'm like, man, this is not enough. And so then I started hanging with the guys in the community. I had a car. Some of them didn't have a car, so they was like, no, I'll give you a few dollars, you brought me here.

You run me down. And so now I'm hanging with them, watching them sellin' dope. But they took care of me, they fed me. If they went to the mall and bought shoes at the Mall of Memphis, I got a new pair of shoes too. They bought them an outfit, they bought me an outfit too. It was like, they brought me into it,

and like, we're not gonna leave you out while you're looking bad or anything, but if you with us, you gonna look good. And so, after that. That almost feels like a recruiting method. Bringing you in, they didn't care about you, they care about what you could get them. And so I'll never forget it was one night,

it was a Sunday night, and one of my friends wanted 10 rocks. So I went to my other friend. One of your friend what? One of 10 rocks. Crack. Crack, yes. And so I went and got him from my other friend

to take it to my other friend And he was like he was like not all these these two smile So I call my partner. I said hey, he'll want is I keep him I get him from you tomorrow So that night this Sunday night I said in my room and I just I was just like mine I was like God I need some help I was just like, God, I need some help. I need some type of help. And then I promised you, it was this voice saying, go sell those rocks.

You know all the junkies, you know where they at, go to where they at. And I got in my Toyota Corolla, and that night I sold them 10 rocks. I made $140, and I called my partner, I said, hey, let me get 14 more rocks, and I'll pay you $100 for those 10 rocks when I get paid from FedEx Friday.

And from right there, it was all she wrote. I was good and mad, so I put together a strategy where I was like, why would I sell another drug dealer 10 rocks for 100 when I could just sell seven rocks for 100 to the one that smoked the crack? And so from there, I ended up having five dope houses. Five dope houses? What's a dope house?

I know what a dope house is, but tell everybody what a dope house is. It's a location where? I know what a dope house is, but tell everybody what a dope house is. Well, it's a low case where all those that smoke crack want to be in and they sit there in the same place. All right. What do you mean you have? So what ended up happening, it was certain junkies that I had connected with. And I told them, I don't want to meet nobody else.

I'm just going to deal with you and every hundred dollars that you bring me, I'm't want to meet nobody else. I'm just going to deal with you. And every hundred dollars that you bring me, I'm gonna give you seven rocks. And so they was able to break down those seven rocks and sell the rocks they sell. So when there was other drug dealers inside the dope house, they wouldn't buy from them. They'll call me and I'll pull up. But nobody messed with me because they knew me

from hanging with all the other big drug dealers. So it was like I had a free pass and that's how I was able to control the situation. How'd that all end? End up facing eight years. The thing that happened was that I wasn't at my mother house when the feds came. And so when I went to court for that situation, that's the number one thing my lawyer stood on was that the informant could have put me in jail.

And so I copped out on a plea deal where I got 1129 misdemeanor charge. And I was on probation. You got lucky. Yep, got lucky. So we'll stop right there. For everybody listening, that is Flo Hinnardo. That's it.

And you're not the only two in Memphis Allies. There's a bunch of other folks with very similar stories. Why is this important? Again, back to what we said, the secret sauce of Memphis allies is this. The goal is to reach the most at risk people in our communities to gun violence. The who are you guys, people like you who know the life, who've lived the life, who have the credibility, who understand where these folks have come from and what they're up against every single day. So we got the who got the what, but the how and the why are the two things I want to talk about now. First, how did you get involved in Memphis Allies? And why did you change?

Why? We'll start with you, Flo. Why? Why? I mean, your entire world was this mess, right? And I get you go to jail and I get you got shot and I get all that, but there's a whole lot of people that been to jail and come out and don't change, right?

So how did you find Memphis Allies and why did you decide to dedicate your life to this? Well, going back to when I went back to prison the second time, um, I was only charged with being a felon around guns because when they came from my son, the guns were there in the house was in my name. So did your son get time? No, he didn't never been in trouble. No juvenile record or anything. so it was a slap on the wrist for him.

And I think it was more so an eye-opener for me. I didn't understand then because I honestly was not involved in the same type of lifestyle my baby daddy was, but I was. And so that was the justification I used. You're guilty by association. So once I was in prison for that, I had to leave my 15 year old. She was only two. She was too.

That broke me. That broke you. That broke me because I had to leave her for not. And when I came home, my oldest daughter, thank God was there to be. I didn't even deserve her to step in and take her. I was just about to say, what a burden for her. She had her own kids. She didn't have to step up.

She stepped up and she took her sister in. She made sure I'd visit with her once a month. Even when they moved me from Florida to Texas, from Texas to Alabama, she made it happen. But it was just the one thing I've always prided myself on is that I wanted my family to be different than what I was exposed to. So I felt so inadequate as a mother to leave my baby girl with my oldest daughter with my grandkids. Why you in jail?

Why I'm in jail yet again. So you just had to come to Jesus' meeting with yourself. I did. I came home won with the wrong notion. I tried to make up for being gone for seven years. And instead of coming home as a disciplinarian to my younger kids, even my son, I was an enabler for them. I didn't want them to be angry with me because I had missed out seven years. So I was trying to continue to make up for the time I lost.

Meanwhile, you're helping them to destroy themselves. You can't get back to seven years. You did it, you apologized, you get past it. But I was still living in that moment. So I was allowing him and his brother to have a lifestyle that I knew was not good for them. And now I condoned it basically, because if you don't say nothing about it or stop it, you're condoning it.

And that is some raw honesty about yourself. I really had to face the fact that you fucked up. You can stop blaming your dad, you can stop blaming mom for not being strong enough to pull you from there. You can stop blaming the system for catching you because you're mad because you got caught and take full responsibility for what you done. So why Memphis Alas? I actually came across this by pure accident.

When I got out, my mind was already made up to change and do better. I came home, I went to Concord, got a certified dental assistant's degree. I was working in a dental office and I met a young lady that was working for the Department of Human Services with a special needs child. And they couldn't get this baby to cooperate.

I came from behind the counter, sat on the floor, got his teeth cleaned, x-rays. She was like, you work so well with children. It was by pure accident, because I was initially supposed to work with, I started telling her a little bit about me and what I really wanted to do. My goal when I came home was to work with troubled teens.

That was my goal. And she introduced me to a young lady to work with troubled teens. That was my goal. Well, it started to fit. And she introduced me to a young lady that was through one of our other partnerships we no longer have, which was a life round to success. I met Ms. Brown, who runs that organization. She wanted me to quit my job and come work right then and there, and when she told me

about the Memphis Allies Initiative. I was like, this is something I would love to be a part of, you know. But again, I was coming home, I was struggling and working at Wendy's and doing dental assistants, trying to keep from getting back into the mindset of the fast free money. And to the life.

Most definitely. I met Carl Davis, met the team and I was bought in before they even told me I had the job. I was bought in. It was honestly, it was just like God had really answered my prayers. He was like, if you sacrifice and do what you're supposed to do, everything else is going to fall in place. And it was hard. Now, isn't that an interesting got-up? We'll be right back. I heart radio. I 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 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. 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. This month we're bringing you the stories of athletes. There's the Italian race car driver who courted danger and became the first woman to compete in Formula One. The sprinter who set a world record and protested racism and discrimination in the U.S. and around the world in the 1960s. The diver who was barred from swimming clubs due to her race and went on to become the first Asian American woman to win an Olympic

medal. She won gold twice, the mountaineer known in the Chinese press as the tallest woman in the world, and the ancient Greek charioteer who exploited a loophole to become the first ever woman to compete at the Olympic Games. Listen to Wamanica on the iHeartRadio 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 Andrea 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. What about you? Why Memphis allies? How did you get to Memphis allies? Well, I had my God moment. That eight years, I was blessed not to receive. I started building a relationship with God.

And from there, I became a member of Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church. And that's where I learned about my morals. I learned to value people. And the number one thing I started valuing was my boys. I didn't want my boys to experience what I experienced without my father being around. And I had a cousin that ended up going to the feds, so I used to have to go visit him in Forest City.

And when you go in that visitation room, you see him families, they're crying, sad, some joking, some talking, but majority of them sad. And I didn't want my boys to experience that. That was one way. And then secondly, in me being in the streets, it was a night, a couple of guys tried to kidnap me in front of my momma house.

You tried to kidnap you? Tried to kidnap me. And it was just luckily. Why? Because I was a drug dealer. Well, okay. But why you gonna kidnap a drug dealer? Because they wanted the money.

Either they wanted money or they wanted drugs. When they jack you like that, do you end up dead or they just take your stuff, beat you up? Nine times out of ten, you gonna end up dead. So I didn't get in the car. When he hopped out, when he hopped out and he was shaking, I knew that he was. Shaking? Yeah.

He had his gun on you? Yeah. And his hand was shaking, so he was scared. Yeah, so when I saw that, in my mind I'm like, okay, I can get out of this. And so, and then he was like,'m like, okay, I can get out of this. And so, and then he was like, where the drugs at, where the money?

And I'm like, what money, what drugs? And so I'm really trying to identify who these is. So the next round I found out who it was. And so me and him got the tussling over the gun. And so I fell to the ground, but the guy that was driving told him to shoot, shoot him and kill him, kill him. And so I got up to the ground, but the guy that was driving told him to shoot him and kill him, kill him. And so I got up off the ground and then as we were still tussling for the gun, I kind

of pushed his hand off real hard and I ran zigzagging to my neighbor yard and she the one turned on the light. She turned on the porch light and when she turned on the porch light, this dude jumped in the car and they balled off. All right. I got gotta ask you something. One other thing along the morality conversation we had briefly, there are good people living in Orange Mountain who work hard,

who don't get involved in crime, who have homes, who keep their yards tight, all of that. Why in God's name do they put up, when you say all these folks are out there in the open dealing, why in the world do they put up with that? Why don't they call the law and get that stuff off their streets? Well some of them do, some of them do call,

but at the same time, in making a call, you putting yourself in jeopardy. That's what I was expecting you to tell me. You put yourself in jeopardy, because at the same time, Will the drug with the drug guys were telling gangs retaliate against people that call the police Sometime I won't say all the time because I was a drug dealer The neighbor next door neighbor cross me everybody on the street knew what I was doing They knew there but I didn't see a drugs from my mother house. I

Would I had to joke the dope houses, but I had the cars, I had people pulling up, nice cars, clothes, so they already knew what I was doing. And so from there, but they knew me from the little kid that played football too. They walked up and down the street with his helmet, and they saw the transition. It's a catch-22.

Yeah, because nine times 10, it ain't just, the drug dealer just popped up. Somebody you saw come up. You saw them grow up and evolve into that. So you were going to church and dealing drugs. And then the kidnapping happened and you said enough? Well, no, I ain't say enough. I'm still trying to-

You're real hard headed. Oh yeah, very stubborn and hard headed. Very stubborn and hard headed. I switched from selling crack and cocaine to start selling high end marijuana. And that first wave of when they used to call it ink or dro I was part of that first wave, they came. to call it ink or draw, I was part of that first wave, they came.

And so I switched to that and the police came again. And they said, it was like this time, it will get you again. It's gonna be over with for you. Because my cousin had already told me when they got in here that the feds was calling to ask them about me because they wanted me. So I was like, y'all ain't gonna see me no more.

I went and started a lung service business. And right now today I still have that lung service business. And in my moment of going to mid-simple Boulevard, God gave me a passion for young people. He said, I've seen how you've been faithful with your kids. Now I need you to be a father to many. And so I started going to the Orange Mound Community Center, hanging out with the young people there,

asking them to come into a side room to hear about Jesus Christ. And that moment right there, what led me to where I'm at now with Memphis Allies. Because I had already started my own nonprofit, I Should Not Die Believer. I lost five young men to gun violence. And so when Memphis Eyelash came, it was like they wanted to talk to me about creating a partnership.

I already have a van, I already got a house that I called a safe house because God spoke to me. He said, remember you had them dope houses? I said, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what you're talking about. creating a partnership. I already have a van, I already got a house that I called a safe house because God spoke to me, he said, remember you had them dope houses? He was like, what do you think they was doing?

You was helping every individual that came and bought drugs from that house, you was helping them deal with their trauma. They wanted to get out to get away from what they was feeling in the way the world had hurted them. And so when I was listening to God, I said, okay. And then God was like, my people perish for a lack of knowledge. Get them knowledge.

Create a safe house and give knowledge. And then so now in losing my young men in 2017, I learned that I didn't have knowledge about my emotions. And when they died, it was like I went to a dark place in my life. I was deeply depressed. I didn't wanna do ministry no more. I didn't wanna work with young people no more.

I told God I'd rather cut grass and be out there with the mosquitoes, snakes, frogs, and all them instead of being around people. And God said, no, you're going back. And I read this book called A Voice of the Heart. They helped me with my emotions. And then God said, now you know how it feels to lose multiple people to gun violence.

Now you'll be able to speak to those that lose multiple people to gun violence. Now you'll be able to speak to those that lose multiple people to gun violence. And so from there, Pat, Carl, Susan, Javonte, they all came over to the safe house. My momma cooked some hamburger helpers. I had about eight of my young guys over there. And then Pat wanted to start talking about the program in Memphis, I said,

Pat, hold up, I don't mean to cut you off. And I went around to every young person that was in that room and asked them how many times they'd been shot. And all of them had been shot at least one time or more. How old were they? Ranged from 17 to 21. How old were they? Ranged from 17 to 21.

That's just Amazing to me and I think again Our society at large is to sensitize to it. They see it but It's different to see it on the news and read about it. It's a whole nother thing to sit down and talk to a person who has been a part or a victim of it. It gets very personal very quickly. So we got the who, we got the why, we got the what. What does Memphis Allies do? The why, we got the what. What does Memphis allies do?

Why do they do it? And who does it? And the truth is, the goal once again, is to reach the folks who are most at risk for gun violence and why is to save lives and that's what we're doing. And then the who or people who came from that because they're both best suited to understand it.

Now here's the secret to it all, the how. How does Memphis allies do what they do? We know who they do it with, what and why, but how do they do it? And how do they measure their success? And are you having an impact? We definitely are having an impact. How do you do it?

Because I get it, you got credibility. If you're gonna go into the neighborhoods you came up in and you know the actor's in because you lived it and everything else, and people probably, you probably got a little bit of, I know you have to have a reputation in Orange Mountain. I know you have to have a reputation in North Memphis. So they will receive you more, I mean, if I drive up,

they're like, who are you? Who's this guy? So they'll receive you. But receiving you in to that area and listening to you and hearing you and allowing you to have some measure of change. That's the how how does that work? Building a relationship with them. What's that building the relationship with them a real genuine relationship with them. Never giving up.

Being unconditional, I mean non-judgmental in every way possible. Well you say you're reaching the most at risk. How do you know in North Hollywood, or how do you know in Orange Mound, who the most at risk is? You know who the hitters are. They tell on themselves, if they don't somebody else.

They tell on themselves. Social media gives you any Information you want this is the part I wanted to talk about a little bit because when I heard this I thought now that Makes a lot of sense. I heard that you guys There was a dude about seven eight months ago the one around Memphis actually on Tik Tok or YouTube or something? Videowed himself riding around town shooting stuff up. I think he shot three people

before they finally stopped him, right? I was told you guys knew that he was very high risk and were trying to find him as early as two days before on that rampage. Okay, that's the how, because that's magic. How? How does that, how does? I don't understand it. The crime in the community, his name just kept coming up. Zee Kuncho. Because you're in the community. Okay, but do people not see y'all as rats?

No. Why not? Because they genuinely know our outreach is the heart of what we do when it comes to getting out there mingling with these guys and identifying that's where you know you need to correct people because again, nobody buys in on a week. They don't buy in in a month. Sometimes it takes an outreach worker eight months to even get them to come to the building. But that comes from being relentless engagement, being there for them, answering the phone

when they call, helping them when they need something done. They know if you're genuine and if you're not. And one thing about coming from street life, their loyalty thing, it's the way you use your loyalty though. See, they are loyal to what they know, the culture, the people who showed them these things. So you have to build a relationship to gain loyalty with them.

And that's exactly what we have to do. That's why you can't have people, the wrong people in position, because they can identify who's just reading off a script. They know if you're real and when you're not. 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 I'm not the police. We're not the

police. We're here to stop you and help you change, turn your life around and do something different. Darrell Bock Yeah, I read that one of the things y'all say is we are not the police. We do not work with the police and we ain't trying to solve no crimes. So that right there removes a barrier. It does. We'll be right back. 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 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. 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. 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. This month, we're bringing you the stories of athletes. There's the Italian race car driver who courted danger and became the first woman to compete in Formula One. The sprinter who set a world record and protested racism and discrimination in the U.S.

and around the world in the 1960s, the diver who was barred from swimming clubs due to her race and went on to become the first Asian-American woman to win an Olympic medal. She won gold twice, the mountaineer known in the Chinese press as the tallest woman in the world, and the ancient Greek charioteer who exploited a loophole to become the first ever woman to compete at the Olympic Games.

Listen to Wamanica on the iHeartRadio 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 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 iHeart True Crime Plus subscription, available exclusively on Apple podcasts.

So don't wait, head to Apple podcasts, search for iHeart True Crime Plus and subscribe today. and subscribe today. I've read, I think there's 80 employees now with 81 full-time staff members with Memphis allies. All right. How many of you are in these neighborhoods engaging on a day-to-day basis with the most at-risk people saying, I'm not the police, I'm not here to solve crimes,

I'm not gonna write you out, I came from where you come from, I know you, I know your community, I know what you're feeling, I know what you're going through, but I got a way, a different way to live. How many of you are out there doing that on the ground? In the Fraser Raleigh area, I say out of the percent. Maybe in my building alone, I could honestly say maybe 10 of us that actually live the life, actually walked in their life,

have that credibility. Now don't get me wrong, just because you live the life and you were in the life, don't mean that you're gonna be received. You're not gonna be received. Okay, whoa, whoa, whoa, you laughed. Marta, why are you laughing? Because you shaking your head up and down. Because what? You have to be qualified.

Well, what constitutes qualification? That means that you are from that environment. The environment already knows you. The environment already see that there's a transition that you're trying to make in your life. And they know where you came from. The nine people that work up on the mean for Ash and I that I believe,

they all come from that environment. And by me having the partnership with Memphis Outlast, it gave me the ability to go back in that community and empower those that want to help change the community. So now, there goes the qualification. Okay, I see Nardo, Marlon, Bo, Tony, Kadija, Miss Barbara, Nardo, Marlon, Bo, Tony, Khadijah, Miss Barbara, Paul, Daryl, Fat Fat. Fat Fat?

I wanna meet Fat Fat, I just like the name. And all of us come together, and they see all of us coming together from some being GDs, some being great, some being Vice Lords, I'm a drug dealer, ex-drug dealer, and all of us came together and unified to bring change in the community. That's what qualification is.

Since 2019, homicides in Memphis have gone up 81%. In 2022, a life was taken every 29 hours. 302 homicides, 19 children were killed. So far, homicide is up more than 30% over last year's numbers. A recent study found Memphis the eighth most dangerous city in the world. In the world. We're talking Beirut. We're talking Karachi, Pakistan. We're talking Tehran.

The world now. Eighth most dangerous city in the world. Which is interesting because 95% of the people that live in the city would not experience this being the eighth most city in the world. The, the, the, the honest, blatant truth is this is the folks that you come from. This is them on them mostly. Um, youth villages, uh, if this allies has developed a program model that combines street outreach with life coaching and intensive clinical services

and case management. Switch will identify, connect with, and serve individuals at the highest risk of involvement in violence. So I know what a switch is. A switch is basically a bump stock, kind of. It's something you put on a gun to make it from semi-automatic to automatic. It's street, street, street talk.

But. Switch. The reason you call it switch is it's an acronym that stands for support with intention to create hope. So talk about talk about this life coaching. I get street outreach. We've established that. That's what you and your teams are out there doing. So once you get them, the life coaching with intensive clinical services and case management, explain what that means because you two guys are not professionally trained social workers. You didn't go to school to be psychologists. psychologist. So how does the thing transfer from what you were amazing at, which is the street outreach and why we've just described to life coaching, and tensile intensive clinical

services and case management. How does that work? I started out as a life coach. I'm now a supervisor, but I started as a life coach and the word life coach speaks for itself, you walking through life with this individual and when they build a report to get them to bring when outreach starts out, they build a report to get them open to the idea of coming into programming, then you're introduced to your life coach and the rest of the team that you will. Letting them know you have more than me, you have more than outreach,

you have a whole staff here that's here for you to help you get through this thing called life and get you to the next step. Not walking for you, I'm not making decisions for you, I'm not setting your goals for you. I'm not the police. And I'm definitely not the police. I'm here to walk for you. I'm not setting your goals for you. I'm not the police and I'm definitely not the police. I'm here to walk you through the necessary steps to get you to the finish line. So that's when the relentless relentless engagement begins as a life coach.

You have to be prepared and knowing they don't sleep traditional hours. I was about to say, you got to be 24 seven, you know, because street folks, they're probably going to get angriest and the worst times at 1 in the morning, not at 3.30 in the afternoon. When it's 3 o'clock in the morning, you have to be ready to be on go. And something as simple as working with an individual who's the court may have referred them, they really don't want the program, but they know they got to do it to stay out of jail. Those are my favorite candidates. Really? Because I got you now. I'm there. I'm there. Something as simple as them calling you at three in the morning, because they at the girl's house, and they got put out, and she's finna call the police,

and you're like, I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it.

I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it.

I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do there. I'm there. Something as simple as them calling you at three in the morning, because they at the girl's house, and it got put out,

and she's trying to call the police, and you get up out your bed to assist, means more to them than you can possibly imagine. Because probably nobody's ever done well with them. Nobody's ever did anything for most of these individuals without expecting something in return. So that's always been my motto to tell them. This is a job, but it's also my life.

Another moral tenet, unconditional love. And can't be judgmental. You cannot be judgmental. Some of these guys have did some bad things, but I genuinely want you to stop turning your life around and I can't be judged mental to The things and get you through life and actually have a success rate if I'm gonna judge you by everything you've done I didn't get judged by everything I did so I don't want to be that person and Life is life in my grandson 14 years old was just shot in the head last month by a friend a family friend

Because they are playing with a gun. You're saying this. Yeah. My grandson and this young man was 18 and he's 14, but because they were playing with the gun, my son, they're more angry and they were ready for revenge. My passion and what God gave me to do when I walked out there prison, six years ago says, no, I went to his bond here and out of that prison six years ago says no. I went to his barn here to make sure you know that he's 18. He's lost. Both his parents are

gone. He lived with his great grandmother. She's old. She can't do anything for him. He's a prospect now for the program. Yeah, I was angry when it happened, but I also know the storyline behind it. My kids don't see that right now because they think about it. He was 18, he's 14. The ball has dropped not only with the 18-year-old, but with the 14-year-old as well. What's a 14-year-old doing hanging around with an 18-year-old anyway? My point exactly.

That was my thing to my son. I was like, you got to do more than make sure he go to school. Y'all think making sure school is, that's not it. They interacting with everybody, they come in contact with from the time they wake up and step out your door to the time they walk back in. So, Nardo, Memphis allies, recruiting folks like you who've turned their life around,

who've made that step, who've come from the life and then getting them in the community to identify and walk with people that are most likely to be in gun violence. That's truly the first step. That ain't just, that's not it. That's just the beginning, right? So talk about the counseling services and the other stuff besides life coaching.

Well, the biggest part is the clinical piece. Yes. The clinical piece. That's what I sell to my guys and young ladies because of the trauma that we deal with. I'm like, me being an orange man, the same people that they've lost, I've lost too. So the same hurt that they feel, I feel too.

I've cried in front of my young people. I've spoken, count the lights and balloon releases and all those things and shared my heart with them about the trauma, the sad of us dealing with our emotions and where I share with them, I go see a counselor every two weeks. Why? Man. And we have a large generation that's walking around hurt.

I am. I have, I don't know why I feel so, I have to be, I feel like I have to be, language matters and I fear I like the skill to properly articulate what's going on in my brain to ask you the proper question. So forgive me if this is not right. I'm gonna go there. I hear feelings. I hear sadness. I hear hurt. I hear love. What I hear are really very basic What I hear are really very basic human emotions that matter and lead to an

an emotionally intact human being. Those are the basics of emotional intelligence is love and care and concern and hurt, passion, all of those things. I hear those words come out of your mouth. But you're also describing to me actions from those same people who have those emotions that are animalistic, preying on other people. Yeah. Carrying guns, physical abuse, sexual abuse. I am having the hardest time in the world balancing the act against what you're telling me these people are feeling. Do you understand what I'm saying? I don't. I'm really struggling with how can these two dichotomies be part of the same public, just part of the same people? How can these people that are experiencing this pain and this love and the sadness and all of the things you're talking about also be the same people that'll pull out a gun and jack you and kill you for $150 and the rocks

because those people are not showing empathetic love and compassion and concern, but they're the same people you're telling me are dealing with that. Do you see what I'm saying? I'm struggling. And I hear you, so I'm gonna give you this. When a child is born, it cries for three things.

Food, change, and to be healed. That's the only three things. So imagine a baby growing up, none of that. Barely getting fed, barely getting changed, barely being hugged, and crying majority of the time just for those three basic needs. Now, you get them up to six, seven years old. Now they can talk.

Now they can tell you how they feel, but ain't nobody listen. Ain't nobody doing it. Now, I'm 14, 13, 14. I know how to survive by what I see. And I've been walking around with this hurt since I was a child, but I was never able to express it. Because guess what?

And there's nothing against school system, but the school system doesn't teach about emotions. The first thing they do, if the child act up emotionally, you're getting 180. You go into the alternative school. The alternative school don't teach them about no emotions. So now you got a whole generation that don't even know nothing about the emotions

that God gave them for a reason. Absolutely no emotional adult. And my people perish for a lack of knowledge. So now you got more, a generation that's more emotionally disturbed than emotionally intelligent. Which is why you say the counseling service of Memphis allies is the big key. Because now once they, if you can get them out of life just a little bit, get your hooks in them, identify them first, build a relationship with them

because your credibility, because they feel you and they gotta be willing to talk. And then you get them in and you're a life coach. Now the emotional component, what does that look like? How do y'all do that? When they first come into services, the life coach is the next key person. So it is our job to make sure we work well with the clinical staff. Because again, we come in from a culture where we were taught, you don't go in there and talk to these folks about your business.

And you ain't crazy. You don't see no counseling. Don't put my business on the street. All that. Boy, did I, I heard that a thousand times. To get them to break that wall, just to even, we don't call our clinical staffs, psychiatrists or nothing like that. We just tell them we have a person that's going to help you work through your feelings. And then the clinical specialist

build their relationship with them. But it's not until you start identifying the trauma that you can make better choices. Because you become, it's a, I had an alter ego. In the streets I was Goldie, don't play with me. You were who? Goldie. That was your name? That was my name. Goldie. Don't play with me. You were who? Goldie. That was your name?

That was my name. Goldie. Don't play with me in the streets. Why Goldie? Now you gotta tell me why Goldie. I used to have 10 Golds. I got them. I got them.

Got them. Goldie. I was Goldie. And they knew don't play with Goldie. But at home, I was a big baby. I could be myself at home, break down, cry, but in the streets I had to keep up an illusion. These guys have never been able to express the soft side of them because they don't want

to be deemed weak. So when you get, when you start identifying the trauma and being able to realize that's why some of these seizures, I'm 51. I go to counseling every month. I have my children in counseling. We have family counseling because of all the damage that was done. Let me tell you something. I go to counseling once a month.

It's the best thing that happened to me and I would have never been open up to that. If you had asked me this 10 years ago, I wouldn't be open to it. It's only within these six years that I've took that serious in my own life so that I can give it to my children and my grandkids to try to bridge that gap. We'll be right back. Hi, I'm Molly Conger, host of Weird Little Guys, a new podcast from Cool Zone Media on iHeart Radio.

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 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. 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. This month, we're bringing you the stories of athletes.

There's the Italian race car driver who courted danger and became the first woman to compete in Formula One. The sprinter who set a world record and protested racism and discrimination in the US and around the world in the 1960s. The diver who was barred from swimming clubs due to her race and went on to become the first Asian American woman to win an Olympic medal. She won gold twice. The mountaineer known in the Chinese press

as the tallest woman in the world. And the ancient Greek charioteer who exploited a loophole to become the first ever woman to compete at the Olympic Games. Listen to Wamanica on the iHeartRadio 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 podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, I'm Andrea 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 iHeart True Crime Plus subscription, available exclusively on Apple podcasts. So don't wait, head to Apple podcasts, search for iHeart True Crime Plus and subscribe today. I have friends in the police department and they tell me, well, first of all, Memphis is 660,000 people inside the loop. If you take outside the loop in the metropolitan area, including the little bit of North Pacific and West Memphis and all, we're about 1.3 million people.

They tell me that the same 1500 people are rotating in and out of 201. I'm sorry 201 poplar for people here are that's the the city jail, the same 1500 2000 people, the same people they're arresting over and over and over again. As I think about that, let's say it's 2000, let's say it's 3000. Let's say five, I'll just say five. Let's say his numbers are small and it's 5000 people. That means we've got a million and a half people basically being held hostage by 5,000. One, that's absurd. But two, if you really think about it, that's why I believe you guys have the answer. Because you don't have to affect the whole damn city. You only got to find those 5,000.

And if you could change half of those, you should conceivably reduce crime, violent crime. Yeah, true from that angle, but we also got to think about the other generation that's coming up, just watching all this, this is in some format ready to duplicate what they see. So yes, starting there, but also dad. Which it was back to the beginning, why you're now not talking 17 to 35,

now you're getting into the 11 or 12 year old. Who sadly, it's an absolute disgusting narrative on our culture that an 11, 12 year olds need counseling, but they've already been so exposed to so much. Exactly. They need the same stuff that the older passers- From a baby. Are you getting that done?

That part, I know there's other organizations that target the younger kids. Like in Orange Mountain, you got Red Zone Ministries, which I used to work for Red Zone Ministries, it's targeting those young kids. And so it's just a process. What it's really saying to the larger number of this community is that we all got to come together. Ain't just Memphis allies, it's gonna take all of us to work together

to create change to that small number. Because what they're seeing, they looking at it. If y'all not working together. Why you want us to do anything? What, I'm convinced this situation exists in Baltimore, Jackson, Mississippi, Montgomery, Alabama, Birmingham, Alabama, Phoenix, Arizona, Pickup City. Are you? I mean, it's the same stuff everywhere. Oh yeah. This has been going on since the Compton and Watch days.

That's the 80s. It's just getting worse. All it did was unravel. What we know from the few people I've engaged in what you are doing now is that it works. Tell me some success stories. Tell me after all this redemption, give me some redemption to end on.

Give me, each of you give me, I know I'm not to say your favorite story because I know there's probably a number of them, but give, leave our listeners with a story that is, well, in some regards speaks to why you keep waking up and doing it every day. Because just to say one means the world to me coming from that culture and working with this individual, I have one particular, he is my favorite because I know, I don't know how familiar you are with how big Craig Pettis is, was from Memphis. How big what?

Craig Pettis, how big he was. I well I do I'm a little different though And I assure you law enforcement all over the United States does but Craig Pettis was the kingpin of Memphis and that dude was from around Booker T Washington kind of South Memphis area and He He got big enough that he was directly tied with the Mexican cartels Booker T. Washington kind of South Memphis area. And he, uh, he got big enough that he was directly tied with the Mexican cartels and was a bad dude. Yeah. And when I say a bad dude, I mean,

it both Ligert literally a bad dude, but also metaphorically, this was one bad dude. He had it lined up. He was, he was, I think he was really for Memphis. He was kind of the OG. He was Riverside. Okay, so go ahead. We have a participant that was actually on his indictment. On his what? On his indictment, on Craig Pettis' indictment.

He was indicted with Craig Pettis. So he was very heavily involved with that in just a half. And I mean, people need to understand we're not talking low level street gang stuff. This is if we were, if we put it to the Italian mob days of New York and Chicago, we're talking Gotti. Yeah. I mean, that's really what we're talking. Craig Pettis was in the in the urban Mexican cartel street gang world.

I mean, he was the deal, right? So you had a guy that was close to Craig, like one of his lieutenants for better, lack of a better term. So once he got out of prison, of course federal probation is crazy. You have to go to all these, meet all these different criteria.

So I met him at an angry management workshop that I had to take myself through the federal when I was on probation. This young man, I talked to him a little bit then, but I couldn't get him. But I ended up going to C-SPIRE and his nephew was there. So he's actually trying to do some of the same type of work himself because for where he came from and we connected then, he became a participant on our side of the switch side.

Amazing. But somebody I know from the caliber of this young man, what he's done, what he's been convicted of to come home and still want to make a change, pushing whatever his reasoning was. I don't know, but he's not affiliated with not one thing from his head of the life. How old is he? 32 32 33. So what's he doing now? He is actually trying to start his own nonprofit organization working with teams. He has a football team. He's like really doing a lot in the community to help get these and this dude was all up in Craig Patterson, Pettis's lap at one time. Are you convinced that the counseling and the

life coaching and the time he spent is what got this done? Most definitely the clinical piece. He didn't even realize, like most people, how much trauma you really have until you start facing it face to face. Why did he talk to you in the first bus? Because our affiliation, Gangsta Disciple, you know, that was just the icebreaker. It's almost like a fraternity or sorority. It's almost like you're an alum of a fraternity or sorority, but you're just reaching out and saying... Just basically telling a little bit of my story as well.

Like I changed, bro. I can't do it no more. And he was like, I ain't doing no more. Even that's the, that's the ice for it. And so then let me show you how I can help you get there. And now he's actually opening up a few doors on the younger side that I really desired to do as well. So I'm loving it. And this shows me that you're in the right place.

It went, when I wake up every morning and I decide that I don't want to get revenge on nothing, nobody that hurt me, I can look past your flaws and still want what's genuinely best for you. I know I'm in the right place and I've been in contact with the right people. Memphis allies sage flow. And so I can only give back because I've been home six years and when I haven't looked back but the first two years was such a struggle. I came close every day. It was a conscious decision to make morning to do the right thing because I felt so beat down from my past. There were no outlets and so to come into an organization that's offering me an outlet to not only face my traumas but give me resources through case

management. I didn't have those resources when I was a teen. They sent us to St. Peter's, we run away. We go to the doctor, run away. It's like the community itself, we need everybody doing this. We need those. You put people in prison, you wanna know why recidivism is not really working, and they keep going back in. There's nothing when they get out. That is not punishment, that is not helping them. That's not dealing with the trauma of why they did the things that they did.

Yeah, the whole moniker of rehabilitation is a joke. It is. It ain't rehabilitating nothing. No, it didn't. You took me from Memphis, a little Memphis girl, put me in federal prison in Tallahassee, Florida with 3,000 other individuals that do the same thing or worse. Nothing in there keeping us positive, but sitting there trading stories, reconnecting, but not on a positive note. Making contacts for when you get out.

Reconnected but not on a positive note making contacts for when you get out Exactly. That's exactly what it's built on and if you don't have a mindset to want to do something different You're gonna fall back into the same trench. But even if you have the mindset like you said what Mufasa is providing It helps the resources definitely we need and when I say resources not money, but stuff to work on your soul Exactly, and it's not helping when you come home Definitely we need resources. And when I say resources, not money, but the stuff to work on yourself. Exactly. And it's not helping when you come home, you don't have anything. So all the little fancy things you had and you was taken from people and living a lifestyle, you come home, you're back to zero. So when you really come home and your mindset is I want a job, I'm going to do right, you

go from making $10,000 in a week to making $200 every two weeks, that ain't, it's not equal. And then you got the barrier of housing. If you don't have moral support, family support, nine times out of 10, you're going to find yourself in a situation. You're going to have to make a conscious decision to do right, do wrong. There's a barrier with housing when you have a conviction. There's a barrier with housing when you have a conviction. There's a barrier with jobs now. And it's up until recently,

I didn't even realize that my life insurance policy is higher than a normal person because I'm a convicted felon. And when my agent told me that, I was like, why? And it's like, because I guess you're more likely to die from non natural causes than the average citizen. Honestly, that's terrible, but it does make sense. But that was just a profound thing to me. Like, wow.

Like it's everything. It's everything against you. So it's really on you. There's good in people. I really believe there's good people just choose to everything is a choice you make a conscious decision to do and you just got to face the consequences and what Memphis allies does gives you all those things and the clinical piece I must say is my favorite piece because even now I found out things about myself I had pushed down so far

that I didn't even wanna ever come back up again. I basically forgot about it until going through that process. That's the most thing that these guys get out of it. You see guys that you know they committed murder, crying like a little baby when they come out of session. Because they finally got to take off the mask that I'm the man or young ladies that turned

theyself into the sole provider of the family and wanna be tough, tough, tough, tough. Their clinical piece is so important and that's why this organization for me, I love all the organizations that are doing this thing because it's gonna take all of us coming together because if we divide, they divide. And it is our desire to get all of them

under one roof with you, gangster, disciple, A-O- AOB, whoever we want to be treating you as a person, not as a label of an organization. But if you don't, everybody needs to get on their piece because mental illness is real, depression is real. And we have to address those things to get to see the bigger picture. It's phenomenal to me that we're going out talking about reducing gung violence by going and talking to the most at risk piece and these gang bangers, these hard folks and what it boils down to is counseling, outreach, life coach mentoring, basically trying to get into them the basics that they should have been taught by their mom and grandmama when they were two

to seven years old. All right, what's yours? You got, give me a story of maybe not your favorite, but one of your favorites. Something for us to say. I have a favorite young man that I brought into the program, one of the first, and he had a situation, well his girlfriend had a situation

where she got into it with her friend's boyfriend and she called him and he ended up coming to say today, or tried to anyway, and they pulled up on the guy and you know, ended up being a gunfight. But luckily, you know, he didn't lose his life in this situation. Nobody should live through that. Exactly. Nobody should live through being in America

on a city street at a convenience store. I mean, we make fun of all these third world countries and the stuff that goes on, we're like, yeah, you know, look, they don't have it. We're doing it. Nobody should live through that. And he able to get into the program, he was traumatized from the situation.

And that's what a clinical piece really helped him. And so now he's about to graduate and he wanna be in the program. I mean, he wants to be part the pro, I mean, he wants to be part of what we're doing to bring change in the community. He wants to do what you do after being affected by what you do. Exactly. I mean, that's exactly what we're trying to get, right?

Yes, sir. Get out of the gun world and into the fixed world. Exactly. And be safe. That's awesome. Be safe. If anybody wants to get in touch with you because they're sitting in Louisville and they want to know how to do this in their community,

how do they reach you guys? My personal email, they can reach me through the Memphis Allies website, but personally, if they want to reach me, they can reach me at Florence.CollinsBrooks at youthvillages.org. At youthvillages.org. And they can reach me at renato.isndbl at gmail.com. Do you wake up every morning looking in the mirror, thinking, wow, my life has changed?

Yes. I wish my mom was here to see it. What's that? I wish my mom was here to see it. She is. You ain't seeing her, but she's seeing you is the way I believe. Man, Flo, Nardo, thank you so much for being so transparent about your backgrounds. I know you have to be really proud of the steps you've made in your life to get where

you are and to do the work you're doing to make such an amazing difference in your community and reliving all of the past. I know as part of that work, it's a necessary measure of that work for your credibility and how you outreach to people. But you know, you're blatant honesty about it and all. I don't want it to be sensationalized. And the reason I want to hear it so much is because I think it's such an integral part of the story. But it also serves, hopefully for those listening to us to understand, you just how traumatic it really is coming up that way. I really appreciate you kind of

giving us a glimpse into, you know, exactly what you said, a kid coming up, imagine a child wanting the three things they need and not getting it and then going from one month old to 15 years old and still not receiving it. You know, it really does indicate how so many people end up being these at risk, most at risk youth. What an amazing story. What an amazing bunch of work you do. Is there are there any data points yet about the success of the work you've done to end with? Do you know if there's I know it's a relatively I mean, the measure bowls are not all there yet. But other than you just seeing in your communities people changing are the data points there yet to tell us what the reduction in the communities you're working on are

yet or is that just stay tuned until we can get those measureables I say stay tuned yeah I would say stay tuned I mean we see a little bit data but not not yet I mean but you've been out here doing this really full time for as far as from what we've seen, the people we encountered engaging people. They understand what we do and what we stand stand for. We can say, yes, there is, there should be some data, but just the, the embrace, the embrace of the communities and the people that is involved in gun violence is the key.

Like I was at Waffle House yesterday, and one of my young guys, they seen the van. They came up in Waffle House. Yes, one of them had his gun right there on this side. And people in the Waffle House, they stopped and looked. But he came over, he said, man, I just seen the van, just wanted to come holler at you. I really appreciate you.

I said, man, you being careful, you all right? He's like, yeah, I'm all right. I said, you need to get ready. You need to talk, we need to go have lunch or something. And eventually, hopefully, that guy comes to you and actually gets the work done. But that's it. Just build the relationships.

And they know that I love them. At least they know you're there now. It's a beautiful thing. Gardo, Flo, thanks for spending time with me and telling your story. I really appreciate it. I appreciate you. Appreciate the opportunity. Yes, sir. and telling your story, I really appreciate it. I appreciate you. Appreciate the opportunity.

Yes, sir. Yeah. And thank you for joining us this week. If Flo Enardo or other guests have inspired you in general, or better yet, inspired you to take action by donating to Memphis Allies, starting something like it in your own community, or something else entirely, please let me know. I'd love to hear about it. You can write me anytime at bill at normal folks dot us. And I guarantee

you this, I will respond. And if you enjoyed this episode, share it with friends and on social. Subscribe to the podcast, rate and review it. Join the Army at NormalFolks.us. Consider becoming a premium member there. All of these things that will help us grow. An Army of Normal Folks. Thanks to our producer, Iron Light Labs. I'm Bill Courtney.

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