Locked In with Ian Bick - Crip Survives California’s Most Violent Prisons | Jose Lugo

Episode Date: July 28, 2025

Jose Lugo grew up in one of Los Angeles’ toughest neighborhoods, where violence, broken family, and survival shaped his early life. After joining the Crips in high school, Jose got caught up in a string of robberies and was sentenced to 5 years in prison. From the brutal reality of L.A. County Jail to life inside a California state prison as a gang member, Jose reveals what it was really like behind bars — and what it took to walk away from the streets. In this raw and emotional interview, he shares the painful process of self-forgiveness, leaving the gang life behind, and how he’s fighting for redemption every single day. #GangLife #CripsStory #LifeAfterPrison #LACountyJail #CaliforniaPrison #PrisonRedemption #StreetToRedemption #lockedinpodcast Connect with Jose Lugo: https://therealjoselugo.com/ Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ Get 50% off the Magic Mind offer here: https://www.magicmind.com/IANB50. #magicmind #mentalwealth #mentalperformance Presented by Tyson 2.0 & Wooooo Energy: https://tyson20.com/ https://woooooenergy.com/ Buy Merch: http://www.ianbick.com/shop Timestamps: 00:00:00 Jose Lugo's Struggles and Upbringing 00:05:44 Family Struggles and Foster Care Fears 00:11:38 Early School Challenges and Homeschooling 00:17:37 Understanding Intense Racial Dynamics 00:23:32 Life After High School: A Turning Point 00:30:07 Close Encounter at the Store 00:36:23 Intense Police Standoff Experience 00:42:40 Navigating Racial Dynamics in Jail 00:48:21 Navigating Early Gang Dynamics in County Jail 00:54:46 Surviving a Brutal Attack: A Raw Account 01:01:01 Finding Inner Strength and Support 01:06:59 Realizations on Gang Life and Change 01:13:01 Overcoming Anxiety and Announcing Non-Activity 01:18:49 Life Under Threat: Surviving Gang Politics 01:25:15 Embracing a New Life Away from Violence 01:31:33 Overcoming Desperation and Finding Faith 01:38:05 Finding Clarity Amidst the Noise Powered by: Just Media House : https://www.justmediahouse.com/ Creative direction, design, assets, support by FWRD: https://www.fwrd.co Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I can't move. My arms feel like Jello. That's how hard he hit me. Like, I can't. And he looks at me and he's like, hey, you're going to row your shit up. You're going to get the fuck out of here. Jose Lugo grew up in the streets of Los Angeles, caught between an abusive home and a broken family.

With his parents divorced and violence at home, he turned to the Crips in high school looking for belonging. After a string of robberies right after graduation, he was sentenced to five years in prison, serving time in L.A. County Jail and California State Prison as a gang member. In this powerful interview, Jose opens up about life inside, the decision to walk away from gang life, and the emotional battle to forgive himself and find redemption. Jose, welcome to Lockton, man. Awesome. I'm happy to be here. Thank you for having me.

Yeah, thanks so much for coming out here. You flew in from Denver. Flew in from Denver. Is that where you grew up? That's where I live now, yeah. Did you grow up there? I am born and raised in Los Angeles. So the part of L.A. that I'm from is San Pedro. So it's the harbor area of L.A., part of Los Angeles.

Most people are familiar with Long Beach, but there's a couple, a cluster of cities right there. So it's Long Beach, Wilmington, San Pedro, Harbor City that comprises the harbor area of L.A. What was your upbringing like? My upbringing was tough. You know, as a kid, you know, my parents got divorced when I was five. But before the divorce, you know, I remember being a kid who was, like most kids, happy. I was definitely a dreamer, you know, an innate believer right on what's out there, on possibilities, and kind of filled with wonder and hope like most kids.

you know my mom immigrated from sinoloa mexico my dad immigrated from mexico city the capital and they both came to l.A. and they met each other they tried to make it happen and it didn't work out you know um i have from my dad's first marriage with my mom there's six of us and you know i think being immigrants and coming over here and having that many kids that fast is going to put a strain on any relationship. And, you know, I'm sure that's just one factor of what my parents were going through, you know, coming over here, being poor, then having a ton of kids and then trying to survive.

They had, you know, a lot of fights, a lot of stuff going on that I wasn't necessarily I'm aware of. You know, they ended up getting a divorce when I was five. My dad left. And at that time is when everything changed for me. I went from being a really happy kid to kind of wondering where my dad was all the time and still believing that he would come back. You know, my mom then kind of changed how she was going to raise us. You know, she had six kids to raise on her own, and she, um, decided to just go all in with corporal punishment. You know, she was really, really violent. And I remember the first time that my mom hit me vividly, and, you know, I was at home. It was just me and her, and I was always like an off-the-wall type kid, you know, just bouncing around. Um,

But my mom took me to the bedroom. She tied both my legs. She tied my legs and my arms together. And she just started hitting me with the belt or cord. And I remember feeling that betrayal first. It wasn't even the pain because I didn't know what was going on. I didn't know the implications of being tied up and being hit. The first thing I felt was betrayed because I felt the hurt.

and I saw my mom being the one who was hurting me, the person that I love the most. And, you know, after that instance, you know, I kind of bounce back. Like most kids, you just bounce back, except that the abuse was consistent. So even though I would bounce back quick over time, I just had to find a way not to feel and to survive emotionally within the house.

house and over and over again as you get beat again and again and again you know my defense mechanism was to just close off even though I want to bounce back and feel like this range of emotion um but even in that even in that violence in my home like I had my siblings you know my sisters were there I had an older brother and we kind of had that camaraderie from that shared story that we have because they were abused as well. And I also need to mention that, you know, given my mom's abusive behavior, very abusive behavior, that she still stuck around for us. And that was never lost on me even as a kid. I still observed that, you know, she was there every day.

and, you know, we had run-ins with child protective services, those things, and my mom did everything she could to keep us all together, to keep me, my sisters, and my brother together as a family unit. Because I think we all know that, you know, going into the foster care system, you're not going to end up anywhere too much better, right? It could be actually very worse. So she knew that. I think intuitively, us as kids, we knew that whatever happened, we want to be together.

So, you know, that was my childhood. It was bittersweet. You know, it was having that love with my siblings and then having that parent figure, one, my dad who wasn't there, who I always thought he was going to come back and just my hope being crushed again and again. and then having my mom who was just an enforcer to keep us all together and to try and have some sort of order in the house. And, you know, parts of it sucked. Parts of it were beautiful, you know,

and now I lean into the beautiful part of my childhood, and that's the love of my siblings, of my family that I still have to this day. Did you feel abandoned by your dad, especially after when your mom started abusing you guys? I always felt that I always blamed my dad I felt that if my dad was around the abuse wouldn't have occurred

I felt that if he was around he would have been able to prevent the abuse even though my dad had his own issues right his own personal issues going on so I definitely felt abandoned we used to wait for him at the so during the breakup

my mom and my dad they were not cordial at all So us as the kids are in the crossfire of that My mom would not let my dad pick us up at the house So what she would do she would say Go walk to the bus stop and wait for your dad there And all of us would do that Me

My three older sisters And then maybe sometimes Not my baby sister she wasn't even born yet So me and my three older sisters We'd walk two blocks to the bus stop And we'd sit there and we'd wait for me from my dad to show up and he wouldn't show up and we'd do that again and again and again and like i said i was still naturally uh very hopeful and i was like okay maybe i'm a maybe next time you know let's or let's

wait longer so we'd wait sometimes for hours you know because we didn't want to give up on him showing up like regardless of him not being around we still loved being with him But that would happen again and again and again to eventually we just stopped going to the bus stop and waiting for him. You know, so we'd see him, you know, the odd thing is he lived about 15 minutes from us. And we'd see him about four times out of the year. So, yeah, definitely felt abandoned for sure. Why do you think that the divorce triggered her to become abusive?

I think the stress. I think the stress of not having stability of not having money of being poor I mean we grew up in the hood of that harbor area so initially it was

Wilmington and then we moved to San Pedro so in Wilmington if you go there you know it's a very impoverished part of Los Angeles it's an unincorporated city of L.A. as well and it's written with violence and gang I think for her that reality of like, damn, she's an immigrant.

She doesn't have her papers. She's got six kids to take care of. She's got to find ways to pay the bills. I think that stress just mounted on her. You know, I always felt that we were the victims of that stress. You were mentioning how you gave her credit for, still keeping the family together and providing for you guys, do you think that still makes it okay that she was abusive? Not at all. Not at all. You can acknowledge both. You know, what she did was

wrong. And I've had talks with my mom on the other end of this, right? And I told her, I said, hey, you know, what she did was wrong. And she apologized. You know, and she said, hey, I'm sorry. I mean, I'm sorry that I hurt you. I'm sorry that I wasn't the best mom. And then I also tell her, but, you know, that's over now. Like, we're moving forward. You were mentioning dreams earlier as a child. What were those dreams that a young Jose had when he got older?

So my initial dreams as a kid was to be an architect. I always liked looking at homes and I loved how they looked. I loved the styles of the homes. I love the concept of building a home and just starting from the ground up. Once I got into school, I realized quickly that math is not my strong suit and geometry is not my strong suit. So that kind of quickly went away, but that was definitely my initial, my initial dream. Tell us about middle school years, early high school. Yeah, so I got kicked out of L.

elementary school and I believe fifth grade for taking a pocket knife to school. And I got kicked out of the district. So my mom had a fine, like she's not, we don't, we don't have reliable transportation to get me to a school outside the district. So I was homeschooled between fifth to 10th grade or through ninth grade actually. And for me, you know, that provided, okay, there was a good, a good to that and a bad to that. The bad to that is just being around my mom that much. But then again, during that time, I also saw how much she worked. Like she would clean houses.

She would clean office buildings at night. I would go with her. I would help her do those things. But then also there would be the outburst of just violence. The other side to that is I felt that me being homeschooled and in the house protected me from the environment outside of the house. I think the environment outside is toxic in that area. You know, there's gangs, there's drugs, there's violence.

And because I was homeschooled and not put into that, I was just, it was just, like, I see it all around me, but I don't, I'm not in it and I don't necessarily comprehend it. You know, I'm just kind of in my own world, disassociating, right? Just being home, teaching myself for the most part. And so, yeah, that was, that was my kind of middle, middle school life. I ended up going to high school, beginning to 10th grade. I ran cross-country. I didn't really like...

I mean, I like the inner battle part of running. I didn't like the coach too much. I was also a weird kid, right? Like you take a poor weird kid who's abused, then you homeschooling from fifth grade to ninth grade with more abuse, not too much learning. and then you just throw me into high school to get socialized. And, you know, I remember those first months in high school,

I was just anxiety written, you know, during lunch breaks, I would just go to the restroom and sit in there until the bell ring because I didn't fit in anywhere. So I was like, fuck it, I'll just wait until the ball ring. bow rings and just go about my business. Once I into the 11th grade I decided to join the football team and you know once I joined the football team that's where I found my first friend group like that's where I found the homies right that's where I found um belonging and you know I wasn't any good at football but I was kind of you know it was a little bit crazy out there right

go full speed, I didn't give a fuck. And the players on the team who took a liking to me were all gang members or parts of different cliques, different straights, stuff like that, and they were all black. And they took me under their wing. They kind of just accepted me. And, you know, they're like, oh, this motherfucker's crazy, you know, and they like that, right? So that became my first feeling of, oh, I have friends.

Like I didn't have not one friend before then And not only did I have friends I had friends who were willing to Fight with me and fight for me I had friends who I felt had a common story with me As far as absent dad I had as far as abuse in the home And they didn't give a fuck and I didn't give a fuck

So we We were on the same energy Energy wavelength However you want to describe it you know and I've never felt that I have fit in anywhere so when I was hanging around all black dudes all cribs I knew I stood out but oddly enough that's where I felt comfortable I felt comfortable like hey yeah I know I don't fit in so what um you know in high school just a ton of fights I mean we can talk about fights. They're not that exciting, right? It's just a lot of them. Towards the end,

towards like graduation, 12th grade, you know, things get a little bit more hot. The more senior gangs in the area get involved and they know that you're, hey, you're about to finish school like this is going to be more serious. And where I'm from, there's a lot of racial tension. There's a racial undercurrent. So when you see taggings, or at least when I was, when I was growing up and in that arena, the taggings wouldn't say fuck Crips. They would say fuck blacks. Or they would say fuck blacks and use a slur. So this is like an intense hate that you can feel. And because all of my friends were Crips, you know, and I was writing with them, you know, I was called a traitor to my own race out there.

And that was just a part of it for me. But that did make me think about things beyond race. You know, what is this really about? Am I a traitor? What, like, what's going on here? Am I supposed to be with the Mexican Surenio game? out there. I never felt that I was supposed to do that. I thought I was supposed to

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boring into maybe the best part of your day. Your life deserves music. Your music deserves Bose. Find your perfect product at Bose.com. With the people who were riding with me. Was it common for the Crips to accept? someone of a different nationality? I think crips are more diverse. You know, you'd be surprised. So it's not common, but it happens.

Like, it exists. Like, you know, I have different homies who are white crips, Mexican crips. You know, there is more diversity for sure. It's just when you're in your cohort, you're usually just that one. that cohort, you know, like, but you definitely have people who have done it before you, you got people who are going to do it after you. Did just hanging around them automatically make you a crip, or what did that look like? Right. I mean, there's technicalities to that, right? People always think of the, hey, you're going to get put on. You're going to get jumped by X amount of people,

and then from then after you're from the hood. The street that I was from, so was the click. I was from 14th Street. And then eventually when I went to prison, it was 14th Street, Dodge City Crip. But when I was, man, it's a trip. It's a trip recalling this. Yeah, when I was coming up, I was just involved in so many altercations

that it was just a given. And there wasn't a question about it. And, you know, that was. was my case. I know that's not that's not the status quo for a lot of people but that was my case. Now you had mentioned earlier about being in fifth grade bringing a pocket knife to school. Why did you do that at that age? I was just a fuck up. Why not bring a pocket knife, right? So there weren't ill intentions behind it? I wouldn't say so. I wouldn't say so. I just, you know, it was a dumb decision. But it wasn't, it definitely wasn't to hurt anybody. It was just, Oh, this is cool.

Maybe I can bring this knife to school. Stupid. Because you were that outcast in your early years of high school, did you know much about gangs at all? I don't think so. I saw it, right? I saw it. Like when I walk outside in my house, I see, you see gang members. But I don't know about the culture.

I don't know about the ins and outs. None of that. Everything I'm going to learn, I had to learn on the fly. you know and and luckily I was able to kind of do that but yeah I wasn't well versed than any of that I felt like I was more thrown into it however I felt at home in it so the violence before prison which was racial still in in the city that felt normal to me because the violence I had experienced at home like what's the difference Like my mom is violent Like I've already been hurt I've been hurt a lot So what does it matter to me if we hurt somebody else

So I just ended up getting this very cynical worldview A hurt worldview That hey people are bad You can't trust them that violence is a part of life And you can argue that it is right you could still argue that.

And then that gave me license to just be a part of that. Another factor of that is when my mom was beating me, I couldn't fight back. So when I was able to fight back finally, that was cathartic for me. It felt really good, even if I lost, because I was able to swing back. So even though I was able to swing back. even though I wasn't well-versed in the politics of the gangs, I was well-equipped to thrive in that environment. What was some of the background of these other crips that you were hanging around?

What do you mean by their background? Family, single-family home. Did they have parents together? What did that look like? Did they grow up in poverty? If they even talked about it to you? I think everyone's, okay, you have different, So the homie that I was, one of our homies who we were at his house all the time, he had two parents.

His dad was a truck driver. He was an OG from Carson. I think he was from 190. Big Doc, rest in peace. He would just hang out over there. But I'm not sure if Big Doc was, Big Doc tried to do the best he could to guide us. However, we're still at his house drinking, smoking, shooting dice, and, you know, kind of all that negative shit is still happening. You know, you got other homies who are like, like we're kids, right?

Divorced parents, all that. And we bond over that common pain. What happens after high school? Yeah, so six months after I graduate is when I get arrested. You know, that was pretty quick. But yeah, it's like in limbo. You graduate, I'm in limbo. What am I going to do next?

Like I don't, I can't see a future for myself. I can't see I've lost all hope. You know, I've always thought my dad was going to come back. And years prior, I had woken up finally, I was like, fuck, this is just life. I realized how poor we were. And I was just like, hey, I'm going to do what I got to do. Like, I don't, this is the hand that I was dealt. And I'm just going to not give a fuck.

So, being a couple of my homies, we started doing just, multiple robberies. We started off with Hollywood videos. I don't know if you remember those. There's not much money in any of this. But we're lost, you know, and we do a string of those. Eventually, we end up doing an Albertsons that has Wells Fargo in it. But before that, I want to talk about one robbery that, that always stuck with me. So we're already on this crime spree. Like we're known in the city for, we're like we're hitting licks, right?

Like, this is just what we're doing right now. Everybody knows it. And it's just part of its own, like, it's its own thing now. Like, I kind of like doing it too. I like the adrenaline rush from it. I like the notoriety from it. I like, after doing those, when people see me, there's a different type of head nod.

Or like, hey, what's up? And, you know, I'm doing these robberies. Still kind of, obviously, can't think that far. So definitely not thinking of, you know, what are the ramifications of this. But I remember one specific robbery. It's in, like, Redondo Beach. and there was like an Albertsons or Vons.

One of those are just big grocery stores. And it's just me and one crimey, one homing. And we just go in there, right, just to kind of peep the place out. To think if, to see if we can lay the place down. Like, is it going to be an issue to be like, hey, everybody get down and then just get all the money out the cash registers? and we go in we're scoping the store the grocery store what appears to be like the gym of the store and this is at you know 1130 at night the manager of the store comes to us and he's like hey get the fuck out like get the fuck out and we're like kids but filled with pride and ego

but we get out, we go out, we go back to the car, and we're sitting in the car, and I'll never forget this feeling, right? It was a very dark feeling, and it's one of the closest things to evil that I have felt, and it wasn't external. So my friend, he has a gun on him, loaded, we're in the car, kind of just pissed off in there like hey did this motherfucker just kind of bitch us out right and i i look at my look at my crime me and he's like uh he's like yeah that yeah you he fucking bitched us out so we're both in the car kind of seething and i'm like fuck that it's not going to do that to us and then i just felt this like dark force in there. It's like all, the best way to describe it, it's like all my pain, all my hurt, all my

trauma, all of that flipped negatively into like this palpable force in the car. We're like, now let's go back in there. Like, we got a loaded gun. Why are we going to go back in there for? The objective isn't the cash registers anymore. There's another objective. So we're sitting in the car And I'm like, yeah, fuck it. Let's go back in there. Fuck that. And this dark kind of thick cloud is in there and it's just kind of, it just takes over. Why?

We're like, fuck it. We're going. We both get out the car. We start going to, like, we walk towards the side of the grocery store building, the Albertsons. And then we start making our way back to the entrance. and where we and that entrance door the manager has it locked but there's still customers in there that are coming out so it's nighttime the door opens a customer's coming out and then we start like jogging to to get to make it inside as we're jogging to get to try and make it through that

door the customer looks at us and I'll never forget it I don't even know. He or she drops their bags and screams at the top of their lungs. He says, no. And I felt like a wave that hit me. I kind of fell back a little bit. And I was like, what the fuck? And, you know, my crime, he picks me up.

He kind of like, he kind of like, he was like, fuck, come on, let's go. And we just beeline it back to the car. As we're in the car I look at him I'm like fuck did you did you see that did you feel that and he looks scared

shitless he's like yeah you know I think about that moment because if we had gotten back into that store with the emotional rising we had negative emotional rising

with a loaded gun something really bad would have happened. And I felt that person who came out of that grocery store and, like, what we felt was like a ghost. Like, it was just like, whoa. That made us, it made me stopping my tracks. And it made both of us run back to the car. Yeah, but we would have done something that would have really, really, really been bad. And I also think about that moment because I think, about concepts of good and evil of what good and evil is does it does it exist or is it all just relative is it subjective is it is it real and I truly believe it's real but I think um that that

battle between good and evil is inside each and every person and then it manifests out in different ways. And I had felt that feeling, not before, but I felt that feeling twice. And the other time I felt that feeling was when I went to go, when I got out of prison, when I went to go, you know, put in work. And it was dark. And, you know, after that second time, I was like, hey, I never want to feel that again. I never want to go to that dark place. I'm an emotional person. Like, I just can't get rid of that, right?

So I can't, to somebody, it might just be business. I'm like, oh, this is just business. Like, this is black and white. For me, I have an emotional current to when I do things. And, you know, now, like, it's not, that's not a place I ever want to go. go back to. Tell us about how you guys got caught from the string of robberies. Yeah. So we did more than a few. We, uh, the robbery that I got caught at and then two of my other homies was a Hollywood video in Torrance. That, uh, uh, uh, we went in, we got like 800 bucks.

we got out we're driving on this is in torrent this is on PCH and Crenshaw and the lady at the you know the other thing is the cash register lady was like hey they're gonna like just

I'm going to call the cops they're going to get you guys and I'm like I wouldn't give just give us the money we'll get out of here we drive off we're on PCH we see one cop car behind us, then another cop car. And you see like another cop car. So we're essentially in a slow speed chase.

And this is late at, and this is like close to midnight again. We're on PCA's. There's not too many cars on PCH. We're driving towards the harbor area. We're driving towards the 110 freeway. And I remember being in the car and I'm like, fuck. This is it. Like, we're caught.

And the homie's driving and he's like, fuck, what should I do? I'm like, just keep driving. Like, I don't know, right? Like, we're caught. It's going to come to end anyways. I wasn't going to say, hey, just speed up, head here. We'll get out. I was like, I was already defeated.

So as we're driving down, PCH, you know, those cop cars are slowly, they don't have their lights on. but there's definitely making sure that for whatever they got planned, but to make sure that we don't get away. We keep on driving down. We're trying to at least get on the 110 freeway and head back to San Pedro. As we get real close to the 110 freeway, there's a Denny's to the right.

We see the road blocked off. There's a helicopter in the air. And it's like, hey, this is, this is it. This is the end of the road. The entrance to the freeway is blocked off. There's a ton of cop cars in front of there. It's like, movie-like. And we stopped the car.

So only stops the car. All of the bright lights are on us. And you hear the, whatever cop is on the over-mike saying, you know, okay, you guys are going to come out one by, by one, you're going to come out, you're going to put your hands out first. And you're going to always keep your, when you open the, you're going to come out the front driver door, you're going to put your hands out first, and you're going to get out the car that way.

And, you know, I've never seen that many guns drawn. I've never seen that many guns pointed at me. The helicopter, the lights, it's surreal. It's a dream light. you know the two homies get out and I do my spiel I put hands out like get on the floor the cops come several of them they they restrain me they got there obviously what they're going to do what they're going to do they have their knees on my neck my back everything they want to make sure that I'm not you know to neutralize the threat and I remember with

my uh you know i had my face on the pavement and i remember thinking of you know my sisters you know because you know given everything i knew they loved me and i love them so you know during during that time i was like you know like fuck you know i fucked up yeah that's that's that was oh i got caught what happens next after that so i go i get busy at the Torrance City Jail. This is before, you know, I'll end up going to the L.A. County Jail. Come in the Torrance City Jail. I'm in the holding cell by myself.

I go in there. I cry. I'm like, fuck. Or you got to let it out. And I'm in there. I cry. And then, you know, my sister, Jackie visits me. And I go.

see her and she asked me if I did it and I tell her yeah and she asked me why and at that time I can't answer her why like you know how do I tell how do I tell her that I'm mad at the world that I'm mad for mom beating the shit out of me that I'm mad at my dad abandoning me and then I'm mad at God abandoning me and then I'm mad at God for like where is he so I just told her when she asked me why I just told her the devil she kind of nodded her head like trying to like maybe she understood what I was trying to say and you know I wept in that moment with her and I didn't weep because I was remorseful I I wept in that moment with her because her love for me moved me.

That even in jail, she's still here. And, you know, it brought me to tears, and it, you know, and it hurt to see her hurt, but it also hurt me to see that much love and not know what to do with it. How much time did they end of giving you for that? So I ended up getting a five-year prison sentence. with 85%. And where would you serve that time?

So I did several months in the LA County Jail. Then I did the bulk of my prison time at Centenella Maximum Security Prison, initially the three-yard, and then I went to the four-yard. Why did they send you to our max? Because of my jacket in the L.A. County Jail. So during my time in the county jail, obviously looking like me, people are going to always have, I don't need to find issues. Issues will come my way.

And they did. So I was in a lot of physical altercations. Also during this time in the Los Angeles County Jail, I went in on the back end of 2025. Then I did a lot of, not 2025, 2005, 2005. And then I did a lot of 2006 in there. This was peak capacity, you know, It's overpopulated.

And so during that time, there was a lot of tension. There's a lot of racial tensions. And there are several racial rights. Did people approach you to join their gang, their clique, their crew when you got to the L.A. County Jail or is that more in that actual maximum security prison? No, no, no. So when I was in there, I was already banging, right? So I was, even though I was 18 and a half.

So when I first got an intake, there's a few things that happened that, you know, that I don't know what to do, right? The guard asked me, this is like before you get released to what is the L.A. County Jail, they're like, hey, what race are you? Are you a gang member? So I just said, I'm Mexican and I don't bang, right? Which is not a good idea, right? Because they're asking you that to try and mitigate violence, to at least keep you within. a certain group of people that will cause less friction. So that's how I got, that's how I did my intake.

I was not aware that I didn't know how racially charged it was going to be in there. Even though I wasn't surprised because of how racially charged it was in the city, I didn't know that it was going to be like this in there. Like I was not prepared for it. However, you just get thrown into it. You either sink or you swim. So, you know, I've always been very quiet and observant by nature. Like, you know, I didn't start talking until probably third grade.

I had a really bad stutter growing up, so that just taught me to just fucking just listen and observe. But as I'm in there going through intake, I'm kind of saying, oh, shit, right? You see everybody, right? Face tats. Got the 13. You see all crips, blood. you got the BK, CK, you see all the real shit, right? You see the belly of the beast, and I'm observing, and I'm like, okay, this is serious.

And, you know, when I'm first getting into Intech, getting into a cell, they put me in a movement with the Mexican Southsiders. and I'm in a big kind of holding day room with them. And before I even go in there, you know, I'm savvy enough to like, hey, this is because of the way it was in the streets, I started to figure like, hey, there's going to be, there's a big dynamic of that in here. And I can't be with people who are technically my enemies on the streets. So that's just how I'm trying, that's how I'm navigating it. So I would just go to the Black Porter and be like, hey, I'm a Crip. I can't, I can't be in here.

And it was kind of all love. He was like, hey, come with me. And then that's how I would mitigate movements. Like, you know, make sure that I'm on movements with the Crips. I would have to get ahead of the eight ball. But that would only last so long. You know, eventually I would have to get my, that bed card change to sane black Crip. Why didn't you tell that guard that you rolled with the Crips during intake?

Because in my mind, I think. thought they would use it against me for for criminal purposes. So in my mind, I thought that if I told him I was a gang member that they would use that at trial against me and that I would get... How many discounts does USAA auto insurance offer? Too many to say here. Multi-vehicle discount. Safe driver discount. New vehicle discount.

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Select Banana Ball games available to all Disney Plus subscribers. Terms apply. Some sort of gang enhancement. So I was like, fuck, I'm not going to say anything. How different was the environment when you got to the actual maximum security prison versus the county jail? So the county jail is just the wild wild west. It's cowboy shit in there. You know, hey, you got an issue with somebody.

You can go get that at any time. When you get to prison, there's more of a structure, right? People have their time. People are settled in. You're doing time with lifers. You're doing time with guys who have been down a while. And there's more, when the violence breaks out, it's for real. in the meantime there tries to be

there's more of a sense of order in the county jail at any given moment at any given moment it can go down it can go down while you're going to court it can go down while you're in your cell it can go down while you're

in any movement you know and yeah yeah definitely definitely the violence is more just no structure no structure to it at least within the

blacks. I can't speak to within the other races. How did the Crips on the inside, inside prison respond to you being that you're not black and you were coming from the street? Did you have to get like some type of proof that you were rolling with the Crips outside or how does that work? Well, are you talking about in the county jail or in prison? Either one. We could start with the county jail. Yeah, I mean, well, you know, I definitely built a reputation for myself and I have the advantage of actually being from my neighborhood. So when I walk into somewhere, someone gets on the phone, they call somebody from the hood. They're like, oh yeah, I know him. It's really that simple. Do you know, I know him. And they, and people vouch for you. So initially in the county jail,

I was in there banging and, and the friction that I got from it, I never felt was from, from, like Crips saying that I'm not a Crip. It was just like, it was just business as usual. And, you know, eventually I just built a name for myself in there. I mean, I was in two very big jail riots. I was in prison riots. I was in numerous altercations. And eventually people get to see what you're made of.

You know, I didn't go in there and people were like, and like, I didn't go in there and I had respect. right no I think people looked at me and were like who the fuck is this guy but over time you know me showing up and being a part of what was going on people took a liking to me and eventually people would know me you know and would vouch for me be like yeah I know him he's cool he's with us that's not to say that it was easy. You know, I can give you, I can give you a story that I've shared before. And, you know, when I, when I'm first in there, this is early on in the county jail, I'm in a waiting room waiting to be sent to East Max to a dormitory. And a black dude comes to the, like, to the door. And he's like, hey, are there any crips in here? And me, like, being green. I'm like, yeah, what's up? What's good? And he looks at me and he says, hey, you see that

guy right there? He's a weirdo. I'll go take his store. And I look at him. And I'm like, okay. So I go to the dude and he's a good size, big, older dude, but he's a little off, Seems a little off. But I tell him, I'm like, hey, you got to give me all your shit right now. And he just handed me the bag, right? No friction. So I get the canteen. I split it with the homie half-dead.

He's from 8-7 East Coast. We split that bag. From there, you know, I go to East Macs. And I'm kind of a little pumped up over there. that or still trying to figure out how things work. But I go to East Mac's dormitory. I'm in there. And then there's a word that there's a guy in there.

And this is like karma. I say this at the beginning of this because I really feel like this is karma in a way on me. There's a dude in there who everyone in the dorm is saying that, you know, he's telling or he's a snitch. and in my mind I'm like well the rules are if you're telling you can't be in here or the rules are if you're telling something has to happen to you like this is how my mind is working I also think that if the rules the rules are if one Crip gets into it all the Crips are going to get into it this isn't how it is in the county jail I don't know that yet I'm also I also am not fully aware of the disadvantage I'm at because of how I love and because of not having a big group of my homies from my neighborhood in there, I'm going to learn all this, you know, right now.

So in my naive mind of what gangbanging is, of rules, structure, honor, loyalty, right? That's all bullshit. I don't know this yet because in the streets my homies did have my back all the time, right? I didn't experience like a lag in action. but I'm in the county jail in this dorm, I'm the only guy who looks like me who's running with the Crips. And of course people are going to think probably not too highly of me

or be not accepting. And then I start causing shit. I'm like, hey, this guy's telling what's going on? So apparently they're like, Oh, no, well, there's more to that. They're, you know, kind of chill. And I'm like, okay, well, I confront the dude who is supposedly telling.

And I say, hey, look, just give me half your shit. I'll leave the issue alone. Who do I think I am, right? I'm also like 165 pounds. I'm just thinking these are, this is how it works. and he's like no so I'm like okay well me and you we got to get down then

at the very least it's like okay right so now you hear the commotion in the dorm right you know when something's about to happen there's a little bit of commotion and uh some of the other homies right

they part the fucking bunks they're like hey y'all could get out I go back there I knock him out He doesn't know that I've been in I've been fighting a long time already Right like you don't look this way and get passes You're gonna have to prove yourself

So I knock him out right Easy I'm thinking oh shit maybe that I'm thinking this is the end of it So the shot caller in that dorm is from five deuce breams He's the blood out of South Central Huge kind of Not tall but stocky The dude like you know they have like leather skin almost

Looks bulletproof And he didn't take a liking to that. I'm not aware of this. I got a homie from, quote unquote, homie from Long Beach. It was like, hey, hey, there's still the commotion, right, of just everything that just happened. Of a dude getting knocked out of the whole backstory behind that. The homies like, hey, come to the back. I'm like, okay.

I go to the back. And in the back of these dorms, there's like a, a concrete, you could say like a step that you can sit down on. But it's only like this high. So when you sit down on it, you're in a very compromised position. But I'm not aware of this, right? So I go over there and my adrenaline is still up too. Go back there.

The homie's sitting down. He's like, yeah, man, just sit right here. I sit down right by him. Just out of nowhere. The shot caller from Brams comes and just, boom. Immediately, I just, I was already down. Now I'm just, fuck. Hit, boom.

He gets on top of me and he straddles me, right? So he has all his weight down. I can't move. My arms feel like Jello. That's how hard he hit me. Like, I can't. And he looks at me and he's like, hey, you're going to row your shit up. You're going to get the fuck out of here.

And just big punch to the face. And since that curb, since that curb is right there for that step, it's like my head is ricocheting off of that with every punch. Boom. Boom. And just bouncing back. And everybody's kind of watching. Mind you, there were no homies for my, for my neighborhood in there.

There are no homies from my city in there. There's nobody from San Pedro on there. There's nobody from Harbor City in there. So, and if there were, things happen differently. But this dude from Brims has this full weight on me. It's just punched faces ricocheting on that curb. And after every punch, he's looking at me and he's saying, are you going to row your shit up?

I'm looking at it. I'm like, punch, ricochet. He looks at me again. He's like, you're going to row your shit up. Punch. and my arms are pretty much like this at this point there and I'm not even trying to hit him anymore and he you know he recoils again and he's like you know hey are you gonna row your shit up and I'm like fuck you he gives one last thud of a punch boom my head ricochets I'm seeing stars eventually a

OG Crip from from L.A. steps in he's like hey that's enough I had a whole audience there too watching. So the dude from Bermt gets up, he knocks him out. He beats the shit out of him and the other O.G. He was big. I was like, fuck. But as soon as he gets up, he gets off of me, he starts fighting the OG Crip. And I beeline it to the, like, I feel, it feels like blood is coming out of my eyes.

You know, like, and I beeline it to the showers. and as I'm in the showers, you know, I touch my face. I could just feel how big it is. And I cried in there, right? This was the last time I would cry during my whole time, and I cried in there because in my mind, I thought the way things were supposed to work was like, hey, this dude's of blood at the very least.

This should be an issue. And I just kind of saw, you know in that moment I saw how the politics really worked that there's the rules and there's the exceptions and um and that's dynamic and you have I have to be aware of that that I'm at a disadvantage

that even though I am banging even though I am active in here that I'm not going to that there's a different there's going to be a different level of treatment So as I'm in the shower You know that reality hits me like You know I'm in here by myself Pretty much And I've always been driven

You know one of the things about the hood for me I've always been driven by the camaraderie And what I perceive to be loved You know and after that moment It was like okay there's It's just a lot of fucked up people in here Me included So my face is big as fuck

I didn't roll it up. After that fact, all the Crips in the dorm did actually stand up and told the bloodshot collar like, you know, because isn't going anywhere. And there was a lesson in that. There was a couple lessons in that. The first lesson in that was the karma. The karma, I do feel that was karma for what,

that bullshit I did to that OG and took his store, just for no reason. Didn't even ask why. Just did it. And then I went back to another dorm and then I got an issue dealt to me. I do think that was a little bit of karma. I'm also appreciative that I learned the dynamics of prison politics and jailhouse politics in real life at that moment. Because if I had learned that lesson in prison, it wouldn't have just been punches.

So it's good that I learned that lesson then because it would have cost me more down the line. So it helped me to then navigate even better after that. That I would still have to be active, but I'm not going to be the forerunner in any issue. You know, I'm not going to lead the charge on any issue. Like, you know, I'll be there. And the third lesson on that was,

as that dude was, it was an, it had to be, 20 years older than me, grown man, right? As that dude's pounding on me and all the other dudes are witnesses to that. And they don't do nothing in that moment. That's not their fault, right? They don't know me. You have to fight for yourself before other people will fight for you and fight with you. So after that moment, that added to my reputation that I was building in those walls.

because in that moment when you're getting beat down to a pope and you have a way out by saying hey I'm going to leave I'll pack my shit but you say no and you take that beating people see what you're made up and that calls to the inner parts of them like hey hold on hold on there's even though they don't know me what they witnessed was a inner part of me that they have within themselves and they're like okay he's staying um and those are the

real ones for me you know the real ones come came to my aid after they saw like hey he's gonna do his part he's gonna ride we're gonna ride with him no one should fight my battles right but i have to fight him and once other people see that whoever may be. I'm not talking about just in the streets. I'm talking about in life. When other people see you take that step forward, people will support you and people will come to your aid. Why do you think that moment didn't want to make you leave gang life, not be a part of it? Just stay to yourself, stay in your own lane. I just wasn't smart enough. That's a fair answer. I just wasn't smart enough. You know, like I've always desired love. And like I said, I felt the gang.

gave me that. I felt the homies gave me that like fuck we're going to ride and die together. We're willing to kill for each other like if that doesn't feel like love, I don't know what does. It's just so twisted and perverted. You know, so I wasn't ready to give that up. Eventually I would have that realization while I was in, you know, the Max prison. You know, I would have a realization like, man, this is bullshit. I remember being in the maximum security yard on the level four yard and I look out my self fucking tiny ass window and I'm looking out I see the guards see the concrete I see the oh geez right the

the the renowned crips the dudes who are legends in the streets and I remember thinking like okay what is the highest I could go if I wanted to commit. make my life to this truly. I remember being, you know, whatever. I got to be, what, 22, 21, 22. And I'm looking out that cell,

that cell fucking window into the cell block. And I'm like, this is the fucking highest. This is a part of being the highest you can go in here. Do I want this? Am I willing? I asked myself the question, am I willing to lie,

rob kill and kill for this shit long term to end up back in here it's like that's when i had that first moment like okay i need to find a way to taper down and i knew that would be a process um to try and do it the right way and all those things i knew that would be a process but once i had that realization like hey, even if I weren't to go to jail, what's it cost to be the shot call around the streets? It's going to cost you to have people killed. That's what it's going to cost you. I'm not. I wasn't, once I saw, hey, this is what the highest consists of.

I don't, I'm not, I don't want that. I'm not made for that. Do you think if your parents were able to give you love throughout your whole childhood, you never would have even been in that position? 100%. 100%. I feel that all I ever wanted to feel was love.

And I felt that if I had felt that in a healthy way, what I experienced in the streets that I thought was love, I would have innately known that, hey, this is way off, this is weird, this is toxic, this isn't love, this isn't true friendship, this isn't, this is some other thing that's dark. You know, I just couldn't identify. that because like I said earlier they just felt normal. It felt status quo.

Tell us about that process after that realization to kind of separate yourself. Yeah, it was more of a mental thing, right? Because I knew that it's it was even for when I got out. So when I got out, do I want to pursue, continue to pursue a path of a career criminal? That's not to say that I didn't commit, you know, crimes when I got out. I knew that I was never going to rob. again. I knew that for a fact. So whatever happens come hell or high water, I will never rob anybody anything again. I knew that much. I knew that it was bullshit. I finally saw, you know, after seeing how the politics works, seeing all that shit, I was like, okay, this is a bunch of lost guys floating almost, right? Some guys have, they're doing it for money. Everyone has a different

interest different wise and for me I knew that I didn't want to go back to jail for some bullshit I when I pled guilty I got like seven strikes so I got to count for each person in in the stores so I'm on a short leash as well so that realization that I had on the level four yard and this is after a history of violence in there this is after three riots this two in the county jail one in the level three max that got me to the foreyard. This is after putting in a good amount of work. And at a certain time, it's like, fuck, it's a little bit tiring, you know, and I have that

realization. I just know in my heart I need to taper back. I need to not be in that environment. But when I paroled back to L.A., I'm back in my city. I'm back in San Pedro. And the environment is strong. My friends are still my friends. friends, right? They're still in the shit. I also need to make money so I do, you know,

serve different things here and there. I'm trying to find my way, but I know that I cannot be an active part of the day ends and day outs of the gang. I know that I can't, so I can't be an active gang member. Like, and that's hard to happen for somebody who's as young as me because that makes the other young guys think like, hey, well, what the fuck? Like, this guy, she's 22 years old. Like, he hasn't done enough. But I don't have that. I don't have that because of my strikes and because of my case.

And then also of my realizations of what the gang really is, I know that I can't do this anymore. So I know that in my heart. So when I get out, I parole to my sister's house. and, you know, immediately as I get out, the homies are calling me. You know, one of the big homie calls me, is like, hey, we got a meeting on this day. You should be there. And I'm just stalling. So I'm like, I know what these things implicate.

I'm smart enough to know that. It isn't just you're showing up to a meeting again and again and you're not involved. Eventually you will be physically involved. So he calls me, there's another meeting, right? and I'm stalling. I'm trying not like, hey. But eventually I realized like, okay, I have to address this issue. And this is early in my release.

You know, one of the other homies called me. They're having another meeting. So I would be called for different types of meetings. Like the first meeting, it was kind of the older homies, more like higher leadership. You know, in my city, there's more of a structure. Um, but then there is another meeting. Now this is kind of mid-level, right, mid-level, and then all the little homies.

So I'm like, okay, well, I'm going to go address this issue head-on. And what gave me, I mean by head-on, I mean that I was going to go to this gang meeting, knowing very well that, like, the way this, that dude beat me to a pope, that I may get beat to a pope. I know that they won't kill me, though. that it's not deserving of being killed. But I may get beat to a pope. But I need to go to that meeting and I need to tell them that I am non-active.

I need to tell them that I will not be at any meetings. I need to let them know where I stand and where the chips fall is where they fall. And what gave me the power to do that was the love of my sisters. I'm like, hey, when I was in prison, the homies didn't write me. The hummys didn't put money on my bucks.

Like my sisters were there. And that love empowered me to be like, hey, like, even if I get beat to a pope, I've been beat up before. This will be worth it. So I know that, but if I can find a way out of that beating? I will, right? But now I kind of know how very well versed in politics now, being in it just nonstop in jail, in prison. And now that's kind of a little bit how our street politics work. So I know that when I go to the meeting that I'm going to say non-active,

that I'm not going to say I don't, I'm not banging the hood anymore, right? Because to say that, That's a guarantee. Like you're going to guarantee to get fucked up. They're going to have to, quote, put you off. So I'm like, well, if I can get, if I can work my way out of, maybe possibly there's this much chance where I can wiggle my way out of that severe beating, then, okay, I'll try and work that angle. So I go, I go to the park. I go to the meeting. There's maybe like 20 guys there.

I take, you know, like those kind of workout gloves, then I take a face guard or a thing you put in your teeth, whatever that's called, a mouth guard, you know, I want to keep my teeth too. You know, because these guys will say they're your brother, but then they may stop your teeth in. So, which is the twisted love that I'm talking about, which is the perverse love I'm talking about.

And I go to the meeting and I've always had anxiety. And my anxiety has helped me, though, to really, I just have to address, the sooner I can address the issue, the better. I'm at the meeting. I'm definitely anxious. There's a dude who's conducting the meeting, right? There's two dudes who are conducting the meeting. One of the dudes who's conducting the meeting, I'm actually good friends with him.

The other dude, he doesn't, we don't really like each other very much. And as he's starting to speak, I just stop him. And I say, hey, before, because I want to get this out the way. I say, hey, before we even, before we start, I'm just here to tell you guys that I'm non-active. And I tell them why. I say, hey, I say, hey, I did my time, right? I got all these strikes. but then I tell them what I just told you

and my lips are quivering as I'm saying this like my hands are shaking a little bit and I'm like hey when I was in prison my sisters were there for me said all the clothes I got on right now everything these fucking shorts shoes my sisters bought for me

like don't call me for any meetings you know I'm not active I'm not about all this shit anymore like that. I know I'm in it. I know there's a level of involvement you can't get out of if you're out there. I get that. But as far as like being consistently present in all those things,

like I knew that I couldn't do that. And I told him that. And I had dudes who were there who I went to high school with who knew me. I had dudes at that meeting who I did time with. So by God's grace, right, I had enough of a mixture of dudes who actually fucked with me. And what I said resonated with them. As a matter of fact, I believe what I said fucking everybody got it. They're like, fuck, you're fucking right.

I wish I could say that. So, but the dude who's conducting the meeting, the actual dude, he doesn't like me. So he wants to kind of, you know, there's a. contention there but there is some some form of like a rule by majority right or and um you know I just bypass him a little bit I go hey and I go down to my left I like hey do you through every homie there I'm like hey do you have a problem with it and I put on like hey we can right we can we can get it out the way please because I'm not I can't I can't be involved one by one they all said no I don't do you

I fuck with you I did time with you I fuck with you like they know they know my history and then I finally got to the end so the dude who was conducting the main what he said at this point was kind of

Nolan Boyd because the majority had already spoken and you know that was one big step that does that's not to say that after that you know I wasn't involved in bullshit here and there. There's always affiliations, especially if you're back in your city. But at least I wasn't, like, I'm not a part of the ins and outs. And I know that's hard for

some people to take for being young, but hey, I was willing. People are full of surprises, especially when you travel together. Thankfully, Verbo is not. When you book a Verbo, you get Verbo care and 24-7 live support. So your house doesn't surprise you like your friends might. If something's not as described or doesn't work, Verbo's there. Real people. Real support. Any time. Book today on the Verbo app. If you know, you Verbo.

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Official rules apply. Learn more at go all in and win.com. To go for it. Because I want to experience life. Why do you think it's harder for some individuals to walk away rather than others? Like you had just mentioned how you think that the others were thinking the same things and in agreement with you, but they weren't the one standing in your shoes being the one to actually pull the trigger to leave?

Other people were more entrenched. I feel that if I would have been a South Sider because I have a lot of families in that in different South Sider gangs, it would have been harder for me to leave because then you have your blood relatives, you have your, you have a culture around it, you have meanings around it,

it's more dynamic. So for me being on the outside coming in, it was like, okay, I'm not as entrenched as these guys. these guys have their cousins their uncles their moms their dads like they're all a part of that so they find a way to continue on so for me i i knew i was like hey you know what's keeping me here it's my pride maybe my ego um but event you know but what got me out of it was was like I said really the love of my sisters and knowing that this would just be dumb for me to to be out here active and risking everything and then go through it all over again and that was a

process though that wasn't like that like I was still when I got out I was still involved in white collar crimes right it went from strong arm robberies to like okay well let me do this white collar crime eventually I was like hey I can't keep rolling the dice right and I stopped doing that and and um you know still being in san pedro like i was still involved in a lot of shit just because i was still around right i just don't put me in any of the politics though there were still um threats on my life you know there were still meetings that i would get word of that you know the enemy gang were talking about me not because I'm active in the streets, but just because of who I am, all right, and how I luck and how that

looks, and they have an issue with that. You know, you, when you're a different race from a different race gang, you are an automatic target. It just is what it is. And I just lived with that. Like, okay, fine. Eventually, I would leave L.A. So I did two years. So I did two years. years of parole in San Pedro, in my neighborhood, and I went, I would eventually leave to San Antonio, Texas. So my dad wasn't around that whole time. He did visit me once. He visited me one time, and he wrote me, I believe I got one letter from him. But when I got out, he had always reached out and he said, hey, if you want to come and try and get your life together, you can come with me in San Antonio, Texas, and you can start a new life. So my pride wouldn't let me take

him up on that offer in those first two years because I still wanted to blame him for everything. You know, I had forgiven my mom for the abuse because she was there and she still provided and she found a way to make it to keep my siblings and all of us together. You know, my dad wasn't there. And I did, I did have this resentment towards him. Like, you know, if you were here, life would have been completely different. But even that, you know, he had reached out and he said, hey, like, come out here whenever you're ready. So, you know, on the back end of the second year of being on Perot in San Pedro, I'm at a barbershop, getting my haircut. And I'm with a couple of my, couple of the homies.

And I'm walking out and I look out the corner of my eye. And the same dude I was at the meeting with who doesn't like me, I don't like. I see him. He's about, I would say, 100 yards away. Just see a revolver just pointed at me. and he just boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom remember seeing like a bullet

what I felt like it hit the you know it has like the side wall of whatever fucking building you're in just hit the deck I don't have a gun on me I hit the hit the deck right he let off

I get up I walk outside I see one of my friends he's bleeding down his face he's not he's not critically or he's just skimmed but it's just bleeding profusely I look at him I'm like are you all right he's like yeah I'm good cuz I'm good and I'm like okay and then after that I was like um yeah I got to leave because I knew that I wasn't willing I told you about that dark place earlier and I felt that twice

and that other time was when I went to go put in work I'm not willing to go to that place anymore So I knew that I was like, hey, I'm either going to end up back in jail, I'm going to either end up hurt out here, or maybe even hurting somebody when I don't want to. You know, thank God that event happened. So after that, I called my, I called my dad. I was like, hey, can I, can I take you up on that offer? And he said, yeah. So I was in L.A. for a couple more months. And then I went to Texas, and I got to know my dad for the first time.

Do you think about where your life would be today if you stayed in L.A. and if you stayed gangbanging? Yeah, I just told you. In jail, dead, or an addict on the street? Easy. Easy. I mean, the streets tell you. you that already. They have the answer to that question. It's public knowledge. Everybody knows it.

There's guys who learn how to navigate that. And there's guys who learn like, you know, the seniors, the OGs, right? They learn how to mitigate those risks. But those risks are always there. And I'm not going to spend the energy mitigating that, you know, trying to live a half-life here and a half-life there. That's not for me. I'm glad that I moved and got out of my environment because the environment is very strong. Like even, you know, this is a year, this is a year and a half after me going to a meeting

and saying I'm non-active all this. And these things still happen because of affiliations, friendships, and bullshit politics that I'm in the crosshairs of, right? And I was like, I don't want to. to be in the crosshairs of this. I know I know that I'm in the crosshairs of all of this because of certain things of who my friends are, you know, different homies that I have and shit like that. But when I took my dad up on his offer, that was one of the best things I could have done because I finally got to experience a different life with different people, a life with just regular

people who are just working, paying their bills and living life. You know, all I had known before then was the abuse in my home, the continued violence in the streets, the continued violence in prison, the extended violence when I got released, and now I got to experience something different. And for once in my life, I started to maybe believe that people aren't that bad, maybe believe that people aren't out to hurt me. Maybe believe that people don't always have two faces that you always got to worry or if they say this, they mean that, or all that bullshit.

You know, and one of the other big things happening when I moved and lived with my dad also was getting to see my dad as his own person and getting to accept him as who he is and forgive him for not being. there. I always felt I knew that my dad loved me, but I didn't know. And when I, when he, I lived with him for four years as a fucking ex-con grown man with PTSD, all that shit, right? And it's not just PTSD from prison, it's from my childhood as well. I would even say mostly my childhood. Prison kind of solidified it in a way. And as I lived with him into that fourth year, I was like, fuck I can't deny that he loves me I can no longer deny that he loves me and that's when I accepted

him in all his faults and I accepted his flawed love for me wholeheartedly and I love him after that that was a healing moment for me from Texas then I ended up moving to Denver I had an opportunity to move out to Denver and with my brother from another mother, Rofty Quebec, and that's where everything kind of hit the fan for me internally. I had found the space to forgive my mom, forgive my dad, but I didn't know how to forgive myself. Even when I was in prison, I would always think about the traumatized victims during those robes. People were screaming, people were crying. During the pre-trial, people were on the stand, crying on the stand.

And I always felt bad for that. I never felt bad for the stealing itself, for the robbery itself, but I did feel bad for the innocent people who were hurt. And I didn't know, obviously, how do you carry that long term? And that's not including all the other trauma. So the way I dealt with my issues is I drank. I just drank a shit ton. You know, definitely full-blown alcoholism.

You know, when I moved to Denver, I no longer had any homies around me to kind of prop me up, to tell me who I am right by association. Like, who am I? Am I a Crip? Am I an ex-con? Am I just a criminal? Human being? I can't even, I don't even have a constant.

of that. What is it to be a person? So I didn't know how to deal with these questions and I just drank and drank and drank and, you know, I hit the proverbial rock bottom. You know, I was 30 years old. I'm 38 now. I was 30 years old and just saw myself as a criminal with no value. I looked at my life and I was like, I don't have anything to show for anything. Just got all these fucked up problems. I had never known what depression was. I couldn't identify it. Um, but I started falling into deep depression. I never had suicidal thoughts before, not in prison, not growing up, not foreign to me. And I get to such a low place where I'm thinking every day, is this the day that I take my life? And going through that over and over and over again,

People have always, people always tell, man, you've been through so much. You know, they're like prison. I'm like, I don't even think prison's the hardest. My childhood was worse than prison. But during this depression, this was the hardest thing I have been through. I didn't know how to ask anyone for help. I'm just muddling through. I'm thinking that I can get through this right by strength, by brute force,

by fighting like fight just but the more I try and fight it like it just gets harder and harder and harder um so eventually you know it would it would lead to me really getting to that moment like okay are you going to be a coward and not do it or when are you going to do it this is the sick kind of dark force that is and dark thoughts and I'm like okay well There's a lot of guns in the condo we were in. You know, my brother's ex-military. And I'm like, you know, I don't want to use one of his guns. That'd be fucked up.

He's been through enough for him to come back and see me, Dad, with fucking his gun. So then I'm like, okay, well, let me jump off the sixth floor. Funny story, though, six stories, that may not do it. Right? that may not do it. And then I'm like, okay, well, fuck, I don't want to do it and then actually live. So then I'm like, okay, well, I can make my way up to,

we had a friend who lived in the same condo building name, Robert. That's what we called him, or Rob. And he lived on like the 14th floor. Like, I can go up there and I could jump off. Which is still funny for me to think, because that's fucked up for him. Right?

Like, hey, he went all the way. I never visited his apartment unit. But, you know, being that low. Being that low in life and prison hadn't humbled me. The streets hadn't humbled me because I felt that I did everything still standing. Even if I lost, like, I did shit standing up, you know. But life fucking brought me to my knees. You know, like I didn't know the like, fuck, I got to pay all these bills.

I got to do this. I couldn't conceptualize a future. I couldn't conceptualize, okay, if there's even anything else for me. My girlfriend at the time left me and said I'm an alcoholic. I'm never going to change. Everything is piling on. And like in that moment of desperation, you know, I had a moment with God. And I figured that if I'm going to do this, what's it cost me to cry out to God for help?

I might as well find out, right? This is like the last hope. So that's what I did. Like I didn't verbally say it, but like in my deepest being, in my heart of hearts, I was like, God, please. Please. And then I said, Jesus, please. And in that moment, I felt loved. I felt forgiven.

I had like the closest thing I could describe it to is like people's ayahuasca experience that they talk about. Like it rocked my world. You know, not only in that moment did I cry out to God for help and he answered, but in that moment it was the first time that I was sorry for everything. I had held on to not being sorry for the violence, for the robberies, for the stealing. I was only sorry maybe for the innocent people being hurt. But in that moment, I was... Enjoy more ways to save at Ralph's,

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Our best lineup is here at Lowe's. VALS. While supplies last, selection varies by location. See associate or Lowe's.com for details. Like, hey, I don't, I wish I never did any of. What does your life look like today? Beautiful. It's so different.

You know, how to describe like the, what it was then to now, to have hope again, to have a future, to have love, to experience life in a, in a positive way. It's night and day for me. You know, I feel like my childhood, I learned to numb myself later on. In prison, I definitely numbed myself. I get out. I'm still now, I'm just, that's just autopilot numbing myself. You know, I've been sober for close to six years now, and that is also a big part of why I experienced life in this way.

But to be able to feel, I've always wanted love. And I feel like I have that. now and this isn't love from another it's just love for myself love for God a belief that God loves me and that it's going to be okay um you know I was talking to a friend on the phone the other day and I was telling her you know how how different life is for me now of not of bad then just kind of being life being monotone to now where it's like you know i go for walks on the park often and i look at the clouds in the sky and i look at the different hues in the sky i look at the wind blowing against the leaves i feel the the sun you know kiss my face i feel i feel the wind

blow against me and i'm like fuck those things that happened before obviously right Like the sun's out there, the sky's out there. There's trees out there. The wind's there. I just couldn't feel it. And now I do. And if that's my baseline, it's like, man, I've already won. Like, this is, if I'm happy with this, everything else I'm just stacking on.

So, yeah, life's been good. Jose, thank you so much for coming on the show today, man. Thank you. You told your story so beautifully. And I appreciate you being vulnerable with me. today. Thank you. And I'm so happy for your success. And, you know, I think that's something I've listened to in podcast recently is like shutting out the noise of life. And you see, you see all these things that you appreciate more once you shut out that outside noise. And you see things that I've

always, like you just described that I've always been there just in a new way. Yeah. And that's pretty amazing.