Locked In with Ian Bick - I Did 4 Years in Prison - Then Became a Cop | Ameer Williams

Episode Date: March 1, 2026

Ameer Williams greets you with a smile and a badge but behind that badge are 13 felonies and 4 years in prison. He went from hustling and selling drugs on the streets to becoming a police sergeant in Connecticut, and in this episode he pulls back the curtain on how the system let him through, what prison really did to him, and what it feels like to wear a uniform in the same world that once locked him up. This is an honest conversation about second chances, broken justice, and the thin line between criminal and cop...... and if you think you know what a police officer looks like, you haven’t heard this story. _____________________________________________ #IanBick #LockedIn #TrueCrime #Prison #PrisonStories #PoliceOfficer #FelonToCop #redemptionstory _____________________________________________ Thanks to 300 LETTERS for sponsoring this episode: Visit https://300letters.org/ to learn more or get support. Your donation to 300 Letters is an investment in safer neighborhoods & healthier families. _____________________________________________ Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ _____________________________________________ Shop Locked In Merch: http://www.ianbick.com/shop _____________________________________________ 00:00 Ameer: From Felon to Police Officer 03:00 Growing Up in New Haven’s Rough Neighborhoods 06:00 Early Influences & Slipping Into the Street Life 09:00 First Felony Arrest & Walking Into Prison 13:00 Inside Prison Walls: Politics, Survival & Reality 17:00 Ameer’s Views on Cops After Getting Out 21:00 Life After Prison & Fighting for a Second Chance 26:00 Turned Away Everywhere: Job Hunting as a Felon 31:00 Reentry & Recidivism: Why So Many End Up Back Inside 36:00 Breaking the “Felon” Label & Rebuilding a Name 39:00 From Ex-Felon to Police Officer: How Amir Got Hired 44:00 First Years in Uniform: Learning Policing on the Streets 49:00 Wearing a Badge With a Record: Stigma & Earning Respect 54:00 Giving Back: Serving the Same Community He Once Hurt 01:00:00 From Rookie to Sergeant: Learning to Lead Cops 01:06:00 Inside Police Culture: Pushing for Change From Within 01:11:00 Ameer’s Advice to Young People Before It’s Too Late 01:17:00 Moving Up the Ranks & Hard Lessons From Both Sides 01:23:00 Owning His Past While Wearing the Badge 01:27:00 Ameer's Book, Legacy & Final Reflections Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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give you energy, and keep you satisfied longer. So keep it real. Look for the seal. Real California milk. I walk into the police department one time with my field training officer. I'm at the front desk and one of the veterans comes down and he's like, hey, you know this guy, Williams. I'm standing right there doesn't know it was me. He went to prison before or whatever it may be.

What the hell? What type of people are they hiring or whatever it may be? And my FTO is like trying to give him the idea that it's being, but he does never catch on whatever would be. So they were talking about me and it's like they were trying to shame me. I'm not ashamed of my past. I've never been ashamed of my past. I've never came there like hourly person like, oh, I'm a high desk. If you guys want to go looking for it and you feel like, you're trying to be.

for you and you found it. That's what you did. My guest today is Amir Williams, who did four years in prison with 13 felonies on his record, and somehow ended up wearing a badge. Today he's a police sergeant in the same system that once locked him up. This isn't a motivational story. It's a look at how close any of us can get to crossing that line and how the justice system really works on the inside. Where'd you grow up? A Newhoveville, New Haven, Connecticut. Well, not actually Newhoville. I grew up before New Yorkville. Haven in New Haven, but another part, another neighborhood. And then I moved to Newhoville about 8th and 9th grade.

What was your childhood like? My mother was a single mother. My father was a drug addict. Sometimes I hate to say it, but sometimes he's a drug addict to this day. So he never was really in my life. He's been a drug addict since my mother knows since I was three years old. So he made it rough for her. He was physically and emotionally abusive to her.

she's a small lady, she's 4-11, and he's my height, but he was a bodybuilder at one time. So he used to hit on her and things like that. So it wasn't really a good thing growing up, watching that, seeing that. I don't remember a lot of it because I was younger. My sister's five years older than me. She remembers more. But after that, after she got away from him, I can't say I had a terrible childhood. We weren't rich.

We didn't have a lot. My mother provided. We were on welfare. She worked a number of jobs, sometimes, two or three jobs at a time to pay bills and things that nature. So she provided for us, but it wasn't that bad. She raised me with Moro. She raised me with to have respect for people and to do the right thing. I just chose to do the wrong thing when I got older.

What did your mom do for work? Well, she worked at Yale University, actually, for 35 years. But I was, I said she got that job. I'm going to be wrong. She got it probably like late 80s, early 90s. So before then it was kind of rough. But even when she started working there, it was not that much money. It was a young university.

I was like, oh, she has a good job. No, it wasn't a great job. So she was able to provide. I mean, she was on, we were on welfare. So she was paying 16 hours a month for rent at one point. But it still was hard for her. But she worked at Yale for 35 years. And then later on in life, she worked at stopping shop.

then she did 15 to 16 years there. That was her second job. She retired from both. Did you have any relationship with your dad as a child? So, me and how we grew up, me and my sister, most how I see it anyway, I don't know if that's how it happens, but how I see it, most people are closer to their mother's side of the family. I was always closer to my father's side,

even though my father was not involved with us like that. So my grandparents on my father's side, they filled in the gap for him whenever we needed something. We needed a ride. My mother never had a license. We always, we lived across town, but they always came and got us and did things with us. And we were always over at my grandmother's house. So I saw my father, that's how I saw my father. It wasn't like he came and got us.

But I don't want to just dump on my father. My mother says me and him have the exact same personality. He just so happened to have a substance abuse issue. So that took him away. So he's a good guy when he's sober or when he was sober, he would do everything for us. He would, without issue. But he was almost never sober. So that's how that was.

You mentioned that, you know, the path you took ended up leading you into trouble. When was that first time, you know, you went down that road of getting into trouble? My cousin, like I said, I spoke to you earlier. He just came home from doing 14 and a half years in prison federal time. So before that, he started selling marijuana. And when he started selling marijuana, I didn't sell marijuana. So then he had went to prison for about nine months, came home. And when he came home from prison, he had a bracelet.

So he had to be in the house by 6 p.m. So I sold a little bit of money he was making. Wasn't a lot. I was maybe my last year in high school. And I said, when you go in the house at 6 o'clock, I'll just make the drug. sales for you. So it went from selling marijuana to selling small amounts of crack cocaine to large amounts of crack cocaine. Before that moment, what did you want to be when you grew up? What was your path in life in your mind? People always consider me an intelligent person.

So I was going to go to college. I didn't know what I was going to do. I just had to track to go to college. I always got honors. It's always, school was never hard. So my mother always felt that I was going to be something bigger than a drug dealer. And I, you know, I kind of disappointed her. Did your mom give you advice or lessons about drugs or the streets growing up? No, I kind of had them from my father and I had my uncle. He was a drug dealer from New Haven.

Chill Will. He moved a large amount of cocaine. So I kind of knew about drugs a little bit. I didn't know the trouble that you could get in. I saw the highlights of it, cars, women. things of that nature. So I didn't really have to get any information from my mother. I didn't know what it can do to you.

My uncle didn't really do it. He did one prison bed. I think he did two or three months in prison. That's about it. My father's been in and out of prison my entire young life. So he probably been to prison three, four, or five times. Not long bids, but he's been in and out of prison. So I kind of saw it.

And not to say she didn't tell me about it, probably gave me the benefit of the doubt that I would went into that same trap. What do you think hooked you to it the most? You know, after you do those first couple transactions and you start making a little bit of money, is it the money or is it the adrenaline of doing it? It's the money. Anybody that I'll tell you anything about drugs is the money. So the money is the reason why I wanted to sell drugs. It wasn't so much of, and the fact that I didn't know what trouble that you would get into.

So it was the money making fast money easier. So I thought it was easy. and then it's easy until it's not until you get caught. Now, when you start doing that, do you just automatically throw college out the window? So initially, when I got out of high school, I went to college. I fell miserably Southern Connecticut State University. I had a 1.5 GPA. Wasn't focused and care about it, that I went to Bairn Institute for ageback.

I actually graduated. My cousin actually came with me, but he ended up going back to prison for some of drugs while we was in Bairn Institute. Or it may have been his first bid, but I know he went to prison while I was in Bairn Institute. He didn't finish because he went to prison. I finished. Actually, it might have been the second time, but actually, I got a job with HVAC, but it was in a sheet metal, but I went to school for service.

So I put you on sheet metal, it was like not making that much money. You're in crawl spaces, sweaty. That didn't interest me, so that didn't work out. And during this period of time, are you still selling drugs all throughout? When he went back to prison, no. When he came back home for prison, we started again. So it was two encounters with him. Initially, I started selling drugs.

He ended up going to prison for nine months. I stopped. And when he came back, I started again. So he was my influence. And had you ever gotten arrested at that point yet? Yeah, for minors, nothing major as far as... No felonies yet or anything. No.

A guy lived under him for my grandmother. me and my other cousin rented a car from them. We were like 14, 15 years old, and the car didn't have any damn breaks, and we ended up crashing to a sidewalk or something and we got pulled over by the police. Nothing, nothing really major. Kids being kids in that sense.

When was the first time you actually got arrested for a felony? It was for the drugs. So my first time I ever got arrested, I was riding my motorcycle. I was selling drugs, right on my motorcycle. I drove by this. this guy, this guy happens to get shot. The police end up behind me pulling me over. I didn't

shoot them, of course, but the police ended up pulling me over because the person that called it in said, they described me. But I drove by, whoever drove by in the car behind me or whatever they did, I don't even know the whole situation, they shot them, but I got described. So I got pulled over on my motorcycle, like an idiot that I stopped. And they pulled me off the bike. You know, I'm not a big guy. I'm 5-6. I've been 5-6 for ever. since sixth grade. I was about 120 pounds. They yanked me off the bike go in my pocket and they find the drugs that I was about to go serve somebody. And they're like, he doesn't have a gun. I'm like, what the hell of these guys talking about?

I don't, I didn't do anything with a gun. He's like, oh, you just shot somebody. I was like, no, I didn't. So they didn't get me for shooting somebody, but they got me for the gun. And then I end up going to court for the suppression hearing until they can throw it out. But because whatever reason, they didn't throw it out in the suppression hearing and they end up making the stick. And that's how I ended up getting my first bid. And what was the plea deal or did you go to trial? So I called that charge. And then two months later, I caught another charge in Hamden.

On the motorcycle again, I just dropped my uncle off on my motorcycle at my great-grandmother's house. I'm leaving there. I'm coming back. Hamlin cops at that time do what Hamlin cops do. They pull people over for anything. It pulls me over for no reason. It says my bike's not registered. I don't know. I had just bought the bike. It's brand new from Suzuki on Willie Avenue.

And he said the bike wasn't registered. But when he pulled me over, I know I had a bunch of drugs on me. I had a bunch of drugs on me. I had about three or four ounces of crack on me. And I get off the bike and I just start running because I know he's going to come. He sticks to a K-9 on me. I have the door bike march to this day. The K-9 catches me and they catch me with the drugs. And what happens after that? I got 15 years suspended sensors, I think. five years, three years probation. I served four years in prison,

six months on parole, and then I had to, those six months in a half of the house and then I had ten years hanging probation. So they combined the two cases together. Random concurrence. And the second time you got arrested, they didn't give you bail, I'm assuming?

No. I made bail on the first one. And then the second one, they actually gave me a cash bond. They didn't have the cash. They raised my mind. I think it was $250,000 cash. They had that type of money.

I had money, but I didn't have that type of money, $250,000 cash. How old were you by the time of that second arrest? That was 1999. I was 21 going on 22. How'd your mom react to this? So my mother, as far as doing the wrong thing, I got the, she always had in her head that I was going to do better. So she was disappointed.

So she didn't really say much just by her actions. While I was in prison, she barely came to see. So you see me. She didn't accept really phone calls. And she's just like, you're there. You got to deal with it. Hopefully you do well when you come home. A little waste.

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When you figured out. At that period of time, how do you feel about disappointing her? My first day in jail, the first time she came to saw me, I cried the whole time she was there. It was a half-hour visit, Wally Avenue, New Haven Correctional Center. I cried the whole time. So I know I disappointed her. We didn't even say a word to each other. I just cried the whole time just because of fact.

probably because my family was hurt because I was in prison too, but because of the fact that I know that she didn't treat me. She didn't teach me to be that way. So now you take the plea deal and they give you four years? No, 15 spent the five. They give me five years. I ended up to five years. Okay, they give you five years.

Where did they send you? First I was on Willie Avenue, of course. That's the holding facility. And I got sent up to McDougal. No, Walker. So Walker, Walker, McDougal. There's two different prisons right next to each other. but they combine them to one prison

so it was Walker McDougal. So you go to Walker first to get assessed. They test you for whatever they test you for, make sure whatever they do for your background. You stay there for, I stayed there for three weeks and then I went to McDougal. McDougal's a level four. At the time, McDougal was treated as a level three. So it wasn't a bad prison of being.

I mean, we had endermil's and all that stuff. So now it's horrible. But at the time, it wasn't that bad to be in. What type of people were there? All type of people, murderers. all types of crimes I was in there with people that were doing two years because it was violent crime

they were leveled forwards to people that had 60 years people that had life what did you think of that back then I knew I was going home I got a lot of information a lot of knowledge from those guys that were in there and a lot of those guys tried to

be like an uncle or be like a you know a role model for you because I was young I was 21 going on 22 years old. They're like 22 years old, your whole life ahead of union here. You got five years. Do better than you go home.

So I got encouraged by a lot of people to read books and do the right thing. So I never really got in trouble in prison. Did you have any altercations or anything like that? Only altercation I can remember was I was on level three, this guy named Billy. So, J.R., it was a guy named J.R. is a muscle-bound dude. I'll say J.R. He was 6-2, 200. 30 pounds, all muscle.

Me and JR were buddies from, I met him McDougal, and then when I came to Brooklyn, Connecticut, he happened to come to Brooklyn, Connecticut also. So it was a guy in our cube. Me and JR actually happened to be in the same cube in Brooklyn, the guy named Billy in our cube. So JR was, people were intimidated by him, but he was like a, he was just a regular person to me,

with me and with friends. So, Dary was making fun of Billy one time. I don't know what the hell he was saying to him, but he pissed Billy off. And I was laughing. And Billy, I'm 5'6 at the time, probably 190. I was muscle bound, but I wasn't like J.R. I wasn't intimidated. I'm 5'6.

So instead of him giving the energy to J.R., he wants to give it to me. He's like, man, what you shut the hell up? You keep laughing wherever it may be. And he's like, oh, fuck you up. And I'm like, you're probably not going to do that. So we ended up getting to an argument. We ended up getting each other's face. He ended up going to the bubble, tell him the CO,

going to the lieutenant's office, telling those lie to happen. They called me. And he made all these accusations that I threatened and whatever it may be. But to be honest, I never really had any altercations where I was about to fight or anything like that. I've never had any behavior issues growing up, except for when I was younger. I did fight a lot when I was in second and third grade, but that doesn't really count.

Growing up as an adult. I never really got into alter cases with people. I just don't. What was your view on law enforcement and cops back then? I hated the police. Like most people in the inner city, they pull you over for anything. The 90s. They pull you over for anything.

I remember one time getting put over on my cousin. My cousin I just came on. His name is Mighty. He got a brother named Eddie. Eddie has never been in any trouble at all. Zero trouble. I was like zero trouble. him and his brother are Dr. Jekyllman's to hide.

Eddie's never been in trouble. He had a Dodge Shadow with tents, and we're riding down Orchering and Henry Street in New Haven, and we get pulled over by the police. Actually, on our way to the movies. He's going to pick up his girlfriend. We're going to the movies. So me and Mighty's in the backseat

and him and his girlfriend, or we're on the way to get his girlfriend. And we get put over. They pull us over. Yank us out the car, search the car, go in our pocket, search everything. And they're like, oh, they don't got nothing. You can just go.

So it was incidents like that in the 90s and the 2000s when you're like, the police can do whatever they want to do. They're jerks, you know, they get away with everything. So never had a real fond experience with the police younger when I was younger. Got put over a number of times by the police for nothing. And, you know, it goes their way. They went to write your bogusick. They do what they want to do.

And it just didn't have any type of positive encounters with them when we were younger. Did you blame, as a kid, did you blame the police for why you were in prison, or did you take accountability yourself? No, it's accountability. Any time you hear me doing any type of interview, anytime I always assumed responsibility for me and what I've done. I know it was wrong. I know it was illegal, so it wasn't like I got caught with a, or they stashed a gun on me, or they put a gun on me, they put drugs on me. The drugs I got caught over mine, anything I got caught with mind, so I had to assume responsibility for it. And when you're doing stuff like that, you've got to pay the

paper. That's it. You've got to, if you know it's illegal, you have to pay the paper. That's what it is. You know what it is. When people say that the system is against black people, the system is against brown people, we know what we're getting into. That's and that's how always, I knew

that younger. My mother, like I said, just having the small conversation with my mother, knowing my uncle, knowing my father and what he's been through. You know, the things that I knew, you just know you're going to get treated a little bit different in the judicial system. I want to share an organization that's doing real work for justice impacted families, not just talking about second chances, but building them.

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safer neighborhoods and stronger families. When you were in prison, did you have a plan for when you got out? I know you said you were focused on reading and working on yourself. So as far as a plan, like I said, I'm not the type of person getting in trouble. I'm like, even when I sold drugs, I'm a choir boy. So I'm quiet. My cousin sold the drugs. I went to New York and got the drugs. I know I went and got the drugs because I looked the way I looked.

I looked like a nerd. I was smaller. I'm a shirt out of a big head and I can speak okay so I'm not, you know, I can talk to people, get pulled over. I can get out of that most of the time going back from New York and I got pulled over before whatever may be. But

I'm sorry, what's a great? about what you were thinking of for the future while you're in prison. In prison, so same thing, same behavior. I just wanted to get through it. You got to be busy. Prison is a ground hall day. Every day is the same thing. Got up at a certain time, eat breakfast.

So you get up before that time, go brush your teeth, wash your mouth out, go eat breakfast, come back, lay back down, get up, either work out, play dominoes, whatever you're going to do, everything's the same every day. So whatever program they offer, I jumped on it. I don't know, whether it was a drug program, whether it was, any type of thing they offered, I was going to go just to get time to go by. I took college courses while I was in there. Took anything they gave.

I was just on it because of the fact that I just didn't want to sit there. Same when I am now. I'm all over the place. I'm so busy now that it's like I can't get certain things done because I'm like, oh, I'm here, I'm here, I'm here. But you just got to stay busy. And that's how I was when I was in prison. Did you think you would be one of those people that would end up back in prison?

I'm sure you encountered people. Prison? No. Prison has no. women. And that's my, that was my, my, my, my, my, I was 21 going to 22 years old going to prison. And that's when you're at your apex sexually and all that stuff. And I'm like, I'm in here with a bunch of guys. I'm not gay. Nothing against gay people. So I'm taking it that way. But that was the focus there. I'm not coming back in here. There's no women in here. Like,

who wants to be around these guys all day, every day for, I'm doing five years or four years. I end up doing four years. But who wants to be in prison around a bunch of men? I don't know. That was my main focus. It didn't be in control. Hate authority. I am against authority. Like I told you, I never liked cops. The only person I would listen to probably was my mother.

And as you get older, of course, you got to start listening to rules and regulations that are set on you. But my mother, it was probably the only person I probably will listen to. I didn't even listen to her. I didn't go to prison. But no, I was never going back to prison. I made that a thing in my head that I'm never going back to prison. Prison is not a place for anybody that has any type of intelligence. So why do you think that hits for some people?

like yourself and not others, not the majority of people that are in prison? I don't know. I think it's a way out for some people. I used to think that prison was harder. It's more stressful than, well, I can't even say that. I used to think prison was more stressful than being in the world, but I kind of take that back now because out here you've got to worry about so much and near.

You get fed. You got somewhere this day, get warm. It's not the best conditions, but you really don't have anything to worry. about. So I don't know why I have no idea why people continue to go back and forth. Some people like being criminals. That's what I gather as being a police officer as I am now. Some people just like knowing what they're doing. Some people are just setting that life where they don't care. They don't care about going to prison. They don't care about, you know, doing well. And not to get off, not to drift off. Sometimes I think when people think like that, they're

probably better off than people like me and you. We got so much responsibilities. Like we run I have a private business. I got to work. I'm a police officer. I got so many rules. I got to abide by everything I do. I got to pay tax. I got to do this.

I got to do that. They don't have to do that. They come and do what they want to do if they get caught. They go to jail. Hey, it is what it is. I'm going to do the same thing again. We think about freedom

and we don't want to be in there. But we're trapped by everything all the rules and regulations out here. So I don't know. I don't know who wins that. Yeah, sometimes I'll think about, you know, like when life gets busy, it's like when I was in prison,

there was nothing. Let's go to sleep. Yeah, you don't have to worry about anything. You're playing sport. You're hanging out. You're cooking. You don't have no cares in the world. Even the guys that have families in there.

They're not, I mean, yeah, that you do your best to take care of your kids from there in some capacity. But otherwise, you have really no responsibility. You're not out there, you know, in the free world. No, not at all. So I don't know who wins that. But I don't want to be in there. So therefore, I'm not going back. So I'll pay these taxes and I'll stress a little bit about bills and things that.

sometimes, but I'm not going back to prison. Now, when you're sitting, say, in your prison bunk bed, you're about to go to sleep for the night. Did you ever, ever think that you would be come a cop and putting people like yourself in a prison like that? No. I never thought about me and the police officer until I came home. So while in prison, I just wanted to go home and just figure it out.

I wasn't thinking about being a police officer. I didn't come until afterwards, a while after I came home from prison. Do you think that looking back on it, the concept is interesting or strange? That I being a police officer? Just the idea that you were once in prison, and that could have been a thought in your mind. I think it's a unique. I think it's unique. Because most prisoners hate cops.

Like, I hate it. I ain't going to say I hate the cops. I just like them. People hate cops. People, a lot of times I only get accepted as a police officer because people know me. I'm from New Haven. So people talk to me. I still have people that talk shit, but I still get a certain, a different level of respect.

So I grew up in New Haven and from New Haven. Then I did prison time. A lot of people from prison know me. I do pardons now. So a lot of people I do pardons for that hate of the cops, they still love me as a person. I help them get pardons. Like, I can go some places and not to say, like, I get celebrity status, but I go some places, people own restaurants, people are just out.

And don't worry about anything today or whatever it may be. Or if I need something done at the house or I need something done, a car fixed or something like that, don't worry about it. So you get some certain respect for it. But so the policing thing is, I don't know, it's a good thing. It's a great thing, especially when you are from the neighborhood, you know people. Crack a Cayman Jack Margarita. and taste your escape. It's America's number one for a reason.

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How many discounts will you stack up? Tap the banner or visit usaa.com slash auto discounts. Restrictions apply. I'm also giving back with the partners. Do you think some people have a hard time separating the job from the person. Absolutely. I don't get as much as often as other police officers.

I actually have been on the scene when people know me. They talk to me regularly, but they're yelling at the other guy. It's happened to me, too, people that don't know me. So people look at the uniform a lot as they all think we're one. Something happens in California. It affects Connecticut. Something happens in Louisiana. It affects Connecticut because they all think we're at one unit or one department.

But we're very different in every part of the region, every part of the nation. Now that dislike towards cops that you were telling us about earlier. Do you think that was instilled in you from your neighborhood and people around you? Or is that something you genuinely believe you developed on your own? A little bit of both. So you get things. My grandmother always told me her father was the police hired somebody to kill her father. I don't know if that's true or not.

She told the story a thousand times. I kind of believe it. So you get the stories like that told. But then how they act, how they acted back then. Like I said, they could basically do what they wanted. to do, write what they want to write, because both of my wrestlers were horrible. If that happened today, I wouldn't, I wouldn't got convicted. The first one was, they thought I shot somebody, so you pulled me over, you thought I shot

somebody. That's almost like the fruit of poison the street. You pull me over for something else and you find something else. You search me illegally, say, I got a gun. I don't have a gun. You find drugs, so you charge me with your drugs. The second time, you said my motorcycle wasn't registered. It is registered, but you find drugs.

So these days, I probably wouldn't happen like that. They probably get dismissed and thrown out because of the fact of body cameras and a whole bunch of other things. So police hands progress. So, all right, that's that. Do you think that makes you a better police officer now having that experience yourself? Of course, this is experience with talking to people, being around people, being from the neighborhood, having relatives of the neighborhood, friends, associates, people you went to high school

with, people that you just grew up with, 48 now. So I've been doing it in my entire life. So a lot of people know me. A lot of people know me from doing a pardon. So it's easy to talk to a lot of people, even when arresting people. I'm not the gunslinger, the guy that wants them running and chase out to people. That's not me. I'm a sergeant now anyway, but I don't have to do that.

But even when I was, I make arrests and I need to make arrests, when it's loophily for me to make an arrest and when it's the time to make it arrest. I'm not looking for things to arrest people for. I'm not adding on things. If it's there, it's there. If it's not, it's not. So I think, yes, me being from the neighborhood, me having that experience, me have going to prison and understanding what prison does the people, how it can change your life instantly.

Definitely has an effect on how I police and what I do and how people respond and respect me. How old were you when you got out of prison? How many felonies did you have on your record by the time you got out? I went to prison at right before my 22nd birthday. I got out. 26 and changed. So I've been home since I was 26, almost 27 years old. And was it a second part?

How many felonies you had? I had 13 families. Okay. Where do you go when you got out of prison? Do you go back to your moms? Are you on your own? So I initially went back to my old. I had a son already.

My son was three years old when I was to prison by a young lady. Then I had my daughter was on the way. So my daughter was born when I was in prison. I ended up raising her. But I ended up getting custody of her and raising her. But she was born when I was in prison. I was coming home. She was turning four years old.

So I went back home to her mother house. And what did you do for work? What did you get into? So initially, I was in the halfway house. I had six months and a half of the house. So it was, I was in a Roger Sherman house on House Street. And I had six months there, so I had to find a job while I was in there. So I got there in June of 2003.

And I found a job that I expect this can. That was in East Haven. And I worked in the produce department. I first had me doing carriages. But that wasn't going to last. I wasn't doing that. I wasn't doing that in the cold and the rain. They ended up changing me to produce.

And I was in the produce department. And then I got a job back. This place called Advanced Element and Manufacturing. So that place made, you ever see on the Air Force or whatever military, when they laying the planes on the carriers and the plane catches this line and it slows them down. We made the aluminum wheels that pulled the wires and slowed them down. And I got a job there because my buddy that was in the halfway, I ended up getting a job there. He got me and somebody else's a job there.

So at the time it was, I think it was $16 and $17 an hour, which was in 2003. So I was decent money. Now, do you think that part in someone's journey, you know, when you go to prison of coming out, being at the halfway house and working that minimum wage job after, you know, say living the high life, selling drugs, or getting money in that sense? Do you think that's an essential part to the person's journey, that humbling experience? It depends. I don't know if it's essential. I know it hurts like hell. It's not, I don't know if it's essential.

I think some people need it so they can be humble. But I think once you come home when you have the mindset that you want to just do the right thing because you're not going to win. I don't know too many people. Some people have one with a drug game and illegal things. And, you know, I don't know him personally, but I'm quite sure there has been some people that have beat the system if you want to say that. But if you have the mindset that you just want to do the right thing, then you're going to do the right thing. Whatever it takes. My cousin has home now.

He does everything. He works. He's a flagger, right? When he's, they don't call him for flagging, he does Uber Eats. He just figures it out. He's not going to do anything illegal. He's 50 years old and I just did almost 15 years in prison. So what's the benefit of going back to jail as none?

So he ended up getting, he still owes him eight years if he doesn't finish his probation. It's almost 60. So what are you going to do? So you got to figure it out. Even me, I came home at 27. I was like, I'm not going back in. That sucks. I was horrible.

Who wants to be in prison? If you have the mindset to be like, this is okay. I can do this for another two or three years. You need some medication. That's how I look at it. I'm not going back to prison. Not voluntarily for doing something voluntarily,

illegally, no, I'm not doing that. Did you have any close calls or run-ins, whether it was like parole or? When I came home? When I came home? I sold drugs again when I came home. I almost got caught twice in New York. The first time I almost got caught.

Me and a girl I was, dealing with. She was from New Haven, but she was going to school in Virginia. She was back on vacation. And I had a buddy that should take me up to New York and go get this, go get the stuff. And so after we get this stuff, me and her, I actually like playing in the back seat. So we're playing around. Love taps, wherever may be. It's almost like a, it was almost like a movie. Like I see this deringo. It's a derangle behind us. I'm looking back. And he takes his magnetic siren and puts it on top of his side, on top of the roof, and they pull us over. And so I'm scared

So I got the drugs We stuffed the drugs in the seat It was a seat that separated We stuffed in the back of the seat She's next to me She has her Virginia State ID My buddy He actually lives in Woodbridge

He has a Woodbridge ID And my address is Hamden So the police They woke up to the car They was like What the fuck is going on the back seat? I'm like we were just playing I was like whatever movie

License registration insurance Put out a license Registration Insurance At that time I don't know if you remember You might be too young but at one point insurance comes to hand right the insurance guards and so in New York they were considered fake

so he takes the insurance car from him he's like this is bullshit he said this is a fake insurance guard I should search this car right now and so he's like no and he's like where you from he's I'm from Woodbridge he said where are you from I said hamden he said are you from harford I said no harford's no so I say hamlin and then she says well I'm from Virginia State I'm going to school we're just visiting we're just playing in the backseat whatever it be He said, well, cut the bullshit out and get the fuck out of here. So I got away with that.

So I had the drugs. So the second time, that's when I stopped selling drugs automatically. Immediately. So it's me and the same guy, no girl. I just bought some drugs. And I don't really talk about drugs. A lot of people like glamorizing that lifestyle. It's not really glamorous lifestyle.

So I just bought some drugs. I had enough of it. So I had marijuana and the other stuff. But the marijuana was a lot of, of it and it was in the trunk. So we get put over on the highway by a state trooper. And he pulls us over. And the reason he pulled us over

because we was in a 1972 Delta 88 and the headlight was out. So the cop pulls us over. He walks up to the car. He was like, I'm not even asking for a registration insurance. He said, I pulled you over because I like the car. He said, your headlights out too. So that's a legitimate reason,

legitimate reason for me to pull you over. But I like the car. So he just told you to me about the car. But I can smell the marijuana coming from how the police say we have this word emanating from the car. You can smell it. Royal marijuana. I don't know how he didn't smell it, but

he didn't talk to him and doesn't let us go. So for that moment, I still owe New Haven or Connecticut 10 years. So I said, is it really worth it to get pulled over in a humbug like this to end up going back to prison? And I was like, I wasn't really into it anyway anymore. It was just a way to make money because I had a record

and I couldn't find a good job. So I stopped. I sold the rest of what I had and I was over with. So not having the resources to get a new job or to be able to find one led to you breaking your rule and putting yourself in a position to go back to prison? Of course. I mean, you get used to making a certain amount of money.

And like I said, if I made that, it seemed like I just came home and just did the right thing earlier. That's not what I did. But after I didn't want to go back to prison, After I know I didn't want to go back to prison. I didn't want to let my mother there. I'm still a mama's boy to this day. I don't want to break my mother's heart ever.

Like, now we're doing something wrong. And she's so proud of me now. So me breaking her heart, it would have been terrible for her. So I just like, it was over. I'm not going by the jail. I'm getting rid of this stuff and we're just not going to do this no more. Do you feel like a lot of individuals find themselves in that position when they got out of prison? So back then, yeah.

That was in 2003. 2004, that's 20 something years ago. They are, people come home from prison now. They can get decent, certain jobs. They didn't have these second-chance jobs like my cousin. Even though it's not paying that much money. It's 20 bucks an hour. It's better than nothing.

They are offering you a job to come home and earn some type of money. Then I didn't have that back then. You had to go look and figure it out. And we weren't getting paid $20 an hour. We were getting paid $7, $8 an hour. And that's what it was. So, yes, I mean, some people probably do face that, but I mean, it's easier now than it was back then. I don't hear to me people say, hey, come home now, they can't find a job.

They might as can't find a job that they want. New Haven is a forgiven. I mean, not New Haven. Connecticut is a forgiven state, even with the pardon process. New Haven is one of the states that's leading the country with being liberal and being forgiven to former inmates and former convicts or formerly incarcerated people, whatever you want to call them. So you have a chance to do a lot of things. They have second chance jobs where you can go get a job and figure something out.

They have opportunities for you to get CDL. A lot of people to come home from prison and get their CDL and they drive. It was going on back then, but not the number of the rate is going down. Some people probably still feel that way, but they have more opportunity than I had. What did it mean to be labeled as a felon back in that era? They were done. That's what I felt. I'm not going to be able to do it.

I got denied life insurance, denied jobs. jobs. University of New Haven denied me for a... I graduated from Gateway with a decent GPA. University of New Haven, Axel on the record, on the application. Have you ever been convicted of a crime?

You put, yeah. They deny me from getting into school out and I'm going to end up going to University of Bridgeport. So you can deny everything. You know, you get treated. Like, you're not even like... What's this guy? This guy's a waste. So it makes you feel insecure, it makes you feel like, what am I really going to do?

How am I going to raise these kids? How am I going to provide or whatever may be? Tell us about that journey from getting out of prison or that scenario of, you know, when you decide you weren't going to sell drugs anymore, to actually becoming a police officer. What did that look like? The scenario from non-selling drugs are becoming a police officer? Yeah. So like I said, being a police officer was never.

something I really thought about. So I just know how to go to school. And so I got to tell you this. Me, what I found out about the pardon process is when I got sentenced in Meriden, Connecticut by that judge when I got caught in Hamlet. So in Hampton, you go to court and Meriden. So when I got sentenced, it was an older white judge. And she was almost heartbroken because I was so young.

She's like, you're 21 years old. You have all these charges. you're about to get five years in prison. You have all these felonies. Your life is almost over. Like, you haven't even given yourself a chance. And you have... I had a child.

My son was three years old. You have a son. And she was just, like, heartfelt. And I never felt compassion for somebody in a system like that. I really felt it from her. And she was like, the only way you're going to get out of this is if you get a pardon and that's hard to get. And she was just...

Almost in between her. she was sad or she was like, Jesus Christ, another, you know, young kid that has not even started his life and he's, has all these families. I have 13 families. So the word pardon stuck in my head throughout prison. So soon I came home with our research in the pardon process. And I started when I was eligible for the pardon. I came home in 2003. I was off parole and everything by 2004. because I got since this in 1999. I was off parole, but I said I had three years probation.

So 2004 to 2007 was my probation. I finished probation with no issues. And in 2007, that's when I started applying for the party. I did all the research, and I did it myself. I got denied. I did it again. I got denied. The third time, I had a girlfriend.

We got into a little encounter, and they ended up gnailing the case. it wasn't really an encounter it was stupid it was just a stupid cop but you know it was an argument so they knollied the case and when you got a on your record you can't apply for a partner

so Nali has to fall off first and so nollie fell off so they sent my packet back that was the third time and the fourth time I got a they used to call a conditional

party it's a provisional partner was a provisional partner provisional party meaning that you still have a record, but here's a certificate saying that basically you're in your way. So I called a lawyer up and I told him, I said, listen, I got a, I didn't have the money. He was trying to charge me $5,000 at the time. $5,000 in 2009, 10 was a lot of money. It's a lot of money now to me, but

back then it wasn't, I couldn't get $5,000. And he was like, listen, you started your pardon, you got a provisional partner. You don't need me. He said, so they're going to give it to you sooner or later. So what happened was the following year, I applied again, and I got the full pardon. So once I got the full pardon, I really didn't know what to do. And that's why I tell people now when I do their partings, prepare to what you're going to do the next, what you're going to do next because of the fact that you do all this work to get to pardon, and then you're like, you don't know what to do. I said, don't be like me. I didn't know what to do. So what what happened was the New Haven Police Department was hiring. And I said, you know what?

let me see if this is the real thing with this partner. So they had a job fear at downtown. They were doing them all over. They had a downtown or some back room or they had closed them all down. And sometimes it was in the back room. And they had to pass out a pamphlet and the pamphlet said, you know, they wanted new people. They wanted people from New Haven.

They wanted people of color. All this stuff that added up to me. And then in a small bottom right hand corner of the packet or a pamphlet that said, if you receive the pardon, basically we won't hold it against you. But I was like, I had 13 felonies. They did talk about bullshit charges. So I'm like, it's not going to happen wherever it may be. So Chief Campbell, he was a sergeant at the time, Sergeant Campbell.

He's retired now. Actually, he went on to be the chief of Yale. He was Chief of New Haven, Chief of Yale. Now he's at Harvard now. But he was a sergeant at the time. time and what intrigued me really about policing. It wasn't about changing lives and all that other stuff. People say all that stuff all the time. He said, you can make six figures. At the time, I was making $25,000 a year. I was like, six figures is like, why two poor money? I mean, my head,

I'm like, I'm going to be almost rich. But that's what really intrigued me about being a police officer. So what happened was I applied. It was this officer, their name Officer Dopson. Officer Dopson is a, she's like a guardian angel. She was there. She had a program that they were for New Haven. And the program was not only for that job fear, but also they set up a program to where you go to the police academy. And they prepare you, they get you in shape. They prepare you for the test.

And she took a liking to me. Now I like and liked me. She liked me. She was way older than me. But I liken to me just like my personality, whatever it may be. So I was honest with her. I told I was going through the pardon process or whatever may be. I hadn't got my parting yet.

I was in the middle of getting it. and she's like, well, we've figured out when that time comes. So when the time came, I'm not going to say she handed it to me because she made me work for it, but she made sure that they didn't remove me for anything that they were not supposed to remove me for as far as policing is very strict when it comes to hiring, especially the smaller towns. New Haven is not a small town. New Haven is actually considered a bigger police department in the country. we have at that point we had over 400 cops so where it doesn't seem like a lot because you look at

new york they got i don't know 30 40 000 cops look at l.A they got all those cops like at chicago but most police departments have 150 less cops in New Haven we're the second biggest or the biggest compared to business if it's with us and harford in the state of Connecticut but they are very very picky when it comes to hiring people And so she just made sure that they followed the rules. He became my background investigator. And, you know, even when I answered questions the wrong way, she's like, no. So you have a pardon.

You don't have to answer that question that way. So, you know, respect what the pardon is. So what the pardon does, and I don't know if she did any research on it, but I tell people now that are applying for civil service jobs and whatever job they're applying for. You can legally and morally say that you have never been convicted of a crime. And so that's how a lot of times, sometimes people get thrown out the process because of the fact that, you know, they want to say certain things.

But you can legally and morally say that you, when you get a full partner in Connecticut, federal part is a little bit different, but Connecticut, you can legally and morally say, I have never been committed to crime. So not to say she walked me through it, she just made sure that I did the right things. She liked me. She believed my story. And, you know, she just said she felt my energy and she felt I was going to do the right things. So she kind of guided me through.

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So that's how I became a car. When you got the pardoned, did you feel any different? Like one day you're a felon the next day you're not? No, so when I felt different was when I went and got my pistol permit. So we get your pardoning, I'm like, okay, I didn't even got a, when I got the gun, I didn't, so I got the pistol permit. So I applied for the pistol permit, they gave me the pistol permit.

So you go to the city, they give you a pistol permit. I was mine was Hamden, and we gave me my pistol permit. Just the town principal permit. I take that town policeman, you have to go to the state, and the state gives you a prison of, the state pusillment, that's when you can go by a firearm. So when I got the town pusillment, I went up to the state,

and they do it right there. They switch it over. You pay the fee, whatever it may be, and they do another background check right then and there. So I'm like, this is not going to go through. And I really didn't think it was going to go through. Did you call me saying Mayor Williams? And I was like, yes, here's a pistol permit.

I was like, just pardon stuff really works. It just works. That's when I knew how I'm on. Now when I got the pardon at the pardon, so the pardon board does it different now. Back then when I got my partner in, I got my partner on 12, 12, 12, 12. Oh, my name is Mary.

So when I say Mary, they follow each other. So 12, 12, 12, 12. My badge number at the police department is 444. My birthday is 777. That's got to be a sign. So I got to, I lost my job. So when I got the, uh... The pistol permit.

Pistol permit. So I met the pistol permit. She says, oh, here you are with your, your, um, here's a pistol permit. And I'm like, this really, really works. And so I'm just like, I got it. I got, my record is really clear because I have 13 felonies. And now they're giving me a pistol permit. So I never even bought a gun. I didn't buy my gun until after I became a cop. I had a pistol permit, but I just never won't buy a gun because I didn't feel, Like, I know what the hell I was doing with a gun.

You know, I had a gun when I was selling drugs, but I never even shot the thing when I sold drugs. But when I got the pistol permit, when I said, this is really official. And then, so that's when it really hit me. And I was like, my life is like, change. I could do what I want to do. Do you think you became a cop for the wrong reasons at the time? No. Making money?

No. Money is how you're going to live in this life. I was making $25,000. So after I became a cop, I knew that. the responsibility, a lot of responsibility being coming to cop and where I'm from and how I became a cop, that started hit me then. Like, this is more about just making money.

You can, like, impact. And so when I became a cop, I didn't want my history to never, ever, ever follow me. Never. I was like, I'm going to go to work. He said, I can make six figures. I'm going to work overtime. I don't want to hear about nothing in the past.

I'm not going to ever bring it up. You know who brought it up? The police department did. So I told him my cousin I just came home. So he got busted in, I want to say, October 2010. I became a cop. He got busted federally October 2010. I became a cop on, I graduated or started the academy on,

on 728, 2014. So it's not that far apart. So four years apart. So when I became a cop, I'm not going to get into what they do, but I'm going to tell you what they did to me. Somehow my name was Google. When they got passed around,

and my background investigator officer adoption, she was the first one to reach out to me. And she said, do you know somebody named Mighty? And I said, yeah, that's my cousin. And I was like, why? She's like, because it's an article with you in it, and you're talking about him.

And you're talking about him after he got indicted. And I say, yeah, what does I have to do anything? And she was like, well, the police department is, you know, they're talking about it. I don't want you to feel some type of way. I don't want you to feel apprehensive about coming to work, whatever may be. So what happened was when Mighty got arrested in October 10th, October 2010, the next day, he went to court. And when we come out of court, I think he got indicted after they, whatever the hell they're doing there. After we come out, there's a bunch of news cameras out there and they want to do an interview.

So they interviewed his father. and they interview with me. And they asked me and question about him. They was like, what type of person is he? They're like, what are they mean? I'm like, this guy feeds his children. He does the same thing that you do as a person that goes to work. It's not a bad person.

I said, they got him listed as like he's some type of guy that he puts out hits or something. He sells drugs. Is it wrong? Yes, he's not the type of guy that's going to do anything to harm you. He sells drugs. He takes care of his family. He buys things. He makes sure his people are taking care of.

So basically that's what I said in an interview. And somehow that article got brought up. And then article when I got caught in 1999, Hartford-Current had it. It's still on there. You got to pay for it now. But at one time, it was free. And they were passing that around.

So I walked in work one day. One of my classmates was like, I'm here. I was like, what's up? He said, you did prison time? I was how you know that. He said, they're passing an article around. And why you got caught with those drugs, the Hamid cop when I got caught with Hamley. He said, they're passing around and they're talking about you.

I said, it is what it is, yes. And so they brought it up. I never brought it up. I just came there to work. I didn't want to talk about it. I knew that was behind me. They brought it up. So then I walk into the police department one time with my field training officer.

I'm at the front desk, and one of the veterans comes down. And he's like, hey, you know this guy? Williams? I'm standing right. He doesn't know it was me. He went to prison before, whatever it may be. What the hell? What type of people are they hiring?

Whatever it may be. And my FTO is like trying to give him the idea that as his being, but he does never catch on whatever it would be. So they were talking about me, and it's like they were trying to shame me. And I'm not ashamed of my past. I've never been ashamed of my past. I never came there like a cowardly person. Like, oh, I'm a hi-this.

If you guys want to go looking for it and you found it, that's what you you did. But since they kept talking about it and they kept trying to make me feel uncomfortable about it, I just say, you know what, when the person, it was people there were already edged me on to do pardons, I said, I'm just started a pardoning business. And I started doing the pardons. The first pardon I did with my cousin, Marquis Santiago, he's a fireman now, New Haven, Fire Department. And that was the first one I did. The second one was my cousin, Eddie, may he rest in peace, he got killed. His mother was his, was the second pardon I did. And that's how all started. And then just from there, now I'm over 700 people.

Have you been able to work past that stigma of being, you know, a felon on the job in their eyes? Well, a lot of people like me. I can't really, I'm not going to talk bad about the job. The job is the best job I ever had. But people have their, their thoughts and whatever it may be. But you have to remember, one thing about me is, if you talk about me, you should say everything about me. Not only that I went to prison that I saw. sold drugs that I'm from New Haven. You need to tell people the entire story. Don't just put that out there.

Put out there that. I took custody of my oldest daughter at 10 years old with no job, no anything. Of course, I live with my mother. I'm not going to take all credit to myself. My mother helped me out a lot. Put the fact that I have a associate's degree. Put the fact that I have a bachelor's degree, that I have two master's degree and I'm working on my doctor degree.

Put the fact that I help 700 people with partners or get partners. I'm a free notary. I do a lot of things for the community. Put all that in the bubble. So I took the past and I turned into something positive. So if you guys brought this out, I didn't bring it out. So you want to be mad about what I'm doing. It's because you did it.

Not because you wanted to talk about it. You want to try to shame me. And you can't shame somebody like me because of fact, I accept the fact that I did wrong. I never said that I was, oh, the cops pulled me over illegally, which they did, but I still had drugs on me. They put me over illegal. I didn't have drugs on me.

I went into prison. I know what I was doing. And I paid for everything that I've done. with those two calls. I sold a lot of drugs. I did a lot of things out there in the streets. And because of that, and because when I became a police officer,

you guys wanted to talk about it and make me feel like I didn't belong, I mean, here I am. I'm not trying to rubbing anybody's face. I'm not trying to sound better than anybody or whatever it may be. I just took what God gave me and I turned it around.

I made it when, I made it work, and that's all it was. I have a lot of accomplishments. And I'm not doing this to be like, oh, to pat myself on the back. But it was a blessing that they tried to shame me because I was just going to go to work.

I would have just been right now, Mayor Williams, Sergeant Williams. You wouldn't even know about my past. But you turn this into this. You turn this into the film that I'm in. You turn it into me writing a book. You turn into a bunch of stuff because I was just going to keep quiet about it.

But I guess God had a different outcome for it. Do you remember that first moment where you finally earned your co-workers' respect? No, because I don't own, I don't have some of their respect now. I have some people's respect because they understand. A lot of the newer cops are like, who cares? A lot of these guys are like 25 years

old. They weren't even born. A lot of the cops that were on a job they don't even know. They weren't even on the job when I got in trouble. So you shouldn't even have an opinion. So I don't know if I earned their respect or not, but I earn a respect to the people, the community. That's what we're supposed to be doing. It's supposed to be helping the community.

So I'm a resource for the community. I'm not here to lock you up all the time. If I got to lock you up, I've got to lock you up. Like I say, I'm a supervisor now. But if I got to lock you up, I got to lock you up. But I'm also here as a person that you can look at and be like, listen, I don't got to be a cop. I can do this. I can do that. He did it. I can do it. And that's I tell people the same thing. When I found out about the partner process, I seen people getting partners like, this person get a partner, I can get a partner. That's how I did

my pardon myself. And I tell people all the time, people like, oh, we don't got to go to you for a party. You don't, but you didn't even believe in the pardon process until you saw me with the pardon. You didn't believe that you could do your own pardon, so you saw me with the pardon, so you saw me charge and less than all. Now, it used to be free. So you saw me charging less than the lawyers. So anything that goes on with being a good cop, with being anything, I feel like I can do the same thing anybody else can do. I just happen to turn this around. Instead of you saying, oh, this guy's a whatever name you want to call me, he shouldn't be here. I belong here because of fact, I'm still here. And if you

could have found a way to get me out of here, you probably would have already. So I don't know if I, I learned a lot of them I'll never earn a respect. That's fine. That's cool with me. As long as I got the respect of my kids, my mother, and the people in my community. Do you think having that lived experience as someone that spent time in prison makes you a better cop? I don't know if it makes me better. It helps me, helps me with knowing what people go through. Helms me with knowing.

This being from the neighborhood, I'm from Newhallville. One of the worst neighborhoods, probably in the country per capita. It's small, we're a small city, but per capita, do you take anybody at Newhallville, put them in anywhere in this country in the worst neighborhoods, they'll survive. So me having that learned experience, prison, being from a rough neighborhood, me with the background of selling drugs, I'm not going to say, makes me better. It helps me out a lot. And it gives me different perspectives instead of having, oh, this guy's a piece of shit or whatever it may be. He may be doing it for a reason. He may not be doing it for a reason.

He may like it. He may be forced into the situation. He may not know better. Just to have a conversation with him and treat them as a human being. And that's what most people want get treated like human beings when you catch him doing something wrong. When you first became a cop, what was the most surprising thing to you about the job? The attention that you get. So I'm walking with my FTO, Officer Simon. That's my, that was my primary. He's from New Haven, too.

He didn't went to the hill. I was also, but he's younger to me. And this kid's waving at me. And I'm not paying me in mind because I'm not used to people paying me attention. So he's waving at me. So he hears me and I say, what the hell is wrong with you? I'm waving at the kid. The kid's still waving.

Hey, how are you doing that, it would be? He said, so he's like, you have to pay attention. People always are watching you no matter if you think they already aren't. They want to see what the cops are doing because people are focused on police officers all the time. And so that was the biggest thing with me that people always watch you. I don't care if you're in the car eating. I have people walk by them eating in the car. And they're like, oh, you're eating food?

I'm like, yeah, I'm a human being. There's lunchtime. So people always watch that. That was the biggest thing. And the second biggest thing is that, people are intimidated by police officers. I'm not intimidated in person, but that uniform makes me intimidating to some people. People are scared to talk to people.

They won't talk to you sometimes because you have that uniform more. Or they don't want to talk to you. So that's the two biggest things I get from being a police officer. What's been the hardest aspect of the job? Watching somebody die. The hardest aspect of the job for me, it's not even inside the building. I mean, that's going to come.

The first time I seen somebody die or that affected me. I probably was my second year on. The kid was 12 years old, got shot in the stomach at New Orleans. And the kid's talking to me. He got shot. We get there on a scene, and he's talking to us, like, I'm talking to you.

And he's just talking regular. And then we call for the ambulance. And by the time they put him in ambulance, they're working. And he ended up dying a couple of days. later. So that affected me because of the fact that you can just see somebody with life and I'm talking to you. They just, and they succumb to their energy and there's nothing. And so that's the biggest thing. Why does somebody die and seeing so many people, so many deaths,

whether it's through violence or through just natural causes. People having heart attacks on the toilet. People just overdoses or whatever may be. Just see a lifeless body. And to see it so many times, you know, that's, that's hard for me. How do you see the kids that, that are involved in, say, the gangs, the street gangs, the violence at a young age, how are they reacting towards you? Coming from someone that has your experience and background and... It's mixed because a lot of them don't know me. I'm just the old guy to some of them.

It's mixed. They're very disrespectful, to say the least. The kids, it's not... I really don't have an impact on them, especially now since I'm not a regular officer. I have an impact on the people that have known. me growing up, people are probably like 35 and up that know me that, um, they were a little bit younger than me and some people that are older than me. So not so much on the younger kids. Unless you get them in a classroom. I spoke to a class, actually yesterday.

What's today? Today, Saturday? Today, Saturday? Thursday, I spoke to a class at my, at Hillhouse High School. You can see you get through to some of them talking to them. I don't know if they were knuckleheads or not, but, um, I don't know if I have an impact on the kids that are out they're actually in the gangs right now. Why do you think these kids get caught up? That's a lot of reasons. That's a, I know you didn't mean to do it. That's like a loaded question.

They could caught up for a lot of reasons. It could be home. It could be because they're just following. I mean, I follow my cousin. So we didn't do the shit that they do, but they just following somebody else. They're having fun. They're in the cars.

A lot of them are just stealing these cars and doing what they want to do because somebody else is doing it. A lot of them come from two out. two parent households also. A lot of them come from great household. I had the best one of my, well, he was my best friend, but he wasn't from a two-family house.

But he came from a household with his mother, had a good job, paid for everything for him. And he ended up being on drugs, and he ended up selling drugs, and he's still out there now. So it could be a lot of dynamics. One thing I do know is that I forgot the actual number of stimuli that it was a study done.

And maybe I shouldn't say, because I don't have the exact numbers. but as a parent, you have very little effect on your kids when it comes to what they like. You have a perfect household. Mother father. For instance, my cousin, my cousin, that just came home doing 15 years, 14 and a half years.

And the mother worked at Yale's father worked at pride, Whitney. And New Haven, Connecticut, those are great jobs. They had a house. And he didn't need one for nothing for anything. And he ended up selling drugs. So the study that was done was basically saying, that you can have, you can set up the structure for your kids, but because of the stimuli that are out there,

if your kids are attracted to it, it has nothing to do with how you raise them. They just know to do the right thing. Like me, I know to do the right thing. I just did what I wanted to do. I like money, so I went out to money. It's just that. It's the same thing with these kids.

They just so happen to have so much more of it out there. And it's a shame because we have so much information out there so where they can do well. We didn't have this information out there. We have computers in our pockets. You can research anything and figure out, whatever you want to figure out, we have AI. But it's a shame that these kids are out there and they're doing what they're doing.

So like I said, there's so many things that go into that, it's no single answer that's going to, you know, people will be like, oh, he's right. He had to the nail on the head. How did your family react to you becoming a cop, especially the cousins that were in prison, you know? They're doing 15 years in the feds. They find out their cousin is one of the people that could have put them there. So it's mixed. When I first told him, he,

He had, so I became in copp in 2014. He was only in jail four years. So I spoke to a mum phone in total. He wasn't too excited about it. He's excited about it now because what all the things that I've done. I had one cousin until probably last year, he wouldn't even talk to me. So it's mixed, but most people are ecstatic that you go for one end of the spectrum to that, to the next end of the spectrum.

and you're doing some, and you're doing just more than just being a cop, you know, you're actually a resource or a source in the community that's helping people get back on their feet and helping people get their lives back together. So they're happy for, I say a majority of people are happy.

When most people hear my story, they're happy. I do get some people, I had a guy remark on social media one time, like, why would he want to be a part of that corrupt system? So my thing is if you don't like something, or if you think something's wrong, if you become part of it, you can change it or try to help change it.

So I always tell people, instead of one of me being at the New Haven Police Department, if they had 20 or 30 me at the New Havener Police Department, you could start getting some change because they can't just say that the focus is on me not to do anything. They can't just focus on me. They can't focus on 30 people.

So you've got to be the change that you want to see. And so me with my history and what I've done and how I've done it, it wasn't planned. I'm just going along with the flow but I'm just trying to better people and help people so whatever I do is never about me or me trying to get glory

I make a cop salary I don't make that much money doing partners a lot of people don't end up paying but the fact that they're winning that I'm giving back to them and I want them to win that's what it's about I want them to be able to what I did for my for my daughter that's 10 years old

she could come home to ask me for anything I couldn't do that for my mother My mother didn't have the means for it. I can take it where she wants to go. I can travel, I could do a whole bunch of things. My mother never traveled. My mother never even had a license. So, you know, she did what she could do with what she had.

And she had me and I did more. And so as long as you're helping people do more in life and trying to help them reach their goals, I think that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. Do you think you have been able to make an impact in your department? No, not like. I would want to see. I think policing has to come full circle.

I think that the culture is set a certain way and people think a certain way. And I think regardless of they accept me, you know, not to turn this to a race thing, that's almost like the racist guy that says, I have black friends. They'll accept me, you know, because they know who I am,

that doesn't mean they're going to accept everybody else. So, no, I think it has to, it hasn't come full circle and I think that people have to open their minds up and understand and that's what the film Us versus Them is about

it's about people that have once done wrong to their community and they become police officers and they give back a different way than a typical cop and how they're accepting and how they're not accepted

so I think it has to come a long way I'm probably the first of many I always say I'm the first documented formerly incarcerated person to become a police officer, now police sergeant. I don't know if that's true or not. I know of another guy in another department that was charged with arson. His father happened to be the mayor of a small town, and he being a firefighter,

and a part-time police officer there, but he never did prison time. So I think I'm the only one in the nation that has done it. So if I take that and I believe that, then I believe that it's a long way to. go if I'm the only one. Why do you think there's so many people that no matter what you tell them, they just hate cops? They get taught it. I got taught things, I was talking about cops, but, and then they experienced some of the

things. And I think that it's the same way policing is a culture, it's their own culture, those people come from a certain culture, they're just, they're never going to think that. Regardless, they're never going to think police are going to be good people unless they know them, like me, they know me. I haven't had people say, oh, no, he's a cop now. He's full of shit. But no matter what happens with police, so I've been on both sides.

So police has come a long way. And body cameras, dashboard cameras, with accountability. Police officer has been reprimated. Police officer has been arrested. These officers have done prison time. All this is unheard of. You think we'll look back to Rodney King.

They beat the hell out that guy. None of them did the prison die? If that happens now, that cop is going to jail forever. So, police will progress and it has progressed, and people will still look at it as the same. Like, oh, nothing's happening. It's because of their culture. They get to police get away with everything.

He's going to get suspended with paid leave, or he's going to get fired, and he's going to get his pension. So they always think that they're going to win somehow, some way they're going to find a way to sneak out of something. But it's not like that anymore. Police are being held to a higher accountability for a lot of things they do. Even some small things that they do that they probably shouldn't be held to certain things or getting in trouble for. They are being suspended.

They are being fired. They're being reprimanded. And, you know, that's a good thing. But because of the culture, just like the police culture, the police culture says, oh, a guy like a mirror shouldn't be over here. That culture is saying those cops are full of shit and they're going to always be full of shit and they're never going to do anything right. And we're going to always stand against them. When was that moment when the job became more than just the money for you? When you actually felt there was purpose in the job?

When I saw the way my mother looked at me when I became a cop, when people just start treating you different. It's a bad thing too. When you become a cop, everything is about being a police officer. So when you become a cop, people look at you different. They hold it to a higher standard. Hold you to respect. But they also think that's who you are all the time.

Like, if I go to a cookout, to a bar, I don't want to talk about cops. Everybody talks about cops up all the time, no matter what it may be. You can be watching the football game and a police officer, you know, police and something come up. And the first thing to ask you, hey, Sarge, do you think about that. I don't want to like being called Sarjoff duty. Just call me a mirror. You can call me, I wish it could be a, you would call me a mirror on duty.

I don't care about the title or whatever it may be. But that's my mother. Just being proud of, making her proud of me. and, you know, this is how people respond to you. That's when I know, like, people from the neighborhood, you're not just a mayor anymore. You're not just, you're a police officer, you know, even though it's weird because, like I just told you,

the culture doesn't like police officers, but when one of theirs becomes police officers, it's different, like, okay, you're all right, you're good, or we got a cop on our side, or whatever it may be. And that could be a negative thing, too, but, like I said, we could go into a bunch of conversations when it comes to that. Just my mother, my mother and my family and how they respond to me and how they're happy for me.

And, you know, they're happy for me than I am for myself. Do you ever think about how you were treated one way in prison because you were you, the old criminal you, but you would have been treated very differently had you been the cop version of you? Come again. Meaning, you know, when you were in prison that first time, you were never a cop. So you were just an individual that went to prison. But had you have been a cop, the person you are now, you would have been treated very differently by inmates, even though you were the same person at heart.

I don't know. If that makes sense. If you have, no, it makes sense. If you want to talk to people for a person for, if you want to find out who a person is, then it doesn't matter their title. People like to think of police officers as being this person that has all this stuff together

or that, you know, does everything right. The human beings, they're going to mess up, they're going to make mistakes. So maybe I would have got taken advantage of if people would have looked at me different or treating me different. But once you get to know me, even the police, some of the cops,

on a job now, once they get to know me, if you want to sit down really get to know me to listen to what some idiot has to tell you about me or the guy went to prison before, what the hell does that mean? But if you want to get to know me, then you want to understand what type of person I am. I'm a good-hearted person.

I know most people that say they go hard a person, but when in the interview, I'm a good-hearted person. I don't take advantage of people. I don't want to see any harm done to anyone. And that's how I am, whether it's a cop or not. So I probably would have because of the culture. They're like, oh, this guy's a cop. They treat them like shit.

I don't know. Maybe that. But they would have changed their mind. I'm not a pushover. So they would have changed their mind. Some people would have changed their mind. But that's his job. When you first got out on the job, was it hard for you to make arrests and even shut that door in, say, the booking area and put someone behind bars?

I think it's hard for everybody making arrests when you first get arrested. Well, for a lot of cops, especially people that you know. So it wasn't so much hard. I mean, I remember my first arrest when I got off FTO. So my FTO, you got to do everything. My first arrest, when I got out of FTO was me and my partner. and we went, it was a domestic. It wasn't hard.

Most of the rest you makeers are domestics. I'm not a runner and a gunner. I'm not running after. I'm not jumping fences and things like nature. I got the job at 37 years old, 36 years old. I was at the end of my prime and running and chasing and things like nature. So even now I'm not running and gunning.

But if you've got to go to jail, you got to go to jail. If you do something you go to jail, no, I don't feel bad. And I never felt bad at that time either. But I always felt that way. It's like I own up to myself. I took my responsibility. I never, I tried to run. But when I got caught by the police, I just got caught.

I'm not fighting them, whatever. They caught me. My job is trying to get away. The job is trying to catch me. They got a job. I got a job. It's not that I want to fight you or whatever. Maybe, no.

So it's the same thing. Some people need to go to jail. You broke the law. You're going to go to jail. So, you know, the go with that. I actually, I arrested the guy when I was an OAT, to the officer in training, but domestic. The domestic ended up getting thrown out.

The same guy came back to me and I did this party. So sometimes he can come full circle. And he loves me to this, I could call him for anything. So, like I said, just being a cop and doing the things that I do, I can't respect most of the time. And so it's not so much, I got a different life than the rest of the police officers, most of the time. Some people just don't give a shit about me regardless.

But I got a different life than a lot of them. Because I'm from New Haven. Like I said, I'm from New Haven. I'm in New Haven all the time, relatives, friends, family. I went to school in New Haven. So people know who I am. People always waving and always, you know, making sure I'm all right. Whether through a text message or driving by.

So I live a different life than a regular cop. As someone that became a cop a lot later in life, do you think that the bar should be set higher for ages? Absolutely. I always said that. Charlie's going to say I stole this from him, but I had just thought before him. I used to always say it.

I think that you should, I think police officers should be at least between 20, 30 years old before they become a police officer. You give a guy or a young lady a six-figure job because most police jobs departments are starting at 90 to 100,000 now. At 21 years old, what life experience do they have? They probably had a job at Subway or Dunkin' Donuts somewhere, a lot of them, unless they went to the military. But that's, you know, that's not real life experience either. and I'm not taking anything away from the military because people would destroy me for that. So it's not about taking real life experience,

dealing with things that 21 years old compared to 28, 29, 30 is a big difference. You understand things a little bit different. You're not so much gung-ho. You've got some experience. You're not coming in with an attitude or with a chip on your shoulder. Or it's a lot less than what it would be

if you were 21, 22 years old. So I absolutely, absolutely think that you should be 28, between 30, and have some type of job experience or school or military behind that or a combination of both. I think it's better for the job, it's better for the individual, and it's better for the people that you're serving. When did you know you wanted to move up in the department? So as I got older and as I started, so I got my second master's degree. And so does old school cop, he said to me, he said, you're going to take the sergeant's test?

I was like, no. He's like, why not? I was like, because I said, I'm on first shift. I have no chance of working second or third shift no more. I'm all set. He said, don't you plan on going back to school? And I said, absolutely. He said, you got two master's here.

You got to get the second master's year? I said, yeah. He said, you're going back for your doctor? I said, more than likely. And he said, so you can have a doctor and you're going to be a regular officer? No, that doesn't make sense. So after thinking about that, I took the test. I wasn't going to take it if I took the test because of that conversation.

And I, you know, I became a supervisor. But that was the only thing that really pushed me because, but like I said, when I became supervised, guess what? I'm back on second and third shift. So I would have never had to see second and third shift if I was a state officer. Because my seniority, as young as the department is, I just been on first shift for the rest of my career.

What's the most surprising thing to you about being a sergeant, about being higher up in the ranks in the police department? I don't think it's surprising because I think that some people take the position and the title to a different level. If you're a leader, you're a leader. You just happen to take a test, now you're just a leader. We have leaders on the police department that are not sergeants. They're just veterans, or they just know the job. So it makes the job easier for you when you show up to a scene.

They already got things in place for you. They're relaying the information to you that you need compared to having. So it's not really a difference to me. And I think any sergeant or any supervisor, you know that it's only a test that separates you from anybody. It's a test that separates us from being a lieutenant. It's a test that separates us for being an assistant chief or captain. It's a test.

It's not that you know more. I'm about to get a doctorate. You think these guys know more about a lot of things that I know? No. It's a test. And if you do well on that test, a standardized test is like an L-SAT or, or a GMAT or whatever it may be. If you do well on it, then, hey, you get to get this position.

I'm indifferent about those tests, standardized tests, because I don't think those tests really make leaders. If you're a leader, you're a leader. You can learn a job by being on a job. So it doesn't bother me as far as, because I can take information or take, for instance, my FTO, Simon, he's retired now. As a sergeant, I went to him for information.

He knows the job. he just never took the test. So how can I, like, look down on him because he's an officer and a sergeant? I made the final decision, but I'm making it based on information that I can get from him or for anybody else that I may not know.

Just because of the massage doesn't mean, I know the job inside and out. I mean, if you think that way, then something's wrong. And a lot of people with that, not only in policing, that get certain positions, oh, I'm such and such,

or I have this title now, you know, so therefore, it's what I say, what I go. Yeah, it probably just took, you probably just got taking a test. Like some people are good at taking interviews. Like you have an interview with you. You could just be just the best interview I've ever had.

And he could just gotten a job. He's an idiot. And you got the guy that fumbles and stumbles over his words. And like, I really don't want this guy. But that guy probably would have bust his guy's ass when it comes to going to work. So that title, everybody doesn't mean anything. That's something that I think I had to do because of how policing is. I just didn't want to.

After he said that to me, I was like, it makes sense. But no, so the title means nothing. You're either a leader or you're not. It doesn't matter if you take a test. We have people that have gone up to be chiefs and the sisters and chiefs. You're like, how? But they're good at taking tests. What do you think has been the most important lesson you learned on the job?

I don't know if I learned a lot on this job as far as lessons. I had a lot of life lessons before I became a police officer. I was 36, 37 years old. So the only lesson that I really didn't learn on this job is that even though I don't want to, like I said, I don't want to make it seem like policing as bad. A police officer or law enforcement is just like any other job. You have good, you have your bad, you have an office jealous. You have people that want to do too much.

You have people that don't want to do nothing. You have people that are great. You have people that are great leaders. You have people that are sorry leaders. You have people in all aspects. It's just like any other job. It just happened to be law enforcement. So that's what I learned.

No matter what profession that you go into, when you have these thoughts of these people having everything together or they can figure everything out or that they're, you know, the greatest thing ever is not. They're just regular people. And you're going to get different types of people on different levels mentally, emotionally, physically. And people are just going to treat you good,

people that's going to treat you bad. It's like going to a warehouse job and stuff for you just have a lot more power and a lot more authority. What do you say to someone that, you know, looks at, say, a story like yours or a story like mine where the person chooses a bad path and it turns out for the better in the end?

What do you say to them? So a person like me and you? A person that looks at us and maybe wants to take that bad path to get to say where we're at. That wants to take the bad path? Yeah, that hasn't taken the bad path. Don't take it.

I told them, I told the kids the other day. I got a best friend, one of my best friends, Edel. His name is Edward Teller. He's a fireman. I didn't do his part of him, but me. We've been friends since fifth grade. I know I've known Eddie, what, 10, 11 years old. So I don't know Eddie 38 years.

Eddie has been around everything I've been around. Drugs. He was actually poorer than me. he's eight of nine children his father died when he was young his mother had to raise those kids by himself sometimes they have running water sometimes Eddie struggled

Eddie never got arrested one time so I tell people to be like him you don't got to get arrested you don't got to make the decisions that I made and makes life harder he didn't become a fireman until 32 years old but he never got in trouble he worked his butt off he never had that stigma of being arrested

whatever may be so I tell people all the time do it the easy way do what you got to do now so you can do what you want to do when you get older. I got a cousin, one Marquis Santiago. He became a fireman at 42 years old. He's telling the kids, yes, Thursday. I got guys retiring right now. And right in with four years old.

So just do it right from the beginning. We're not glorifying the fact that we went to prison. That's ridiculous for anybody to think that. And that's one thing that I hate about our cultures, the inner city culture, the black culture, the so-called minorities, that we glorify prison, we glorify drug dealers, we glorify all that stuff. The person has to be glorified. The person has never got in trouble. They had every opportunity to get in trouble.

They had everything against them. They had the system against them. They just made the right decisions. And so that's the person you need to be like, we don't need to glorify drug dealers or glorify people come home from prison. That's a setback. If I didn't go to prison, what would I've been? I could have been something different, something a lot more.

Same thing with my cousin Marquis. So, I mean, Eddie ends up being a fireman, but Eddie has done a whole lot of other things. He's got it all together. But don't get in trouble. That's the most ridiculous thing. And that's so when I did a speaking engagement at the New Haven summer school for New Haven Public Schools a couple years ago. And one of the retired guys from the New Haven Police Department, he's actually a, he runs the security at New Haven Public Schools.

And so it got back to me that he said to a person I know What does this guy come up here to talk about how you can get in trouble And how you can get out of it And so no, that's not never going to be my message It's to get in trouble so I can help get you out of it That's ridiculous My goal is to tell you to go do it Go from A to B don't go to A to B

To B1 or whatever that you want to do Don't go A to C to C to go to A to B Go to B to C go straight down the line don't do what I did because it's nothing beneficial for that. It's not beneficial for you, your family, your kids,

or any of that. So just do what the hell you got to do right from the beginning. I just want to let you know that if you do do wrong or if you're going through a hard time

while you're doing the right thing. My story isn't just about oh, you messed up and you can fix it. My story is if you're going through a hard time, you still can go ahead and go and do what you got to do.

You might have child support. I paid off child support, $30,000 child support and I came home from prison. I got custody my daughter when we had a rough time me or her mother. I got custody of my daughter. I did a lot of things in life and I'm just telling you that it doesn't take you to go to prison to do that,

but you can just do it right from the beginning. I'm here to motivate people. Everybody's not just people that went to prison. What would you say to someone that's struggling to own their past? Struggling in their past? Struggling to own their past. I don't own it or you're going to commit that same, you're going to make that same state. You can't. Whatever you did, you did. Like I said, I got put over illegally. I got searched illegally. I went to prison. But I sold drugs. So it's not only a past or that incident.

It's a part of your life that we're doing something wrong. That was divine intervention for me to go to prison. And if I didn't go to prison, I'm probably going to be dead. I won the prison for a lot longer. I want to prison five years. Yeah, I got a 15 years sentence. People look at that like, oh, they over-sentence you. You got 15 years to spend the sentence. They don't get those sentences all anymore, by the way. 15 years has been at the five with three years probation, they're looking for me to fail. So it's still with divine intervention

because if I kept selling selling drugs, if I didn't get five years in prison my first time going to prison, who knows if I kept going back, back and back. My cousin ended up doing 15 years out of 25. He gave him on a compassionate release. He's still supposed to be in there for eight more years. So I might have been like him.

I don't know. So whatever happens to you own it. It doesn't matter. When it happened, how it happened? Oh, the police broke. They didn't follow the, the Constitution, who cares? You shouldn't have been breaking the law anyway.

That's how I look at it. So we can blame everybody for everything. You can blame your mother for having you. Oh, she didn't have sex at night. I wouldn't be here. So what are you going to do? You're here, figure it out. You got caught, figure it out, do what you got to do.

And that's that. So don't struggle with your past. Own it. And when you own it, you own your future. Tell everyone about the book. All right. So a lot of the stuff I said is in this book. But this book is a,

It's a manual, short snippet of my life from prison to precinct. Velma's son, Velma's my mother. I'm a police officer that has done over 700 partings and multiple states. Federally, Connecticut, Virginia, New York. I can do other states also. But like I said, it's a snippet of my life. I went from selling drugs to being the person I am now. It's on Amazon.

What you got to do is type my name in. I'm Mary Williams, A-M-E-E-R. Williams, and it'll come up at 1699, buy it, give it to your kid, give it to somebody in jail, whatever you want to do with it, give it to them. Believe me, you don't make a lot of money off I'm selling books. So don't think I'm trying to get rich off this. Because a lot of people think, oh, you got a book, all you're trying to sell this book. It's not, I probably make $2 a book.

So that's just that. But it's really for inspiration and motivation and, you know, just trying to do my due diligence and helping everybody out. Well, Amir, I appreciate you coming on the show today. I'm glad we were able to do this. Thank you for having me. Yeah, and we'll have the link to your book in the description this episode. Yes, sir.