Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - MAXIMUM Security PRISON Corruption | Prison Guard EXPOSES EVERYTHING

Episode Date: July 11, 2025

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We studied our enemy. It was a huge game of cat and mouse. We knew their tactics. We knew their coded words, their coded letters. Kind of thrilling to be playing that game of cat and mouse. So this incompetent captain befriended a Mexican mafia member. This captain pretty much gave full control and power to the inmate to run the yard. The whole system's corrupt.

The system is corrupt from the top down. Like, I'm getting the hell out of here. Right, I'm jumping ship. that my dad was a prison guard in Southern California at the prison by our home. So, you know, he was making good money. I believe when I was nine years old is when he became a correctional officer. So, you know, he started making the good money. We started taking trips to Disneyland and Hawaii and stuff like that.

And I said, you have to be 21 years old to apply for the California Department of Corrections. Well, at 17 to 21, I'm like, you know what? I'm going to get in trouble. If I don't do something wise with my time in between 70, I'm going to get in trouble. I'm going to screw up. And just because I had that personality, you know, not a not a troublemaker, just very mischievous and like kind of rebellious. Right. So that was a goal to do to do three years in the army, get out when I was 21 and then join the California Department of Corrections. Unfortunately, there was a two year hiring freeze at that time for. meaning they were not accepting applicants they were not um so from the year 2005 to 2006 man i went into this dark dark hole of isolating substance abuse drinking um mental health was not a thing back then it wasn't spoken about it was reflected as it's being weak to even show something like that but i mean eventually the you're saying they hired you the freeze was up and you got hired.

The freeze was up. So I actually did a beer run with some of my friends during that break in time. And I got sent to jail, man. I went to our local county jail for one week. A beer run. They don't arrest you for a beer run. Beer run, man. What does that mean?

You just went and picked up some beer? No, stole the beer. Oh, okay. A beer run to me is you go to the supermarket and you pick up some beer and bring. it back this beer run beer run was uh it was three of us hanging out drinking and we ran out of alcohol and like i said man i was wild and out during this period of time and there was a driver a passenger and i was just chilling in the back seat yeah i was accomplished right i'm with them you know and uh the dude runs out of the truck goes into the 7-11 comes running back out with

the case of like an 18 pack of beer man um unfortunately or fortunately however i want to look at it. The dude jumped in the bed of the truck right in front of a CHP officer. So they immediately pulled us over. And since Brawley's a small town, they ain't got much going on. They charge us with commercial burglary for an 18 pack of beer. So I went to jail. It was like a Thursday, man. It was like a Thursday. I thought they were going to release us. That was my first time I've been to jail. I've been to jail three times in my life. All alcohol related. I don't know. I no longer drink. I have 13 years of sobriety. But, uh, this was back then. Needless to say, Friday was a holiday, Saturday, Sunday was a weekend. Monday was like a holiday, Tuesday. And then

Wednesday they freaking kicked us out, right? Uh, what are they called? Time served or whatever. But while I was in jail, but you don't get up. Right. I was going to say, you didn't, you didn't end up with a felony. No, no, no. They, it got dropped. But however, while I was in jail, there was those pay phones on the wall and I called me. my dad and he's like, hey, man, you got a letter from the California Department of Corrections to go take your, to go take your test. And he's like, I don't even think you could get in right now with what you have going on. So I was like, damn. So I hung up the phone. Like I said, I get out of jail the following day, I go to Ranch, Kukamonga, and take the examination. And I pass the

examination, the written examination. So there's just a couple months after that is when I had my background investigator, it's a sergeant for the department. And I disclosed, hey, you have, you have you disclose it if not it would be omitting yeah yeah i got i was you ever been at jail yeah so the guy's reading he's like wait a minute man it says you were here in jail a couple months ago what's up with that i'm like hey sir i could explain everything he's like please do like hey i got out of the army i went back to my old habits hanging out with the wrong crew and like i got caught you know i made a mistake he's like all right kid i believe you i'll give you a chance and thankfully he gave me a a chance man so i ended up joining the california department of corrections at the young right page of

22 in the year 2006 okay then i go to it and how how did they i was going to say how does that happen are they trained so i go to an academy i didn't realize this then there was only one academy at the time which was gault gault is in sacramental california or near there everybody goes to that academy However, I guess they were having a max influx of applicants. I guess once they lifted the freeze, they had so many that they opened up another academy in Stockton, California. Well, the academy that I went to happened to be in Stockton. That happened to be an old female prison that was no longer being used. So us, we slept in the cells.

We slept in the old female prison cells. We showered in the housing unit. We lived in the housing unit, you know, to me, it wasn't a big deal because I had just gotten out of jail, kind of used to, you know, I was kind of, and then prior to that, I was in the Army where we were sleeping on the floor, you know, the mud, the dirt, the snow. So it was not that bad of a stay for me. It was 16 weeks of learning policy and procedure of the law. Okay. And then you get an assignment? I did get an assignment that was at the same exact prison that my dad worked at.

That's Centinella State Prison. That's, he was still there. He was still there. He was a CEO. Okay. So it was kind of cool, man. And the aspect of, you know, every little kid wants to know what their dad does at work or bring your kid to work day or, hey, I wonder what my dad does. You know, you kind of look up to that father figure, literally.

And on numerous occasions, I have the opportunity to work with him. 2006, 2007 was a different time frame in the California Department of Corrections. At the time, you had the major prison organization, the prison gang, their leaders for the Mexican Mafia, the Nuestra Familia, the Aryan Brotherhood, and the Black Gorilla family, they were all in the shoe, segregated housing unit in Pelican Bay and in Corcoran. They were on lockdown. the day one hour out to a concrete yard and they had been in there for 20 years so it was a different time 20 to 30 years it was a different time frame because you had the leaders of the

gangs in a box you you had the soldiers there at the time there was 33 prisons in California the they all they all you know one hand talks to the next I don't know how it works in other states but you know they all move in unity when it comes to the gangs the gangs and uh you had you had the soldiers of their gangs you know doing riots 200 man riots 300 man riots you know and i participated as a i had to quell it with a baton with pepper spray with the grenades shooting the 40 millimeter less lethal wooden baton rounds A lot of attempted murders, a lot of attempted murders with weapons. That'll usually look like two suspects armed with good, good, homemade weapons.

Knives, man. Look like a kitchen knife. Stabbing the dog, you know what, out of another inmate. And attempting to take their life. Hey, this is Matt Cox. I'm putting out a credit course. I'm going to create this course in order to help you legally build your credit so that you can have as much borrowing capacity as is. legally possible. If you're interested in the course, go to the description box, click on the link,

put in your email address. You will be sent two letters. These are letters that I personally use to help get rid of collections on people's credit. And you will also be notified when the course comes out. And what do you guys? I mean, how does that, how does that go down? You guys, you're sitting there at your station and suddenly the, you, you know, the radio goes off. It goes down like clockwork. You know, it goes down like clockwork, man. They had it down where every shift change at one between 145 p.m. 150 p.m. 205 or 210 p.m. like clockwork on the level four gp. yard. That's the highest maximum general population yard. You would hear the you would hear the observation tower yell. Get down. Get out. The inmates are supposed to get down at that point. You know,

you scan, you look real quick and you see them right in front of the building, stabbing. Boom, boom. Two dudes on one guy just, you know, murders do happen often. especially now more and uh the crazy thing is is we're supposed to go run over there we're yelling get down they they are not going to get down let me tell you that your pepper spraying that your pepper spraying them in the face and that pepper spray hurts man we we we at the academy we have to get pepper sprayed to feel it the effects right they they're drink well first of all they're drenched in blood from the victim and all three combatants are drenched so man like the Movie carry, drenched in blood, you're pepper spraying them in the face, nothing, not even slowing down one bit.

You're hitting them with the baton, nothing, not even slowing down one bit. You throw the grenades, the grenades are like pepper spray, or pepper spray, that's powdered. You know, they vary, and they get like a powdered donut. Nah, they are going to stop when they are ready to stop, or when we pull out the mini 14. the lethal rifle chambered in 223. And sometimes they'll go all the way until they actually get shot by the observation gunner. What happens to the inmates that, you know,

they end up stabbing or killing somebody? They get recharged. Do they always get recharged? If you got a life sentence, are they recharging you? They are there recharging you, right? So like on the scene, what it looks like is a bloody mess, medical responds immediately they come from a little clinic

on the yard they bring all their little high-tech oxygen mask they start plugging holes there's holes all over the body you know collapse lungs you dudes gasping for air then we immediately handcuff everybody and everybody in the near

area with either with mechanical handcuffs like the police carry or flex cuffs you know the plastic flex cuffs zip ties start zip tying everybody Yeah. We start taking photographs of the evidence that you mentioned do they get charged again. Yeah, this is crime scene. Crime scene evidence preservation. So you got to ensure that the crime scene is good for the district attorney to pick it up. You're going to have pictures of the weapons on the floor. You have pictures of the suspects, you know, with blood on their hands and all over their body.

pictures of the victim pictures of rounds that have made been fired by the gunners so all this is documentation man there's a whole method behind the madness and then yeah at the local level you know because I eventually ended up promoting all the way up to the rank of lieutenant

so I was a correctional officer a correctional sergeant and a correctional lieutenant at the end of my career every little position has their own every position has their own duties and as a lieutenant you're going to place them in the administrative segregation ad seg the whole the whole you know isolation so that requires you to type up a asu placement notice stating hey such and such inmate blank on this day you were observed

in conjunction with inmate so and so attempting to murder inmate so and so you are now being placed in the administrative segregation unit and that's you know that's part of their right They got to know why they're being isolated. So, I mean, once they're, like, locked up and everything, do you ever find out why these things happened? Or they just basically, I ain't telling you nothing. No, but you don't know. You just know these two guys jumped on the guy. Do you guys ever do, like, an investigation where somebody eventually they find out, like, do other inmates come forward and say, listen, this is what it was about?

That guy took the other guy's tennis shoes. All of the above, man. All of the above. Every scenario you just played it out. And I told you the times I've changed now from 2024 to the year 2006. 2006 was more gear oriented towards crime fighting, fighting crime, cops and robbers, good guys and bad guys, so to say. We studied, we studied our enemy, so to say, right?

We observed them. It was a huge game of cat and mouse. We knew their tactics. We knew their coded words or coded letters. It's kind of thrilling and thrilling to be. playing that game of cat and mouse so we were the majority of the time ahead of the game okay there was times where we would know hey that dude right there is going to get stabbed right and and it varies it varies you can go up to that inmate or have him escorted to the sergeant's office and say hey man

we have information that you were possibly going to be the victim of a stabbing you have to understand their mentality is like, no, no, I'm good. I'm good. Because they, in their head, they think they're good. You're not good. You owe somebody $300 and two bags and potato chips. And they're going to stab you in the next two or three days. Facts.

So we would make them sign chronos, like a form saying, hey, you stated you don't have any safety or enemy concerns, right? We interviewed you to cover our own ass. And then they go back out to the yard and then they get fucking brutal. stabbed. In Coleman, they called it a strong man agreement. I'm sure it's got a code, but the guys, they were like, well, you know, we have to say, saying, we let you know, and you're saying no, you're good.

I can handle whatever that comes in my way. And it's like I'm a strong man. I'm going back out. Oh, boy. We call them marriage chronos. They're not going to walk. Yeah, we call them marriage chronos or same thing, same chronos stating that, hey, you think you're good.

And you're good. Um, so that's why if somebody that doesn't understand how the prison system works is to be like, well, if you know he's going to get stabbed, why can't you prevent it? You cannot prevent what's going to happen. Um, so. It's life. If the FBI comes in and says, look, we got we, we think that somebody's going to blow you up. Like, or we think someone, these guys are, we are overheard and you're like, what do you? I'm not, they can't arrest you. They can't force you to go into witness protection and move you. It's like. Yeah. Yeah. For us to put an inmate in. isolation that would be seen as like retaliation or he can sue us now there are times where the validity validity validity of the information or there's numerous sources of course we're going to act because hey man we are no we're not giving you the option you literally have safety concerns you just don't know it yet um right so do do do inmates i mean i already know this in federal prison but do the inmates ever come and say look man i need to check in i got some issues 24 man 24 yeah changed the game had the game has changed you know at one point i told you that

the criminal gang leaders were locked up in 2014 they let them out they let them out man and let me tell you it's been a doozy i left i left it's out it's gotten out of control out of control where it's extremely unsafe more so unsafe than your regular regular average prison violence. That's easy. It's, you know, I won't dive into that how dangerous has gotten. But as a sergeant, when I was a sergeant, the inmates would come up to me and say, hey, Sarge, I got to talk to you. And I would be like, when they say that, I got to talk to you. I already knew they were going to request protective custody, PC up. But the crazy thing is that they were already on a PC yard. They were already on a sensitive needs yard. So you have inmates that are PC

up from a PC yard and the reason for that was they were accumulating drug debts and that they could not pay. So, you know, they got scantless. They got scantless towards. I ended up, I did eight years at one prison that was straight gang members, which made sense. Then I did another eight years, which was more like a psych ward, which to me did not make sense and there was no structure. And that's when you had a lot of the dudes ringing up drug debts, just doing scat, robbing people, you know, just scantless stuff. And yeah, hey, I can't be here, Sarge. Yeah. Yeah, it's a little city. Yeah. It's a little city. Um, um, I, so do, do you, did you guys have inmates that routinely gave you information on what

was going on? So here's what I appreciated as a staff member. I appreciated somebody giving me the heads up in an incognito way. Right. Like saying a little something like, hey, man, the yard's kind of hot today. You know, your ears perk up and they meant to tell you something. Like, cool, man. All right. You just give them a nod. Or, man, you might not want to come to work tomorrow. Cool, right? Just little subtle, little subtle things, right? What I did not like, I mean, a lot of the inmates are manipulative. Okay, manipulative. It's a con. It's a con game. what i did not like especially as a supervisor was inmates coming up to me and telling me

hey i got some information for you i need you to do me a favor i'm like hey get the fuck out of here right because they just approach me with some type of tip for tat some type of weird you know what do you call that like um yeah that's it yeah you're like like you're negotiating or something like i i'll do something for you if you do something for me and i would tell them straight up get out of here man straight up get out of here i don't need your information i already know what's going on right and so that's what i didn't appreciate them trying to game me especially so that with me that late in the game i felt i took that as a sign of disrespect but let me tell you something let me add something to that it's kind of funny because even on a general population yard gp

if an inmate is selling drugs on the yard and he has good business right he's he's making good money and they're selling drugs or cell phone. You know who's going to tell on him? His competition, right? His competition is going to drop a kite. They're going to write on a, on a letter. They're going to write on a form, a prison form, they're not going to know who it's, it's going to be anonymous.

They're going to drop it in the medical box. We're going to find it. And it's going to say inmate so-and-so and inmate so-and-so, building five cell 237, they have drugs and weapons and cell phones. And I heard them talking about wanting to stab an office. So we, as a sergeant, as a lieutenant, we get the officers and we say, let's go to this building. Let's go hit this house. Let's go search his cell.

And, yeah, when we hit the jackpot, we find dope, drugs, cell phones, weapons. And we ask them, were you planning on hitting a cop? They're like, no. You know, you could kind of tell when somebody's lying and somebody's not. Because the truth of the matter, if they wanted to hit a cop, they're going to hit a cop, period. There's nothing stopping them. Right. So, so typically that's like his competition or somebody, maybe the guy owes him money or he owes, you know, I owe this guy's money, man, got to get rid of him.

So we put him in handcuffs and we send them to the administration, we send them to the hole. Guess what? Your competition just got removed. You just removed your competition. Now you can sprout up your business. So that's how information, uh, uh, the different races. So how California gets down, the inmates racially segregate themselves. And I know a lot of other states have a hard time believing this or understanding it, but it makes sense, man.

It's for a greater safety purpose. All the whites hang out in a certain area, all the Mexicans hang out in a certain area, the blacks hang out in certain tables, areas, and then the others. The others consist of any other buddy else as not any of those other races I just named. And again, dating back to 2006, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, those race riots were off the hook, man. Though they were race riots, the Mexican people inmate population versus the whole entire black inmate population. Sometimes kites would get dropped on other races to slam their opposition, you know, lock them down. So they can have more time to access weapons. metal dope cell phones um okay all right so i mean you at some point you you kind of you become a

lieutenant i mean you're not still in the you know as a regular ceo you're like in the units right you're shaking shaking down cells you're just you know hanging out really just making sure that some your presence is there in case something goes wrong you do You do the walkthrough. So, you know, and then you guys count, obviously, you know, multiple times a day. You know, we stand up and, you know. And then so, but at some point you become a lieutenant. Like, what changes, like, you're not in the cell, you're not, you're not hanging out in the unit anymore.

I got to say something about you count the inmates and they stand up. So when I went from my, what I call the good prison, where I did my first eight years of the correctional, officer and then I went to that other prison that's when I got a promotion at the other one which was closer to my home in San Diego Donovan and a crazy story is that there was an inmate that was dead for three days in his cell dead decomposed rigamortes the whole nine and they managed to count that inmate for three days um so what I mean the Did the guard just not care that he wasn't standing up? That's a weird thing.

You know, that's the weird thing. It's like we, I don't, I can't even fathom that. Aside from the guard, you know, allegedly not counting the inmate or claiming that he was standing. Claiming that he was standing during the counts, you know, medical staff got in trouble because they were logging in their in their logbook that the inmate got up every day and took his medication at the window. Yeah. No, I don't, yeah, I was going to say. So that was a big fiasco, man. So me as a sergeant at that time, before I was like, well, this place is wild.

Wow. This place is weird, man. I don't know how this can possibly happen. That's a true story, man. My friends responded to the incident. They said when they opened the doors to that housing unit, that the smell hit them outside on the yard and that they never smelled nothing like that before, man. that the coroner, the San Diego Sheriff's Coroner came, looked at the body and said, oh, you need to call the homicide detectives right now, right now.

So he had a cellmate. The cellmate was living with that dead body in that cell for three days, didn't alert nobody. The officers in the building thought it was sewer or sewage backed up that was smelling. And come to find out that the inmate's cellmate. mate was in there for murdering his own dad and living with the dead body for like two weeks or something before the police finally came and found him wrapped up in the sheet but that didn't that didn't that he never got charged for a murder he didn't so I just thought

that was for the murder of his cellmate yeah did anybody get charged for it so what but it was murder they just deemed as a dude died of natural causes and was just dead in the cell for three days the officer got in trouble didn't not get fired but got in trouble you know When you get in trouble, you get a good chunk of your paycheck taken away for a long period of time. Okay. So that was that count, that was that dead inmate story that you made me think of right now. That caused a lot of, that caused a lot of throughout the department, a lot of training. Next thing you know, you had captains, associate wardens, standing in the house units, ensuring that the officers were, in fact, going around counting each cell.

And then at another prison in California I don't know if you heard about the inmate Jaime Osuna He chopped off his cellmate's head His head he chopped it off throughout the night He put a sheet I don't want to put it in no hand signals right now Because it'll pop up a little thumbs up But he put a sheet up on the window

So the officers couldn't see in all night long Well when they finally realized something was wrong That whole entire cell I mean I've seen the pictures That whole entire cell with red with blood the head was not on the inmate's body the body is sitting down in a seated position the head is on the bunk behind them you can see it right next to him the inmate cut the guts open and strung the guts through the light fixture um he chopped off his fingers made a necklace out of his body parts

and then there was pieces of the in the victim's body in a sandwich and there was like bite marks out of sandwich so that that's a true story um yeah and this is you know fast forward all kind of weird stuff starts happening in the californ department corrections um so as a lieutenant the role the role is ideally you sit behind a desk you sit behind a computer like this you get a good cup of coffee you sit there and you wait you wait till something happens um and in the meantime, you're doing, you know, inmates receive write-ups, rules-violation reports. We used to call them 1-15s for

having inmate manufactured pruno, wine, alcohol. They'll give a tattoo paraphernalia. The stabbings we talked about. Murder. So it is the job of the lieutenant to adjudicate the rules violation report. So basically you're like a judge in the hearing.

You go based on the preponderance of the evidence. You bring in the inmate as a, get his testimony, and then he'll make plea, then you interview the reporting employee, the officer, whoever wrote up the and then based on the preponderance of evidence that 51% is more likely than not, that's when you make your determination whether he's guilty or not guilty. That's one of the duties of a lieutenant.

I was a fair shoot. I was a straight shooter, man. I was a fair dude. Like, hey, I'll sit down, man, talk to me. And again, I have a real clean sense for people who are lying or not. You kind of get used to it after a while. So do you also determine how long they're going to stay in the shoe, what the punishment is? You do.

As a lieutenant, you get to add more time to their sentence during those adjudications. You get to take away their privileges. You can take away their yard privileges, so they're not allowed to go out to the yard for 90 days or even more. Or 9099. It's been a minute, man. I've been away for a year. So you can take away their day room. privileges so they can't come out and sit on the tables inside of the building you could take away

depending on what their infraction is if it had to do with visitations you know their family comes and visits or the girlfriend their wife uh you could take away their visiting rights um so i have a question they used to take away the TVs where in the cell or in the day room no no there's no tvs in the cell brother in California in the federal The federal system, no, they got TV rooms. So you have like a hundred guys or you've got maybe 75, you know, there's multiple TV rooms because like you said, of races, the different races. So you would have like the white guys TV room. They called the Cracker Box.

And they would have like a little TV. And you could probably fit, let's say five, five, you could probably fit 20 guys in there. And then they'd have a Spanish TV room. And then they had the big TV room, which was really like the black TV room. But the black guys had like three TVs and the Spanish guys also had a TV. So they really had two rooms. And, you know, we're talking about like a hundred guys in that room sitting in their chairs watching TV. There's no, nothing in the in the cells.

And but yeah, they would always say, you know, that's it. We're closing the TV rooms for a week and they lock the doors. It never lasted long because without those TVs, the inmates are such problems. That goes without saying. that's like like now they're in the right it's a babysitter we used to say they're right we're getting it back in two days trust me I never heard of that I never heard of the TV rooms and I never when you said take away their TVs just as a common sense perspective I'd be like well I would never take away something that occupies them and you know

so so they don't cause havoc or do other you know crazy stuff you always hear people like oh they shouldn't even have TVs I like listen bro you better hire more officers bro So my whole thing since back then, I always said, give the inmates marijuana and give them X-boxes. Give it to them. Because they're going to be in their cells high and playing video game. We're not going to have to be fighting them outside or they're going to be fighting each other. That's the truth. Yeah.

So what ends up happening? I mean, you become a lieutenant. And at some point, you kind of just get disenfranchised. franchise as far with the uh you know you know upset and like this is not working out or like what went wrong what so uh yes or is it a series of events over a period of time right um you guys anybody who's not from california and is an observer looking from the outside in will probably think what the hell that state has gone to hell in a handbasket that's you know home of the fruit and nuts that place is you know and then i can see their perspective right but we're not all we're not all

like that here, man. Some of us have some common decency, some morals, integrity, and some values. So we're not all in agreeance with what has transpired. We just became victims of the system. You know, and I've gotten a grander view and perspective. I'm not a conspiracy theorist because I've experienced combat. I've experienced the California Department of Corrections. You know, I've seen, I've seen it with my own eyes. When we got tri-wracked, there was no weapons of mass instructions. So in essence, man, I was a good soldier. I was a good pun. I did as I was told every time without questions or without delay. I did that for the time in my military, for my time in the eight years of the correctional officer. I promote a sergeant. I still had that mindset,

wanting to do the right thing. It wasn't necessarily a crime fighter, man. I wasn't going to go in and make the inmates days. That was not my style. To screw with the inmates or it was definitely. It was definitely a game of give and take right definitely a game of spirit of the law hey man i know you guys are doing this as long as you're not making a big scene or drawing negative attention to yourselves or to us do what you do on the download you know um then you know the politics agendas uh i've never seen so many people sell their own soul as i have in the california department corrections i've never and I'm talking about staff members in green. We wear green and the inmates were blue.

I've never seen so much or sabotaging. It utterly disgusted me, man, because I was raised right in the military by great leaders. Leaders that would eventually get killed in action in Iraq. So they left a huge impression on me, how to conduct myself as a man and a professional. I just started seeing the higher-ups violate policy, violate the book, policy and procedure, the law.

And as a result, what they were doing was jeopardizing the safety of us, staff members, and the inmates, too. So again, like I said, I'm a straight shooter, man. If something's wrong, I'm going to say, that's wrong. Not only are you violating policy, but morally and ethically, that is wrong. you could just imagine or I don't know if you know what it's like to be in an organization where you're going against the grain is not it is not right it is not pleasant man it is not pleasant you're definitely going to feel it they're going to retaliate against you they're going to harass you which is also illegal right so it's a system it's a system um but still I don't think I'm

invincible I don't think I'm invincible but I also have two feet to stand on when I feel that I'm when it's right. Right. A few years of that, man, a horrible administration with a warden that came through, a chief deputy warden that came through. What ended up happening was those people at the top surround themselves with yes men and yes women. They also surround themselves with idiots so they can feel like the smartest guy in the room. So basically what they have is a full pass on like everything.

There is no resistance. And I had to be cautious because that was my career. I had a daughter. In the year 2018, I had a daughter. You know, she's five years old now. A wife, a home. So it's my career, man. I can't just go, you know, kamikaze style.

I can't go kamikaze and die on a hill with no foolproof plan. Right. And at that point, it hadn't gotten that bad yet for me to even condes. consider leaving the department, man. Why would I leave something I tried so hard and aspired to accomplish, you know? I actually thought there was hope. Well, during COVID, those administrators and managers, my boss's superior, started shuffling around inmates from one cell to the next, from one building to the next, from one yard, and they just spread the whole entire, you know, and inmates would go out to the hospital and they would die out there.

They would die. We kept telling them, stop doing that. stop moving these inmates around, you're making this problem drastically worse. We were all experiencing it for the first time, but we were boots on the ground, even as a lieutenant, I'm still boots on the ground. I'm still in the yard. And of course, they would hit me where they basically, hey, shut up, or we're going to put you under investigation for insubordination. They like to use that term a lot, insubordination. But I know what insubordination is, and I wasn't insubordinate. I was just clearly voicing my professional opinion on the matter as a subject. matter expert. They weren't having none of that. Numerous inmates died at every

freaking prison because it's all ran the same from the department. But one of the straws that broke the camel's back was there was this incompetent captain. This competent captain befriended a Mexican mafia member and personally had him transferred from one of the high desert state prison, which is the most northern prison in California down to us in San Diego. Some backdoor stuff, man, we never seen nothing like this to have a captain be able to handpick an inmate and bring them down. Because they knew each other when he used to work up there. That's kind of shady. That's extremely shady. Not kind of. Well, this captain pretty much gave full control and power to the inmate to run the yard, which doesn't even sound correct, right?

Why would you give an inmate to run the yard? I mean, you got correctional staff members to do that. long story short we foresaw something bad going to happen because of the climate well it didn't take long before that mexican mafia member and his cronies stabbed two officers bad man in the mouth knocked out their teeth all over they attempted to murder these officers other inmates got involved that's part of the southern Hispanic sorenno politics that if one inmate gets involved in an altercation, every one of them is supposed to run and render aid to them. So it was like probably fricking, at the time, probably like 50 or 80, Southern or Hispanic inmates, again, probably when it kicked off, probably around four or five COs.

So 80 versus four at the jump, they took the officer's batons away. They broke the officer's face with it, crushed their face, man. I seen them at the hospital. I responded because at the time I was a public information officer. So I was a right-hand man for that horrible warden and the SWAT team commander. So I was wearing two hats, man. It was extremely stressful, those positions. Well, I get a call from the state department's spokesperson, and she says,

hey, do not make a statement to the media. And I'm like, well, that's kind of weird, right? But my plate was full. I had to transfer that Mexican mafia member to another prison immediately, along with other guys that were involved. So they covered that up, or they attempted to cover that up. They covered that up. They covered up the fact that a captain was over-familiar with a Mexican mafia member

and in turn resulted in almost two staff members' death. So that didn't sit well with me, clearly. And an associate warden didn't sit well with him either, and he wrote a letter, an email, and it's on the website. It's on the, if you Google it, Gordon sends blistering email in California Department of Corrections. You'll see it. And he basically just said in an email what I just told you. Due to the incompetence, the egotistical narcissistic management that refuses to listen to anybody, this blood is on your hands.

Well, I get a call from that same spokesperson lady from our headquarters. So our headquarters from California Department of Corrections is in Sacramento. It's based out of Sacramento, downtown. She tells me, hey, Lieutenant, I need you to type up a letter to the news, refuting, refuting that AW's allegations. I said, refuting, why would I do that? Because they didn't dawn on me yet, right?

I hadn't seen how high the corruption went. And I'm like refuting, right? So I'm sitting, pondering like, the hell? She know what she's asking? Well, five minutes later, she sent me of another email, saying hey don't worry about it the associate director up here already typed one out here it is and when i read it oh i was disgusted man it said headquarters has full support of the administration at donovan all of the allegations said by that a w are unfounded and not true and this is one day

after the event so clearly there was no investigation right so that's when i realized like man the whole system's corrupt the system is corrupt the system is corrupt up from the top down like I'm getting the hell out of here right I'm jumping ship there's no way I can't I can't I can't beat a machine a system so explain to my wife explained my dad I ran it by my dad you know I was fishing for information I threw it out there I said hey dad how much you make any retirement because he had already retired and he said all this much money a month I'm like oh because I'm thinking about retiring he's like don't do it don't do it you know how the

old school dads are they don't want you know it's such a drastic change of lifestyle yeah but i ended up asking my father-in-law my wife's father i said hey uh sir you know i'm thinking about leaving my job he's like hey man if that's gonna make you happy you know i'm back and you go for it and that's all i needed you know that's all i needed not that i needed any anything to make me make that decision but i'm like all right this dude trust me it's full trust with his daughter and with his granddaughter or like, I'm saying. I felt okay with it. One thing I forgot to mention, too, is one of the policies that they made, the administration

I'm talking about, was mixing sensitive needs yards inmates, PC inmates with general population inmates. That's a mistake. So basically mixing sex offenders, rats, informants, gang dropouts with general dropouts with general population inmates and what do you think is going to happen yeah well they'll have so people are getting they're just walking in there and just i'm on a yard they just threw me in a in a i think the only way you would think that that could be possibly be semi-safe if if you took the the gp population only a few of them at a time and put them on the pc because then maybe there's

they're so outnumbered they don't do anything but the hardcore guys are going to walk up and just start smashing people. Everybody was getting smashed every which way. Everybody was getting smashed every which way. So yeah, it was horrible. It was bad. We were feeding, you know, and again, again, it comes down to all ethics, right? Ethics. Is that ethically right? I don't think so. That's not ethically right, man. If we know they're going to kill each other and we're purposely putting them there because you're pushing an agenda coming down from the governor? No, man. you know right and on top of that they were blaming us the top of that they were blaming the lonely correction officer at the bottom of the total pole washing their own hands clean with what

was transpiring i'm like no way absolutely not this is not going to happen on my watch i was going to say i remember in maybe it was 2010 maybe 11 or 12 there was like a mandate from the bureau of prisons right the federal bureau of prisons where they said there can't be any more So inmates can't choose not to go in a cell. Like if you're a white guy, you can't say, I'm not going to sell with a black guy. You know, you can't, you can't do it. They go where they're told. Listen, that didn't last at all. Like, yeah, so it's like you, you, you only need four or five, six guys to get really, really hurt. And they're like, it doesn't make sense. Like, like nobody thinks like the inmates, it's not like the inmates were complaining. The inmates do this to themselves. They segregate. They segregate. themselves for for for the purpose of safety you know even if you're not in danger in that environment it's such a hostile um anxiety ridden environment there's so much stress you tend to gravitate toward your own kind you know even though that's probably not even popular to say right now you feel it's just the truth like you feel you're going to gravitate towards the

people that you feel you have the most common and that will look out for you so um but you know it's like the at some point the administration is like this isn't right we can't have segregation yeah but they're doing it to themselves it's not like the it's not like the it's not like the the bureau wasn't doing it the bureau is trying to undo it and they don't and then it took them whatever it only took a few months before they realize yeah we can we can't do this these guys are going to they're killing each other where people are getting hurt like you stop stop if that's what they want then right but you know how many people how many guys had to get hurt before that happened like these inmates are what they don't understand is it's like oh when

you stabbed somebody over he took your he took two books from you and then didn't return them and then ended up getting stabbed like they stabbed each other over a book listen these guys can't sue you don't have anything you know have anything that's it other than books and pride right so right and that's it so it becomes so overly important like the idea that you would stab someone over a small debt or he owes me two bags of potato chips and a and a six pack of Pepsi like it's like that's just stupid no no listen because if he doesn't now everybody thinks I can talk from him it's it's you know but see if you're in the administration or even a regular citizen it just doesn't make sense because it doesn't make it you know to a normal person it's just like that's

insane but you've never been in that environment so you don't really know it does seem insane because bro i tell you right now you can come in my kitchen you can take a six pack of soda and two bags of potatoes and i'm gonna be like yeah you got you're good but you know why though you hit the nail on the head it's perception it's perception right and it's a predatory world victims will not survive so if somebody goes to your house and takes your chips you're good because you're not feeling the pressure that like man if i don't do something i'm gonna get punked myself and i'm the same way man you're gonna go ahead like go ahead man i got nothing actually now at this point i got nothing to prove to nobody man i'm tired

Right. Well, and you can always call the cops. I can file a lawsuit. I have so many remedies. I can, you know, whatever. There's tons of remedies, but there's only one remedy in that situation. Violence. Extreme violence. No, it's a truth. And you mentioned how much violence went on, how much people got hurt. I'm not proud to say it, but I participated in that violence. When we mixed those general population inmates and sensitive needs-yards inmates on our minimum dorm level one, that was probably like 200 inmates in each dorm and there was two dorms. Although I was a lieutenant by rank, I was still on the crisis response team, right? It's a SWAT team. So imagine that, man. We were set up hiding in the visiting room because we knew it was going to kick off. So yeah, when they escorted those inmates from R&R, which is receiving and releasing, they just got off the bus. when it kicked off, I responded with the rest of the team, and I shot one inmate,

man, one inmate like six times in the leg, starting at the ankle all the way up, boom, boom, boom, boom. And again, man, I'm older now, you know, I have experience. It wasn't the first time I used the 40 millimeter, less lethal. It's a sponge round. It's kind of like a nerve, and it comes out hard. It can kill you. I have seen the 40 millimeter kill an inmate that got struck in the head. i've seen it because of the velocity um and when that happened you would assume you would assume

the whole entire place would go on lockdown and people would go to the hole right well let me tell you what happened we zip tight everybody the management was outside we escorted well not i stayed inside the dorm they escorted the inmates out to the basketball courts they told the the inmates this. Look, we're going to cut off your flex cuffs, your plastic restraints. We're going to escort you back in the building. And we're going to keep doing this all night long until you guys get tired. And when I heard that and my friend heard that, you go, what did they just tell those guys out there and say it? I said, this is stupid, man. This is dumb. This is wrong. And they kicked it off one more time. They kicked it off one more time.

They're getting shot up. They're getting, you know. And finally, we force. them we forced their hand to live amongst it that that's all bad bro that's all wrong um it's a miracle nobody got killed yeah because it's i was gonna say so what you forced them to two weeks later it could pop off again like you're not gonna be able to be there to maintain that peace all and that's what was happening the guards are just so they're just so out and that's what was happening people don't realize yeah and to me man that to me that's not honorable right i don't feel like i got a notch on my belt or didn't anything honorable like that's that to me that's not cool, man. So you asked me, what did it take? It took numerous, numerous experiences like that.

And one day, December 1st, 2022, I didn't even pick that day, man. I didn't even, I just walked in and my coworkers started talking to me. I didn't like the way the conversation was going. And I said, you know what, today's a day. I'm out of here. I typed up my letter of resignation. I walked up right up to the warden. The warden happened to be outside the building I was in. And I said, here, sir, I actually knew the warden because he used to be my sergeant at the other prison. And now he had just gotten a new promotion as a warden at the other prison I was at. He didn't try to stop me. He didn't try to say, hey, what can we do? Is everything okay? He just looked. He said, all right, man, good luck. Shook my hand. And this is after I gave 16 years to the state, you know. I didn't

I didn't want to go out like this, but at least I went out on my own terms. I walked out the front door with my head up high, my shoulder's back. I was not under an investigation. Turned in my ID, came home and told my wife, I quit my job. She said, you did what? I said, I told you I was going to quit my job. She's like, yeah, but you didn't say today. I'm like, hey, I can't, you know, when it's time to pull the trigger, I can't call it.

And December 1st, 2020. I chose my mental health, my family over a paycheck, over a corrupt department. And since then, you know, I've been, I started my own YouTube channel and I've just been, I've been singing like a canary if you ask me, man, but I've just been, you know, giving my experiences throughout the years. So I have a question. Are you guys a union? So the union is in base.

with the department. The union is in bed with the governor. And I'll be at, you know, whatever rank you're at, whatever position you're at, from my experience, you're only limited to what you see in that rank, what's in front of you, right? The higher I climbed up the ranks, I got exposed to more. When I made lieutenant, I got exposed to a lot, right? Being out now for a little over a year, the union is definitely in bed with the governor definitely in bed yeah i was going to say so it's funny because you realize after talking to the officers and noticing you know listen i was there i was locked up 14 years so you're sitting there going this guy's an idiot like you're you're like how how does this guy how is this guy a lieutenant or a captain or

like he's he's he's he's nowhere sharp enough to have this to be making these kinds of decisions and so what you end up finding out or this person's counselor this person's a unit manager what you end up finding out and this and the other the the COs would tell you this they'd say so and I'd be like you know my counselor's an idiot and they go I know I know they go well you understand you know how she got that position it's like no well she was kicked out of this prison for for this, kicked out of that. Oh, my goodness. You're such a shitty officer. They can't fire you. And he would say they can't really fire them. So what they do is they offer them another position at another prison to get rid of them. And they said, now, usually they'll say, hey, we'd like to transfer you.

And they say, no, I don't want to be transferred. They're like, um, because what they cannot turn down, what they can't turn down is a promotion. so if they say okay well we're promoting you to a counselor position and they're like and it's you know whatever it's five states away he's like they can resign or they can take the they can take the position so they have to he goes well then they get there and they're just as incompetent in that position so that last three or four years and there's the administration the lute the um captains or the wardens is so frustrated with this person they get so many complaints and they've failed so many times at different assignments they're like you know what unit manager there's unit manager

position opening up and such and such make them a unit manager listen before you know it they're a lieutenant they're a captain or they're whatever so i remember we used to always say like so for you to be a warden at a prison you've got to be almost completely in fact to be moved all the way up and it was funny we had this one um the assistant warden and as far as corruption is concerned listen to this You know, the buildings are falling apart. Okay. And so first of all, Coleman, I'll give you an example.

Coleman is surrounded by woods. And what happens is, you know, those woods, what people don't realize about woods is, woods, not only do they grow, but if you trim a tree line, within a few years, it's overgrown. It starts creeping in towards the prison again, right? Like those, the trees start spouting up again, the limbs start growing in. And they have to be trimmed. They, the, I had a buddy who worked for the, for the assistant warden. And he told me when the assistant warden got moved, she was like, look, these,

there's a bunch of stuff that hasn't been done. So she called, well, all this stuff needs to be trimmed. So she started calling the tree trimming companies in the area. These guys are like, oh, yeah, the prison, yeah, well, I'll do it as soon as you guys pay me the $23,000 you owe me from $6,000. years ago when you didn't pay me before and this is over and over like he said she had to call like three or four people before somebody said I'll do it but you have to pay wow like that check has to clear they're like oh well we need 90 days oh you better order the funds now I'll see you in 90

days it was that bad another thing was now after she'd been doing it a year or two he said she's kind of figuring out the game the buildings are falling apart so I forget which hurricane came through in I want to say 2000 maybe it was 16 or 17 I forget he said after the hurricane came through she was walking through the buildings with a camera taking photos of leaks that had been the leaks had been there for years there dry walls hanging down there's leaks that have been there for years they're taking photos of it and she's like yep she's like so this she said so this just happened, huh, to him. And he's like, no, that's been there for two or three years.

And she'd go, she'd turn around to the assistant and say, just happened. They noticed it that the morning after the storm. So they were getting FEMA funds to repair the prison. And he was like, oh, they got a couple hundred thousand dollars from FEMA to fix all of these to fix all the roofs of the prison. That's not what FEMA that like this has been here. You're supposed to have a fund to pay that. They don't.

They pissed through the money. They lie to the inmates all the time. We don't have any more microwaves. And then you have another inmate who's like, I work in the warehouse. We got 25 microwaves. We do have microwaves. So we can get you another microwave. You guys got to keep writing.

Well, they pocket the money. They emmezzled the money. And a lot of them get caught. Or they, yeah, I was going to say they, it's funny. One guy was at another prison who he was like, it's so funny because the shipments would come in. for the for the kitchen and he'd be like those four boxes go in the kitchen those two boxes go in the back of my car and the the guy running the place had opened a restaurant see what I mean and he's funding he's funding his restaurant supplying his restaurant with stuff he's ordering in the bureau of prison they

tried to get rid of that they went to like a national venue but it was still happening they you know they can't you're just not going to beat these people at their own game yeah that's their game and I wanted nothing to do with it you know even though a free man now I still worry I still worry like I don't trust him they're capable of anything yeah oh I I was gonna say I had a I've had a couple of prison guards on here I had another guy who was a he was like he was actually I mean he was a shit and this was in a jail so this was a he was a sheriff's deputy but he was also in the military he was supposed to be able to to they knew when they hired him he's I'm in the guard when they call me like I have to go for the weekend or whatever and then they would call him they go no you can't you can't get leave he goes no no I I can get leave I fed my I it supersede for anything well we don't have anybody to cover your your shift he's like well then you get somebody or you cover it you're the lieutenant you know you I have to go well you need to call somebody I'm yeah I am I'm calling you I'm not going to be here on on Saturday like you know and so eventually it happened like the he said like the third time it happened

they like wrote him up for lying to them like there was a huge investigation where he's because he was at home he said so what happened was he went he turned himself in on saturday and they were like the what the the the whatever it was has been postponed but we may still do it he's like well what do i do he said they say go home because you may be called back in a couple of hours he said okay called the next morning and said hey what's going on they said look we're you're you We still may be doing it. So stay at home. You may get a call. He said he didn't get a call. He went to work the next day. But somehow or another, they knew, like, oh, he went to work. And I think he told them.

I think he was like, yeah, you never happened. Like, they had me sitting at home the whole weekend. Or I could have, it pissed me off. I could have come here. I could have. And they were like, oh. Stop. Do you know how fast you were going?

I'm going to have to write you a ticket to my new movie, The Naked Gun. Liam Nissan. Buy your tickets now. and get a free chili dog chili dog not included the naked god tickets on sale now august first and so they wrote him up saying he never went he's like no no i did go i was on call i had to be home and didn't matter they pushed it all the way through eventually it got dropped but in the meantime they put them on unpaid leave they invest under investigation like and he said it was all because he had an issue with uh this one like lieutenant this female

lieutenant who didn't like him and this is a whole retaliation man I've never seen anything more toxic because it's like the show Game of Thrones man it's really it's cut through it's cut through right it's bad it's awful so what are you so you're doing you're doing YouTube

are you going to try I mean what about like now you've got a chunk of experience you've got military you've got working for the state in a law enforcement capacity I'm assuming that's what it would fall under I can't imagine what else it would fall under you know you've got administration like i would think you could get a job as a as a sheriff's deputy or something

although in california i'm not sure i'd want that job yet i'm definitely done working for the man bro i'm done working for the man bro i did that for 20 years you know um got the youtube going i did write a book prior to my departure of the prison system pretty much schooling all these youngsters up you know tips and tricks along the ways of how things used to be you know respect integrity uh safety pat-downs, searches, and stuff like that. Listen, my buddy who actually just got out of prison was talking about being in there during COVID, because I left literally six, about eight months before COVID. So he was telling me like almost all of the officers quit.

He said the most senior officer at Coleman was had, I think two or three years experience. He's like three years experience. he's the most senior officer out of however 40 guys that are working the you know working with 1,800 inmates there's 40 cops on duty you know including including listen that's including like medical staff the whole thing and he was like and the most senior person has maybe three years experience like after three years you're not you don't know all the tricks these guys these guys are playing five years nine six years and then things change so it's just constantly you're constantly he said like they did it a suite one time and they got like 150 phones off of his like a hundred

like when I was there I was like I bet you there wasn't five phones in the whole compound he's like oh it's listen he's like they're hiring these COs they're getting paid $32,000 a year he's like why would they bring in a phone for a grand why wouldn't they bring in you know he's like they got nothing to lose it you've been on the job a year or two like at this point if I if I get fire like what does it matter like i have nothing invested at this point now if you'd been locked if it had been 15 years and somebody said can you bring me in a cell phone no bro my pinch i got pension i'm close to you know no no no but so yeah he said let me tell you how bad it is right now man it's almost like i foresaw this happening go figure uh in the month of january which was last month

of 2024, there was four documented inmate murders, okay? One at Pleasant Valley prison, one at Centinella, one of Salinas Valley, and then high desert state prison. One inmate was attempting to murder another inmate, and the gunner shot him with the mini-14 and killed him. At Sierra Conservation Center, CSEC, it is an inmate got into the control booth where their female officer was working. There's guns up there, live, lethal guns.

nuns. And the allegation was that she was sexually assaulted over a period of five hours, right? This is all last month. Yesterday, yesterday morning, my phone was blowing up because people still contact me on the daily. At Ironwood State Prison, 100 Southern Hispanic inmates assaulted five staff members and sent them out to the hospital. Two of them got flown out in the helicopter. It is just the California Department of Corrections is on fire right now and you have incompetent managers at the top running the department to the ground and you have like you mentioned man

those young cops, those young guards officers that don't know what they got themselves into don't have the experience, the life lessons and they're getting fed to the wolves, man, they're getting destroyed by these inmates. I was going to say um when it goes bad it goes bad so fast like you think you think you're prepared for it like to like i've been saying in there just in a crowd of guys and all of a sudden the locks start flying

and you're like what what just happened i mean like you're backing up and there's and it's like everything was perfectly calm we're waiting for the gate to open there's there's a hundred guys maybe 200 guys packed into a little area waiting for the guard for the gate to pop and next thing you know and everybody kind of starts pulling back but the guy's so in so much he's so damaged by the time he actually hits the ground I remember somebody asked me one day oh you know it's funny they were asking me like oh what was the difference between the the medium and the low and I was like well I mean I always have this joke I'm like at the medium if somebody puts a candy bar a snickers bar on your pillow don't eat it I said the low you can eat it these fuckers

aren't doing nothing. But, but the thing is at the medium, there was violence was so regular that if something happened, there would be, you know, lock down, lock down. We all go in ourselves. They close the thing. We're talking about, then they come around the count. 45 minutes later, boom, they opened the doors, chow, like nothing. And this is somebody got stabbed. Now, at the low, violence was less frequent. but when it happened like you're locked down for three days yeah it's weird because it's like because i think at the low they were so they didn't know how to handle it as much even though a lot of the guards crossed over but they would keep you but then again i'll tell you right the low you don't

have cell yeah storm leaving you know yeah but these guys were so they weren't you know funny thing is when i was in the medium and they were going to transfer it to low i did everything to try and stay at the medium you know you had your own cell you could call you could close a door, not your own, you, I was out of bunky, but, or selly, but, you know, you, you, you, you, you, you got at least the ability for it to be quiet, you know, you had privacy, um, that the low you don't have any of that. Like it's, you know, from my experience, we have four levels here in California. Level one, which is your lowest, level two, level three, and level four. I preferred and a lot of people prefer, man. COs and in me's. We all prefer level four

gp the worst of the worst reason being is because they don't bullshit man they're not going to sit there and talk shit to you if they have a fucking problem with you you're going to know it and it's all about respect respect is huge on those yards man so you're going to learn real quick as a guard or seal not to pop off at the mouth at an inmate because it's going to get handled which by the way is exactly the opposite of what people think so whenever people ask you know, about the guards, I would say, oh, the guards at the low are the fucking worst. I was like, the guard and they were like, what? And I go, yeah, yeah.

At the low and the, and the camps, I said, they'll talk to you like you're a fucking dog. I said, but as it gets to the medium and the, and the pins, I was like, I was like, they're extremely respectful to the inmates. And the guys are always like, why? And I'd say, because that inmate's got a life sentence. He's got a weapon and it doesn't change much if he ends up stabbing some guard in the neck. I'm like, because he's disrespectful. I said, and you're disrespectful. Then everybody, the other inmates are like, that dude's disrespecting you. You need to handle that. And now if you don't, now you've got a problem with them. Facts. So, right. And I was just like, I was like,

but at the low or the, or at a camp, I'm like, nobody wants to leave the camp. Like, you can talk to me like any way you want, bro. I don't want to leave. I work my way down or I'm not tough enough to end up hurting somebody and go to a pen. You can't put me in a pen. No, I'm a softest cotton. So, yeah. No, yeah, level four. The structure is good, too, man. Even the inmates, the convicts, have their own codes, their own rules.

You know, one of them is don't disrespect the guards, the COs. And I appreciated that. You know what I mean? Everybody's just grown or, for the most part, and trying to do their own thing. Take it easy. Yeah, I was going to say, it's funny you mentioned, like, at the medium, they would, the tattoo guys would go to the guard, the, you know, the CEO. and say, hey, listen, bro, you know, look, I tattoo.

I'd like to be able to tattoo this guy. And the guard with the CEO would be like, listen, the lieutenant comes around at seven o'clock, okay? So I'm just saying, have your lookout. No, he's coming. Like, you don't have to worry about me. But if that, if he walks by and sees you guys, no, no, no, I got it, bro. I got it.

I got it. And they'd be like, all right, you know. So the guards were like, okay, like, oh, man, I run a table. I, this, that, that's fine. But the lieutenant's. coming by, there's any problems, you're not gonna be doing it again. No, no, there'd be no problem. That's spirit of the law.

They actually teach us at the academy, man. Spirit of the law is when you cut them breaks like that and letter of the laws when you book them by the book. So I operated off spirit of the law, man. That shit works for me. It worked for me. Everybody's style is different. I feel like it keeps the peace. Yeah.

You know, I feel like it keeps the peace, right? Like, you know, you're already in such a stressful environment. to not give these guys some way to blow off and look and I don't gamble I don't do anything like I'm harmless but some of these guys like you know bad news man so you got to give them something um because otherwise then I got to I got to hear then they've got to be in the unit screaming and holler and yelling and just like oh can't you just lay down right like you know they don't want to they want to go game or do something but okay so the YouTube. So what is it you do? What is the format of the YouTube channel?

The format is called That Prison Guard. And I started it a year ago. And I'm already up to I probably hit 26,000 subscribers already. So it kind of grew fast, man. A lot of my viewers are formally incarcerated inmates, believe it or not. Current guards, the family members of guards, the family members of inmates, because I keep it unbiased. Man, I just say, hey, this is where I was and this is how it went. And a lot of people So do you Go ahead Do you interview people Yeah I do interview people People will reach out for me through email

And it just do a similar like this And we just chop it up They tell me about your experiences A lot of people want to know about What about Right What about former COs or current COs? Okay current COs is a big no-no man

Because the department is The department hates me right now Right I'm a thorn in their side you say the least oh they fucking despise me bro right and all i'm doing is telling the truth at which i have documentation and facts bro because it would not it would be slandering or defamation of character if i didn't have facts and documentation approved um listen i've got and i got a guy a former ceo that i i want to say he worked i want to say it was like eight or nine years he worked in uh reichers island you know what i'm talking about no but i've always been in

by Reeked by Reuters Island. Well, he's worked at a couple different places, but I mean, he was, I can't imagine anybody more corrupt. He's bringing in, he's bringing in drugs. He's bringing it. He's pimping out other female correctional officers. Oh, it's in, if you, if you, he's bringing in alcohol, like, you know, he's like, yeah, you know, 500 bucks.

I'll bring in, you know, a little bottle of alcohol. You can have some alcohol for your birthday. like he's like a meet and he was just blatant um and he talks about listen he at matter of fact his book was his story well he wrote a book was option by will smith for like three or four years they kept reop reoptioning it but will smith they dropped the project after will smith started slapping slapping people um but listen he'll do your thing you'd get you know you get a kick out of it and the guy's totally open about it he's like oh i would do this i would do that one time this happened one time that happened it's like you as an inmate i i'm like in shock

but as a ceo you'd be like how did you get around it and now he was doing it too by the way he was like there weren't cameras everywhere at that point is when he was doing it and he'll tell you the years and everything's like they hadn't installed all the cameras yeah so he's like i could go pick up an inmate walk him over into areas where he shouldn't be um and uh and me go into a uh he'll He's like, go into a storage closet and meet a female CO in that. Damn, hell no. Yeah, I definitely didn't like dirty corrupt COs because it became extremely dangerous for the good guys, right? Quote, a lot of my friends.

I know, but you're perfect for your channel, bro. Let me give you his name. Yeah, you can shoot me in the email. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I've yet to interview a dirty corrupt CEO, man. You know what I mean? I've seen a lot of my friends get beat up as a result of dirty CO. look i got another um i have another in another guy who was a um uh he was a CEO listen he has had a

very well he that they call him the stoned sailor a stone sailor i've heard that name before yeah he's um and what happened was he got staff infection while on the job and it got into his and like ate away at his spinal cord or something and they had to go in and clean him out and everything they told me never walk again and um but same thing like he was in the military uh he he then became a co he was a ceo for x amount of time he's got an interesting story he got one of those stories you'll you'll tear up and cry at the very end like he's it's a good story um so uh yeah but I've got his information, too. So I've got some, I got another CEO. I told you the one that they did the retaliation. I got like three CEOs, bro, that I could get in a number. Yeah, send me, send them my way.

Yeah, they'd be interesting, um, conversation. Sure. So yeah, I talk about, I do interviews with former inmates, no, no current COs, man. They will get retaliated. They'll get shit can from the job, bro. If I were to do, you know, current, I believe I did one or two or three previous former. employees um and you know it's therapeutic for people you know they get they get you hear the changes man there was a lot of convicts that actually did regular normal time in the 80s the 90s

and the the California Department of Corrections right now is unrecognizable man uh it's on it's out of control so yeah they love to hear the truth man I'm the only one speaking the truth because I don't know if you realize or not, but certain law enforcement agencies like to paint their own narrative and everything's all, no, I'm not going to sit here and listen to you, that everything's perfect, everything's sunshines and rainbows, everybody's getting along. Let me tell you, that's not the case. I'm just showing the other side of the coin, man. Yeah. Yeah, I also have a, I did it. I have the information for a former of he was a former sheriff and he was hooked on oxes and he got indicted and went to prison i seen that episode yeah man i would be interested in chopping it up with that dude

yeah i did see it from time to time i watch you know a little bit of youtube myself and i and i find those into stories interesting you'll say yeah i mean not that i think you're you're hurting for guests like i don't know how many people are reaching out but those are all really interesting This is 2024, man. Like I said, this is my second year doing it, so I just can continue grinding. Yeah. And I was going to say, and I think you'll have a more educated perspective of their story than I do because I don't understand the intricacies of the job the way you would understand. So I don't really know what to say or ask or say, you know, do you know what I'm saying?

Like to me, I'm sitting in a cell that they walk by. I don't know what's going on the other side. I don't know the arguments or what it took to become a CEO. What's funny, you mentioned that because since I've been out and doing the YouTube, everybody, like the former image, are like, oh, man, it's crazy to hear how you guys think what you guys do behind, you know, the, behind the closed doors. And I'm like, yeah, you know, this is how it is. Um, yeah.

Okay, well, I'll shoot you all those guys' information. Um, and I'll put the link in the description box. for your channel. Is that cool? Yeah, appreciate that. Anything? Okay. You feel good?

You want to wrap it up? Yeah, I'm just, you know, my YouTube channel, that prison guard, and then I wrote that book, Operation Yard Recall by Hector Bravo. That's on Amazon. Hey, I appreciate you guys watching the interview. If you liked it, do me a favor and subscribe to the channel. Hit the bell so you get notified of videos like this. Also, we're going to leave Hector's links for his channel and his book in the description

box. so the link will be there just click it go on over hit subscribe also do me a favor and please consider joining my patreon and hey this is matt cox and i'm i'm putting out a credit course the course is going to be designed to build to repair credit but more so also to to build credit which is where my strengths lie obviously i've you know illegally created over 50 or 60 identities through creating synthetic profiles. I've borrowed, I know, the FBI said it was around $55 million. I went to prison for 13 years for doing exactly that.

I've owned a financial institution and I've worked hand in hand with the owners of financial institutions as well as underwriters. So I know what happens and what the banks, financial institutions are looking for on the back end and I'm that's really where my strengths lie and how I'm going to create this course in order to help you legally build your credit so that you can borrow have as much borrowing capacity as is legally possible if you're interested in the course go to the description box click on the link put in your email address you will be sent two letters. One is a letter requesting information for collections on your credit.

The other one is a letter disputing those collections. These are letters that I personally use to help get rid of collections on people's credit. And you will also be notified when the course comes out. The first letter is designed to request information on any collection that shows up on your credit. Now, once you receive that information, the second letter is designed to dispute that information that has been sent to you for the collection. By using these two letters, typically you're able to get rid of any collection that is on your credit. So, listen, the first letter that you're going to get is basically that letter is designed to dispute any collection that shows up on your credit, right?

So you've got, you pull your credit, which we're going to get into, you know, you get your, you get your, you get your, we're going to explain how to kind of look at it, and determine what collections need to be removed. So you're going to take a look at that. You're going to find those collections. And then this letter is to, is set up so that you can request information from the collection company about the actual debt, outstanding debt.

What's interesting is that you'd be shocked how many of these companies can't provide much of anything. They typically, and I mean, I mean like 95% of time, they can't provide any contracts, they can't provide anything that you've signed. Typically, what they've got is they purchased or were assigned a debt from, you're you know, a hospital, a phone bill, maybe some kind of a phone, you know, a cellular company or a utility or maybe it's even a credit card company. And all they really get is your name, some very basic information that says that you owe this debt. So what happens when you go back

to them and you say, listen, this is an $1,100 debt that I don't believe I owe. And I'd like to know what information you have that proves that I owe this debt. You're not actually denying that you owe the debt. You're just saying, I don't believe that this is, I don't think you have the information. I don't really think that this may even be me. Maybe it's not me. Why do you think it's me? Now, typically, they can't send you anything.

So, of course, what you're going to do is you're going to take this letter, you're going to fill it out with the information, you're going to mail it in, you're going to get a certified, you want to get a certified, you know, return receipt. because if they don't respond, when you go to, if they never send you anything, and sometimes that happens, if you have the certified receipt, they signed for it, they just didn't respond. Okay, now they're breaking, now they're, I don't say they're breaking the law, but they're now not following procedure. So it should be very easy to get that collection taken off of your credit report. But let's say, so what you do is now you say, hey, look, I send them the letter, here's the letter I sent, they signed for it, they never respond. now you can send that to the credit bureaus. The credit bureaus now have to do an investigation, and if they can't prove that they did send you the information, then they'll take it off your credit.

And that's one way. What if they do respond? What if you send them that letter and they send you some very basic information? Typically, like I said, 95% of the time, you're going to get one or two pages that are, it's a printout. Now, so the second letter is designed for you to dispute that, which is saying one I don't see anywhere that this says that this is me that took this debt out you know this may have been a it may be a case of a stolen identity or you know uh it may be identity theft

it may be a mistake I don't see where you have my driver's license my information my my social security number my date of birth my signature I don't see where you have a contract where I signed so you'll then dispute it again using the second letter explaining all of that now they have a certain period of time. Obviously, once again, you want a certified receipt. You'll send in that receipt, or you'll, sorry, you'll, you'll receive that receipt, knowing that they received it. And if they can't then come up with any of that information, you can then go to the credit bureaus and say, listen, this is what they sent. This is what I sent them in response. This is a letter. They received the letter, and they were never able to come up with anything that said I owe

this debt. Now if those two things don't work, there is a third option and we'll get into that in the course, obviously. But a lot of times these two letters on their own will work.