Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - What's it Like to be a Kid in Prison | SURVIVING JUVENILE PRISONS

Episode Date: July 5, 2024

What's it Like to be a Kid in Prison | SURVIVING JUVENILE PRISONS

For a limited time at McDonald's, enjoy the tasty breakfast trio. Your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGrittles with a hash brown and a small iced coffee for five bucks plus tax. Available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants. Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. There's a few different type of facilities that a juvenile can go to. The first one I'm going to name is a detention center. That's a holding facility. That's where you go and you wait for a court proceeding.

The second one is a residential placement facility. For my experience, those places can be ultimately worse than some of the secure places because of the amount of freedom that these kids can have. Then there is secure placements. Then there is state secure, which is essentially a juvenile prison ran by the state. I was born in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. It was my mom, my dad, and my older brother. And we lived there for quite a while. My mom ended up getting pregnant with my younger brother, which then caused us to have to move out of that apartment.

And we ended up moving to a place, a different place in New Jersey, about 20 minutes away. Where was your dad? He was there. He was there the whole time. He's still here. Oh, okay. We moved to a different apartment complex. I guess that's when I started to realize some weird things going on. You know, my mom has bipolar disorder, you know. So what I know now to be bipolar disorder, I was just, you know, it was just odd behavior.

Right. Right. So, you know, one minute she's sleeping for weeks on end. You know, the next day she's up. Oh, I'm going back to college. I'm doing this. I'm doing that. You know, so that was kind of an unsettling environment for me. So we ended up getting kicked out of that apartment complex. My brother and some neighborhood kids flooded the bathrooms and like a recreational facility in the apartment. You know, they put a tool of paper in the urinals and flooded it. So we got kicked out. We ended up moving to a different house in New Jersey. It was like a farm-style house. It was actually a duplex. We moved there. And this is when, you know, my mom's mental health really took a toll. She, you know, she wasn't, you know, she's not the type of person to be very delusional, but it's just erratic.

You know, it's erratic behavior. It's this, it's that. You know, it's a million miles an hour. You know, she's a manic depressive, right? So she ends up getting pregnant with my heart. younger sister. We're living at this farmhouse. Um, and, you know, one morning, me and my dad and my older brother wake up and my mom, my little sister, my little brother aren't home. You know, my mom ended up, you know, the marriage was really on the nice. They ended up getting into an argument. My mom

took them to Texas to move with her sister. So that didn't last very long. You know, my dad got the kids back, whatever. But my mom ended up moving into a mental facility. She ended up, you know, needing some type of treatment. And I think she realized that for herself at a certain point. Right. Yeah. So my mom. How old were you? Dude, I'm like not even seven at this point, maybe eight, you know. So, you know, it got a little too much from my dad because my dad has to work a full-time job at the time he was a teacher and take care of four kids. So some of his family ended up intervening like, hey, you know, one kid can live here, one kid can live here. So I ended up moving with an i ended up moving in with an aunt uncle my older brother ended up moving in with a

different aunt and uncle my younger sister moved in with her grandmother and my dad ended up moving back into his parents house with my younger brother right um and this was like kind of a lonely time for me because you know here i am eight years old seven maybe and i'm living with somebody i'm comfortable with and i know and trust them but that you know they're not my immediate family right you know so it you know although i was being taken care of and they're great people it it wasn't where I wanted to be. Right. And it's just a confusing time because I'm like, you know, what's going on with mom? Why is, why is she leaving? You know, I felt bad for my dad. I felt bad for my younger siblings. And that's where I lived for about eight months, maybe closer

a year, you know. So we end up grouping back together about almost a year later. And we then moving to Pennsylvania. My dad got a new job. And we all, you know, group back up and moved to an apartment complex in Morrisville, Pennsylvania, about 15, 10 minutes. from where I'm at now. A lot of apartment complexes in my story. So we move there and at this point I'm nine, you know, I end up meeting one of my best friends that I'm still friends with today. And, you know, I have some good memories there. But that's when I remember my oldest brother getting involved with drugs. I now know that, you know, he was about 12 years old and he's taking oxy cotton and doing pills. One of the kids that live near us,

You know, this kid's mom had a stash, man. And, you know, I remember this even years later, this kid's mom just had so many of these pills, right? And I feel like that's a story that a lot of kids have, like, oh, you know, I found this bag of pills and my parents, blah, blah, blah. And I've been taking them. They don't really know what they are. They just know it makes him feel good, right? Right. So our meeting or take the wrong oxycotton, you end up dead.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah. And I remember my brother, like, like, I remember waking up one morning. He's throwing up in his room. And I'm like, dude, what's going all? and he's like oh i'm sick i'm sick i now know that he you know he took too much and he was having a bad reaction um but that's where we live for about two years um after that um we end up the apartment complex decides to not renew our lease i think you know me and my brother were running around

causing a little bit of havoc you know i i feel like this is when i morally started to adjust i'm not stealing things i'm not victimizing people at this point but i'm i'm morally fluctuating a little bit. I'm branching out into the things that I'll allow myself to do, right? Previously, when I was a younger kid, I had a very high moral compass. I was like, you know, I was a normal kid, you know. So they end up not renewing their release. Now, there's an apartment complex about two minutes down the road. We end up moving in there. I mean, how bad are you when they don't renew your lease? Yeah, yeah. Complaining to the management and they, you know, they had enough, right? So we end up moving.

into a different apartment complex called Rock Springs Apartments. It was like two minutes down the road. We're still in Morrisville, Pennsylvania at this point. And this is when everything, like, blew up, you know. Yeah, yeah. So we ended up moving in there. And I remember this is when I started to really, like, see what my brother was doing and kind of following the group of friends that he had.

You know, I'm sure it annoyed the hell out of him. My little brother following my friends everywhere, right? But I thought they were cool, you know, they're smoking. They're smoking cigarettes. They're doing drugs. And I'm 11 years old at this point. And I'm kind of like attached to this group. And I, you know, one of the first things I really enjoyed doing was, oh, okay, we'll go into Trenton, New Jersey, which is, you know, five, ten minutes from where we're at, you know, car rides.

So we're walking up there. And we're, you know, we're exploring these abandoned buildings. And that was like the first kind of thing that I would do that was adventurous and out, you know. So we're doing that. And I remember at this point, you know, I have drugs around me, but I'm not participating in the drugs. I still, I think, held myself at a higher standard. I'm not putting anything in my body. I'm not doing that, right?

Either way, I end up, you know, it becomes so normal to me that I end up going, you know, why are these kids smoking? What's to it? You know, and I feel like that curiosity just came out of me. Right. One night we're standing in a circle. I mean, these dudes, you know, I'm 11, and they're 15, 16, some, you know, into their 20s even, right? You know, a neighborhood group of kids, right? and they're smoking this blunt, and I looked to the dude who's, who's, who it was, I'm like, hey, man, you think I could, I could smoke with you guys. And he looks to my brother. He's like, you want to let your, your brother smoke. And I think he's like, yeah, if he wants to do that, that's on him, right? So I end up, I end up smoking. And I remember really enjoying it. You know, I remember it being like, like, it's like you just found something new, you know, and it's like, oh my God, where has this been at all my life? Um, and, and,

And that's, that kind of sparked it. You know, now I'm smoking. And then the thieversy starts. You know, at first it's small. It's, hey, man, I'm hungry. We have no money. What do you guys want to do? Oh, let's go to the grocery store up the street and steal a hoagie and some,

some soda, some energy drinks, right? Right. But it starts to go into a way of how can we, you know, get money from this, right? How can we come up, right? So one of the first things I ended up doing is we go to a local mall, four or five guys bring a big back. pack and we're going to the JCPenney and we're putting four shoes in each bag right so you know we're leaving with 10 pairs of shoes 12 pairs of shoes right I don't know how they didn't catch us man

but we'd walk out and go to this clothing store nearby and we just resell the shoes and these shoes are 70 dollars we're selling them 12 apiece right so we're getting no money back um around this time something happened um you know we would just do a lot of dumb stuff you know we weren't putting guns in people's faces, we weren't doing anything like that, but we were causing havoc to the neighborhood. It's like May at this point, and in Pennsylvania fireworks, they're illegal. So you could buy them from a lot of stores, right?

So the grocery store near where we lived had a fireworks section. It's one night, I'm hanging out, and I'm like, oh man, you know, I'm about to go home. I'm 11, you know, my birthday's about to come in a few months. I'm about to be 12. So I'm like, oh, man, I'm about to go home. I'm tired. It's like 10.30. You know, Carter, bro, let's steal some fireworks and put them on people's doorsteps. Let's do it. You know, I don't know. I guess it's how it went. So we're on these stolen

bikes. He ends up convincing me. We go up to this store and we put a bunch of these fireworks in our waistband. You know, they're not super big fireworks, but they're about that thick, you know. So we end up stealing these fireworks. We go back to the group of people we were hanging out with that night and we start traversing the neighborhood there's a residential community across the apartment complex that we start going into and we're putting these fireworks on people's doorsteps and lighting them now i want to state that that this is an absurd thing to do and it's not only is it immoral but it's putting innocent people's lives and their possessions in in danger okay did you ever see the butterfly effect i didn't is it no is that a movie

Yeah, it's, I want to say, uh, God, Ashton Kutcher or whatever his name is, is in it. And it's, it's like he's able to go back in time and alter things. But the key event in his life is that they put like, I don't know what it was half a like an M80 or something. I don't know what it was in a mailbox. Yeah. And this woman goes out. So while they're waiting for the mailbox to explode, this woman walks out of her house to go check the mailbox. Right. And so when she gets up. to the mailbox, it explodes, like, kills her or her kid, like she's holding a baby or so. I forget exactly what happened, but he basically just, it kills him, like it kills her or puts your, it does some major damage. So he's constantly trying to go back in time to kind of alter these events. One time he runs up and yanks up, pushes her back and yanks open the mailbox to try and stop it and explode and he loses both his arms. You know, one time, like it's, there's just all these, he just can't seem to stop these events. But yeah, it was, it was innocent. They were just, a bunch of kids just he he he and not realizing how dangerous what they were doing was that's the thing man

you know a lot of us were kids but you know we're doing this with with this dude he was he was 22 23 at the time well if he's 22 23 and he's hanging out with a bunch of 16 year olds he's a loser he was an absolute loser yeah you can't you can't expect him to be the the voice of reason no no you can't um either way you know we're putting these fireworks on people's doorsteps and lighting them and i remember you know there's two people ahead of me and i'm walking in a group with my brother's next to me and another friend's next to me. And it's maybe 11, 1130 at this point in night. Hey, real quick, just wanted to let you guys know that we're looking for guests for the podcast. If you think you'd be a good guest, you know somebody, do me a favor. You can fill out the

form. The link is in our description box. Or you can just email me directly. Email is in the description box. So back to the video. And I looked to my brother, I'm like, yo, we got to get him to sleep over. And if we come back too late, my dad's going to, he's not going to have it. He's going to get out of you're too late, right? So we're like, okay, we're going back. You know, we dab up to people in front of us and we leave to go back to my house. I remember just sitting in my room with my friend and we just start hearing these sirens. And you know, like, when you're at home, you just start hearing all these sirens, like, oh, something's going on, right? That's, that's what's happening, but it's not registering in our mind that something's really wrong. We just think,

oh, these cops are trying to catch us and we're inside, you know, I'm in my house. They're not finding me, right? Either way, what ended up happening was the group of people that kept on going and kept doing this ended up throwing the fireworks into somebody's garage port um there was one person at home it was a woman and her dog they both got out alive um but the house completely burned down i mean it the fire was so hot that the next door neighbor's house um the siding of it melted so this is a hot fire and this this easily could have killed a family um this this was bad I remember waking up the next morning, and, you know, we go back outside to the spot we always used to hang out at.

And I remember I'm getting these text messages on my phone from, like, friends and people I know, they're like, yo, you guys burnt down a house last night. And we're like, what are you talking about? Because in my mind, all we did is put these fireups in people's doorsteps. I didn't think that that could happen, right? So I'm naive, and I don't understand my footprint in the world. I don't understand that the things that I do have a real thing. impact on everybody right so um i remember getting these text messages like what's going on right

anyway we end up you know we're going to the store or we're walking somewhere and we just get bombarded by police it's seven or eight of us we get bombarded by police you know seven eight squad cars you know sit on the ground blah blah blah they're like yo you guys burnt down a house last night these cops to us mind you i'm 11 years old i'm like what are you talking about they end up searching one of the dudes' bags and finding a firework in his bag, a singular firework in his bag. They end up catching one of the dudes with some whey on him.

They take him down to the precinct. They call up my dad like, hey, you know, your son needs to be picked up. Pick me, and my brother was with me. You know, you've got to pick your sons up. My dad comes and picks us up. We go back to the apartment. And I remember the cops talking to my dad, like, you know your son's being investigated for burning

down someone's house, right? And I think it was a little bit too much for my dad. Because my older brothers, you know, this is the time when he's getting on probation. He's starting to get in trouble. And I think it's just a little bit too much. So he doesn't really register it. Like, I wasn't really registering it. Either way, it's like a Sunday at this point. I end up going to school the next day. I'm in fifth grade. I go to school the next day and kids are stopping me in the hallways and in class and going, Carter, you burnt down a house last night. And at this point, I'm like utterly confused, Matt. Like, I'm like,

I didn't burn down a house, right? Like, I'm not, I'm not registering what's going on, right? I get home from school and I remember seeing the dude I mentioned he's 23 I get off my boss and I see him and his name's Abe I go yo Abe like yo what's up like come here and talk to me right and he ignores me like he acts like I'm not even there I'm like Abe what's up bro he's I end up I walk home I'm in my house we get a knock on the door two detectives okay um and you know this was my first time being involved with this you know none of his family members got in trouble so he doesn't know what to do he doesn't know that no you're not talking to my kid get the out of here he's more like the detectives at my house i guess they could talk to my kid i mean i'll be

there you know so he's like okay you talk to my kid but i need to be there right they first end up talking to me and they're sitting there and they're kind of like talking to each other playing a little game with me right they pull out these pictures the pictures are me and another kid that stealing these fireworks from the store obviously it had a security camera and you know right he shows me his picture and i'm like he's like that's you and i'm like yeah that's obviously me right he's like you know you guys just ruined somebody's lives right and destroyed all of their property and at this point like i'm just like no we didn't no we didn't and i all i tell the cop i tell the cop look i'm walking down the street me and my buddy end up leaving we go home next thing i know

I burnt down a house. I don't know what's going on. Right. I didn't know that the guy threw it in the garage. I'm blind at this point. And I'm, I'm thinking they're lying to me. I'm thinking that somebody's welcome Matt caught on fire. I'm not thinking that this person's whole house, you know, essentially exploded, right? But what ended up happening with that is the guy who threw the firework, he was 23. He was from Liberia. So he came over here when he was 15. and I think morally and culturally things were a little different with him. So I think that's why he was, oh, I'm cool with hanging out with younger people that are, you know, 15, 16, 17, I'm 2030, right? So I think he was different culturally. He ended up getting one to three years in prison for that. And we, everybody else didn't get any trouble. I think they looked at it as, okay, this older, this much older guys hanging out with these younger kids.

And, you know, the other. people who were involved in it completely completely told and said everything um but something i left out is after the detectives interviewed me they start interviewing my brother and my dad's there mind you and the detectives goes to my brother like hey uh you know your brother just told us that you did it you threw the firework you did everything and my dad looks to my brother and goes right and that's i remember my dad telling me that and now i'm understanding okay the cops lie too at this point i'm like no the cops wouldn't lie but then i remember my dad telling me like no they're you know this is when i started to understand the tactics you know the tactics of the

police and i'm you know yeah i'm learning more about the criminal system i'm learning more right either way um middle school rules around i kind of like put that whole thing behind me because it was so painful just like and i know that sounds bad like like you know it's painful to me you know but i remember just feeling so much guilt and remorse for it that it was like it was so hard for me to deal with at that age. And now, you know, in my later years, I've been able to understand more. And, you know, I still feel bad till this day about it, right?

But at that age, I didn't know how to deal with that. So sixth grade rolls around and, you know, automatically I'm fighting in school. I'm getting in trouble. I'm lashing out, you know. I was probably the worst kid to have in your class because nobody else is learning anything. I'm, you know, I'm being disruptive.

I think it was me trying to be cool and impress people because, you know, I guess I had low self esteem. I'm just trying to, you know, either way, I'm getting into fights. They kick me at a sixth grade, maybe two months into sixth grade. I get kicked out. Okay. They end up putting me around at a bunch of different alternative schools, you know. I go to this one alternative school. I'm like, fuck this. I'm not going no more. They put me in another one. I'm like, this. I'm not going no more. It's like halfway through sixth grade. And I'm like, you know what? I'm not going to school anymore. So I stopped going to sixth grade.

what does your dad say i mean you know my parents are trying to they're trying to do as much as they can but they're dealing with my brother who just got carded away to juvie for a year and a half they're dealing with my two younger siblings so i feel like a certain part i kind of fell by the wayside as in like carter doesn't want to go to school like okay he's not going to go to school but you know i got to drive 12 hours into pittsburgh to to visit you know my oldest son and then you know things are going on with you know my mom and my dad my mom ended up moving out at this time again and and yeah so I don't go to school the whole six you know the whole rest of sixth grade fast forward to seventh grade you know I remember having like an IEP meeting at the

beginning of school and I like look harder we're going to put you in this alternative school and I think you'll like it let's see how it goes so at this point I'm like okay I guess I got to go to school because I want to eventually graduate right and they're like look you're going to go to Jewie for truancy if you don't go to school. So I end up going to this alternative school. This is where I meet my co-defendant. Yeah. So, you know, I was, you know, we were some bad little kids, man. We're, you know, I meet my co-defendant immediately. I think the first time I met him, we got into a fight, you know, but then after, after, you know, a little bit, we, you know, we start to get cool. And I remember

he was like, yo, I found some in my dad's room, but I never smoked before. I'm like, oh, I'll come over with a smoke together, right? You know? So very quickly. it comes from, you know, I'm seeing this kid at school to, I'm hanging out with them every day and we're smoking one together, right? And the last group of friends kind of split up after that whole firework thing. So, you know, I need a new group of friends, right? So I'm hanging out with this dude. And very quickly it turns from, yeah, we'll smoke, you know, we're smoking a little bit to how can we get as much weed as possible, you know? So naturally, we start to commit crimes to get the, I think a big thing for a lot of juveniles is theft from,

a motor vehicle and that's that's essentially um a term car hopping right you know where you're going around at two three a m in the morning and you're trying people's door handles and you're taking like change bro like you're this isn't like high level stuff obviously this is this is the lowest of the low criminally speaking right um but we're enjoying it it's kind of fun to us at this point you know again morally i'm inept i'm not i'm not um registering that oh well the single mother that needs to start a car this morning, my dumbass left her light on and she's going to try to get her car to go to work and her battery's dead. You know, I'm not registering all that. You know, I'm just thinking, oh, I'm going to get some from this. And I'm, you know, so that ends up working for

a while, you know, but it started to get hot, man, because we're going out every night and we're running from the cops every night. The cops are closing in on us. You know, I think it, you know, at one point, we would walk around the neighborhood and we're getting followed by undercover cops. Because you know, we're walking around and like an unmarked car will just be following us, waiting to see us do something, right? So that's when we come up with this idea. There's a laundromat near the house or my buddy's house, right? And inside the laundry mat, it's a 24-hour laundry mat.

Inside the laundromat is what's called a coin pusher, okay? It's this big machine that you put a coin in and it drops on a bunch of other coins and there's some cash in there and it tries to push it off it's like oh yeah yeah it's got the little like a little rake thing that does it right yeah my kids you know are going you know we're going to the laundromat my kid needs to do some for 20 minutes i'll give him a few quarters right that's what it's right so we're like that's free money sitting in a 24 hour laundry mat tonight we're going to take the sludge hammer and smash it open that's the only logical thing to do with something like that right of course so we go in there 3 a m we didn't even put masks on or gloves on we

just, you know, hoodie string, tightening it up. We go in there at night. I'm 14. My co-defendant's 13 at this point. I remember I smashed it. I smashed it once. And it was a two panel of glass. So I smash it once. I smash it twice. Boom, an alarm starts going off. You know, whatever. I take my bag. Me and my buddy are just like taking the, you know, these quarters and putting them in the bag. And we're, you know, so we end up going back to his house. Okay. By this time, it's like 4 a.m. We got like 100. hundred dollars in cash like two hundred dollars in quarters right yeah you're gonna ask how much you get yeah yeah so we count the quarters we're having a blast dude because we're 14 we're you know

we're like oh this was the easiest thing ever we're gonna get so much tomorrow right so with the cash it's like seven eight a m we call up this weed dude yeah we got money blah blah blah blah we end up we end up getting like a half ounce of weed with this cash whatever it was right so we buy this we smoke a blunt and we're like oh we got these quarters let's go to the the grocery store nearby and cash these coins into the coin machine there it's like a you know big thing you put the coins in gives you receipt you go up to the reception actually gives you the money for it right so we smoke this blunt you know we're high now we're fried right we start walking to the store and i remember walking they like hey man you think the cops like we'll think like we're about to go to that store and we're

like no they're not that smart right you know obviously yeah so well i mean also did they did they have surveillance of you. Yes. And the cops already know who you guys are, right? They've been following you around. Yes. Yes. And that I think, and that kind of comes up later a little bit. So we go into the store, you know, I put the coin to the machine. I get the receipt. I go up to the receptionist. Now my buddy's like, oh, I got to get a soda. I'm like, bro, don't go get a soda. It's like, I'm getting a soda. He walks away to get this soda. And I, you know, I'm getting, you know, the lady has the receipt. And I'm like, hey, what's taking so long? She's like, oh, there's a problem with the machine. I'm so sorry about this. I'll get your money in a second. So now I'm

like, okay, either there's a problem with the machine or I'm about to get arrested here. So I'm like, you know, a few more minutes goes by. I'm like, okay, where's my buddy at? I go find my buddy. I'm like, yo, something's going on. We start to walk out of the store. Officer Krotz walks in. That's his name. He walks in. We try to like avoid him. Like, oh, oh, I don't see you, right? That type of thing. He grabs, you know, the back of my backpack and yanks me. back and he grabs my co-defendant yanks him back and he's you know he's walking us outside of the store and you know my co-defendant's one of the funniest people to get arrested with ever because he just has no chill like he'll say whatever to the cops he's you know we're badass kids

at this point right we're not you know so we're we're standing outside there's like five or six cops one of the cops was at my old school and he knew me so you know he doesn't like him at all he hates me right so I remember I pull out my phone because I'm like, oh, this is ridiculous. We didn't do anything, blah, blah, blah. And I start recording the police officer. So now I'm recording him, like I'm whatever. So I'm recording him.

He grabbed the phone out of my hand and smashes it on this trash can. And I kind of tense up because somebody just grabbed something out of my hand. So I like, I tense up a little bit. He's like, don't tense up, boy. And he spins me around. He puts the cuffs on me. So now it's my first time being in handcuffs. And I'm like, oh, it's getting serious now.

He's like, you never grab a police officer's hand. hands he's screaming at me he reaches into my pocket and pulls out this quarter-ounce of right he's like oh you're going to jail buddy he's like oh you're going downtown and something like that right he puts me in the squad car i'm looking over to see my buddy he reached in my buddy's pocket pulls out his cuffs him up now we're we're riding down to the station you know in separate cars right we get to the police station puts me in the holding cell separate cells for me you know each of us and you know the cops are like so what we got to doing last night and at this point we're just like you know what i was always taught to say to the cops

from now on is um at this exact moment i'm going to invoke my fifth amendment right i'm not going to be speaking anymore so that's just what i'm telling the cop right right my buddy says the same thing and not you know less kinder words right right so uh the cop ends up he's like oh we got blood because i guess i cut my hand on some glass they got blood we got fingerprints we got surveillance footage Oh, and I'm going to need your shoes because I found a shoe print. Right? Jesus. Yeah, yeah.

So this cop, you know, he takes my shoes. My dad comes and picks me up. And I'm, like, walking out of this police station barefoot, right? My dad comes and picks me up. And I just remember my dad's in the car, like, he's probably thinking, like, what the is wrong with my kid, right? You know, he got, yeah. So we end up going home.

It's COVID point. You know, it's COVID time at this point. Mom's, so it's the courts are all backed up, you know. So we're not getting these court papers for months. months you know it's not even it's not even a month later i get arrested again for for what okay so me and the same code defendant you know we got some we're walking by the high school in your house right and we look at the bus lot you know it's this you know it's it's it's you know it's it's you know a big property with a gate and 30 buses in it right we're we're like oh my god all the doors on

the buses are open so we're like all we got to do is is hop this and we could hang out smoking these buses you know so that's what we do we hop the gate we go in the bus i roll up a blunt we're smoking we're getting you know we're we're having a good time to us it's hilarious why are these people not locking the bus they're idiots you know and that's how we kind of looked at things like oh if you leave your car open it's your fault you deserve to get robbed you know you deserve being lost on and that's something that later on i do feel very more you know remorseful and i'm not i'm not proud of having that type of mindset i want to make that clear um Either way, we're in this bus.

We're smoking. We finish this blunt. And my buddies, like, at the back of the bus. Kind of, like, huddled back in the seat. I'm more, like, upright, okay? And out of nowhere, this cop rushes on the bus with this flashlight. False Township Leaves Department. What the fuck are you doing in the bus?

So I kind of hide back, and I got this in my pocket. I'm like, I'm not getting called my way again. I take the, and I put it in my waistband, okay? And I'm wearing these boxer briefs. that'll come up later. I'm one of these boxer briefs. Okay. So I remember my buddy's like in the back of the bus. I'm like, the cop hasn't even seen my buddy. He's seen me. So I get up with my hands up and I walk out. I walk out of the bus. The officer's like sit on the ground with your legs cross. Sit on the ground with my legs crossed. And he's like, so is anybody else in there with you? Like no officer.

It's just me. You're the asshole. It smashed that coin machine a month ago. I'm like, I didn't do that at all officer. So he takes me out. He cuffs me up again, puts me in the back of the squad car. about five minutes later he comes back with my buddy he goes so you're lying to me now huh and he's like why wouldn't you just tell me your buddy's in there and i look at him and i'm like well he's my friend you know and and he's like okay i can respect that right we're back at the police station okay i remember he's like okay about a fingerprint you a young cuffs me from the bench he starts to fingerprint me and he's midway through it you know and he's like he's like i smell on you and i'm like yeah i just smoked a blonde he's like no no no i've been a cop for 20 years i

smell fresh on you and i'm like yeah no you don't so at this point he's like okay i'm gonna cuff you up to the bench fingerprint your buddy then i'm searching you again right and i'm like okay that's fine with me so he starts to you know search me again and he's giving me a wedgey dude he knows where the but he can't strip search me i'm 14 right he's he's shaking my you know he's giving me a wedgy i'm like officer do you have some like weird infatu with my private area, you know, I'm trying to like make fun of him, right? But I'm not scared at this point because I'm thinking, okay, probably trespassing, a few more little charges and then this charge.

I'm thinking, okay, maybe if they find the, that's just enough for them to take me down to the detention center. So I'm thinking, okay, if that happens, it's not the biggest deal, but I'm thinking that there's an extra charge if I get called with this in the police station. And I'm sure there is. I don't know exactly. So he ends up never finding the way. the cops take me home and I get home with this and this was really bad for me because now my ego blows up you know in reality I'm just an idiot they got you know that was a school bus with some in my waistband the cop knew he was there he couldn't get it from me and I think I'm Johnny badass like oh yeah I got away from the police with this did blah blah blah that really blew my head up a little bit um so my behavior continued to not change now ninth grade is rolling around it's like this you know the summer before maybe it's like this you know the summer before maybe it's like a

August at this point. About to start ninth grade of COVID, it's still there, but like you could go into school again and stuff. And I'm 15 at this. I'm 15 at this point. I've been arrested twice in the last eight months, and my court date's coming up. Preliminary hearing, I go to court, you know, it's a huge courthouse in Bucks County. I go up to the juvenile wing. My dad's been up there a million times for my brother. Now it's my turn, whatever. I go up, see my co-defendant and his dad. You know, we're like, yo, so what are we doing? And we're like, we're not pleading guilty because we didn't do it that's what we're sticking with right and my uh my public defender brings me out in the hallway and she's like carter can i show you something i'm like yeah what's up she's like come here

and she shows me your phone and it's a video of me and him smashing it and like it's totally me and him right it's us right and i'm like sorry like you know i wish i could help you but that's it's not me she's like well this will take a long time and you're probably going to get in more trouble now I'm like, yeah, well, you know, I'm not going to, you know, plead guilty or something that I didn't do, right? Me and my co-defendant weren't going to plead guilty unless we were on the same board with it, you know? Right. So either way, I end up going into the courtroom. It's my first time in a courtroom, and I'm meeting with Judge Wade.

He was the first black judge in Bucks County. Very, you know, very nice guy, but he's serious too, and he's fair. But, you know, I'm going into court, and I'm like, I'm like sitting at the, you know, it's, me and my public defender at one table, the district attorney across, the court writers, like, to the right of me, my intake probation officer is at the front and my dad to the back and the judges appear to the left of me, or to the right of me. Okay. And I walk in, I sit down, and I'm like rubbing my head. I'm not really taking it too serious. And when you're juvenile, they already assign you an intake probation officer before you're even on probation. Because they're

like, well, if he gets on probation, we're going to have this person for him already lined up. Right. So I remember the judge, you go, stand up, young man. So I stand up. And I'm like, like, I start to argue with this judge, you know, and he's like, he's like, you're not taking this seriously, you know, blah, blah, blah. And I'm just like, Your Honor, like, I didn't do this. This is just a big joke. I'm like, you know, at this point, he could have totally, you know, held me in contempt.

But he just kicks me out. He's like, get out of my courtroom, right? I leave. um now i'm going back to court soon so another three weeks a month i go back to court me and my co-defendant are sitting there and they're like you guys can just like plead guilty and see what happens right so we're like okay what should we do so we end up pleading guilty we we come to the you know our senses and go okay we're going to plead guilty of this um they end up giving they explaining did they ever explain to you how much worse it will be if you go to trial

and lose? No, but I think they were just trying to intimidate. It's like, oh, you guys are going to go away if you don't, you know. So, but they didn't say anything specific, right? Okay. Yeah. So at this point, I'm in school and I'm getting in trouble in school. Like, I'm not doing good in school. So that got reported back to the courts. So I end up getting indefinite juvenile probation, house arrest, and something called the RRC program, which I'll explain in a minute. So indefinite probation as a juvenile, you can be held on probation. up until your 22nd birthday. Okay. So at this point, I'm 14 and or I'm 15 at this point. And I'm hearing indefinite probation. In my mind, that's, okay, so I, I'm not going to be able to go without smoking. I don't want to go to school every day and I'm not going to get grid grade. And that's what I have to do to get off probation.

I'm thinking, oh, I'm never getting off probation now, right? Right. So I'm like, oh, this sucks. So house arrest and RRC program. So that program entails, you know, five days out of the work week from four to eight p.m. after school, you're going to this program. And then on Saturday from like seven to three, you know, it's like a, you know, you're sitting in groups. You're picking up trash. It's like it really is a good thing because it's a way to keep kids in their community. Like, hey, this kid did this, but let's not send them away five hours, you know, to some facility where he's going to get worse at. Let's keep him in his community, put them on house arrest, monitor, you know, monitor them very closely, but at least they'll be home with their family right and maybe they'll learn something while they're doing it however this is a hard program to complete because you get suspended from school you get you know you smoke you're getting like four drug tests the week man right so it's just 25 that's like 25 what more than 25 hours a week

you're going to school and doing the program interesting thing for me is the program was held at the same place i go to school at so i'm waking up at 7 a.m to go to school and i don't leave school till 8 p.m. at right pretty much nine counting the drive right for it's only four days into this and I'm not having it I come to school late and the thing about being on house arrest is you can't come to school late because your bus comes at this time you get on the bus at this time you get to school at this time and your bracelet is cracking all that right so I come late to school I remember they're like oh you're late car and we're going to talk to your probation officer about this you like I'm having a bad day you know when I was younger I would have those kind of bad

days where I'm, you know, I'm not, you know, I'm going to be more quiet. You know, I don't know what it was exactly. But I go to the bathroom and I'm hitting this vape in the bathroom and this counselor walks in, Carter, I see the vape. You know, you know, this and that. I'm like, you're not getting the vape. She leaves. I take the vape. I put the vape at the bottom of my sock. Put the sock on, put the shoe on. And in this school, what they do if you get in trouble is they call a meeting. So it's all the kids in the school have to meet up with the principal. And we're going to talk about Carter's vaping. Okay, so this lady called,

she was the most passive-aggressive woman I've ever met in my life. Like, she was just terrible to talk to her, right? But she's trying to embarrass me in front of these cases that Card is on house arrest. And if he doesn't, you know, either way, I end up cursing her out, which is, she was a woman.

I never should have said the things that I did say to her, but she's like, go down to the office. So I go into the office. Now, when you're on house arrest, you're supervised not only by your regular probation officer, but two house arrest probation officers. And they're these big dude named Stephen Tony, and they wear these bulletproof vests, and this is how they hold the vest, right? It's all about intimidation.

They're like, six, five. They're like, you know, I'm like five four at this point, five, five, five. Like, I'm like, I'm 15, you know. And there, they come in here, and they've known me since I was maybe like 10 for my brother being on house arrest. So they come in there and I'm on my phone. I'm scrolling and they take the phone out of my hand. So at this point, that sets me off. Because like, you know, now I'm like, okay, these guys are trying to intimidate me.

They're taking my phone out of my hand. I don't like that. Right. So I just start to curse them out. I'm cursing at them. I'm being an asshole, right? They take me, they search me. They don't find the veep.

They're like, Carter, why are you acting like this? I'm like, because you guys just grab my phone out of my hand. I'm still on this phone thing, right? So they're like, so what do you want us to do? And I tell him, I said, do your worst. So he smiles at me. The one guy leaves the room and he looks to his partner. He kind of like winks at his partner or something, right?

Guy goes on the phone, calls up my probation officer. And I guess the conversation went like this. Like, hey, you know, Kurt is being combative at school. Can we detain him? Yeah, for sure. Go ahead, you know? So they're like, you know where you're going tonight, buddy? And I'm like, yeah.

They're like, where? I'm like, I'm going to the youth center for the first time. yeah, you're going. So they take me, put me against the wall, handcuffed me. And he's like, so where's the vape back? Because you don't want to go there with the vape. I'm like, you're right, okay. Bottom of my shoe. So he takes my shoe off, takes my sock off. And this wasn't nice, what I said, doing that. He finds a vape, and I'm like, put my sock back on, bitch. Like, you know, at this point, I'm just dragging it out as long as I can, right? Puts the sock back on my foot, puts me in the Mark Carr, you know, and we're going down to the U center for the first time.

okay i get there i walk out of he you know he grabs me brings me out um the sally port opens so for the viewers the sally port is you know one locked door can you know followed by a small room and the other door cannot open until the last door has been shut so i walk into the sally port straight ahead is another room past the other door um and i'm looking around there's a guy standing there that i know to be a man named jamie what's up jamie um and he's standing there. I don't like this guy at all. He's an asshole.

And he's on this computer, and he's typing away. And so they open the other door. I walk out, and I sit on this chair. And now Jamie has to ask me some informational questions. But he looks at my last name, and he goes, Lee. He goes, oh, I know your brother. I'm like, you know my brother. And he's like, how he's doing?

Oh, good. We're having a conversation, right? You know, he asks me a few more questions, and I get brought into a different room up to be strip searched. Okay, so at this point, I'm like, I guess this is all part of the course, you know. So this sort of goes like this, yeah. Lee, take your shoes off, hand them to me, take your socks off, shake them out, hand them to me, followed by my shirt, my pants, my underwear, followed by a strip search.

You know, I won't, you know, I'll spare you the details, I guess. So they, then I got to take a shower. So they're like, all right, Lee. there's a shower right there be quick I hop in the shower there's a little this light and foamy soap next to me and it's like this really cheap soap right and I'm in the shower and I press the button it's cold so I back up and then I get back I press it again it's a little bit warmer and shuts off again I'm like what the fuck is going on why is this shower shutting off right so I press it again I figure okay I got to press this thing every

five to ten seconds right so I take this shower very quickly I put my my Bob Barker intake top on. I put my, you know, intake pants on, and they start to walk me out in the facility. So we go through another Sally Port. I'm in the Sally Port, and I look to my right, and there's this control center. This is what controls the entire compound. So I'm looking in there, and there's, like, all these, like, computers and shit. And I'm like, oh, man, what have I done, right?

So they bring me out in the hallway. They're like, all right, well, you're going to B-Dorm. They walk me down to B-Dorm. We pass A-Dorm. I go into B dorm and I walk in and I'm kind of surprised. I'm like, okay, maybe this doesn't look as bad as I thought it would be. They walk me into B2 and I'm like, okay, you're getting cell three. They put me in cell three.

Boom, door slams behind me. Now I'm in my first jail cell. So now it's getting a little surreal. So I make my bed. There's a bunk in front of me to the right of the bunk is a window with a metal coating on it. there's a wooden desk above the wooden desk is the metal shelf then there's another shelf you can hang your towels and stuff okay so i make my i make my my mat and to walk out of the cell you you got to press a little button on the door so i press a little button i walk out in the day room

and i'm kind of just looking to my surroundings you know the dorm is it's only a 12-man dorm single cells, little day room with some chairs, TV, water fountain. That's all it is. Now, what I forgot to mention is this is not regular times for any facility. This is COVID times. So they bring me in and they're like, this is quarantine dorm. You will not leave this dorm unless for a medical purpose for two weeks. And if you get COVID, you're not leaving yourself for a month. So I'm like, Oh, I better not get COVID, right? So, either way, I'm there now. You know, I'm like, I'm trying to use the phone.

I'm trying to use the blue phone on the wall, the collect phone. They give you something called a TID number where you press the number in the phone and you could call your parents up. And it's not working. And this one day, the supervisor comes in. I don't know him to be a supervisor. And I'm on the phone. I'm trying to get it to work.

I've been talking to these staff about my phone. you know not working for days now and they're like oh we're figured out tomorrow we're figured out tomorrow i'm on this phone trying to get it to work and i slam and i slam the blue phone and the supervisor he's like six seven real tall dude but he's you know he's an asshole and he looks down him he's like boy did you just slam myself or uh did you just slam my phone i'm like yeah i just slammed your phone because i've been sitting here for four days and i haven't talked to my dad one time and he's like this is what so and what this guy likes to do is he'll put you in your room And he'll go, I'll give you five minutes.

And I'll come back in five minutes and we're going to have a talk. He comes back hours later every time. So he comes back. He talks to me. He doesn't like me. He hates me. He's like, you know, I've been hearing from other staff at this facility that you have a chip on your shoulder and you think you're different than people. So I'm like, I don't think that at all.

I just want my phone to work, you know. He's like, okay. So you're going to be in here the rest of the night now. But I'm like, cool. You know, whatever. the next day goes by it's you know it's you know we'd do school for a little bit you know they'd bring us in some worksheets and then we do that but really we're just sitting there watching TV the whole day right boring real boring um yeah and I remember I'm sitting there and the same

guy Dax walks back in and he brings me in this little room called the quiet room it has some books in there it's just a room where you could it's basically a small library he brings me in there and he sits me in this chair and he goes we got a problem like okay what is it he's like your brother just got booked in I'm like oh like at this point I'm like oh this sucks now now my brother's here my dad's probably like what the fuck with my kids are locked up this you know and he's like and I'm like okay so what dorm is you going to he's like that's the thing this is quarantine dorm by the rules your brother cannot go to a different dorm I'm like oh nice I get to I get to be with my brother now he's like

yeah well that's the thing you're not understanding if you talk to your brother if you look at your brother you're going to see dorm and you're not leaving your cell and you're going to stay in there for the rest of the time you're here and i'm like okay well you know i'm like okay well at least my brother can be in here what they end up doing is they take my chair put it against myself so it's on the side of the wall they take my brother's chair put it on the side of the wall i'm in cell three he's in cell 12 so he's all the way across the dorm it's not that far but i have to look all the way like this to see him and he could see the back of my head right and at this point you know i wore contact so i can see and i don't have glasses i don't have contact so i'm i'm not nowhere near

the tv i cannot see the tv so i'm just sitting there for like weeks not being able to see the tv my brother's in there with me it's like it's all bad right you know we were in there with some kids who they weren't giving us any problem there was really no problems that time i was there um so i end up going to court and it's all zoom court you know we're We're not getting shackled. We're not going to get in the house. So it's just Zoom, right? I'm on the Zoom court, and they're like, so Carter, we want to give you another chance on house arrest and at that program, but we don't trust you to release you right now.

So what we're going to do is we're going to put the bracelet on you, and every day you're going to stay here for 20 more days. And every day, you're going to get picked up by the program and they're going to take you there and you're going to come back at night. So I'm like, okay, that'll work. I only got to stay here 20 more days and I get to go out. And what I didn't register at that point is I'm getting strip searched every night. All right. So, you know, for about 20 days every night, I'm coming back and getting strip searched. Okay.

I end up completing that. And it was fine. You know, I complete the program. I get off house arrest. And I'm sort of like, you know, I don't want to go back there. I'm like sort of like a new outlook on life, but I'm not really there yet. I'm sort of like, it's baby steps, right? So at that point, I'm, like, not smoking for a while, but then I start smoking one again.

And they're drug testing me a few times a week. And this guy would come drug test me named Nick. And, you know, I really got good at talking at this point, like, just to be able to bullshit my way through stuff. So this guy, Nick really trusted me. And usually he would come in the bathroom and monitor you while you piss. But he'd be like, oh, Carter, I like you, man, you're good. So I would use other people's pee that were clean, right? So what I do is I take the cup, pour the clean pee in the cup, screw it on.

I would take or turn the hot water in my sink, plug the sink, sit the cup in there for about two minutes, come up and be like, oh, sorry, man, it was hard to pee. So the cup's warm. So if you grabbed it, it's not lukewarm, it's warm now. Okay? I end up doing that for a while. But then I start, a different guy starts to meet with me, a guy named Scott. who ended up becoming a probation officer and ultimately being my probation officer in the future.

So Scott's, Scott had this role where, you know, I'm not going to watch your dick while you piss, but you're going to raise one hand and, you know, pissing the cup with the other, right? There were some dudes who would watch you piss. And I mean, they're like, they're, they're looking at your dick while you're doing it, right?

So either way Scott starts doing this. So now my career is faking these drug tests are over. Scott, you know, Scott's on to it, right? Um, at this point, I'm still in ninth grade. It's like almost to the end of ninth grade. And I'm like, I just start missing a lot of school. I start missing a lot of school and I'm feeling these drug tests. And my probation officer, she's a woman named Amy Dower. And at this point, Amy's at Carter. Like, I really don't want to have to book you again. And you know if I book you again, you're not doing a month. You're going to placement. You're going away. And I'll explain placement for, uh, really quickly for the viewers. So there's a few different type of facilities that, that a juvenile can go to. The first one I'm going to name is a detention center. That's a holding facility. That's where you go and you wait for a court proceeding. The second one is a residential placement facility.

This is a place where, you know, you're not home. Sometimes these places can bring you out in the community, but it's still pretty much a correctional facility. It's just the doors aren't locked. So you get a lot of kids that are running from there. You get, you know, from my experience, those places can be ultimately worse than some of the secure places because of the amount of freedom that these kids can have.

then there is secure placements. These are, you know, almost juvenile prisons, but they're not really there yet. Then there is state secure, which is essentially a juvenile prison ran by the state. The other facilities are ran either, you know, they're privately owned or it's a non-for-profit, and the detention centers are usually ran by the county. Sometimes, you know, a not-for-profit place will open up. But attention center in their facility, I've seen that happen to. Either way, you know, I'm on probation.

know, I'm smoking weed. I'm not going to school. That's where I was at. And my probation officer, she's like, look, Carter, I'm scheduling court. And I don't know what the judge is going to do. I'm like, okay, I understand. I go to court. It's a judge named, um, Finley. Judge Finley. He's also an adult judge. So he's like, he's a Carter. Look, dude, I sense people to life in this, in this courthouse every day. He's like, he's like, you're here for some minor stuff. You can, you can go to school the next 30 days. and you won't go to Juvie again. And I'm like, yeah, I got you. Like, I'm going to school. I'm not smoking a week anymore. Obviously, I didn't do any of that, okay? I continue to smoke. I continue not to go to school.

And I'll go to school every now and then. And I remember I'm in math class, and I was in like a special math class. And I remember the teacher coming up to me. She's like, Carter. She's like, why don't you try with this? You're not stupid. Why don't you try?

And I'm like, miss. It's been three weeks, and I haven't been to school more than five days. In a week, you're not going to see me in this classroom ever again. And she started to get emotional about that. Like Carter, like, you always got to try. Like, now I gave up. I'll tell you a funny story about that math class real quick. You know, I started to get into some psychedelic drugs.

So the one day I get the bright idea to drop in school. so it's like second period right my next period's Spanish so I dropped this tab acid and I'm like I'm in the bathroom I'm hitting this vape I'm drinking my red ball I'm having a good morning and I'm starting to feel the come up of this acid right either way I walk out and I'm going to class I'm going to Spanish class and you know I definitely start to feel it right it's hitting hard and this high school is big like 2,000 kids so these kids are walking past B I'm up I go to Spanish class and I sit in the back and I'm like, bro, I'm not Spanish class.

Like, I'm hearing a different language. I'm, you know, I'm out there now. And I need to use the bathrooms. I raise my hand. Sir, you know, it's a male. Hey, can I go to the bathroom, please? He's like, yeah, but you got to say it in Spanish. Right?

So I got to say how to use the bathroom in Spanish while I'm tripping on acid and I have no idea to do it. I just walked out of the class and used the bathroom. I end up going to that math class the same day. And I don't know what I did off that in that math class. class, but the teacher said, yeah, Carter can't come back. So I end up having to do that math class in a different room on Zoom for the rest of the time I was home. Court comes around again and did, you know, I walk into court. The judge is reading off something. It's like two minutes

into this court, you know, I swear it, and whatever. Oh, yeah, detain him, detain him. So the sheriff's detained me. I get walked through the holding cell. I'm in the holding cell pretty What was he reading? What, what do you mean? Did he read something or what was why were they detaining you just because you, you weren't behaving? I wasn't in school. My drug tests were failed. So essentially he was reading a report that my probation officer. Yeah, he was like he's done. I'm done. Exactly. He didn't even give me the time of day to talk to me about anything. Right. Boom, whatever. Now I'm booked. Uh, so I'm in the paddy wagon going back there. Um, I get booked in again, strip search, everything. It's been about four months since I,

first left the facility is your brother still there no my brother was um at this time my brother went to a juvenile so i went home and my brother ended up going to a different placement called forestry camp three um he ended up going there for i think three to six months or whatever and he went home so it's a placement right it's a okay juvenile placement so at this point my brother's home i'm I'm booked in, put me back in B dorm, sell seven, I'll say, maybe sell six. Either way, this is like, it's no longer quarantine dorm, so it's full movement now. So, you know, I'm going to school there. And now I'm really starting to see certain behaviors in kids.

You know, the dorm I was in at that point wasn't bad. I was in there with this kid, Ethan, who he had conspiracy to arm robbery charges. He was a cool kid. I remember me and him. You know, we're watching Netflix. You know, they'd put on Netflix for us and stuff. And then one morning I wake up, and now there's a whole new set of kids in here. Now it's the dorm's full now.

It's full with these Philly kids. You know, I'm from Bucks County. So the Philly kids from the city hate kids like me. So he's not from Philly. He's a pussy. You know, so now you've got to kind of traverse the dorm differently. Now I'm not laughing as much. Now I'm not having fun as much.

Now I got to, you know, not put on a tough face, but now I got to. to make sure I'm not getting with right right um and I was like I'm 15 bro I'm not a tough guy like like um you know um and I remember this kid Shane that was there probably one of the most insufferable human beings I've ever met I mean this kid thought he owned anything like like like like oh that deck of cards it's my deck bro that's your deck of cards bro that's the dorms deck oh no that's mine bro I've been in placement 10 years you know and I started to meet these kids who I like to call placement hoppers right i'll explain and what they do is okay let's say you're 14 you get arrested you go to detention you get sent to a placement you start fighting in that placement you're

fighting kids you're not behaving the probation officer the uh the counselor at the placement they decide hey this kid's not going to be here much longer so they do what's called an fta a failure to adjust so they send the kid back to detention and then the judge has to decide which placement to send to next so now he's hopping from placement to placement it's been three four years this kid hasn't been home because he just keeps getting worse every place he goes right so i start to meet a lot of those kids who you know they've been gone four or five years right i've been gone three weeks bro like i'm not even like we're different people like we're not the same right um i started you know yeah uh about a month goes by and i remember going to court for the not the first time but it was the

first time that they started sending me back to real court. So I remember it's my first time actually being like chained other people going to court. And the day before, the night before they take your shoes, I don't know why they take your shoes, but they take your shoes in the morning they bring you out to the intake room. You know, the sheriffs come and they search you there, make sure you're not bringing anything to the courthouse. They link us all together. And boom, I go to court. The judge is like, okay. Okay, Carter, he's like, yeah, you're not going home and you're going to placement. They're like, we still haven't found what placement you're going to.

So the detention center I was at has three detention dorms, A, B, and C dorm, and then two other dorms that are a residential placement. So on the other side of this detention center, I could look over and I could see these other dorms. It's still the same kind of dorms living. but this is a place that you get more help here because at the detention center you're not getting any help this place you know they give you a counselor you know yeah so the other places they're just warehousing you exactly exactly so they're like okay we're thinking we're going to send you up there but we want to see how your behavior is a little better at this point i'm in detention and i meet this kid named certane this kid was a dick he's from chester county every kid i meant from chester county has been shot everyone one of them like everyone there has been shot right this kid had an interesting wound this kid wasn't shot in his arm and his leg he was shot in his dick yeah how'd that happened well i'll tell you so i remember he's talking about getting shot he's like yeah bro i might have to walk out of here in a wheelchair my you know my legs are messing up and i'm like so where were you shot bro he's like

the bullet went through my dick into my body and they had to they removed the bullet and i remember asking him like bro i don't mean to be like too personal but like do you did your dick get removed and he's like well no i have a dick but you know it's not the same right and um and then that kid got switched dorm so he got switched to i think a dorm the interesting the interesting thing about a dorm is they will house you with women so i will be sitting on on one side of the dorm and there will be girls on the other side of the dorm and you could talk to them now if you touch them or get near him you're getting a pre-a-charge you know right but it's it's an interesting dynamic when you're in there because it's like you're with these girls and it's like some of the guys now they're acting tough to you know

it's not a smart thing i don't think the the facility ever should have done that right they end up taking this kid sur tan out of beatorm and going to a dorm so i'm in b dorm now by myself without this kid then they transfer me to a dorm um and i'm there and he's just acting different he's acting tough he's trying to like he's trying to like clown people you know oh the front seat's my seat oh you know p you know he starts doing that and i remember one day i'm sitting down and he makes a joke to me and i remember like like uh like saying something back to him you know oh uh don't talk back to me you know so i remember at this point i'm like okay i i got to do something So I stand up and immediately the staff come and pull us away.

Like, these staff are good, bro. These staff know what they're doing. They come and they pull us away and take me to myself. And I remember the director of the program I was about to go to comes over and enters my cell and he's at Carter. He's like, there's going to be kids over here that are going to piss you off more than that kid ever can piss you off. So if you're up here and you fight, if you get in trouble like that, you're going to a security. secure program for 12 to 24 months. Like, you're not coming home to your 11th. You're 15. Now, you've got to understand that there's so much in this for you, you know. And I remember thinking,

like, you know, he's right, you know. So a few days later, I get moved over. They, uh, they booked me out of detention. They book me into the other place. And I'm walking over. It's just through a sally port. They walk me over. They open the door and I walk in. Now, it's a little bit of a different environment. It still looks the same. But, you know, There's like a PlayStation 2 in the back. There's a, you know, a nicer TV. And I walk in and I see this kid Jatar and a few other kids. I think the other kids that were there were at the gym or something.

So there was like, you know, 12 kids there. I meet this kid named Jatar and I sit down. And we're talking. I'm still in my intake. You know, I'm still in my detention clothes, but I got these white Air Force is on. And this kid's like, he's like, yo, I like your shoes are clean, bro, but they're a little dirty. you think I could clean him for you. So I'm like, I'm like, I'm a little skeptical, but I'm like, no.

So you clean shoes, right? And everyone else is like, yeah, he cleaned shoes. So I let this kid clean my shoes. Now, he's sitting there with a 7-Eleven cup, some soap in it, and the toothbrush, he's wiping my shoes off. And he's like, okay, so what I do now is I take him and I put him in the washer. Because there's a washer inside of the bathroom to make his washer on clothes and stuff. So I'm like, okay, go ahead, you know.

and this kid's like small where he's like 12 he's like 12 i'm like 15 i'm like this kid's not taking my shoes right right he doesn't i'll get this story a few hours later a few hours later this kid walks out with my shoes and i can just see the expression on his face isn't the same one shoe's super white super nice looking the next shoe has a yellow tint at the bottom he ended up putting them in the washer on a high setting and basically ruining my other shoes so he comes up to me like dude i'm so sorry but like i've done this a million times and like i f*** your shoe up and i remember feeling so bad for the kid i was like dude you're good bro don't even worry about it so that's my first introduction to the dorm um a few other kids come in the dorm and i remember i'm sitting down

at the table we're playing palace you know a palace you ever play palace no okay either way we'll you know we're playing palace uh yeah and this kid's sitting across for me that i know this kid to be a man named Caden now. And, you know, we're telling stories of why we're in here. And Caden, he's telling me why he's in here. At 13, Caden took his parents' car, $5,000 and went to, and he had a plan to escape the country. Okay, so he makes it all the way to Louisiana, okay, gets into a high-speed chase in Louisiana. And this is a capable kid, like this kid's smart, you know, all the way in Louisiana detention center. What's he that he's going to do? go to Mexico. His plan was to go to Mexico. Okay. He lived in Mexico. Right. So he's in Louisiana. He gets

booked in. He gets extradited back to Bucks County. And he goes to detention and he leaves and he leaves detention. And he's home now. And he's like, yeah, I just wanted something bigger. I'm like, what do you mean bigger? He's like, well, I started a cat and mouse game with the FBI. So what are you talking about, dude? At this point, he's like, well, I started to send bomb throw. threats to facilities and places in the area. And then the FBI, you know, I, I alluded them for about six months until somebody told on it. It was actually a friend's girlfriend that told on him. And I remember him telling me this.

I'm like, dude, what the wrong with this kid? Like, this is what I'm thinking. Yeah. End up actually becoming a very good friend of mine that I still keep in touch with today. But I remember, like, I'm like, what the fuck wrong with this kid? Why is he doing that? I later on, you know, later on after living with them for almost a year, you start to understand people's patterns and why they do things. You know, so I understood it a lot more later on.

But at this point, I'm like, what's wrong with this, dude? Either way, you know, this is a nice place. It's rather controlling and it's definitely not an easy place to get through, not because you're getting beat up or you're getting jumped or stuff taking too much. But it's like, you know, oh, Carter cursed today, if he curses three more times, you know, there was a level system. So at the top of the level, you can get a job in the neighborhood, you know, in the community. You could have a PlayStation in your room. But to keep that level, you can't get more than two zeros a week. And a zero can be anything as simple as speaking in line or cursing or, you know,

You get any in an argument, you know, bad peer interactions. You have an argument with a staff, right? And another thing about this place, if you fight, you're gone. Like, if you get into a fight, it could be one punch, you know, you're getting dragged out and you're going back to detention and you're, you know, you're done, right? At this point, I met a kid. I'll leave his name out, but I ended up meeting this kid and I sit, you know, it was actually my first day in there. I'll tell another story about my first day. I sit down and we're playing cards and he looks at music.

So what do you hear for? He's a real jumpy kid. He's like, oh, so what are you here for? And before I could tell him what I'm here for, he goes, oh, I stab somebody. Right? And I'm like, okay, well, are you going to let me tell my story? He's like, well, I stabbed somebody at the mall, and he got airlifted. And, you know, he's telling me the story.

And this was an interesting kid. A little while later into my stay, I end up, I'm in the bathroom and I'm shaving. You know, I'm like, you know, I'm talking to staff. Like, hey, can I get a razor? He's like, yeah, of course. Just go to the bathroom. Give it to me when you're done. Shave in the bathroom.

You know, and I get done shaving. And I look at the staff. I'm like, I wrapped the razor in paper towel so he doesn't have to touch it. And I'm like, yo, I got the razor. He's like, okay, put it on the, put it by the control center. So there's a control center in the dorm with like a little kind of like a window sill where I could rest it on. It was a mistake on his part. So he's like, just rested there.

I'm like, okay. So we end up lining up to go to, I think it was lunch at this point. And he's at, Carter, where is your razor at? I'm like, I put it on the window sill, bro. And he's like, well, no, you didn't? I'm like, yeah, I did. And he's like, everyone locked down. So boom, like, they don't even send us to our rooms because they don't want us to hide anything.

They're like, sit down. They call all the supervisors in. And they're like, we need to find this razor. No one's doing anything, you know. They go to the bathroom. they empty out the trash can they find it now what they didn't know is this kid that i that i was playing cards with the stab somebody he ended up he was able to remove one of the razors and i think it was it was a it was a it was a blade with two razors he removed one of the the the razors um

and they found it they're like oh we got it they didn't even check it for the extra razor right stupid um and this kid started to become suicidal at that time um so he'd come up to me and he'd show me his wrist and his wrist would be like mutilated like absolutely mutilated i mean the staff knew at this point um so they're putting him on suicide watch uh which at night for the staff that's a lot because now they got a they got to come by a room over 15 or no every five minutes now in every juvenile facility every 15 minutes you have to get checked on so what a staff will do is they'll come around with a flashlight um or just a key and they turn on your light with a key and they have this thing. It's called a beeper. They beeped the side of your door. It connects to a magnet

and makes his beeping sound. So imagine you're trying to sleep every 15 minutes. He goes, beep. Your light gets turned on and then it smacks against the wall, right? Kind of hard to sleep you get used to it. Either way, this kid starts to cut himself and the weird stuff. And I remember one day he comes, you know, he's sitting next to me and he's like, yo, I brought my sheet into the bathroom and I just tried to hang myself and I look at his neck and his neck's all up and I'm like what do you mean you just tried to hang yourself he's like I just tried to hang myself and another staff that's right next to me looks at this and here's what's going on so he's like oh so that kid ended up getting kicked out of the program for that

I ended up meeting up with that kid later on when I went to detention again I'll tell you that story too um either way um that was a good time of my life being there now I'm It doesn't sound like a good time of your life. Well, no, I'm going to be honest. I enjoyed it. I met a lot of people who I enjoyed speaking with. I found my love for fitness there. I started working out.

And I turned 16 there. So I'm 16 now. Is your dad coming to see you? Yeah, yeah. My dad's coming to see me. My mom would come to see me a lot. And, you know, I'm partaking in some therapy there. They give you a therapist and make you talk to her once a week.

and stuff. I'm doing that and I'm starting to definitely learn more about myself and think back to like, how did I get here? Because it's like, you don't just end up in a place like that. There's a million micro-progressions that end up having you to be, you know. So I start to think about my childhood a lot and my brother and how all these things coincide together. And it definitely, that's why I say it was a good experience because I learned a lot about myself. Now, I didn't, I didn't, Obviously, you know, I got in trouble again. So something, I was missing something there. I think I was just, I was just too young, man.

So I turned 16 there. And I remember, like, it's getting time to where, like, I should be leaving. You know, I've been there like seven, eight months. I started getting a little stir crazy. Like, like not. You're still going to high school, though, right? You're still going to taking classes? Yeah.

So, you know, they run the school in the facility. It's a, it's not a bad school. You know, they teach you what they can. Right. Yeah. So it becomes, you know, I get court scheduled. And I remember I'm like, I need to go home. But my probation officer, when she comes to see me, the bad part about, you know, the juvenile system is they don't go, oh, yeah, we're sentencing Carter to six months. No, they go, okay, this is a six to nine month program. But if Carter wants to make it two years, he could be here two years. Right. Right. There's no limitation. They could hold you until your 22nd birthday. Right. So it's almost like an indefinite time. It's just, you know, so I remember my probation, I was like, you're not leaving when you go to court. I'm like, I've done everything in this program.

I haven't gotten in any trouble. Well, she's like, well, there's been vapes smuggled in the facility. And I'm like, well, I had nothing to do with the vapes. Either way, I'll tell you that story now. So a good, you know, a good friend of mine that I met in the facility, every week they would take us to this drug and alcohol group. And in the drug and alcohol group were, you know, kids of all eight, you know, teenagers of all ages from the streets. So they'd be coming from the streets.

We'd be coming from this facility. And we started to get cool with some of these kids. And we'd sneak vapes back. Okay. But this one kid, he would sneak him, he would, he'd put the vapes in his ass. Oh, Jesus. Yeah. Yeah.

So he, um, he puts the vapes in his ass. And we're driving back. and this kid's like in pain bro like i hope you know i'm not hitting that right and and he um the vapes are in his ass we get back to the facility and like what we do if we needed to talk without anybody being there we'd hop on the the PS2 so we're sitting on the PS2 um and he's sitting there he's like bro i can't get them out and i'm like bro no i'm like dude you got to figure something out because, I mean, worse comes to worse, you could go to the people and be like, I got these vapes up my ass, but then you're fucking, dude, like, you're real fucking.

Either way, I think he was okay, and he ended up getting them out. Around this time, like, the programs, people really started to do some stuff within the program. This kid, his stepdad died, and I remember sitting with him, and he got a phone call, like, oh, my stepdad just died. And you know how that is if you've been away, you know, you never, you know. and that's why like joking with people can cause a big issue because you never know what conversation someone just had on the phone you never know what letter someone just got so yeah this kid i remember him coming back being like my stepdad just died blah blah blah he ends up going to the funeral now at this facility you can he stepdad at a overdose now at this facility you can bring back a guitar and play guitar so this kid goes to the funeral they let him go he comes back with this guitar case and this guitar and they're like okay well you know we got to search everything you can have that you know we're going to talk to your case managers see if she'll let you have the guitar he's like okay they end up searching this guitar case and there was

grams of you know so this kid he didn't try to sneak back heroin at least i don't think i think i think what happened is stepdad had a drug problem kept some in there died they didn't search the guitar case he brought it back he ended up getting a lot of trouble for that and as a punishment they'd bring us out um they bring us out to the field and you know the the juvenile jail is right next to the adult jail so we're looking at this adult adult jail and we're like shoveling manure like we're shoveling shit and these you know these staff are screaming at us there was the staff eric who who'd love to just scream and yell and make a big commotion at a nothing he'd be having a bad day and everybody else has a bad day because eric right um

Yeah, so court ends up rolling around, and I'm like, I'm trying to go home. So, you know, I, in my mind, at this time, well, I'm a good speaker. I've spoken in the courtroom before, and that's just what I'm going to do again. I'm going to charm the judge. That's what I'm thinking. So I go into the courtroom, and it's my time to speak. And I don't know if this ever happened to you met, but I just started squeaking. Like, I didn't know what to say.

Like, I started to get anxious, and that's never happened to me before. never like an anxious guy or nothing and I I didn't have anything so I didn't go home that day okay um I end up staying there an extra month I end up going home um I remember like leaving for my first day and like just like being pretty joyed and but it was also sad because I'm I'm leaving some guys that I really care about but my buddy Caden who was in there with me we ended up leaving on the same day it just so happened that our court you know we got our court papers in it's said, I think it was January 4th. We're leaving on January 4th.

Like, oh, shit, we're leaving together. So we go to court together. And I remember giving them a hug, like, yo, it was, you know, it was very good to meet you, you know. But it was sad because, you know, you live with these guys for so long and you build up such a rapport and a connection with them. And then they're just gone. You know, you don't see them again. You don't live with them again. And you kind of start to miss that.

And that's exactly what happened. I remember going to high school the next day, like, you know, it's been almost a year. You know, I go into this high school with thousands of kids, you know, 3,000 kids. And it was like, how old were you at this point? Still 16? Yes, 16. So it's been over a year. You had your birthday there, but you said it's been a year.

So you're still 16, though, not close to 17? Closer to 17, but I'm still, I'm still, you know, I came in almost 16 and then I left almost 17. essentially okay yeah so i go back to school and i remember you know realizing how hard it is to adjust back to to school because i go and you know i'm going to school with 3,000 people there and i don't know to talk to these kids anymore like i don't even know how to relate with these kids i'm going to class and i remember the principal he was at carter you're not going into you know we're going to put you in a classroom the whole day so we're not letting you go to other classes and i remember i remember thinking like that's fucked up like i just did all this

I want to meet people. I want to talk to people. But at this point, I didn't even know how to do that. You know, like, I didn't know how to relate to kids who I didn't live with because I've been going to school with these kids, you know, these 12 kids who I live with and I'm super comfortable with. And now I'm in this big school with all these random kids that I don't really know. And it was all overwhelming for me.

And I finish up that school year. Me and my brother are home. And this is, this is definitely. a really big time in my life um so you know a little while ends up going since i came home that summer comes around um and me and my brother at this point like we're we're pretty close i would say that um and that's when like i started to notice changes in my brother almost like i was talking about my mom um you know it first started out with like weird ideas that he'd have like um like he started to have you know i don't know if you know what solipsism is it's the belief that he's

you're the only human alive. So he started to believe these strange things like, I'm the only person on earth. And I started to realize that my brother's having a psychotic break. So that was that was very scary for me. I remember, I remember, you know, just watching him evolve from like, you know, you could have a conversation to him to this guy's not even here anymore. So me and my dad, you know, we tried a 302 a couple times. And that, you know, the whole mental health system in this country is terrible it doesn't really work you know um so we try to get him some help we can't get him any help um he ends up getting into a fight with me we end up getting in a fight out out in our front lawn um the cops end up getting called they come um and he ends up violating his

probation because at that time he was on adult probation so he got into this fight with me and violated his probation and now he's in jail um in jail while in the midst of a psychotic break um so that was and he's in the midst of this psychotic break um you know the way the county jail works near me and i'm sure it works like this the same way as a lot of other places when you first get there you know you can't use the phone you're in like a you know you put you in a cell for five days you know i guess to classify you right so i guess he made it down to the dorm, they decided he's going in the mental health dorm. And they, at this time, I think that the, you know, the guards and the people there started

to realize, okay, this guy's not sane. So they ended up putting him in a mental health block. And he didn't, he was in, like, solitary confinement while he was there. It was like a mental health block for people that cannot come out of their cells right now. And I remember, like, we haven't even heard from my brother in, like, four months, right? Like, we're going to the court hearings and stuff, but he's, you know, thing is, we didn't want him to come back home because, you know, he was, he was starting problems at home. We didn't feel like he was safe to be at home, but also we don't want him in jail. So we're trying to find a place for him to go to get help, but that, you know, it's so hard to do that.

And we're trying to get him out of jail and send him to one of these places, but it's like any, you know. So one night my dad ends up getting his phone call from the correctional facility, from this guy, Michael. and he's like hey i'm in here with your your son i slid the tablet because his tablet's up there under his door he wants to talk to you so you know we start talking my brother and we could still tell like he's he's not all there right he's like you know but but from what he tells us he's been in this cell for three months um he hasn't been able to leave and the dude you know we get the tablet back or he passed the tablet back to the other dude and you know the dude michael's crazy too he's not he's he's telling us that he's uh he's like starting some

um like counseling thing and he's like you know this guy's a nut too right he's just he's blabbing off to us and this guy ends up like he would call us like every day and we can't hear from my brother because they wouldn't give him a tablet to call home because i think he's going to break it or something so we would call you know this guy would call us and rant to us and let us talk to my brother Um, either way. Um, at this point, like, I'm, I'm in 11th grade. I'm 17 now. And what just happened, like, is really, it, it, it starts to affect me. You know, by this time, I've actually got off probation. Um, sorry, I kind of skimmed over that, but I got off probation. And, you know, I'm, I'm trying to do good, but like, I still, you know, I have all this pain from, like, Like what just happened with my brother, you know, I'm trying to process that, like some guy that I grew, you know, I grew up with him.

I knew, you know, and then, you know, all this is going on. So I started to do drugs again, and I start to drink a lot. And this is when, like, Xanax started to get introduced into my life. And, you know, a lot of days I'm doing the Xanax. I'm drinking alcohol. And 17 was the first time I did cocaine as well. I was hanging out with a buddy of mine. and I remember he was like what do you want to do I'm like I don't know he's like well I got a little bit of cocaine like you got cocaine I remember like being like okay I'll do it you know but in the past I was never that type of dude I was like I'm never doing that drug I'll never do that drug you know you set those those lines and a lot of times those lines get broken down so that line got broken down I did literally and figuratively I did cocaine for the first time and I remember

I remember, like, not feeling it at first. I'm like, okay, I'm going to go to the store and get some cigarettes. I walked to the store and get some cigarettes. And I remember just feeling, like, so upbeat and, you know, so jittery. But I didn't really like it. I didn't really like it. It wasn't my thing. My thing was more like, let's get really drunk and do a lot of Xanax and, you know, forget.

You know, that's what my thing was. So at this point, I'm about to be 18, and I'm so scared about being 18, you know, because I'm like, I turn 18 and I start committing crime. or I go to jail, I'm going, I'm going to actually be charged now as an adult and I'm right. So at this point, you know, I think subconsciously I kind of wanted to go back to Judy. Like I miss, I started to miss being there. And I know that's like sounds really weird to a lot of people and they might not understand, but like I really started to want to go back. Um, so I just start to wild out. Like I'm, I'm doing, I'm doing drugs almost every now. I'm still, like, varying to fitness at this time, so I'm working out.

I'm doing that. But at nighttime, I'm f*** off. Wake up in the morning, go to the gym, fuck off, right? I still had that love for fitness. But, you know, it was one night, and I stole a bunch of these wallets from people out of their vehicles. And I'm walking to the, you know, with some tap credit cards, you can just go up to the thing. tap it on the machine and you don't need a pin or nothing. Right.

You know, take out cash from the cash back system, right? So I'm walking to the store to do that. It's 3 a.m. And I'm really fucked up. You know, I'm really fucked up. And I'm walking by the high school.

And I'm going to Sonoco. And this dude, he's like, yo, yo. So I walk up to this dude. And I was drunk and high. So I guess I walked up to him a little bit. Like, I probably didn't look too friendly walking up to him. And he just goes, you want to fight? So I'm like, what the fuck is this guy talking about?

So I punch him in the face. I punch him. That's not something I would have done if I wasn't intoxicated. So I punch him a few different times, you know, a few times I punch him and I just walk away. I start walking away. He pulls out this knife. He's like, oh, you're, now. He starts, you know, normally when someone pulls a knife on you, you know, you keep your distance and you walk back and you try to de-escalate the situation.

That's not what I was doing. I wasn't, you know, I was walking back, but I wasn't walking back very fast. And I was like, put the. knife down i'm screaming at him he screaming at me and then he rushes me with the knife and i throw his hands and the knife flies and he he gets me on the ground he punches me one time and at this point we start hearing the sirens so uh we're like what do we do so at this point we just went from fighting each other and pulling the knife on me to like okay now we got to make a plan on how we're not going to jail tonight um and we end up you know i'm so like out of it like i'm so hot and i i sit down on the

side of the store and I got all these stolen credit cards in my pocket and I just spark a cigarette and I give him a cigarette. I think why he screamed at or he said yo to me in the first place is he wanted a cigarette. Right? Right. So we're smoking a cigarette and he's like, he's looking at me. He's like, I'm your cousin and we got to

an argument. And I just look at it. I'm like, no, we're not, bro. The cops come that like, oh, Carter was going on. They know my name and everything. And I'm just like, nothing's going on, officer. He's like, well, you're eyes bleeding a little bit and this guy has bruises all over his face like yeah i don't know what's going on officer it don't even search me or nothing they bring me home um i'm 17 but i i guess i look a little older um so he's like he's like okay blah blah blah let's go in your house i go in my house and they

knock on the door and they're like okay we just found out you're a juvenile we got to talk to your dad so they talk to my dad and i just leave the house i walk back to my friend's house like i i think the cops are still there i jump um over my fence and just just just walk back um uh the next day i was yeah the next day i was um stealing from somebody's car i was stealing from somebody's car and the officer uh apprehended me right there you know i got surrounded by a bunch of cops um they searched my backpack found some wallets some stolen stuff on me and i'm like okay well this isn't that bad i'll get to go to the youth center again and i'll be able to fix my life. It's not what happened. The cops take me to the police station. They don't even

take me to the police station. They just take me home again. And I'm like thinking, I'm like, what is going on? Why aren't these cops actually arresting me? The next night, I do the same thing. I get super high. I take some Clonopin this time. And I, I'm walking through the neighborhood. And I guess I don't remember what I took, but I remember I took somebody's laptop, somebody's school laptop. I'm so intoxicated. I don't understand that this is somebody's school laptop and I'm not getting in it and it's not worth anything. But I put in my bag anyway and when I ended up passing out on somebody's front lawn. So I passed down someone's front lawn. I wake up to the paramedics over me. And the cop, he searched my bag. He's like, who's Ethan? Like, who the

is Ethan? I don't know who Ethan is. He's like, well, you have his laptop. I'm like, I was just so, like I just gave up. I stole it. Yeah. You know, I was just like, you know, at a very low point of my life. Hey, sorry to interrupt the video. Just want to let you guys know that we're going to have an extra 15 or 20 minutes of content on my Patreon. It's $10 a month for about an hour's worth of extra content every single week. Back to the podcast. Finally, I get booked in to the U Center.

And I come back. It's like, it's like 4 a.m. at this point. I don't remember exactly what time is, but I get back there and I remember I walk in and I'm still like high. I'm still like drunk from the night before and it's the staff, Gene who I knew. And I'm like, Gene, what are you doing here? Like he's like, oh, I'm a supervisor now. I'm like, you're a supervisor now. Good job, dude.

I'm like congratulating him, whatever, a little strip search. I'm used to it at this point. It's not new to me. Okay. And I remember I go to sleep. I wake up and I'm getting transported to the night. nurse and I'm in I'm in B dorm and I'm they always put me a B dorm and I'm walking by a dorm and I look in a dorm and I see this kid and I just knew I've seen him somewhere I knew I saw

him somewhere is your brother isn't in the same facility this is a he's in the adult facility so literally I could look out my cell and see the adult facility that's where my brother's at okay right so yeah um I'm walking by adorm and I see this kid and I'm like who is this person person, right? And I looked to the staff. I forget what staff is, but I think I was cool with him. Is the kid the kid that was calling you? Which kid? Remember the kid that was calling you for your brother? Oh, no, he was an adult. No, no, it's not him. Um, so I remember talking staff like, who is that kid? He's like, that's Joshua Cooper. I'm like, what did he do? He's like, oh, he's the kid that killed that little girl in Ben Salem. I live right next to a town called

Ben Salem. Either way, I remember seeing this kid on the news a few months prior. When he was 16, Joshua Cooper invited a 13-year-old girl over his trailer. They lived in a trailer park. He asked the girl for oral sex. She said no, and he blew her face up with a shotgun. He shot her in the face with shotgun. And this was like, this was a little, this kid looked like an idiot, right? I remember, I remember being confused because adorn is where they, they housed the girls. And this kid's an adorn with the girls. Right. So they put the kid who just shot a little girl in her face in the dorm with the girls because if he gets put with the boys he's going to get beat up every day right right so and there's some boys in a dorm but it's more like lax and

whatever so yeah that piece of shit was in there and i had one interaction with him the whole time i was there i'll get to that but uh yeah this time being there i end up meeting a kid named a kid named Leonard. Leonard is a kid that I mentioned before placement hoppers. He was probably the kid that I saw that did it the most. This kid was 17 at this point, almost 18, and he's been locked up since he was 11. I think his parents were drug addicts and he was in the foster system since he was like three. Then from there, you know, started getting in trouble in his preteen years, got locked up, never went home because he doesn't really have a home to go to. So he just never he just never left and he would get kicked out of placements read complete placements

and they just don't know what to do with him and this kid is is you know i've met kids before who switch like one minute you're talking to him about one thing the next minute they blow up but this dude would have it the worst right and one day uh we're sitting there and i remember like nothing was even going on he just started to move all the chairs this kid leoners moving all the chairs he's like let's go you start moving all the chairs staff they have a it's called a pager on their belt they hit the pager it sends a a a signal to the control center the control center hits a button it starts an alarm and then the person the control center would be like a paging supervisor to uh to be to arm pageing supervisor to be to him right so it could be a little alarming if we're not used to it but i was used to it so

oh everybody go to their cell whatever i'm in cell three he's in cell two and so cell two is across the dorm from me because it goes like it'll be like uh two four six eight 10 12 and like one three you know whatever so it yeah it skips a number right so i can look into his cell and see what's going on but so he's he ends swinging on a staff i see this all going i swings on a staff the staff picks them up and throws him on the ground now what they do here is you know five six guys come in the dorm one person got his feet one person got his arms one person's holding his torso down and now we need to cuff him up they cuff him up up they take him to his cell they put him in his cell um and they lock him in there they

you know they uncuff him and everything and then the staff that got swung on it's like oh we need to get his radio because he's not allowed to have his radio no more he just you know almost assaulted the staff so he goes into to get his radio and the supervisor in the dorm at this point and he's like Leonard uh I'm opening your cell you're going to give me the radio he gives him the radio and he spits in his face right just spits all in his face and I remember the staff like The supervisor starts holding the staff back because the staff wants to go assault the kid now. You know, he had every, you know. But at that point, Leonard starts to break his wooden desk.

Now, when I first started going to the youth center, all that wooden desks. And they started to take the wooden desks out and put plastic desks in there because the wooden desks, this, the kid Leonard ended up breaking the wooden desk and having it two by four in his cell. And I'm watching all this happen. Like, this is like prime time entertainment, right? And I'm watching this, you know, all transpire. This is the first time I saw a cell extraction. And they get on the side of this kid's cell. And the one supervisor used to work at a president, so he's done this before.

And they all rush in his cell, right? And I see the supervisor. It's his bald-headed dude named Jeff Bors, you know. He goes in and he slams two-by-four on Jeff Borses head, right? And they get him. They fuck him up in this room. You know, all you hear is slamming and, you know, whatnot. And Jeff Bors runs out.

out and his head's bleeding and he runs to the bathroom and um you know but i i felt bad for that kid leonard because while he was you know screaming and getting mad you know he's he's yelling things like oh you know nobody was ever there for me i never had a family like this is a kid that never had a christmas this is a kid never he never experienced the joy to wake up on christmas morning and have a present he never knew what it's like for a mom to love him he never had any of those experiences so what are you going to do with a kid like that You know, it's like he's just destined to this kind of life. And he was actually, they were going to send him home to a homeless shelter.

They were going to put him in a homeless shelter. And I think he sabotaged himself because he knew, okay, I've been locked up six, seven, eight years. Now I'm going to a homeless shelter. I'm going to reoffend in the first week and go back. Why not just stay here? Right. So I think that's what ended up happening with him. Either way.

Well, at some point he's going to have to leave. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he's 18 at this point. So he was doing the math. Yeah, I could stay here for another three years or whatever. Oh, I knew a guy in prison that they were, it's like one day, we're all sitting there. You can hear them calling somebody to R&D, you know, really receiving a departure.

Yeah. And they're called, you know, whatever's name is, you know, Johnson, you know, 407702, you know, Johnson, you know, R&D, nothing. Ten minutes later, they call them again. 20 minutes later they call him again 10 minutes later then they start saying if you don't show up we're going to lock the compound down and then eventually they lock the compound they keep calling them called then they say okay lock down they lock so he was being released but he'd been locked up for like I don't know what it was it might have been five years might have been 20 but he was he he was basically had no money no halfway house no family nowhere to go you're going to release this guy with no money on the street and tell him he has to check in with his with his probation

officer in 48 hours like he's going to violate like he there's nothing for he's got no what he's going to be living on the street and then he's going to be worried about calling his probation officer it's an impossible situation right and so they he actually was hiding on the rec yard because he didn't want to go so they closed down the whole place and they searched the rec yard and of course they find him he's on the rec yard he's nowhere to hide on the rec yard they see him they're like what are you doing oh you can't let me go i don't want to go i got nowhere to go you're a grown man i mean you're just he's just completely screwed you ever know what happened to him no i mean he got he was he was released i don't know if he ever came back i don't know what happened he probably just reoffended and went

back in the system and you know at some point you would hope that somebody would have said hey find a church find some of it the problem is he was he was a you know a didler you know what i'm saying he was a oh wow okay yeah yeah when they released them in florida back then not now but back then which was you know whatever he doesn't deserve to go home yeah well no i'm saying when they released them 10 years ago you couldn't be released the halfway houses in florida wouldn't take you okay okay so i'm being released in florida i can't go to a halfway house i have no money my family doesn't want to deal with me there's nobody to help me so he's like what am i going to do well you can't release me I got nowhere to go and they're like yeah we're throwing you out and if you keep

going back in the system and back in this like to me look like that no matter what you did you have an out date so if i have an out date then you have to kind of help me if you like oh no we're not going to help you okay well then just give me a life sentence thing right right like why keep making me go but you're just endangering society at that point i agree this guy just go kicking somebody's somebody's door and and try and start robbing people or so you don't know what he'll do go get a knife and try and start robbing people who may end up stabbing someone or killing somebody. I mean, like, you know, you're not helping society by doing that. And no matter how much, no matter what he did, you hate him.

Well, if what he did was so horrible, then lock him up forever. But saying, oh, you're getting five years and then releasing him and having him go back in the system, get recharged, go back for a year on a violation, get back. It's just, it's never going to end. Like, it's not that it doesn't end. I guess it's the sentencing guidelines that kind of like box the judge into, okay, well, I can't give this guy this much amount of time, but I'll give him the max on this, you know. But if you have to release him and you got to let him back in the society, then you have to at least try and try and at least let him get to a point where he's functional.

Right. So that I'm not saying, you know, give him a, you know, a nice, you know, hotel room and a, you know, cushy job. But, I mean, you got at least help place this guy somewhere or he's just going to continually reaffin. That doesn't help society. I didn't help anybody. But, yeah. So, I mean, I see what you're saying. That guy's been locked up like eight years.

And that's like half his life, right? And now where's he going to go? Where am I going to do? I got nowhere to go. Like, you're terrified to get out of prison. Yeah. Yeah, I just, I remember him screaming. Like, I got nowhere to go.

And I could even see the stress on his face build up, the closer and closer to get to his court date until he just broke and snapped. You know, either way, I mentioned a kid I met that stabbed somebody in my last placement. Do you remember when I talked about that? Yeah. I end up meeting him again, and he, he comes in the dorm. I think he got kicked out of A dorm. He's coming into B dorm.

And he comes in, he sits down, and, like, he looks like he's been in a concentration camp. Like, he looks, you know, he looks like he's aged four years. It's been, like, two and a half. He, you know, he, but he's skinny, like, abnormally skinny. And I'm talking to him, I'm like, yo, like, what's going on? And he was, like, a jokester. Like, he's like, oh, that's fight, bro. I don't even take it seriously.

I'm just like, yeah, we're not fighting, bro. Pick up your cards. We're playing cars, right? And I start to ask him, I'm like, have you been eating, bro? And he's like, oh, no, I haven't eaten in a week. What do you mean you haven't eaten in a week? This place doesn't have bad food. Like, it's not the best, but it's edible.

And, you know, what do you mean you haven't eaten in a week? And he begins to tell me that he's not eating and that every few days they take him to the hospital and try to force him to eat. And he, you know, so I'd come to lunch with him and I'd sit down at lunch with them and I'd be like, I'd be like, so today you're going to eat, bro. And he's like, oh, I'm not eating today. And the staff would sit down trying to get him to eat. And then they'd shackle them up and take him down to the hospital.

And, you know, I don't know if it came to that. I think he kind of broke and ate. But, I mean, this kid looked super unhealthy, super skinny. But since I had last met him, he hasn't been home. You know, actually, he was going to a place called Adelphi, It's actually called Manor Secure. Now he was getting transferred to court and the sheriffs that were transporting him were like, all right, we're going to get some coffee. Do you want anything? And he's like, yeah, they're like, okay, we'll take you out of the car and bring you into the store. They bring him out of the car and the store. He slips out of the cuffs and runs away. This is from a secure placement. So these sheriffs are looking like absolute idiots now. But he obviously gets caught and now he's back at the U Center for that. And I think he's just, you know, he's just, you know, he's just giving up now. He's not eating food. He's, um, I just see him like super depressed and he talking to Carter. What are you going to eat when you get out? Now, I've a bro, you know, I haven't

even, I've been locked up a month now. I'm like, I don't know, like steak. He's like, he has a million things that he's going to eat. He's, you know, he's like, oh, this girl's right. I mean, this girl's right at me. And I can't wait to get home to see. I'm like, you know, because he's been locked up three years now. I've been locked up like a month, you know, so I can't relate to him on that. Either way, that was about maybe 45 days. I'm like, I'm starting, they're like, are you going to placement again? We're not sending you home. I'm like, okay, that makes sense. So I'm like, let me go to, I want to go to a place called Outside Inn, and it's a placement up in Pittsburgh. A kid actually just died there from a restraint. They restrained him wrong and he died.

But I'm like, yeah, I want to go to Outside In. So I get an interview. What they do is the interview you for this placement like hey like what are your knee like are you violent are you this and that and i think they interviewed with me and i almost think i did too good on the interview to where they thought i'm just like faking it or something because they were like now he's not coming here i wanted to go there i know they got a nice workout set you know they got this and that so no i didn't end up going there then i get an interview to a place called manos house this is a really old placement. It's been around for a long time. It's in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and they interview me for that, and they're just taking anybody at this point. They're like, yeah, come up here.

I wait maybe a week. Van comes and picks me up. I go out to, it's basically what you said, like R&D. It's not called that. It's just, you know, exiting. So I'm actually in the facility. Dude comes up in this van, you know, and I kind of like put my hands out like, okay, like you could shackle me up because I'm expecting you know shackles maybe the belt sometimes I do the black box so I'm like okay you know he's like oh no we don't do that here you're good bro like okay okay cool so I get in the van dry it drives me it takes about two hours to get there and the first thing and you know about this building is it's huge and it's an old place that nuns used to be at like nuns used to live there and now they converted it into like a juvenile facility

It's like a monastery or, I think they have a different name for the nun one, but yeah. Something like that. So I get out of the car, the van, and I'm looking at this place. It's old. And it looks like abandoned. Like, it looks like no one's been here in years, right? So they walk me in. And as soon, you know, they take me through some different doors from the main entrance and I walk into the cafeteria area.

You're like, all, we're going to get you some food that we're going to search you, bring you up to group. I go, all right, cool. So I meet the chef at this point. It was this older dude from New Jersey, and he's like, he's like slopping some, I think it was rice on this plate for me. He's, oh, yeah, where he from? Blah, blah, blah.

I ended up not having a good relationship with this guy at all. So, you know, he's slopping his food on the plate. I eat a little bit of it. And they search me, and they bring me, you know, they give me some slides to where. you don't get your shoes for, I think, like, two weeks, right? So they bring me, they bring me to group. And, you know, now I've been in detention 45 days, and I'm used to how detention is. Like, you know, you want to get up, you ask, bathroom, you ask. If you're moving anywhere,

you've got to be quiet. If you don't do what these people say, yeah, you're getting restrained, right? So it's like, I'm used to that again now. And they bring me to this, this room where we have this group called phase forget the acronym for phase but it's some bullshit group did they make you do um and i i don't think it would be bullshit if they knew how to teach it but they didn't know how to teach it at all so they bring me in this room and i'm sitting there for a few minutes and all these kids come in like 25 kids right first thing i notice is these kids are doing whatever they want so i'm like what is going on here like like part of me is like oh cool it's it's leaning in the other part of me is like I kind of like structure I kind of want it to be more

structured anyway you know these kids are screaming there's this little counselor in the room you know screaming everybody to shut up I need to start this group um and I'm thinking like yo if this was at the you center these kids would be all on the ground right now like you know and and we finish this group up uh and I we go to the rec room it's this big room um tables, cards, pool table, TV, and that's where you're basically at most of the day, if you're not in school or group. They bring me there, and there's a meeting with the director. So the director comes in, circles everybody up. The director, he's, like, putting his hands over his head, and he's like, like, in a desperate mood. Like, I could tell he's kind of desperate.

And he's like, you know, like, you know, like, I don't know what to even do with these, you guys anymore. You know, I think the night previously, a kid set the back. bathroom on fire. So, like, he put, like, toilet paper in the heater ducts and started a little fire and they put it out, but, like, that could have burned down that whole facility, right? So the super, or the director of the building, he's a piece of shit. I ended up not liking him at all. And he's going off on these kids, and kids are going back off on him.

And I'm just like, I should not have went here. Like, I'm thinking, like, oh, this is going to be a bad. because it's a three month program but the the catch is this it starts off as 90 days but let's say you talk in line let's say you curse let's say you get in an argument let's say you fight um each zero you get and a zero can be something as simple as cursing that's another day added and if you fight that's 14 days added if you you know so i'd see kids go in here for a three month um thing three month program and they don't leave for a year because they're getting five zeros a day that's five more days added every day to one day they do right so they're not making any progress whatsoever um either way i the next day goes around i finish school up i actually i see some kids that i was in previous placements with so i know some people there already and um i'm in the rec room and i'm like i know there's a gym there and i started asking all the staff i'm like hey can we go to the gym i'm trying to i'm trying to work out and they're like oh we don't

use that gym what do you mean you don't use the gym they're like i know we don't go there you stay in here so i'm like i'm already not like in that i'm like no if there's a gym in the facility i'm going to be able to use it right either way i'm like okay i'll just do push-ups for today doing my push-ups and this kid comes up to me his name's jaden and he's like yeah i've been looking for someone to work out with blah blah blah he's like all right cool let's do some push-ups we start working out um this becomes my a really good friend in here um You know, a little while later, we're like, all right, let's get, let's start rooming together. So we talked to the supervisor, put in a request.

We end up being able to get in the same room together. This becomes, like I said, a really good friend of mine. We're working out every day. I still don't have this gym open. So now I'm on a mission. I need to get this gym open. So I talked to the director, and I'm like, look, his name's Chris. I'm like, Chris, you guys got this gym.

You say you don't use it. Why don't you use it? You have 30 kids that sit in this room while they watch TV and play cards. You don't get anything from playing cards for six months straight. You get nothing. You learn how to be really good at Spades. You don't learn any actual life skills because you're never going to play Spades again once you leave here. He's like, you know what?

That makes sense. Let me talk to some, you know, some people. And if you basically tells me if from a week from now you don't get any trouble, I'll open that gym up and you and a few group of guys can go in there by yourself. So I'm like, that's great. So I ended behaving the rest of the week, getting this gym open. What I very quickly realized is these staff here don't like me because I'm making things happen. All these other kids, no, they're playing space or getting in trouble.

That's what they're used to doing, right? Now me, I'm opening this gym. I'm getting more kids to work out. I'm trying to do some positive stuff. And I very quickly realized, yeah, these staff don't like you. I remember one night in particular, this staff, he comes up to me. He's like, yeah, you're not going to have that gym much longer. He's like, oh, yeah.

I'm like, yeah, okay, buddy. like I'm not taking him seriously because I could tell he's just trying to aggravate me to then respond in a negative way right um and you know I in in this place it was much easier to sneak stuff in because kids would have visits with their parents parents slides them a vape I don't know why any parent would ever do that but some parents would you know um so there was this kid named kadeem this 14 year old kid he um he ended up stealing a car and he crashed into an old man in another car putting the old man in a coma. So this kid was pretty fucked up.

And he comes in my room one day, and you're not allowed to have other people in your room, and it's me and my boy, Jay, and we're like, yo, what are you doing in here? He's like, I got the vape. Let's hit the vape together. So we're hitting this vape together, and then we get a knock on the door. Like, we're not even allowed to shut the door, but the door shut. And it's the staff, George, just big, you know, he's just this big asshole, right? He's like, what are y'all doing in here?

He's like, he's like, oh, I smell. a vape the kid cadine hide is hiding behind my bunk so he's like on the ground like staff can't at this point right he's like i smell a vape the vapes in my waistband um so he's like oh blah blah blah blah i smell the vape on you i'm like i don't know what you talk about man and my buddy pulls out some lotion he's like i think it's the lotion and the staff's like yeah it's not the lotion right but this staff was definitely racist because if it was a black kid in the room hitting a vape it would have been cool but since we're two white kids it's like i don't think think he liked me very much because of that um so he starts he starts oh yeah I'm searching

everybody tonight I'm you know I'm I'm wanding everybody down so I still got this vape uh I give the vape back to the kid he leaves the room um but either way he brings us down to this rec room with this wand and there's a female staff here and he's like so you guys are gonna get down in your boxers and I'm gonna wand you down so we all start to do this and he doesn't find anything but he just told a bunch of you know teenage boys to pull their pants down in front of other teenage boys in front of a female staff right so now he's he's going to get in trouble for this so the next day the supervisor of the school department brings me in to uh to the room and he's like so carter what happened last night and i got no problem to snitching on

staff i got a little problem doing it i'll do that every single day of the week so i tell him oh yeah George last night was making us drop our boxers, and this staff's already got me now. He's told my counselor, I'm vaping. He's, you know, so now I'm going to get more time here. So I'm like, yeah, this guy's, you know, I'm not, I'm not dealing with that. So the next day, he's like, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, what's going on with George? I tell him everything. I tell the principal everything.

And he's like, he's acting very concerned, like it's a big deal and everything. So we get out of school that day. And there's a kid at the facility name. jump we called him jump I guess right stupid name right um so George starts calling jump a snitch because George is like oh jump's the one that told on me jumps the one that told on me I'm at lunch telling George it's me bro I told George no no I'm the one that said that right and he's like George's just getting me a snitch he's called this kid jump a snitch right I don't care if the staff calls me a snitch I don't care at all right that if the staff calls you a snitch

they're putting you in danger yes yes Yes, but I don't care. You know, I'm thinking, you know, none of these kids are going to hurt me or whatever. So George ends up calling jump a snitch again and jump punches George in the face. And they start fighting in the rec room and jump punches George. George starts chasing jump, jump jumps over the pool table. George tackles him, whatever. The next day, we have a meeting with the,

the director again and the director's like uh you know george is fired and i'm calling i'm calling um child protective services on his family you know this shit right like it's just it was a mess here at this place uh super unprofessional um these staff didn't really know what they're doing they didn't have any training they're getting paid like 12 bucks an hour to work here right so around this time that's all going on my county starts to hear back from this placement like oh kids are getting beat up in their rooms uh there's a lot of fights going on these staff are assaulting the kids um and i my what we have when you go away with placements you have a um probation or a placement probation officer so that's a

probation officer that travels around the state um to visit different kids in different facilities so it's this dude nick franklin he comes to meet with me and he's like He's like, so Carter, what's going on here? And I'm telling him everything. I'm like, yeah, you know, these staff are just super unprofessional. You know, I'm talking about the staff here. And he's like, yeah, well, I'm going to figure something out. I'm going to try to do something here.

And then my counselor meets with me. And she's like, Carter, you know you're an arrogant asshole, right? And I'm like, yeah, really? And she's like, well, yeah, you like to lie about the facility to your probation officer. and I'm like, what did I say that's a lie? She couldn't really say anything. Because in my mind, first of all, these kids are getting, their safety is getting put at risk. These staff don't know how to handle conflict.

They don't know how to deal with these kids at all. And these kids aren't getting proper treatment here. They're not getting anything from being here. She thought differently. Either way, I end up, she ends up saying that to me. And about a month later, my probation officer comes by again. and I'm like she's like okay we're going to meet with your probation officer and I'm like okay well I want to talk to him alone at first she's like no you're not I'm like no no I'm allowed

to talk to my probation officer without you being here that's the whole point of why he comes up so I talk we're you know my probation officer walks in and I'm like hey can I talk to you by myself and she's like well and then he's like well no he's definitely allowed to talk to me by himself right whatever we have a conversation by her you know just me and him then she comes in and she starts lying to him saying no carter's getting in trouble carter's doing this there's nothing that says i've been getting in trouble okay so i think that's when my county really started to get skeptical of sending kids to this place um either way i'm i'm about three weeks from leaving um i've been doing really good i haven't gotten in any trouble at this point and i'm um we're we leave school to go to

the to go to the rec room to do something in the rec room for school and this kid the kid cadim that hit the old man in the car he's like yo the computer lab's open let's go in the computer lab so i like stop by there for like a second right i'm just like he's on the computer he's on instagram and he's like there's a webcam he takes a picture with me the webcam and ends up posting it on these kids Instagram this other kid that's not even in the room with us on his Instagram this kid's parents ends up seeing the picture calling the facility and goes why is my kid able to get on Instagram at this facility so the director meets with me he's like you could get kicked out for this I'm like yeah I'm not getting kicked

out for this I end up getting another week there it was very small you know that's fine I do the other week. At this point, my roommate, who I became very good friends with, he ends up going home. About 10 days later, I end up going home. And, you know, I go home, and I'm definitely, my head is on more clear. You know, it's on a lot more clearly. You know, six months ago, I'm doing dumb shit.

I'm not feeling good. But I've really dealt with some of the demons that I was dealing with. I'm doing a lot better. Uh, I've been home now since September and I've, you know, I've been doing good. I got a night, I got a job at Walmart doing night shifts. That wasn't too fun, but you know, it was a good way to make some money. What does night shift mean? Like, you're working at night.

Yeah, I mean, is it, is Walmart 24 hours or? Oh, well, they, it used to be 24 hours, but it's not anymore, but you still need people to stock at night and stuff. So I was an overnight. Oh, I didn't know what you would do at night. I would think they would stock during the dead and, uh, Or I figure it's security or something. Right. You know, I was stuck in there.

And I ended up quitting there, recently just becoming a lifeguard. And I'm in the process of joining the Army right now. It's just a little more complicated for me because of my past and stuff. What do you have to do? What are they asking you to do? I mean, I would think it would be it's just like a yes or no. Right. So at first I tried to join the Navy.

I spent six months trying to join the Navy. went to the Navy office, I said, look, I've been on juvenile operation, I've gotten in trouble, blah, blah, blah. Okay, I think we could work with you. They end up sending me down to the military processing station to get a physical and take the ASVAP test. So I go there, and the doctor goes, I got a hospital report from you passing out on somebody's lawn, right? And I'm like, oh, yeah, that's something that's there, right? So, either way, I end up getting my medical stuff waived. The hospital report got waived, but then they sent up all my criminal stuff, and that got denied.

So I got to call, hey Carter, like, you're not going to be able to join the Navy. You just got denied. You can try again in a year. That happened. I go to the Army office. That was about two months ago. So now I'm working with the Army. They're trying to get me in.

So it could be a no again, or I could get an Army, and that's cool, you know. But either way. Artreys a little bit, the standards are a little bit lower. I think so. I think so, yeah. And dude, it's all juvenile stuff. It would be like you, you know, like the top, top one is like the Air Force. Like they have the highest standards.

Dude, I called an Air Force recruiter and I'm like, hey, you know, you think I could join. You like, no, you're like, no, you're not going right. And oh, another thing I got to get waived is this stupid tattoo on my hand. So, yeah. Why? What's wrong with a tattoo? You cannot, you, you have to get it waived to join the arm. I mean. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. The Marines wouldn't even take it. The Marines, I called the Marine guy and said, look, I got a huge tattoo on my hand. He's like, can't do it. The Army at least, they'll give you a chance. They'll try to weave it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone I tell that, they think it's ridiculous. That is ridiculous. I mean, you go in the military to get tattoos. Right, right. You know, it's like going to, you know, it's like to me, it's, you go in there and guys in the military end up getting tattoos. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, maybe I'm wrong, but I mean, it seems. No, no, you're right.

right it's like you know i got a whole sleeve but i was like 16 when i got home the first time and i was like i got to get a hand tattoo big mistake okay yeah all right well i'm curious to know if you if you do get in i mean let me know i definitely will and now you're you're a coast you're a coast guard you're a lifeguard lifeguard where and a residential neighborhood a residential neighborhood and what they have just like a big pool or yeah it's just a big pool i'm the only lifeguard there it's a nice it's a nice job i get as many days as i want um it's it's cool man it's if nobody's there if then i just get to sit there on a lawn chair and hang out and get paid no no i'm saying what if no you said you're the only lifeguard there what if there's no other lifeguard's

working and the pool gets closed oh if there's no lifeguard there has to be a lifeguard on duty for the pool to be open it's like you know there's certain laws with states where they can't open a pool you know if the pool's this big we have to have a life card there if it's this big we don't have to have a life card there so there's certain laws have like a certificate or something yeah you have to be certified by the red cross yeah yeah okay yeah all right hey i appreciate you guys watching do me a favor i'm going to put carter's uh instagram link in the uh description box so if you want to click on there and kind of keep in touch with him he's only got two posts he needs to post more stuff that get people kind of figure out follow him and see if he's you know what he's doing

keep track of him give him some words of encouragement tell him not to fuck up again um and kind of maybe keep an eye on him because i'm curious to know if he gets in the military or what he's going to do so check that out i'm going to put the link in there also uh please consider joining my patreon and uh what else what else leave me a leave me a comment share the video really appreciate it uh also The link for my Patreon is also in the description. I got a bunch of links in the description. Anyway, I really appreciate you guys watching. See ya.