The Connect- with Johnny Mitchell - I Witnessed A Murder My First Day In Maximum-Security Prison | Ep #5

Episode Date: October 20, 2022

Johnny describes his first day inside of a maximum-security prison, including a brutal fight that ended in death- as well as meeting his cellmate Jimmy, a top shotcaller at the Two Rivers Correctional Facility.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

And I thought, I may never get out of this place. I'll never forget the fucking evil in that face. He was like, no, dude, a jacket's a jacket. When there's a kid involved, he's got to go. Do I throw you over the balcony? Do I throw you down the stairs? Do I beat the shit out of you? They took him to the hospital and he was dead.

I mean, my ribs are showing. I'm completely pasty white. I'm down bad at this point, you know? They're basically asking me to go commit murder. I'm not stabbing this guy. I'm not doing life. Well, I guess you'll decide which one you're more afraid of. And then he reaches underneath his pillow and he pulls out a burner, a shank.

It's like six inches. What's up, you guys? This is Johnny Mitchell. Welcome back to The Connect. As always, make sure to follow us on social media at Not the Connect and at Mr. Johnny Mitchell. And of course, like and subscribe on YouTube and turn on your notifications so you get alerted whenever we drop new content. All right, let's go. Okay, so by now you know my background as a drug dealer, a drug trafficker, and then a money launderer.

Well, here are the consequences of all that. Prison. I'm going to take you through my first day incarcerated and give you an idea of what you might expect if you ever get locked up. September 8th, 2010, that's when I first fell. You never forget the date that you fall. We use fall to mean arrested. So in jail, you would ask somebody, when did you fall? Where did you fall?

I fell out of Portland, Multnomah County, and I was sent to the Multnomah County Jail. I spent six months in jail fighting my case. I was originally charged with federal drug trafficking and money laundering charges. When they arrested me that day, they seized over a million dollars of cash. So they thought they had nabbed a real player working directly with the cartels. I mean, I had the IRS, the DEA, the FBI. and Portland vice and drugs unit inside of my apartment. They tried to get me to give up my contacts.

They thought they had like the next George Young or something, that dude from Blow. Because when you think about it, what did I really do? I crossed an imaginary line with a bunch of plants. I mean, you say I'm an outlaw, you say I'm a thief, but where's the Christmas dinner for the people on relief? So that's why I was charged with a federal crime. Now keep in mind, I didn't have any bail option.

Most drug dealers, with that kind of money, bail out immediately. I was caught with so much cash that the U.S. attorney deemed me a flight risk and got the judge to suspend any bail option. So I had the bail money ready. It was set at half a million dollars and you pay 10% of that. So 50 grand. I had that. My parents had it waiting for me, but I wasn't even given the option to bail out. I had to stay in the county jail and fight my case the entire time. Some people spend years in county jail fighting their case. The truth was, I I was not part of the cartel. They were just one of my suppliers.

So once the US attorney kind of figured that out, the feds decided to drop the case and give it back over to the state. And that was good news. That meant I wasn't going to do Fed time. That's what you pay a good lawyer for. So he'll fight for you. The DA who picked up the case was a real ball buster.

He wanted to give me seven years. And we were just like, no way. We will take this to the box if we need to. We'll take it to court. And we finally agreed. on 36 months. I didn't have any kind of criminal record at the time. I was a college kid. I was from a good family and it was a marijuana-related charge. There was no heroin or cocaine involved or methamphetamine. So we were finally able to convince this guy to compromise at 36 months or three years with the

possibility of getting time cut off for good behavior. I go in, I sign the paperwork. Now it's time to go off to prison. For people who have bailed out, who then get sentenced or take a plea deal to prison time, a lot of times they'll get handcuffed right there in the court and led off to prison. But a lot of times the judge will actually give you a few days or even a week to go home and get your affairs in order and say goodbye to your family. And then he will give you a day and a time where you actually have to turn yourself into prison. So we've all seen that iconic scene in Goodfellas where Ray Leota's at a bar and then he... I'll call you a my good chance.

Now take me to jail. That's true to life. I actually knew a guy who took the bus to prison. He took two different metro buses to the facility where he was supposed to turn himself in at. But for people like me who were not able to bail out and who were in county jail the whole time, after you plead guilty, you are shipped back to the county jail. So I go back to county. I say goodbye to my buddies. I have my last meal, so to speak. And it was in the middle of the night,

like 2 a.m. when I was woken up by one of the guards and told to roll up. And the reason that they ship you off in the middle of the night is because they don't want anybody who might be plotting an escape to be able to set up an ambush or know of an expected time to when the vehicle is leaving the county jail. So I was put on the chain and sent to Coffee Creek. Coffee Creek was a prison, but it was a holding prison. And it was where all the inmates who were first coming into the system in the Department of Corrections in Oregon were sent to while they were waiting to be sent to whatever prison that the administration was going to send them off to. And every state has something like this. California has two different sorting prisons where all the inmates are first sent to

and how they decide which prison to send you to is based off of a bed space, but be your security level. What level of security you are. So there's level one to four. I was a level three security threat, for lack of a better way to put it. It's because I kept getting in fights in the county jail. I was in the county for six months and I got in four different fights and I was getting in trouble. And it's not because I'm some tough guy. It's I just kept getting tested and I would defend myself. So I was sent to the whole multiple times and I had a big file on me by that point. When you first get incarcerated, you immediately get a file. And every time you get get in trouble every time you get caught with drugs, a weapon, every time you get in a fight,

you get a ding, a strike against you. So by the time I got to Coffee Creek, I had already had all these points racked up and I was the highest security threat almost. I was on the level of murderers and other violent criminals. And I knew I was in trouble because I spent two months waiting to get shipped off. So finally I get called down to my counselor's office and he tells me I'm going to Two Rivers Correctional Facility, which is a max yard, maximum security prison, way out in eastern Oregon, like six hours away from Portland. One of the worst places to get shipped off to, by far, in the Oregon Department of Corrections. But I didn't give a fuck.

I was ready to go. I was relieved to be sent off to prison because Coffee Creek was locked down the whole time. You never get out of your cell. It's like being in the hole for two straight months. It's 24-hour lockdown. Even meals are slid through the food slots in the cell. The only time you get out is to shower once a day and to go to yard and use the phone once a week.

So in many ways, I was relieved to finally know where I was going and to know my fate a little bit. Okay, so next step, you get back on the chain. I was chained up to, I'd say, 10 other inmates and you get on the gray goose. Everybody that's been locked up knows about the gray goose. That is the prison transport van, and it's just an armored car that's been outfitted by the state to transport inmates. So we all stripped down and were made to put on these orange jumpsuits, and we're bound by our hands and our feet to the point where it's almost impossible to walk.

You can just kind of inch forward on the balls of your feet. Now we got a six-hour drive locked up like this. If you have to piss, the toilet is right next to one of the benches where the inmates are sitting. It's almost like being in a moving cell. Now we got a six-hour drive to our new home. And I just love the cool air blowing against my face as we drove down the highway. I hadn't felt what was the closest thing to freedom in a long time. And the energy on the bus is wild.

Everybody is yelling and jabbering and gossiping, talking about their sentences, talking about this facility. A lot of people had been to this prison before and they were coming back. We were talking about each other's cases. There was a guy chained up to me who had just beat a murder charge and got it reduced to manslaughter. And he only had 15 years instead of 30 to do. So he was happy. A guy to my left, this dude named Roger, I had actually known from the county jail. and I had graduated with him from county to Coffee Creek,

and now, as fate would have it, we were getting shipped to the same penitentiary. And Roger was a real good dude. Roger was a gangbanger from Chicago who had moved to Portland and tried to clean his life up, but, you know, it's hard to get out of the game, and he went back to the street life. So he had to do a little bit of a bid,

but he was like the guy leading me through the whole process. And he asked me how much time I had, I told him I was doing 36. months, but with good behavior, I could be out in like half the time. I could get home in 18, 20 months. And I remember right at that moment, he looks at me and he goes, no, don't think like that. There is no good time. I go, what are you talking about? He goes, we're going to a maximum security prison. You doing your time day for day. And you're going to see what I mean. And I still didn't really understand. He said, good time will get you killed. Never think about good time. Just think about

how to survive. And so that was kind of ominous. I was worried about that. Then there's this other dude, this big Samoan dude on the end of the chain. And he was quiet. And he was the only one not talking. Nobody was talking to him. And I learned that this dude had just been convicted of murder and was getting ready to go do a life sentence. And that was surreal. I remember looking through the tiny little windows of the gray goose and you could see grass and the side of the highway as it rolled along. And I was thinking, this is the last time this guy is going to see the free world. And it was just painful. It stabbed me in the fucking heart. It was really, really difficult to see guys sentenced to life and to be so close to them. And it was just,

no matter what they did, the humanity of it was crushing. And like that, You don't talk to unless they talk to you first. It's about respect and it's about leaving them in peace. They don't want to hear from you. You're getting ready. You're going to go home someday. This is their home. So those guys, you let them be.

You let them stick with themselves in prison. They run separately. So I knew that right away. So it feels like all day we're on this fucking thing. But finally, we get to the town of Eumatilla. We roll up to the prison. go through the gates and we're led off the gray goose. And the sun just hit me in the face. I hadn't seen natural light since I was locked up almost eight months ago. And it was like a baby being born.

It just stung me in the face. And it was like still to this day, the most beautiful sunshine I've ever experienced. And so we all get lined up one by one on the chain. And as we're getting uncuffed, I look over at the Samoan guy, and as soon as he gets uncuffed, he turns to a guy standing next to him, and he goes, wham! And he hit him so hard, I just heard the guy go, oof, and just drop, cold, out. And immediately they hit this dude with the pepper spray. And so much of it that the guy is like crying, he's wailing. And the rest of us hit the pavement with our hands behind our head, kissing the ground. And I remember being so stunned,

I kind of turned my head and rested my cheek against the concrete, and I thought, I may never get out of this place. I really at that moment thought that, no, I knew that my life, my old life was gone forever. And that's the only real time that I was. I felt like dying. I felt that I didn't want to go through this anymore. I was traumatized. I'm like, of course, after everything I've fucking been through, eight months in county, finally I'm here, and I just saw a dude get fucking rocked. And later on, I found out that guy died. The guy that

Samoan guy hit died. They took him to the hospital and he was dead. He was a sex offender. and he was next to a lifer, and that dude doing life had to prove his stripes right away. Fucking killed him. So, but what's another life sentence to him, right? This is why they segregate sex offenders, because this is what happens. Dude got it even before we got inside the prison. Finally, after what seems like hours, the rest of us stand back up and are marched inside the prison, strip searched again, all of the...

The clothes that we had at Coffee Creek are taken and thrown out. All the possessions that we've been lugging around since the county jail, books, papers, etc. are put away and we're given our prison outfits. Denim, head to toe and converse shoes. Then we're given our bed sheets, pillows, all of it in a sack. Then we get a little piece of paper with our cell block number on it. And it felt like being at a new school getting your home room. assigned to you. And then the guards were just like, go, go find it. And so I'm walking around

this facility looking for my homeroom class. I find it. It's cell block 8c. That was my cell block or the yard that I was assigned to. And I get buzzed in through a special door. I walk through some halls. And now I'm on the cell block. They opened another security door and I walk to my cell. And the cell block is already alive. They heard about what happened on the chain. and people are talking and yelling out. And it's old school penitentiary style. Hamster cage cells, three levels stacked on top of each other. And as I pass by one of the cells,

I hear some dude go, yo, that's Mitchell, he's good, he's got good paperwork. I had a cell on the first level. So the guards pop my cell door open. I walk into my cell, I put my stuff down, and I see that I don't have a cellmate yet. So now I'm bugging, I'm thinking, who the fuck are they gonna sell me up with?

If they put a child molester in here, I'm fucked. So you never want to go into a cell your first day on the cell block and not have somebody that you're bunked up with already because you don't know who's coming in there. It could be a lifer. It could be a child molester. Could be a gangbanger. It could be somebody off the street who's got to kill somebody to prove himself.

So I was like, God damn it. So this is just another piece of anxiety that's hanging over my head. Now it's yard time. I got there in the early afternoon. So the cell block had already had chow and cell doors open now it's time for line movement Line movement means whenever the inmates in a facility are not locked in their cells It happened two or three times a day depending on the level of security the level yard you are on Line movement just means any time that the cells are open and the inmates are allowed to come and go

Line movement happens now it's yard now we're out on the yard and it's a huge yard it's a huge yard it's the size of a football field, bigger actually, and it's got a track around it and a bunch of different weight piles. In the feds, the federal prisons, there's no more weights. They took those away years ago. The state facilities still have weights in them.

And the weight piles are populated according to gangs. They call them cars in there. So what car are you rolling with? You would always hear people say. And I'm walking around and I'm a little nervous, but I've at least I'm, I've got some separation between me and everybody else, and I can see what's coming at me,

and I can see who's coming up behind me. The gangs in prison in the United States are segregated according to ethnicity and skin color. And a lot of it depends on what state you're in. Obviously in California, you have a very strict prison politic gang-banging culture. The white gangs are the Aryan Brotherhood is the big one. With the blacks, it's the black guerrilla family, the bloods, the Crips, and then so many different Hispanic gangs. Kind of the same thing holds true in Oregon. And at two rivers, The main sets, we called them sets, were the Aryan Brotherhood, the Hells Angels, those are the big white gangs. With the black guys, it was the Rolling 60s, Crips, and Pairoo blood gangs.

And it's funny because those are gangs from South Central L.A. But over the years, they have migrated north to Portland and Seattle, places in the northwest, to sell drugs. Then they get locked up. and now we have a whole new transplant prison culture in Oregon. So it was the bloods and the Crips, and then the Hispanic gangs were the Nortenos and Sarenos and the Paisas. And in Oregon, a lot of times they rolled together. It wasn't as strict and kind of segregated as prisons in California.

But I had also heard that a week before I hit that yard, a Norteno had a beef with this Pisa guy, and he came up behind him with one of those little shanks with the razor blades fastened onto it. And he kind of hit his brachial artery right there and dude had bled out. So there was always beef going on amongst the gangs. And I'm walking around the track and I pass a group of these white guys, these big burly white guys on a weight pile.

And as I'm walking by him, I hear them start to kind of gossip, right? And then one of them goes, no, that's Mitchell. He's good. He's got good paperwork. Paperwork. You always hear about paperwork. In prison, there's two types of paperwork. There's good paperwork and there's bad paperwork.

Bad paperwork means you're a snitch or you're a sex offender. Good paperwork is everything else. So I met dudes that killed 10 people, but they had good paperwork. But, you know, a guy who's 21 and he sleeps with his 17-year-old girlfriend and he gets locked up, that's bad paperwork. I don't make the rules. These are just kind of the archaic laws that run American penitentiaries and probably prisons all over the work. And as I'm walking around the track, I'm just observing and I'm keeping my eye out for anybody who might look like a problem.

I'm also just kind of taking in my new home. I mean, this is where I'm going to be. And I was a mess physically. I started sweating immediately. I hadn't had any real exercise since I fell back in September of 2010. So you have eight months of just starving in the county jail where. they just feed you enough to keep you alive. I mean, my ribs are showing. I'm completely pasty white. I'm down bad at this point, you know. And then I pass a group of white guys on a weight pile.

And as I'm walking by them, one of them comes up to me. And he's this big baldhead, white rhino dude. He's got a swastick on his neck. And I'm like, oh, this ought to be fun. And he goes, Mitchell, you got good paperwork. He knew who I was already. Think about that. This motherfucker knew my name. and he knew my crime. He goes, you're a good white dude. We need more good white dudes on this yard. And I go, okay, like, yeah, I'll take that into consideration, man. And I just kept walking. And later, I found out who he was. He was a shot caller for the Aryan Brotherhood. And shot callers, or we call him key holders, he had keys to the yard. And those dudes are connected with all the guards. They know who's coming in it out off the chain, and they knew who I was before I even got off the gray goose

that day. So that was mind-blowing to me. Now, I keep on walking, and I pass by the basketball court, and surprise, surprise, it's the black dudes dominating. I'm six-foot-six. I've been hooping all my life, but I was in no mood on this particular day. I just wanted to be left alone. But one of the guys who's playing sprains his ankle, and he's limping off the court, and I see them just start to swivel their heads, looking around for an extra player and they spot me and I know what's coming. I've been getting it my whole life. He goes, we need a fifth. And he goes like this. And I was like, oh, this is not a request. So I was like, all right, here we go. And I'm in Converse shoes like it's the 1950s, right? And game was to 21. I went out and I went like seven for eight from behind the three point line.

We just fucking crushed them. We won the game. And after the game, the same guy who recruited me, this guy Pele, this really good dude, this big black dude, he goes, hey, you play like Dirk, homie, as in Dirk Novitsky of the Dallas Mavericks. And this is 2011. It's the same year that they won the championship. So from that moment on, my name in the Oregon Department of Corrections was Dirk. That's what the inmates called me. That's what the guards called me. That's what my counselor called me. That's what the warden called me. It wasn't Johnny Mitchell. It was Dirk. That's how I got my prison handle. Now it's the end of yard and everybody's heading back into the building to go back to the cell block. And one of the white dudes who was on the weight pile who I met earlier comes up from

behind me and he goes, hey, Durk. Do you hear about your new cellie? And I go, no. And he goes, dude's got a jacket. Having a jacket in prison means that you have bad paperwork. And the guy goes, are you going to be able to handle it? And I knew exactly what he meant. And I said, yeah, I'll handle it. I get back to the cell block. I walk into my cell. And my new cellie is making up his bed, getting settled, taking out his things.

And I go, wait a minute, let me see your paperwork. And he looked at me like, fuck. He knows. And so he hands me his paperwork. And paperwork is just one sheet that they give you from the courts showing what you're convicted of. And I look at it and I'm kind of reading it and I'm like, the fuck, supplying drugs to a minor, that was his charge. There was nothing about a sex crime or rape or sodomy or anything like that. It was supplying drugs to a minor. And I'm thinking, oh, shit,

okay, well, this is all a big misunderstanding. I mean, supplying drugs to a minor, a lot of minors got a hold of my product, you know. And this dude was cool, too. He was not like some creepy I was like, what the fuck is this about, man? They're telling me you've got a jacket. He's like, no, no, no, no. I was smoking meth with this 16-year-old, but, you know, I didn't do anything sexual to her. And I go, stop right there. I don't want to know anything else.

But if there's no crime on the paper, I think we're both kind of out of this. At this point, it's dinner time, and we're all starting to line up for chow. And I look at the guy, and he's like, I'm not coming out of the cell. And I said, okay, well, I'm going to go to chow. When I get back, we're going to figure this out. Memorial Day weekend is almost here, and it's time to kick off summer right. When I'm getting ready for the first big weekend of summer, total wine and more is my go-to, especially when I'm firing up the grill with family. I'll grab refreshing beers, easy drinking wines, and some hard seltzers for the cooler. And with everything that goes into summer,

it's nice knowing you're getting the lowest prices. Total wine and more. Your Memorial Day, Made Easy. Shop total wine and more, in store or online. Spirits not sold in Virginia and North Carolina. Drink responsibly must be 21. Now it's chow time. So we all leave ourselves, turn, and start marching towards the chow hall. And we walk single file through this big maze of a prison.

You all line up, you get your slop, your hamburger, your dessert, your glass of milk, or your cold, sugarless tea. And now I'm looking around. And there's nowhere to sit. And it felt like being in a new high school. All the cool kids are the different gangs. And everybody's got friends. Everybody knows each other.

And I just felt like a big loser. And I hear Dirk. And I look over and the table of white dudes who were on the yard earlier are flagging me over to their table. And so I have a seat. And I started eating with the dudes. And these are all Aryan brotherhood, very typical shaved heads. swastikas, European flags all over, and just typical cast of, you know, white prison inmates.

And almost immediately the shock caller goes, did you handle that thing for us? And I tell him, actually, he doesn't have a jacket, dude. I read his paperwork. The guy was just smoking crystal with a minor. There was nothing on there about sex or a skin beef or nothing like that. I was excited. like, hey, this is all a big misunderstanding. We're just going to be friends, right? And he just kind of smirks at me and he shakes his head. I'll never forget the fucking evil in that face. He was like,

nah, dude, a jacket's a jacket. When there's a kid involved, he's got to go. And keep in mind, they are asking me to stab this dude. They haven't said it explicitly, but there's no fighting in prison, especially when it comes to sex offenders or gang beefs. If there's something that can be settled with words, you don't need to get in a fight. But if it is that serious, somebody's going to get stabbed. And they're basically asking me to go commit murder. And he looks at me one more time, square in the eye. And he said, are you going to handle this? And I just said, no, the guy doesn't have a jacket. I talked to him. He's a solid dude. I'm not going to do it. It's not that I was a hero. I was just on principle. I'm like, I'm not stabbing this guy. I'm not.

doing life because these dudes want me to take this guy out. I'm just not doing it. Because I knew if I stabbed this guy and he survives, I'm still getting 25 years minimum. If I kill him, I'm getting a life sentence. So my whole thought was I would rather stab these dudes who are trying to kill me, and then in court, I can plead self-defense. So I was thinking analytically at this point. I was like, what can I do to not catch a life sentence? That's all that's going through my head. And I picked up my tray and I walked over to an empty table and I sat down and I ate by myself. And I looked over at them and they didn't get upset. They weren't yelling. They weren't puffed up. They were kind of smiling. And in a way, I think that I had either pissed them off or gained their respect. But I knew these guys were going to be trouble for my entire stay at two rivers. After chow, I go back to my cell. I walk in and my cellie kind of stands up and he goes, what's the deal? Am I good?

And I go, you're not good. He goes, what do you mean? I was like, man, a white dude said a jacket's a jacket. You got to go. And he kind of looked at me like, is this about to happen? And I said, I don't know what to do here. I mean, do I throw you over the balcony? Do I throw you down the stairs?

Do I beat the shit out of you? you're not leaving me a lot of options, Ben. And he did something that I'll never forget. He goes, hang on. And he walks to the front of the cell door, and he yells out to the guard. He goes, hey, I need help. And he started to yell, like, real panicked like. And so the cop starts running back the opposite way down the tier towards our cell.

Because he probably thought I was stabbing the guy, because they knew, too, that this guy had a jacket. And the cop gets to our cell, and he's like, what the fuck's going on? and my cellmate's threatening me. And the cop looks at me and he's confused and he goes, this dude's threatening you? He goes, yeah, I need to get, I need to PC up. PC, protective custody. That's where all the child molesters and the snitches go to a separate yard where they're away from the general population.

That's where this dude should have gone in the first place if he had a jacket. So the guard goes, okay, and makes my cellie turn around, cuffs him up. And he goes, Mitchell, I'll be back for you. you. And then he led my cellie away and he took him off the cell block. But I realized why my cellmate did that and why he did such a favor for me, because by letting all the inmates know that he was scared for his life, it was making me look kind of tough. And it was also his excuse to get himself off of the cell block and into protective custody before I had to do anything physical or violent toward him. So to this day, I don't know who that guy is. I'll never see him again. Don't

name but I owe him a debt of gratitude for that. So to get him off the cell block and then three COs come back to my cell, make me turn around, handcuff me, march me out of the cell block and take me straight to the hole. And I'm in there for two or three hours by myself. I don't know what's about to happen. And then a lieutenant comes down, comes into my cell, through my cell doors, he goes, Mitchell? And I was like, wow, it's Dirk. He goes, you threat. You threatening this dude? I go, no. And he goes, okay, who told you to stab this guy? And I was just played dumb. I was like, I don't know. Nobody, sir, I don't know what you're talking about. He goes, just give us some names and you'll be out of here. And I was like, man, I don't know

no names, man. Guy just had a jacket, but I didn't do nothing. I don't know nothing. And he goes, okay, well, I'm going to send you to a different cell block and just go on with your programming, you know? So I get sent to a totally different cell block. Now I'm off that yard. And that's at least important because I'm not on the same cell block with these Aryan Brotherhood dudes who want me to kill this guy. I could still run into him at Chow or out on the yard, but at least I'm housed in a different unit and my odds of running into them are reduced. So I was happy about that. They sent me to my new cell, and this time I walk in and my cellie's already living there.

And you can tell this guy's been in there a minute because he's got junk food and commissary and sneakers all over the place. This is a guy who's got some time under his belt. And he introduces himself to me, and he says, I'm Jimmy. And this was Jimmy DeSort. He was the shock caller for the Hells Angels, the most powerful gang. in the entire Oregon Department of Corrections, he was the number one dude at two rivers. And he said to me, Dirk, kind of nodded. He goes, you're a good kid?

And I was like, yeah, I think so. And he goes, are you scared to die? And I was like, fuck, yeah. And he goes, you're scared to kill? And I was like, yeah. And then he goes, well, I guess you'll decide which one you're more afraid of. And then he reaches underneath his pillow and he pulls out a burner, a shank. It's like six inches.

And then he passes it to me. And he goes, here, that's yours. Don't ever leave the cell block without this. And he was the reason I made it out of that place alive. Jimmy was. He saved my life. It's wild. They put the hardest dude and the softest dude together.

And man, that was one fucking day all over some weed too. Imagine that. Okay, so that was my first day in prison. Everybody's prison experience is a little different. Depends what state you're in. It depends what level security you're in. Depends what kind of prison you're in. Are you in a federal facility?

And depends how much time you have. It depends on a lot of things, your ethnicity, if you run with a gang. But in general, what you can expect from being in a an adult prison is the first day you get there, the other inmates are going to know who you are, they're going to want to see your paperwork, and they're going to want to see you stick up for yourself, the way I did when I refused to do the bidding of that gang. I refused to stab an innocent dude to death who really didn't have bad paperwork. I won their respect, even if I knew I was going to have a problem with them later. I was proud of myself because I made a moral

decision. And I wanted again when the guy I was sold up with made it seem like I was threatening him in front of the other inmates. So these are just a couple of things to be aware of if you or any of your loved ones, God forbid, do become incarcerated, some things to look out for and things to stay away from. And the most important things to stay away from are the prison gangs and prison politics. The idea is to get in there and do your time and come home safely. Okay, that's been our episode for this week. Make sure to like, subscribe, and turn on alerts so you get notified whenever we drop new content. We have brand new episodes coming out every Thursday.

Make sure to follow us on social media at Not the Connect and at Mr. Johnny Mitchell. And we will see you next week. Take care of yourself.