The Connect- with Johnny Mitchell - Inside America's Most NOTORIOUS Prison: Inmate Exposes Truth About ADX Supermax Prison

Episode Date: May 31, 2026

Former federal inmate Eric King joins to expose what life is really like inside ADX Florence, America’s most notorious supermax prison. After being sentenced to 10 years for firebombing a politician’s office in 2014, King says he endured brutal treatment in federal custody, including beatings, starvation, solitary confinement, four-point restraints, and years of communication restrictions. In this episode, Eric opens up about his radicalization in Kansas City, the Ferguson protests, his federal case, surviving violent prison politics, fighting a guard in self-defense, winning at trial, and later being sent to ADX Florence in what he believes was retaliation. He also explains the psychological toll of extreme isolation, the myths surrounding ADX, how prisoners communicate inside, and what it took to rebuild his life after release. Eric is the author of A Clean Hell: Anarchy and Abolition Inside America’s Most Notorious Dungeon, a firsthand account of survival, resistance, and humanity inside the federal prison system. Topics include: -Eric King’s childhood and political awakening -Ferguson, direct action, and his federal charges -Violence, solitary confinement, and prison retaliation -Life inside ADX Florence -The psychological effects of extreme isolation -Reentry, trauma, family, and healing after prison Go Support Eric! Book: https://pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1872 IG: https://www.instagram.com/supportericking/ This Episode Is #Sponsored By The Following: Hims! To get simple, online access to personalized, affordable care for ED, Hair Loss, Weight Loss, and more, visit https://hims.com/connect Prescription required. See website for details and important safety information. Sildenafil is the generic version of Viagra®. Viagra® is a registered trademark of Viatris Specialty LLC. Hims is not affiliated with or endorsed by Viatris. Cash App! Download Cash App Today: https://capl.onelink.me/vFut/1ekoiacn #CashAppPod. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App’s bank partner(s). Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. See terms and conditions at https://cash.app/legal/us/en-us/card-agreement. Cash App Green, overdraft coverage, borrow, cash back offers and promotions provided by Cash App, a Block, Inc. brand. Visit http://cash.app/legal/podcast for full disclosures. Join The Patreon For Bonus Content! https://www.patreon.com/theconnectshow 00:00 Eric King Introduction 02:00 Eric's Early Life & Radicalization 06:00 Growing Up: Crime, Poverty, and Activism 12:00 Losing Faith & Early Legal Troubles 18:00 Protest, Ferguson, and Political Activism 21:06 This Episode Is Sponsored By Hims 22:41 The Crime: Ferguson Response & Arrest 29:00 Prison: First Experiences & Racial Politics 34:00 Surviving Prison Culture & Targeting 40:00 Abuse by Guards & Florence Medium Incident 45:42 This Episode Is Sponsored By Cash App 47:00 Torture, Four-Point Room & Transfer Hell 53:00 Isolation, Violence, and Solitary Life 01:00:00 Fighting Back: Resistance & Prison Protests 01:14:00 Second Trial: Self-Defense, Winning in Court 01:20:00 ADX Florence: Punishment & Reprisal Transfers 01:28:00 Arriving at ADX: Conditions and Isolation 01:37:00 ADX Daily Life & Psychological Impact 01:49:00 Punitive System, Corruption, and Quota Reality 01:56:00 Surviving Isolation: Mental Discipline & Gratitude 02:00:00 Reentry: Life After Prison & Its Challenges 02:06:00 Reflection: Regrets, Growth, and Activism Now 02:12:00 ADX Realities, Mythbusting & Book Release 02:18:00 ADX Procedures, High-Profile Inmates & Closing Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. This spring, Denham gets a softer, lighter, update. Introducing Old Navy's drapey denim wide leg, a new fit that moves with you. It's everything you want denim to feel like for summer. Easy, breathable, and effortlessly cool. With a fit that creates natural movement and a wide leg that feels modern, not overwhelming. Plus, that signature, wait, for this price, moment. Old Navy's drapey denim wide leg. Pieces over, pieces dead. I walked down the streets of Kansas City with a backpack full of guns and cocktails. I decided to throw the

Maltops at the office. For the next five days, I just went around shooting up places. ADX is not a joke mentally. That level of isolation has a deep impact on people. They chain you like a human X on a metal bed. Just please don't let me get killed to this prison. Please. Big roided up. Cops don't like it when you laugh in their face. They want to hurt us. They want to hurt you. Fight for yourself. Fight to win. My guest today is Eric King, a former federal inmate who survived two years inside of the infamous ADX Florence. The highest security Supermax in the United States. Eric is a radical left-wing activist who is sentenced to 10 years in federal

prison for firebombing a politician's office back in 2014. And while he was down, he suffered constant abuse at the hands of the prison guards, including beatings, starvation, and torture. But Eric is no punk. He fought back and f***ed up one of the guards so bad that they sent him to ADX Florence as punishment. Eric exposes what it's really like inside of one of the most hellish, isolating prisons in the world and what it took for him to survive. He's written an amazing book about his experience called A Clean Hell, Anarchy and Abolition Inside America's Most Notorious Dungeon. I highly recommend it.

A link to that will be in the description below. Ladies and gentlemen, what a fascinating conversation. This will make you want to stay out of prison. It's Eric King right here on The Connect with Johnny Mitchell. Okay, get ready for this one, you guys. Before we get started, do me a quick favor. If you haven't subscribed to the channel yet, please just hit that subscribe button

and turn on that little alert bell right there. And if you can't watch the episode right now, it's all good. Just make sure to put it in your watch later folder because trust me, you are not going to want to miss this one. And as always, smash that like button, drop a comment below. Okay, thank you so much. Enjoy. Let's do this. When I talk, people think I'm lying.

Yeah. Because, like, the government doesn't do that. You're a baby. You're a pussy. Yeah. But I have the video, dude. All of the videos. So it's dope. That's American privilege.

No, our government would never do that. Why on earth? Would you think they do that? Look, I know they're not perfect. It has their problems. That's when I get heard from my mom a lot. Look, I know they're not perfect. But, however.

But then you go down to Mexico and they're like, oh, they do this. Not only do they do this, they do most of the killing, most of the crime. It's all led by them. It's like, it's rational because they've lived. it. You go down to Belivia, they're like, oh, no, we stand together against this enemy that is the government. So I think we'll get there, but things have to get really bad. Like, that's just, that's how, you know, an alcoholic, a drug addict, they don't change. They don't start to become aware until they're complete. There's nothing left. Yeah. So thanks for being here. You are not a gang member, although some people looking at you right now watching this would would think so. Tell us about your background a little bit and that how you came to be in the system. Yeah.

So I was born in Kansas City, born to a poor single mom. And that's where I got radicalized was in Casey watching, watching poor people get evicted from their homes. Seeing the sheriffs come and I throw people's property out in their yards, like my neighbors, people in my communities. And when you see that stuff, it changes how you view authority. So who is running those cops? Who's bossing those cops around? It's the banks. So even from a 5, 6, 7, 8 year old kid,

I'm understanding that it's the people that run the banks control capital, control the cops. And I'm also seeing who their enemy is. It's poor people. So I got radicalized at a young, young age. And I just grew up through, like, evolving with that. Like, my entire life, I wanted to be a priest for a while or a monk, a Franciscan.

But I wanted to be one of the ones that practiced, like, the theology of, like, South American or Central American archbishops, where it was like, we're activists. We're going to help the poor. We're not going to oppress women. And then those dreams obviously go away as you grow up. But that's what radicalized me. That's what my whole upbringing was. There's never been a time where social issues weren't the main part of my life. Does that make sense?

Yeah. That must have been tough in the 90s when there was no internet. Because nowadays, it's so easy to speak up, to have a voice, especially when you're politically conscious like you. But back in the day, you had to like, yeah, blight trash cans on fire and go to metal and, well, tech nine shows coming from Kansas City. It's a lot. You know, so it's, yeah, it must have been isolating, but also fun because you find your people. It was isolating, and you don't always find your people. Like a lot of times the people you find are people that are dirtbags

Or that I would consider dirtbags They might consider themselves patriots or whatever And so sometimes you get surrounded by those people And you have to maintain your ethics Despite who you're around And that would probably train me for prison honestly Because I didn't have very many radical friends Until I was in my late teens, early 20s

So who were the kids you were hanging around? I was hanging around boxing kids Because I boxed So almost all my friends were either boxer or poor kids, people from my neighborhood. And we just didn't talk politics. We just live that life. You're living the life of having this shit come down on you all the time.

So you don't need to talk about it. You already know that there's not enough food. You already know that if you miss another payment, your lights are going to be off. You don't need someone to tell you how bad it is. You are experiencing that bad. That's why I hung out with. But you were, like, committing crime. I was.

You were? Yeah, all the time. Okay. I went to Juvie when I was 12. for I thought this person in my neighborhood was rich. And I thought they were like fawning. And it turns out their house is just slightly bigger than mine. They had just like a slightly better car.

They had slightly more food. But me and a friend, we were on some destroy the rich stuff when we were 11 and 12. So we broke into their house and destroyed it. Like I regret that horribly now. Like that was a that was a horrible decision. It must have terrified them when they came home. Lots of regrets. But at the time, it was striking a blow.

Like, we're going to show you, motherfucker. Like, you don't get to flaunt in this neighborhood. And I ended up going in Juvie for about six months, had a lot of restitution. And then that small actions like that never stopped. They might, I wasn't breaking into houses anymore. But when it came to anything I could do to disrupt a bank, disrupt a cop, disrupt some bigot, I would find ways or try to find ways to do it. even as a young monk apprentice. Like, I went in state of Minnesota with San Francisco monks as a trainee.

And even that involved, like, blocking chains around, God damn, I forget what business it was, some business that was profiting off of the first Iraq war. Like weapons manufacturing? Something like that. They were either supplying the weapons, financing the weapons, and they chained themselves in front of it to say, like, this can't exist anymore.

Yeah. There's a place in Kansas City that develops parts, nuclear bomb. And it's in Kansas City. It's like a little microchip. So we would like chain ourselves to that or vandalize it. That's like stuff growing up as a young kid. Yeah, that's that kind of old school Vietnam era protesting where you're breaking the law,

but you're doing it, you know, to make a political statement. And back then there was like radical Catholics. Like Dorothy Day, like that's where our mindset was real. And I admired that like, I'm going to help because I care, not because I'm angry. or I'm angry because I care either way. You understand. Why did you drop out of the seminary? So my dad, I was never in the seminary, by the way, I was 15, in 16, 17.

So I didn't get to that point yet. But I fell out of the church. My dad died of prostate cancer. And I was like, I was praying every day. I put St. Metals under his bed. I put the sepulchre on him. And so when he died, he died holding my hands. I watched it just enverated.

body. And so that made me really hurt and, like, question like, what the fuck? Like, you're going to give me one break here? And then after that, it came out that Senato O'Connor was right. And the church has been covering up child rate for 100 years. And it wasn't just that it happened. Like, individual people can do bad things, but as an institution, they were allowing it. Yeah. Allowing it, covering up, moving them to other other parishes to let it keep going. And when I heard that, I was like, no, this isn't for me. I cannot be affiliated with this organization.

You're not helpers for destroying generations of people. Yeah, that was the Epstein Files of the early 2000s. I remember when that scandal hit, it was huge and devastating. And I remember the church, like suing people to stop the truth from coming out. I was like, you rotten motherfuckers.

Like, I had nothing else take accountability immediately and start offering reparations. start offering something. But they did the exact opposite. It's like, you guys, you're not living, you're not living what you preach, literally. Did you do any prison time, like adult prison time before this situation with the feds?

I did jail time. So I did a couple of weeks in jail because I was at a protest and I hit a cop on the head with the flag bowl. Tough guy. I'm just so tough. Such a badass. And then I did a couple weeks in county jail because I was at a

soccer game with the ultras and the cops came and tried to tell us that we had to leave for chanting and stuff. Ultras? The people that have like flags and streamers and smoke bombs they're called Ultras. Okay. So they're not fighting like Ooligans, but they're putting on a display for their club. And so I was a

supporting Kansas City Ultra. And so I bopped that cop on the head with the flagpole too. And so that was a couple more weeks of Juvie, or not Juvie, but jail time. This dumb stuff. Yeah, but you're a real, you got a real problem with authority. That's just in you.

Yeah, I do. And it's not like some, like, anarchy with like the A out of the circle, like some, I'm punk, I'm tough. It was just a, what are you doing? Like, why do you feel you have the ability to hurt people or control people

when they're literally just living their lives? If someone's out there raping and you fuck up a rapist, fine. Like, whatever. We can have that argument later. But if I'm at a soccer game, I'm waving a flag, you're going to try to tell me know? No. You don't get to do that. And it's a microcosm of how the world works, like how the police state works. You remind me of like a hooligan from Ireland. You know, those guys are

not afraid to fuck up a cop, throw a rock at a cop, throw a moloetoff at a cop. I grew up in Glasgow. I spent a lot of time in Glasgow, East Glasgow. Scotland. Yeah. And so I'd bounced back and forth in there in Ireland because I had family. And so I was, like, I was raised at. ethical. That makes a lot of sense now. That makes a lot of sense now. Okay. Hashtag Celtic. Let's go. Let's go. So and hence the ink and stuff like that. I assume there's a lot of Celtic imagery on you. I don't even support Celtic as a team. I just love their ethics. They're the most left wing. The Green Brigade leads the path like St. Pauli, leading the way in ethical ultraism or Huguenism. How do you feel about violent revolution?

Like it kind of what the IRA engaged in during the troubles. Sure. I think it's important when we talk about something like Ireland is that that is a defensive act. Like what they were doing was defensive. We are being occupied right now. And it's been 800 years of this shit going back to like Crumwell and William the Orange, those bastards. So it's been generational repression. So if at this point you've.

practice a peaceful civil rights movement like Bernard Dorn and all them, doing the civil rights stuff, and you still got killed. You're still having the UDF show up at your house and kicking your door and burn your house down. So at that point, you're defending yourself, and I don't feel like a repress people can ever be judged for how they defend themselves. I don't feel like a repress people can have the burden put on them for violence when state violence is being apologized for.

So as long as those motherfuckers are occupying your streets and shooting your kids and burning down your homes and discriminating against you, if you fight back, what else are you supposed to do? Bloody Sunday was a peaceful march. It was an unarmed peaceful march and they killed 14 people. So peace is over. Peace is dead. Okay. So. We talk about Ireland all day. Of course. No, it's one of the most fascinating guerrilla warfare, sectarian wars in the 20th century, for sure. Did you feel like you wanted that to happen in the U.S.? Or did you feel like you wanted to kick something up like that in the U.S.? Or do you think that's possible?

The U.S. isn't a monolith. So, like, we're so spread out in different regions, have different cultures and different levels. Whereas the north of Ireland, they're all facing the same repression. Like South Armagh, Derry, West Belfast. These places are all facing the same repression. And so you can unify across the two-hour span between their cities.

Whereas in America, St. Louis is three hours away or four from Kansas City. So there's no way to do that. I understood that then, but I did want that in my community. I wanted a unified community to where we could stand up for

marginalized people, queer people, black people, ground people, poor people. Some are all four. And so I was hoping that we could have a Kansas city that thrived on equity, like equality,

as opposed to top bottom, We have a great, we have a good, we have a decent, we have it as good as possible, we have it bad. I hate that shit. So I was hoping we could chop that down and make it horizontal. It didn't. Well, speaking to St. Louis, Ferguson, that's where this journey through the feds began. Yeah.

So tell us about that. So in Ferguson, Missouri, that was about three and a half, four hours away from Kansas City, the police murder a young man named Michael Brown. And some people listening will say like, oh, he was a thug, he was an animal. reach for the gun, all this bullshit. And they leave out the fact that there's an 18 year old kid who got shot in the back. An 18 year old kid that was getting followed by this cop, Darren Wilson. I have a great memory. Yeah, he pushed over like a shelf in a convenience store.

Yeah, right? He was a young man. He was a young. He was a young. He was angry. I don't even think he robbed the place. Like he just kind of, you know, it's a bitch-ass thing to do. But again, he was angry.

18-year-old kids do not have frontal load. No. Frontal lobes. No. And I recognize that they can still do bad stuff, but they're not bad people at that age. I don't feel any of them. And so when these cops were basically hunting this young kid for not even causing damage,

just for being annoying. He was definitely annoying. Maybe a punk move even. But when they murdered him and then I saw the response of the police, it wasn't, you know, we shouldn't have done this. It's unfortunate. It was he's a thug. And then the media.

picked up on it. The media once again doing the police's bidding was like this horrible piece of shit. They showed the worst pictures of them. They had Darren Wilson's thing talking about how he's an uncontrollable animal. And I just imagine what if that was me and my mom had to hear that? Well, how would that make her feel? And so I developed a lot of empathy. I always had it, but that broke my heart. And so I went to Ferguson with a couple of strangers. I just carpooled there and offer just try to be a help. What do you need from me? You need me to hold water?

Do you need me to move water? You need me to stand on the front line? You need me to be in the way of the National Guard firing these rubber bullets at us? Yeah. So there's protests in Ferguson. Yeah. You know, it was the biggest news in the nation at the time.

And yeah, they had the riot cops out there. It looked like 1964 in Alabama. Like, it was really bad optics. You know, poor black community. Poor community. in general, not just the National Guard. Yeah, and you have the National Guard,

just, you know, they cause, that causes more friction and tension than, than it helps. Right? Like, it's not, when you show up

looking like a fucking storm ship trooper with all of the military equipment of the state, that doesn't bring the temperature down. It just raises it naturally. But it makes it, but of course they,

at the time, the media was, spinning it in the cops favor. So this is where I just want to remind people what happened in Ferguson. And so you show up to this. Yeah. Okay. And I wasn't on some white saviour's shit.

Like, oh, teach you how to revolt. It was allies stuff. What can I do to be an asset to you? And then after three days there, I went back, I went back to Kansas City. And there was no uprising. There was no anger. There was no marches in the street. There was none of that stuff.

Kansas City essentially didn't seem to care. And that crushed me because I lay on like the futon of whatever house I was staying in or whatever squad I was sleeping in. And I wouldn't smell tear gas. I wouldn't smell pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, up, or hear the guns. And so I felt so privileged that, like, why do I get to experience this piece for this poor community doesn't? And that's what led to the series of direct actions, which led to the crime.

Okay. Tell us what happened. What were those actions? Yeah. So, once again, I thought. I thought it was David Gilbert. I thought it was a real revolutionary year. So it started with small vandalisms, like we would take credit cards and stick them in ATMs

and then do super glue. So like these banks that are financing the Ferguson police, we're going to strike a blow. We do the same thing. You take a toothpick and you stick in a lock and break it. Now you can't unlock your door. So these companies that are exploiting poor people in my community, payday loan places, predatory banks, stuff like that, I'm getting your ass. Cricket Wireless, I hope you hit them.

I don't even think Cricket Wireless existed this. Maybe it did fuck Crickett Wireless. But I'd also get the police. They had an open police parking lot on the Twelts and Locust downtown. And so I'll just walk down there with a big ass machete, get their cars. The tires bust up their windshields and then just walk back. And in my mind, I was doing that in solidarity with the people of Ferguson.

When I looked back, I wasn't doing anything. to help them. Like, that didn't make their pain go away. It was more self-serving, which I hold myself accountable for that shit. But when I saw that that wasn't doing anything, I thought I need to amp it up so these people know that we care.

And so that's when I decided to throw the the Molotovs at the office. Okay, and that was in Kansas City? Yeah, that was... Some, like, right-wing people always call me, like, call me Libthard. But it was a Democrats' office. because all politicians are targets. They're all law and order, every one of them.

Yeah. And so, yeah, I walked down the streets of Kansas City with a backpack full of guns and cocktails, spray painted the office, Ferguson, forever, and then tried to burn it down with two Molotovs. It was a Democrat political office? A congressman's office. Oh, okay. Yeah, they don't like that.

No, they hate it. Turns out. I met a guy when I was down in the county. He was getting ready to go do 20 in the feds just for shooting a bullet, pow, just driving by and shooting through a senator's office. Well, that's hilarious, but two, that sucks. That sucks that he had to get hit with that. But they take it serious.

That's a, my first plea deal was like 75 years. Obviously, you don't take that. But when I threw their cocktails, I still didn't feel like I was doing nothing. So for the next five days, I just went around shooting up places. The Federal Reserve, police station, banks, just trying. I was so stupid and naive thinking that that was going to mobilize the people. people, but it felt good. It felt like righteous rage and then I got caught. How'd you get caught?

I wasn't wearing mask. I didn't care. So I'm on cameras. Yeah. I'm an idiot. Like I'm a poor kid. And so they found out where I was staying somehow. I mean, probably people were just talking about it. Who slips? And one day I went to go to work and me and my, the friend I was staying with walked downstairs into their car. They were going to give me a ride. and the police just rolled up in the big van with the guns. Yeah, get your ass down. Today's episode is brought to you by Hymns. You guys, do I go one episode without talking about my...

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Did that molletsoff actually go off? Did that explode in the guy's office? It didn't explode in the office. He had like a really tiny window and I'm a bad throw. So I threw a hammer at first to break the window because I wanted the molotovs in there. And it did. It shattered. I was like, fuck yeah, here we go.

And so I lit the first Molotov and I threw it and hit the left side of the window frame. And so it caused that damage. And I was like, all right, well, I definitely got the next one. So I'd throw it and it hits the right side. So, and that was all I had at that point, you have to, you can't just stand around waiting for the cops to come and destroy you. So I burned the window frame. And that's it. And the guy wasn't even in there.

No, I was even made sure about that. That was really important. That I watched that place for hours, multiple days in a row to make sure are workers there at this time. Because if I had hurt a worker, like some poor worker, I would have felt horrible. I probably wouldn't have cared if it was a congressional worker, honestly, back then. But if I had hurt the janitor, that would have destroyed me. So I made sure empty building. It's a symbolism.

It's a symbolism, like an act of symbolism. It's not an act of violence. Right. So you're gaffled up. You're arrested. Did you get charged for like the shootings? No. Okay.

And statute of limitations says, already went so I feel comfortable talking about it. Okay. What is the charge exactly? What is the federal charge for doing something like throwing an incendiary device? So I got four charges. It was possession of a sedentary device on the property of a business that operates with interstate commerce, a federal business, a federal building. And then use of explosive on interstate commerce. And then because I had two of them, it was just possession and then use.

causing damage with an incendiary device. There was one. It was stupid. Yeah. But four charges. Wow. Maxed all the life. Right. Yeah.

It's crazy how much time they can give you for that. Yeah. Are you scared? Are you, do you feel like a revolutionary? You're like, yeah, I'm about to go down for the cause. Like, what's going through your mind at this point? So, and this will sound stupid to a lot of people, but all my heroes do time. Like, that is the natural progression.

You are going to end up doing time if you fight against the people that control power. it's going to happen. So I was expecting at someday I'll end up in prison. And I don't have like, maybe I have too little or too many beta blockers. Because I don't get nervous. I don't, adrenaline didn't happen. That's why I was good at boxing. You don't get nervous.

So throwing the cocktails. All right. Going to prison. All right. It just didn't click in my head how serious it was until they started coming with their Pue deals. And it's like, oh, shit. It is real.

Right. Right. I thought at most I would get five years. And now they offered you 75. Yeah. Or 70. And then it became 35. And then eventually ended up on 10.

Okay. Yeah. And you signed right away. I can't sign right away. But I mean, when you got the 10, compared to 75. When I got the 10, I still waited. I pushed it. I told right before trial.

Because I wanted them to come to five. And they said no. I will take your ass to trial and you'll get 50. Or you can sign this. Please you don't get 10. And then I signed it. Okay. It was hard.

What year did you go in? I went in 2014. I signed the plea in 2016. Gotcha. So 2016 is when you entered the system, the federal system. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

The federal system. Okay. So you got to do about six, six and a half with time served if you get good time, right? If I got good time, I would do eight and a half. Total. Yeah. Yeah. So.

I did not get that good time. No, you did not. And what's interesting about this is that you, as we're about to see, you went to ADX Florence at the end of your stretch. So this is very unusual. Super unusual. Where'd you go first? First, I went to a low security prison because I was a first time.

I had college education. I was over the age of 26. I was white. And so I went to Englewood Low, which there's like eight dudes there that aren't child molesters or arrests or these eight white guys. And so I would try to hang out with them, but like that prison is weird. like Jared Fogel's there, the subway guy. Rob Blagoivich was there.

There was a CIA guy there, a whistleblower. Kirakawa? The guy that's all over the internet now? I don't know. He was a black guy. No. But it was just weird. So I was only there for probably two months. And then when I was at the low, the guards were really shitty.

They hated my guts there. And so they would do things to antagonize me. And one day they were really shitty to my, she was two at the time. My daughter. And so I drew her a cartoon, a stick figure cartoon of me and her mom standing at a tombstone. And the tombstone had like a variation of that guard's name. His name's also Officer Eklinton. I hear his guts.

Pure bitch. But like who threatens a child? Israelis? Yeah. Guys. Officer Darren Wilson and Ferguson. But they ended up seeing that. And the day that they saw it, they came drag me from work.

They handcuffed me, put me in the shoe in Englewood. And then two hours later drove me two hours south to Florence Medium. And they referred me to the FBI for that cartoon saying I was threatening a federal agent. And so the FBI had to decide whether they were going to prosecute me or not. So I spent three months in the shoe at Florence Medium while the FBI decided. And then when they said, no, obviously we're not going to prosecute for this bullshit. That's when I got sent to Florence Medium, like on the yard. Right. So now you're in like a real prison.

Yeah, it's a like it's not the hardest prison, but like it's a very serious prison. Right. So you have to segregate. You've got to sit with the whites, bid with the whites. Now, that must have driven you a little crazy because especially when you're, I mean, I don't know about Florence medium, but most of these high level prisons, the whites are on some Nazi shit or on some, you know, stupid right wing politics shit. How did that work for you? How did you integrate yourself into that culture? So Florence was the first time I had like serious racial politics, like serious. Eat, sleep, work out, all of it with your race. But I found ways like to get around that by like gambling, playing Scrabble all day. I became so good at, I'll beat anyone's ass at Scrabble. I'll play you right now. Every travel I go to, I play, I'm 17 at all in my travels.

But so that's one of the ways I got around it because you can gamble with anybody, any race. They're not going to tell you not to make money. I see. And then my job, I had a job teaching yoga. Any race can come into your job. Right. And so also, I wasn't really respected in that prison. I had a couple of friends, but people didn't see me as like some hard guy.

But I had good paperwork. I wasn't a snitch. I wasn't a pump. So I'm staying on the yard. I'm seeing with Kansas City white guys. And I'm doing what I have to do to survive. But there was close calls. I got a bunch of fights with some of those boys who didn't like what I said for.

Right. There was times where it could have got seriously dark. but it was mostly the guards. Right. So do you ever feel like you were a target for violence from the inmates first? Yeah, all the time. Huh. Because I'm small.

Like, I'm 5'7. These dudes are huge dudes with 1488 tattoo on their neck for serious people. Like, they're not a game. But you were a boxer. So did you ever have to fight? Yeah. Okay. And then, like, mostly have booze.

Like, cells are small. Yeah. And I'm small. So you lose, but like if you stand up or yourself, you stay on the yard. Like, you're not checking in. You're not saying the cops to keep you safe. So I get to stay on the yard. It was just really tense for a while.

Right. So the guards were worse than the inmates. Always. Okay. Tell us about how you were treated at Florence Medium. Yeah. So at Florence Medium, that's when they started doing the domestic terrorist shit. That's when the guards started recognizing it as that.

I had a CIM file, a CIM file, central inmate monitoring. so they could restrict your stuff more. So my mail would take at best three weeks to get out and then three weeks to come back. My emails would take days instead of, like if you're not on monitoring, it takes two hours automatically. But mine had to be pre-read by a cop or lieutenant

to make sure I'm not whatever. Yeah. Whatever shit they're afraid. Sparking the revolution. Yeah. And so books would get rejected all the time. My wife would get harassed at visiting again. Um, that sort of stuff happened a lot.

And then that's when it escalated. Why were you targeted or labeled a domestic terrorist because of your crime? Yeah. Okay. They, uh, any attack on a government building is going to get you that. Yeah. So I had a security threat group and STG of domestic terrorist anarchists. Got it.

So, and that makes sense, right? Because the cops somehow view that as like an assault on them too. Absolutely. So they don't like you just to begin with. Um, okay. So how did. did escalate. So escalated, there was a lieutenant there

named Wilcox. And Lieutenant Wilcox, burly guy, like, obviously on steroids, 20-year veteran of the force, but he was a bullet. Like, he'd be on the yard, like, talking shit, trashing people's cells, doing all that stuff. And so one day he read an email that I had sent to my

wife. And the email had said how a Paisa had checked in by fucking up a lieutenant. So I was laughing about it. Like, I bet that felt so good, which I could have it bless his heart, all this stuff. And the lieutenant read it and he called me down to his office. He's like King, or he told the guard, I have King come to the office.

So when I walked down there, instead of going to his office, he took me to a mock closet. And there's no cameras in there. And you're not supposed to be. You're never supposed to be alone with an officer ever. And so instead of talking to me about the issue, he starts yelling at me, call me gay slurs, call me a race traitor, call me the N-word, just trying to bait me into violence. Because if you say that to people in prison,

you have to go. You call me a bitch on the yard. We have to fight. Even if it's a guard, I assume. But he was acting like a convict. Like, that's how they see themselves. You know, we're a gang. Wabble, rabble.

And so I'm just laughing in his face. And big, roided up cops don't like it when you laugh in their face. And he didn't know I'd boxed. He knew me a silly little air. Eric that taught poetry classes in yoga. And so after a while of me laughing, he shoves me. And I fall against the filing cabinet, and you, no one can put their hands on you.

I don't care what position you have in prison. And I was so stunned. And then he threw a punch. And then he threw a second punch, like two in a row. And at that point, my just shit kicks in. You can't let someone hurt you. You might kill me, for real. And so my body's already turned.

So I go, boom, boom, boom. And he is just a bloody mess. He falls into a puddle of his own blood. It is hilarious. Just from a two piece with a biscuit? Four piece. Four piece with a biscuit. Pop, pop, pop, pop, yeah.

White meat. Yeah, lit his ass up. Wow. So you hit him in the nose. Straight to the nose, straight to the chin, straight to the temple, straight to the forehead. Wow. Because when he started going down, I'm not stopping until he's down.

Yeah. So the third punch went right to his temple as hard as I can. and then the fourth punch went right to because he was on the way down and then I stepped back immediately because I used reasonable force to stop him. That's the law. I did what he did back to me. No more, no less.

And then that's when they came in and beat the living fucking dog shit out of me. Tell us about that. Yeah. I still, I think about it every day. So as soon as I did that to him Lieutenant Kamrad come running in and he has this bitch voice, King, what did you do? You fucked his bitch ass up.

Yeah. the fuck does it look like. But instead I'm saying like this, I was like, self-defense, self-defense. That's probably smart. He hit me first. Look at my black eye. He hit me first. Right.

And they throw me to the ground. Other officers are rushing in because they press the panic button. And they just fuck me up. They're kicking me in the temple, kick me in the face, punching me, kneeing me in the ribs and the lungs, trying to suffocate me, hyper-extaneing my leg, punching my testicles. Because there's like seven or eight of them taking turns. And this is all in the broom closet? Yeah.

Yeah. And we have the pictures. The pictures. are hurt in the book. Yeah, and we're going to post footage of this, too, if you don't mind, like in this section because you were able to get that legally when you took it to trial later. We didn't get the video of them stomping me out because obviously they didn't have cameras. Everything before and everything after, like the torture that came next, we got.

But yeah, they stopped me out and then pick me up, slam me back down, pick me up, slam my face against the wall. And eventually they take me out and just put me outside the lieutenant. tenant's office and they're doing the suffocation thing where they put their knee on your lungs and force it all your air out. I think they're going to kill me. And then they put me in a striker chair, which is like this metal chair with straps around it and your handcuff land your back. So it's a stress position. That's the cover of the book. And they wheel me into the shoe, carry me downstairs and pay me to the four point room. This was the creepiest part about your story. And I had no idea that this

existed in American prisons. What is the four point room? Yeah. So in the Renaissance days, they called it quartering. Nowadays, we call it four pointing because they take your two ankles or two wrist, your two ankles, and they chain you like a human X on a metal bed.

And it's a metal steel bed. First, they cut and rip your clothes off like you're about to get raped. We have that video. And then they put on their gross boxers, and then they stretch you out like that. And they stretch you as far as you can go. And those handcuffs are, like, I can't feel my hand the second they're in because they're so tight.

Same with the ankle cuffs. And your body starts radiating pain instantly because you're not supposed to lay like that stretched on a hard bed ever. And so my shoulders, my hips, my arms, my ankle, every part of my body is just radiating pain. And you're laid down so there's a fluorescent light right above your head. So you can try to turn, but it just hurts during agony. And so I ended up having a piss myself there. So I just covered in my own piss, which is degrading. I'm in the worst pain I've ever felt up until that point, which is just miserable.

And I had to do seven and a half hours of that. There's people just stretched out like that. Yeah. I still have suffering from it. Like, I still can't feel parts of my hand. None of my left shin, my hip, my neck. Like, that stuff doesn't go away. And there's people like Randy Platter, Thomas Smith, who did that shit for like 24

25 hours. So I was lucky somehow that it was only seven. But is that legal? Suppose there. If you are trying to kill yourself or you won't stop trying to kill them, they're allowed to do it until you calm down is what policy says. So I was never not calm. Um, so it was very un-illegal.

Illegal. Yeah. Um, but and it's the same for everyone. They do that. Like at an hour most, you're subdued. You're, what can you do? And are you guys like, are you telling them, hey, look, I'm good. Like, I'm calm.

I'm not, I'm not resisting. I just, he assaulted me. I'm not asking these motherfuckers for one second of mercy. You can't reason with them. Why would I? Like, why am I going to sacrifice my dignity and give you what you want by screaming or asking you to stop? No, I'm going to take this.

I'm going to remember it forever. And hopefully survive. And that's on camera. They have cameras in the torture room. Wow. Yeah. No food. obviously, no water.

At one point in time, they came in with a shield, a riot shield, and they put it over your chest, and they push on it. And they do that so that you suffocate. It pushes the air out of your lungs and there's no bruises. And somehow that 15 minutes of video is the only 15 that went missing in the hour and a seven and a half hours. Got like the Epstein jail footage, right? Wow, they had one minute just got cut out of that.

It's weird. Shocking. The captain of, God damn. I forget his name was sending. Italian name. I hate his little bitch ass. But he came in and put his hand over my mouth at one point. I know. And you're already having a hard time breathing, so I thought I was going to suffocate. It felt like 20 minutes. There's probably only five seconds. But it's terrifying. They're saying like, yeah, we're going to get you fucking raped. We're going to get you killed this street justice.

You're going to face that street justice, bitch. Like, you guys are cops. This is a street justice, you hoes. Um, and yeah, so after seven and a half hours, they put me in rubber restraints. They're called soft restraints. where you're handcuffed to your waist. And so I did another two hours of that. And then they drove me to the penitentiary. And that was a nightmare. Why?

So in the penitentiary, they... Are you already in the penitentiary? I was at the meeting. So the USP is the next level up. I got you. It's like a high security or max, not super max, but like Macs security. And that's also called Florence? USP Florence.

Oh, interesting. So there's ADX Florence, USP, and then Medium UF Florence. Yeah, so there's camp. Okay. Medial, high, supermax. Wow. So Florence, Colorado has all the gambit, all the levels of federal security. It's a huge compound. They find out a mountain for it. Wow. Or the mountain is already flying. Either way, it's on top of the mountain.

But so when they took me to the penitentiary, they put me in a cell, a holding cell in the shoe that was covered in human shit. Top to the bottom. Because a bug had been in there. There are bugs a derogatory term for someone. serious mental health issues. But he had fucked that room up. And they had turned, I guess, maybe he was flooding. Maybe they just hated me. I don't know.

But they had turned off the water so I could use the sink, but the toy wouldn't flush. And the toilet was filled with shit. It was like to the brim. And so they gave me half a mattress. So I could pick either top half or bottom half to lay on. And that's where I was for the next five days until they did the FBI, the FBI interview. Wow. Yeah, that was horrible.

Wow. They really try to break you. And I'm already, my head's swollen. My body's hurting. Like, every part of me hurts. And then you have to sleep on concrete. Yeah. So.

Did they feed you? Yeah. Yeah. I got the same normal food. It's garbage food. But I got my brand flakes and cake for morning for breakfast. How are you going to use a toilet? You got a shit on the shit?

Yeah. I shit in the shower once because you can push it through the pipes. And this is a great. You're not. proud of this stuff. You know what I mean? Like, this is humiliating. I'd piss in the shower. One time I got really mad and I pissed, I shit in a food tray. And I left the lid all hoping that the guards would pick it up. But they didn't. And so really, I just disrespected every prisoner there. And so I have remorse for that. But it's ironic. You wanted to be this revolutionary. This reminds me of like the hunger strikes of the IRA, you know, Bobby Sands days. But they were like covering the cells and shit. Yeah, the dirty protests. Yeah. And that's a real thing. Doesn't feel so proud, though.

I'm sure you weren't thinking that while you were in the cell. I was thinking about how this is the opposite. I didn't have this option. It was forced on me. And when they forced the indignity on you, you can't, it's repression. I didn't have a chance to choose this to degrade them in their prison. That's what Bobby Samp was doing. We're going to degrade what you're doing.

We're not going to take nothing you give us. We're going to show you how filthy you are by living in that filth. You're not going to give it to us. We're going to do it. it, you motherfuckers. And so this was the opposite where they're saying, smell the shit and hopefully you don't touch the law. Yeah, in certain ways, these prisons in America are worse than how the British

treated the IRA prisoners in some ways. No, like, and we have to, we can be honest about the IRA stuff. Like, the five reasons that they went on that hunger strike, and American prisons are the normal thing. Like, you don't get to decide who you live with. You don't get to wear your own clothes. You don't get to decide if you work or not. You don't get unlimited contact with your family, stuff like that.

But for them, like, they were saying 800 years of repression isn't a crime. We're not criminals. You're not going to treat us like criminals. And so in the normal prison, like the normal maze prison outside of the H unit, they had a good life. Like, those dudes were living sweet for a prison. Yeah. But in H unit, that's where they destroyed them. And that's a normal American prison.

People have no idea. And they're so callous. Yeah, you fucking don't do the crime. Which is so juvenile. Yeah. Every time I hear that, I want to stab somebody. Like, are you slave? Do you like being a slave?

You fucking slave. It's true. I've tried to say faggot less. Definitely, definitely, definitely. Yeah, okay. But it's a fun word to, but I've replaced it with slave. Perfect. Because it's so cutting.

It's like you don't, you're not even human. You deserve to be a slave. So my point, I get angry. I get visceral, like, you know, I didn't experience 1.20th of what you went through. But still, just the indignity of being in a maximum security prison. I mean, there's daily humiliations. And you experienced that on steroids. Yeah, micro level or macro level, yeah.

So the FBI comes in interviews. It's not in the FBI. It's the SIS officers. Gotcha. Because they're deputized to do those interviews. And so I'm in that interview with a huge swollen black. black eye and I'm telling, I'm like, hey, are you going to clean the shit on my cell? Are you going to wash my cell or draw my water?

And they're like, oh, yeah, we'll do that in a minute, but first just tell us what happened. I was like, oh, gladly tell you what happened because I'm in the right, right is right. And so I tell them, he attacked me. This happened, this happened. And every time I'm like, can we fix my toilet now? Oh, yeah, yeah, we'll get to it. We'll get to it. And then after that, the next day at 4 a.m., they grabbed me and drove me to 11 worth

penitentiary. That's an eight-hour drive. And they just put me in the shoe there for six months while the FBI decided if they were going to prosecute me or not. Wow. Yeah, that sucked. Yeah, six months in the shoe, and you had no idea what was coming. No, because it's a constant thing of,

am I going to face more time for this? And I was on a unit or on a range by myself. So it's not like I'm talking to people. I think they intermittently bring one person on the opposite end of the range, but it's not like I was talking to people. You're just there by yourself. and that was essentially ADX appropriation. You guys, I'm constantly moving money around.

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Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank member FDIC. Cash App Green, overdraft coverage, borrow, cashback offers and promotions provided by Cash App, a Block, Inc brand. Visit Cash.com slash legal slash podcast for full disclosures. Explain a range for people that aren't familiar with that term. So a range in the shoe is, it's essentially a big hallway and there's sell. this shoe only had cells on one side of the wall. Usually it'll be sales on both sides

because they're so packed. But this one, it was a long hallway and then it had, I think, 14 cells in it. And so the guards just walked down. They open up your bean slot with the food tray in, close the bean slot. And usually in a shoe, there'll be people next to you. Like, and you can bang on the walls

and try to holler at them. Do you feel. Do fishing. Yeah. Yeah. You can have some contact. Some contact. Yeah.

And these, the 11 were down there cells are designed like ADX. They have the two doors because they were, that was going to be the supermax when Silverstein was there. They were going to turn it into that. But yeah, it was shitty. I was just a horrible six months. That's when they took away my phone forever.

I never used the phone again. Wow. Yeah. I don't know. They just decided someone made a post for me on a website saying like, this happened to Eric King. Let's support them. And then after that for the next six years, I didn't make a phone call. Again, I'm not sure how that's legal.

Me neither. And it's not supposed to be. Like, I was supposed to have one a month, but they never, they just said, you go to it next week, we'll give it to you next week, we'll give it to you next week. And after a while, you just, you understand what's happening. Right. Now, do riding kites, do legal, you know, legal moves, have any effect? No, and I did, it's called copouts in there. So I do copouts on BP8s, BP 9s, BP 10s, all the grievances. And they would just send it back saying per SIS, per policy, you are on communication restrictions. and so I'll just I'll just fucking hit

so for six months you're the FBI SIS is deciding if they want to give this over to the U.S. attorney for prosecution did you have any yard time did you know so you're you're down 24 hours a day yeah

okay so what happens they decide to prosecute no so they tell me King we're not prosecuting you you're good like it was a self-defense it's over So we're going to send you to USP McCreery. We're going to up your custody level, though.

Okay, hang on for a second. How were you able to get all that footage then if that you didn't actually go to trial? Because they later do prosecute me for it. I'm sorry. I'm so bad at this. I'm bearing the lead. Okay, go ahead. Yeah, they come back.

And so they up my custody level and send me to U.S. Penitentiary McCreery in Kentucky. And that is a savage, savage place. But they put me in the shoe there for three months to decide whether I'm going to walk or not. Because if they don't think it's safe for me to be there, because I'm left wing. I'm openly left wing. And I have left wing tattoos.

So they have to decide, if we put Eric on this yard, is he going to get fucking butchered? Now, why are you a target for being left wing? What do politics have to do with anything? Yeah, so in prison, prison politics are all far, far, far right. Like, the Aryan Brotherhood, for example, Aryan, like,

they have swastikas for a reason. These white gangs are they're essentially the militia is but violent. They're not the proud boy is going to go fight you and have fun. They're going to fucking butcher you. And those, I will never talk about those people. They're too serious. Catch me.

We've had a lot of them on this show. Yeah, they're not a game. No, they do knife work. Yeah. And at McCreary's a bad prison man. It's really bad. Did you hear about people getting stabbed and shit what you were there? Yes.

Yes. But so I was only on that yard for five days. after three months they came and said, King, we're going to put you on the yard. Are you going to go? Are you going to stay back here? Are you going to check in? Are you going to PC?

I was like, no, I'm going. And so I went, and I was on that yard for five days. And on the fifth day, they came to my cell at 5 a.m. It's like, hey, King, we need you to have the lieutenant's office. And automatically, I'm triggered like, oh, no, it's going to happen again. Like, I don't even know what I did. And so I was able to email. by the way. So that was the last time for next five and a half years I was able to email was those five days.

So they take me the lieutenant's office. They put me in a holding cell and SIS comes in there and they're like, hey, we're intercepting email saying you're about to get fucked up today. Are you safe? You just told me I'm not safe. But if I say no, I'm not protective custody. And I'm never going to ask these people for help ever. So I say, yeah, I'm not. safe. They're like, are you sure? Because we have these detailed emails telling the exact time you're going to get fucked up. And I already know, like, I know I'm getting set up. Like, obviously this is about to happen. And so I'm like, yes, I'm safe. Let's go. Like, let's just do this. And so three guards walk me into this, like, chained in area where you have to wait to go

to your units. And they're just sitting there watching, laughing. And there's a dude waiting for me in there that's from that group. And so, Which group? It was, I'm not going to say the gang name, but it was them affiliate with Missouri. I'm not going into that. The brand, I assume? No, no, no. That wasn't a brand yard.

That was an intertenio yard. Okay. But you weren't in danger from the other races, were you? No. Okay, just the whites. Yeah. Got it. Yeah.

I guess I had pissed someone off with my politics years before and made it like me. So I go into that area. got a dude's waiting there and I already know what's about to happen. So he starts like, he introduced himself so do I and he's looking at him. He's looking at my tattoos. Like, is this him? And then he just started circling me and I'm so stupid. I'm like, if I wait for him to fight first, it'll be self-defense and I won't get a write-up.

Because I want to go back to a medium. I don't want to be in the penitentiaries. I'm not built like that. And so he takes off on me predictably. It starts punching him, doing all the fighting. I'm covering up, just returning punches when I can. and eventually, I'd say probably a minute, we tumbled to the ground and then the guards finally rush in,

just beat the spear tackle us on a concrete, rub our faces into the dirt, and then put me back in the shoe, and then set me up to get fights back there. And you had fights in the shoe, too? They intentionally kept putting people in there to jump me. They did it twice within a week. How do they get at you?

If you're all isolated in your cell, how... So you have to have this, in the McCruy's shoe, you have to have a celly. And so they'd come up and say, like, king, cuff up, you're getting a celly. And I know that we're not supposed to be sallies. Like, I'm not dumb. But they put the dude in there and then he'd go.

You'd do it he had to do. And then they'd pepper spray us, take him out. The second time, they put a Mexican dude in there. But he said he was white. Because you're not allowed to live with other races, even in the shoe. You're playing with your life. So they're like, king, cuff up, you got a cellie? And I look at him.

I was like, are you white, dude? It's like, of course I'm like, what do you think? Of course. Oh, no, they're sending me up again. So you have to let him in because if you don't, you're a PC. You're asking the guards to protect you. So I let him in and then the next day he takes off his shirt. He's got the big fucking Aztec tattoo on his back.

And we get into like a 15-minute fight. It's the longest fight I've ever had my life. Covering blood, both of us. They pepper spray us. I end up puking like six times because I'm so exhausted. Of course. I'd never been in a fight where people kicked before. So he kicked me in the nuts once.

And I was like, what? Well, you weren't worried about getting stabbed at all? I had a piece in the cell. So I knew it was going to be, like, we're either going to fight one-on-one or I know where this is. My friend taught me how to do it melting a deodorant piece. Oh, talk to us about that. I've heard this. Yeah.

So you would take out the inside of the deodorant. What do you call it, a container? Yeah. You take out the deodorant part and you smush the ploward. and then you make a donut and you spark it, you identify your toilet paper, you roll toilet paper in a circle, sit on the edge of the toilet seat

so that air can still get to it and you use your batteries and you make a spark and it sparks the donut. And so then you hold the plastic over it, wait for it to get melty, stomp on it, stop on it, flip it over. Hold it over there until it gets melty, put it on the ground, step on as hard as you can,

bend it over. And you do that by 20 minutes until you cannot do it again. And then you can only there, You can only a concrete floor and you sharpen that motherfucker. You rip up a pair of your boxers tied around so it has a handle. And you've got yourself a little banger. Yeah, you can book somebody pretty nice with that. Yeah, you test it by on your mattress.

If it'll go through your mattress, it'll go through a belly. And mine went right through that mattress. So if shit, if it got to the point, I'll lose a five one-on-on-one. But if you start going for a weapon, I will also go for that weapon and hope that, I hope that I'm good enough. And God I never came to that. Yeah, thank God. I would have been in trouble.

Okay, so this is a form of torture. Obviously, they're trying to break you, break you. What's interesting is that most people don't want to go to PC because they don't want to be around. They either don't want to be seen as a punk. Oh, yeah. And they don't want to be around sex offenders. Yeah. Both of which I understand, you see it as a protest.

You see it as like, I don't want help from this oppressor. That's interesting. Yeah, I hate those people too. Like, I hate snitches with all my heart. I hate child molesters of all my heart. But I'm not going to let the prison system tell me who my enemy is. I'm not going to go out of my way to hurt these people because I'm supposed to. I know who my real enemy is.

And while they're around, they are a backthought. I want to fight the person who locks the door or not someone who's in the room next door. Did you try to bring any of these revolutionary politics to the other inmates? Yes. And how did was that received? The black inmates love it. Like, they're, they understand this. They're reading Fred Hampton.

They're reading Kowazi Balagoon. Like, they are hip to shit. Yeah. And so, like, whenever we do protests in the shoe, it was always me and the black dudes. The white dudes are not trying to hear none of that shit. Right. They don't want to hear it. They're calling, every time they talk, it's something homophobic or racist.

All they talk about is gay shit and black shit. And so. So what kind of protests were you guys doing? At that person, I didn't, you know, I got shipped. next week. Right. So I got shipped to USP Lee in Virginia, another great southern prison. Yeah.

And so while there, the food workers, I don't know why they did this, such a bitch move, like they're prisoners, cut our portions in half. So it's already the worst food you've ever had in your life, like literally the worst. And then like our hamburgers would be this big. We'd get like this big of a scoop of food. And the brothers, the brothers went to staff. Like they talked to staff when they did their rounds and they're like, this has got to stop.

Like we can't control this. We can't fix this. You got to fix this and they wouldn't. And so we did a protest of holding our trays and hunger striking. So if we hold our trays, you have to come in with the riot squad. You have to. And so now we get to run the team all of us. And I'd ran that team probably 13 times at that point.

I went. Like that's the one place where I was serious. What does run the team? Oh, yeah. So run the team is where guards have to be able to see you every time they walk by, they have to. And so if you block the little window, they tell you, take it down.

And then you say, no, or you ignore them. And so after about an hour of that, and they're threatening you, like, can you know what's about to happen? We're going to beat your ass. You're a punk. You're not going to, we know you're going to cuff up. Cuffing up is like a,

they consider it like a bitch moot. And so you're some prisoners, I don't. But after about an hour, two hours, psychology comes. They're like, okay, Eric, we understand you're upset, but da-da-da-da-da. There's other ways to handle this. And at every single place I'd done that, I tried every single other way. You say, fuck you, bitch.

You're right. Give me some, give me a full hamburger. I say, come on. That's all I say is come get it. I don't need to call her misogynist slurs. I'm a little less evolved than you. No, you're a gorilla. I'm shocked you've been able to tie your shoes.

But so I just say come get it. Like, come on. I know what's going to happen. Like, let's go. And then they start with the pepper spray. They have the big container. They spray it in your room. They do three, 10 second burst.

So first 10 seconds, cuff up. Cuff up now. Come get it. That's a lot of pepper spray. And so you'll cover up with your blanket or whatever you have. And then they do the gun. It's the pepperball gun.

So they're shooting you, they're shooting the walls by you, and they do three, I don't know if it's 10 or 15 bullets. So about 30 pepper bullets. And then next, I've had this happen twice. They do the stun grenade. And that's where they have this little grenade and they toss it in your cell. They have to make sure the range is entirely clear.

They move all the other shoe and mates to their ranges. And they throw that in the blast, whatever you want to call it, and go, pop. And the old dude's telling me, plug your ears, open your mouth. That way you don't keep it in you. And so it goes off and it rattles your brain and like you're like spaghetti. And then they open that door.

They rush in all seven of them. They're all wearing like the Star Trooper shit. And they slam her face on the ground. They rub pepper spray in your ear. They twist your ankle. They always go for your balls. Like these dudes are really homoerotic. Like just fuck a guy already.

Like get it over with. But and then they they put you in a hot. which is just a cell with nothing in it. It's an empty cell. And you just stay there for a month and then just live your life. And you did this 13 times? About, yeah, it might have been 10. I might have been 15, but I did it all.

I did it way too many times. And this is in protest for just bad conditions. Yeah. So like one time they took away our hygiene at a shoot. All of our deodorant and shampoo they took it away. And body wash, all that stuff. And we said, nope. So me and my friend smiles.

He's also at ADX now. Ran the team. We did our barricade. They took away media at one point. No books, radio, magazines, newspapers. Run the team. And how many people do this? Usually one or two.

Okay. So it's like it's my turn to go. It's your turn to go. It's supposed to be at the same time. So they just, whoever sell they hit first. And there's been times where it's like, it's been a unified race thing where it's like whites, plaques, Indians and the 10, 15 people will go. But that's a, that's a serious rarity.

And those are the realest people. Those are like the sack members and native warriors, like real. like real people. But another time they denied us holiday meal. It was like Thanksgiving or the Super Bowl and they gave us a normal tray

not a holiday tray with a special food on it. Come on. Come on. Like you're not giving them an inch. No. And I have never been to knee on my fingers tattooed

because I've never been to neither of them and that's Bobby Sands. That's the day he died. Because I remember that shit. I kept it in my heart. That's the day he died. His birthday was last week, May 5th.

And then this was March 1st, 1981, that's the day you died. So that's gangster, dog. Yeah, I'm so tough. Respect. But so I kept that in my heart the entire time. I do not have to let you take something from me. And you're not going to lose good time necessarily for doing this. Oh, you do.

You lose good time for running the team. Yeah, it's not going to write. That's what they call it. So I got, it's a 200 shot or a 202, whatever. they label them in the feds. And I get that disorderly conduct, refusing an order. So it's three shots in one.

And that along with the other stuff, like throwing shigging cops faces or... You did that? Yeah. Yeah. And you can catch another charge for that? No. This is when I was pre-trial for the second case.

Okay. And so there was times, it's the last resort. Like a cop, you go out to recreation, your dog kennel, and you come back and there's piss all over your floor and your family's pictures are ripped up. Okay, you're going to do this to me?

I'm now going to take your dignity. I can't fight you. You won't open the door because you're a hoe. So when you walk by, I want to have shit in this bowl mixed with rotten milk. And when you hand me my food tray, you're getting that in your face. Same with piss. Piss in a cup.

Wait for him to come by. Come, come. Oh, you got my food? Thank you. Wow. Piss at myself again. Like, let's go. Obviously, they can all fuck me up. They're all big guys.

They can do what they want if they had enough sand in them. But it's always cowardly shit. Taring a picture of your, pictures of your families. It's like, why, dude? Or I'm giving you a letter in like, it's eight pages,

but three pages are missing. Come on. You're not going to do that to me. And your reputation now precedes you because you've got all of these tickets for fucking with cops. Yeah, it precedes me in a bad way. Yeah.

Every time I'm transferred, I'm in the shoe, of course, for the assault and stuff. Um, everywhere I go, the guards know that I have at that point, any different point in time, anywhere between five and 50, just my write-ups all involving, right? Um, trying to disrupt the prison. Right. So, um, so you spent most of your time leading up to this second charge, this, the trial for the second charge. You spent more time in the shoe than on the main line, sounds like. Yeah, I did seven and a half years of Seg time total out of nine and a half. Wow. And none of that was PC. So I was in USP lead for two weeks, and that's when they brought me back to Englewood to say they were going to prosecute me. They surprised me with it. So they changed their mind, or maybe they had that the whole time they were planning on doing it?

Who knows why? What we think is I had a disciplinary hearing, a DHO meeting for the fight. And they said, do you have any statements? And my statement was, he doesn't have a right to hit me. No one gets to put their hands on you. And they're like, so you're claiming self-defense. I was like, yes. Eric, are you planning on a lawsuit or something?

I was like, maybe. And then they decided we're going to prosecute them. So you think it's because you said, yeah, I might sue. Exactly time. So I have to. Right. How long after you got shipped to Englewood did you go to trial? Two and a half years.

Wow. Yeah. I was, I was pre-trying. It's all in the shoe. Englewood's got the prison in the camp and then they got a detention center for pretrial people. And that's, they have a shoe. there and it's all the custody levels. So I was in that shoe, a six-by-eight shoe, probably the smallest cell I've ever been in

for two and a half years trying to fight this case where they're trying to give me 20 years. For assaulting an officer. Causing serious bodily injury. Wow. You got a lawyer? I did. So I had a movement lawyer and then they got pregnant or were pregnant. They had a step away from the case.

And then I had a lawyer, another one, a movement lawyer. that I was friends with at the time, and then she, or they, they ended up getting Lyme disease. I know, so random, right? So they had to drop off the case and then COVID happened. And when COVID happened, they canceled everything. And then when COVID was finally over, that's when it was like, let's go. So you had a pay lawyer or you went with a Fed? No, it was always, a lawyer supportive of. equal causes, like similar causes. I see. Okay.

So, wow. So now you're going to trial. There was a war zone back there, by the way, in that pre-trival. How so? It was a war zone. Because that's where, like, you took our radio, rioting. You took our food or cut our food, rioting. I got 70 shots there, 70 disciplinary shots.

I borderline lost my mind. Like, my wife eventually had to get a hold of me and be like, do you want to come home? Because if not, tell me, like, I'll stay with you. but the way you're acting is that you do not want to come home because you're pretrial and you caught four assaulting staff shots. Like use your head. Yeah, at a certain point, you've got to think of long term. Right, but my brain went, I was in constant fight or flight

because of all this shit happening. And at that point, they'd take in phone calls, visits, email, and then they took my letters for two years. So I didn't have any communication except for with my lawyer. And that folks up your head. And all the time they'd be like, today we're going to let you have a phone call and I get so excited. Like, here we go.

And they bring in the phone and when it works, they go. Oh, sorry, unless I not I worked. Just cruel shit. And so I'd trash the range. I'd do all that stuff. But after about a year and a half of that, I finally my wife got a hold of me and I calmed down and then went to trial. Did you feel like you had a good case?

Did you feel like even though you knew, we all know the 98% conviction rate in federal trial, but did you feel like, yeah, I am in the right. It was self-defense, so did you feel like you had a good shot? I don't know. I felt I believe in myself. Like, I'll always bet on myself every single time, even when I'm wrong. But I knew I was right.

I would not give them, I'm not going to take another plea deal, not this time. I'm not going to take, I'm not going to risk 20 years because you attacked me. I'm not doing it. And my wife, bless her heart, was supportive. She's like, I trust you. I don't care if it's less than 1% of federal cases when at trial. I don't care. I believe in you.

I trust you. And so 20 was the plea offer? The plea offer, they did offer them. They said you can go to trial or you can sign this plea and the judge will decide within your guidelines what it will be. And I had a previous terrorism case and now assaulting a federal agent and 50 shots. It was 20. Like they were asking for 20. And if they had offered me a video like one, I probably would have taken it.

Like realistically, I know myself. But I'm not going to sit the mercy of a judge and hope that he doesn't crush me. Judges are enemies. They're not good people. So I decided fight for yourself, fight to win. Okay. So, and is this a jury trial? Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Wow. Who'd you pick for the jury? We A bunch of anarchists Our jury selection ended up being pretty positive

It was just a bunch of like Just a bunch of workers All of them were white There was two women Which is almost good For a jury selection to get something that isn't just all white men But

We ended up getting A philosophy teacher I think as the foreman So Good As soon as I heard him answer the question, they're like, do you feel that justice needs to be served? And his answer was like, it depends on the meaning of justice. We want to.

That guy. We want a reader. Yes. And so, yeah, that was scary. That was a scary, boring time. Totally. Can I tell you what happened during trial? Definitely.

Because this is documented too. It's so weird. My first day of trial, I come back and they had taken all my property. so I didn't have nothing. They took on my legal work, my radio, my books. And so the next day at trial, my lawyers complained about this. And the judge is like, you guys don't get to do this, talking to the feds. You don't get to do this.

Give this man his stuff. And so I come back that day and I had my stuff, but I was now on a range by myself upstairs. And so they'd remove me from people. Okay. So we tell the judge, she's like, I don't, that's their choice. So then the next day I'd come back. from trial and my room was flooded. All my paperwork was destroyed.

All of it. Someone had a cup of coffee. Someone had knocked it over onto my legal work. The entire, all my books, my letters from my wife destroyed. And they said that a burg had flown into my cell and knocked over a thing, a toy paper that had started the sink. And the judge, we have the transcripts of this. People wouldn't believe me. The judge was like, are you guys trying to get sued?

Like, you're telling me that a bird caused this man's cellar to flood. They're like, absolutely. So the judge said bring the video. And I never brought it. He's not going to, he didn't push the line. And so, yeah, I did a five day, a five day jury trial. Did you get to tell the jury how they were fucking with you? So this was a big, big thing.

People in the feds will never testify for themselves. Some of the white gangs consider it snitching somehow. I never, I don't understand that shit. But people won't do it because if you testify on your own behalf, it opens the door for them now to question your character in your past. So if you say, I didn't stab that guy on the stand, they're like, well, did you stab this other guy? And now you're fucked. They could open the door. But I felt so confident.

So they had nine officers testify against me. The ones who would beat your ass? Yeah. Yeah. And then they had another one, a guard at Englewood, who had cracked my head open. when I was handcuffed behind my back, I didn't tell you that story. But he had cracked my head open. He picked me up and slammed me out my head.

I almost died. I had a concussion, pupe for a month. They had him testify against me saying I was a threat to him. He was six foot four, three hundred pounds. And so at the end of all of them, I get to sit there and I get to tell the jury why we hate cops. I got to tell them the politics in prison, how boring it is, how grisly it is, how shitty we are treated. where this anger comes from and then I got to explain

why he didn't have a right to touch me. In prison, if someone touches you, blank. In prison, if someone says this, blank. I have to live by the rules that are established in this community. I can't change them. And so I got to tell that jury that I testified for two days.

So I was being cross-examined by a little pencil dick title bomb. This is the AUSA. Yeah, the prosecutor, the assistant district attorney whatever. And so he's trying to get me hot. He's trying to get me upset. And he's saying stuff he's not allowed to say like the judge in them all decide like what's allowed. You're not allowed to call me a terrorist because that will influence the jury. And he snuck it in and

like objection and the judge called him up and reprimanded them. And the first day, first day I did get upset. Like I was starting to sound angry. But the judge, this judge kind of had my back honestly he ended that day a little early he's like well we can just cut it now and so I got to go back to the cell and practice like re-practice keeping composure

and the second day I just smashed them like he just set me up all these great opportunities to make them look stupid he spent like 10 minutes where he'd show me a picture of the mop closet and try to argue that it was an office she was like look at the filing cabinets like they don't have filing

cabinets and mop closets I was like, look at all the mobs and the buckets. How about who cares? I'm in custody. You're not allowed to assault me. You have all the power. So did it come down to that, though?

Like, you can talk all of this. You could have described the conditions. But at the end of the day, it's about what's legal and what's not. So did you guys, did your lawyer narrow that down to he was assaulted? He's supposed to be in the care of the government. and the government assaulted him. He's the vulnerable one. Like, that's what it should come down to.

That's what it came down to in the closing statements. Okay. Yeah, that's the law. You broke the law. And so the law in the feds is you can defend yourself even if you're not attacked. And so the jury had two questions. And one of the questions was, what if Eric thought he was going to get hit by the lieutenant? Is that still a self-defense?

And it is. Yeah. That's fascinating. Say that again because it sounds so good. If you have a reasonable belief that this person is going to hurt you, it has to be reasonable. Then you have a right to use reasonable force to stop them. I couldn't have shot him.

Right. But I hit him until he fell down and that is reasonable because now he can't hurt me. Right. And does that also include guards or staff? Yeah. That includes everybody. Wow. And so that juror was sitting on the fence.

And so with like one minute left on, Friday before the weekend, they came back with their verdict and not guilty. I cried. Yeah. I cried hard. Yeah. Yeah. Do you, that's incredible and thrilling if you're an attorney, by the way. If you're a defense attorney, they were, they were, they were, too. I hate them. You didn't like your defense attorney? I liked one of them, but the way they treated my wife in trial was so despicable. I won't give them credit ever. Well, will you give the judge a little bit of credit. Judge Martinez, like he he also did Taylor Swift's civil trial

where like that dude had grabbed her ass. So, I mean, he did me well. He was a pervert towards my lawyers and kind of a misogynist, but I appreciate you doing the bare minimum to help me because he still shut us down a lot. There was lots of times where we were right and he said no,

but we only need just give us a few inches and we can win this thing. So, and obviously the footage was able to be played. The video tape of you being in the torture room and... Not all of it because it didn't have anything to do with the assault. Right, okay.

The assault happened whether that happened or not. Right. But you were able to play like you being walked into the closet by the lieutenant and... We were able to play me walking into the building that has the closet. There was no camera in there. So they showed me walking on the yard. They showed me standing in front of the door, getting told to come in. And then that's the last camera they have.

Oh, so there's no cameras in the building. that's wild how do they justify that no idea wow um but so i was able to convince a jury that nine federal agents were lying and that even though you don't have tape

i'm telling the truth you never got to see it it's his reverse my word but i promise you he's lying that's incredible because that would scare me a little bit not being able to use most of the footage hashtag no beta

Yeah. No, that's tight. That's tight as fuck. Not to skip ahead, but do you have any kind of lawsuit pending against them? We did, and it was a good one, but some of my lawyers wanted to keep expanding and expanding to the point it became so complicated, and then we missed the tort deadline. Oh, no. And so I was going to sue for that officer cracking my skull open. That's an open-shed case, handcuffed behind my back, and you lift me up and slam my head down. missed the deadline. Yeah, they were trying to get too much money probably, right? They were trying to bite off more than they could chew. They definitely built off more than they could chew and bless their hearts. Like they're not, they're not bad, but I could have been rich.

Now, how is that not criminal, you being assaulted like that, handcuffed? Good question. Not only is it not criminal, I got ran a disciplinary report for assaulting him. I ended up winning that disciplinary report. The disciplinary officer said this stupidest thing I've ever seen. No. But you would think if someone breaks the law, they break the law, but they have qualified immunity. So it never says in the guidebook not to slam someone on their head while their handcuffed behind their back in the shoe in that exact language.

So they can reasonably believe that that's not against a law. They can do it. That's what qualified immunity is. stupidest shimarth. Yeah. Yeah. So he got away with it. He had led to someone getting killed in his previous prison, too.

They just move him along. Yeah. Just like the priest. It's going to say, just like the Catholic Church. Just like the Epstein files, right? The powerful, very rarely investigate and prosecute themselves. Yeah. I found they're interested all.

But, man, you won the case, huge. So you think, okay, now I'm just going to finish out the rest of my time. You only had a couple of years left. I truly believe. And this is so naive, and I don't know why I did this, but I truly believe that I won this case. Like, your whole thing against me was this case. And I just won. Like, I will be now vindicated and sent back to a medium or a low.

I had medium points, custody points. So I could have been at a medium or a low again. And I was like, I'm going to do the rest of my bid and just chill. Yeah. Put in a work if I have to, but otherwise just relax. And instead, they sent me back to USP Lee. And so it's back to that horrible prison in the summer. It's back to have an ants bite all over you and crawling your food and all this.

Oh, yeah. Tell us about that. You have an ant tattooed on you. So I usually believe it's an old prison building to the mountains. And they don't answer nobody. That's like a self-governing fascist state. They don't answer a region or national. And so while there, you'd wake up and there'd be like ants crawling on you.

There'd be ants in your groin. There'd be ants in your groin. And you're sweating so much. And that's what they eat, that salt and that sugar. And so when I got free, my daughter saw me stomp out an ant hill. And it made her so sad because they didn't do nothing to me. They're just little critters. And you can't tell a child, like, here's why I'm killing these motherfuckers.

They bit this shit out of me. And I hate them and they represent everything bad. You just have to be like, you're right. Fair enough. So I did immersion therapy. And this was the immersion. therapy. Okay. Like, I'm already tattooed. Like, people can say it's stupid as shit. I don't care. It helped me exist with my daughter better. It made her feel safer too. Right.

I still kill hands, but not around her. Right. So. It's incredible that a place like that can exist like that in, you know, the most advanced country on earth. Maybe we're not the most advanced. How's that? So you got shit back to the fucking penitentiary. Yeah. So that's all bad. How did it go from that to 80x Florence? got placing the shoe immediately. And I didn't know why. I didn't know are you guys sitting me here on holdover status? Like at Leavenworth, you're going to do something with me? Are you sending me back to a medium? But I had to return here because this is where I came from before the trial. Like you guys, I was at Lee. You took me to trial, so I have to go back to Lee.

But the next day, psychology shows up and they knock on the door. And they're like, King, I found out what we're going to do with you. I was like, great. Send me to a medium. He's like, no, actually, we're going to do your evaluation for ADX right now. I was like, what? Because that seems like a joke. I am not qualified for ADX at all. And we can get into that later, everyone, but I don't match. I don't fit that bill.

And so I thought he was bullshit, and then he took me out of the cell. Like, obviously your handcuffed behind her back, rabble, rabble. And I go to the lieutenant's office and they have me do like, when you hear the word son, what does it remind you of? What is the synonym of happy? Where do these blocks go? So line up these blocks in order of size, like this weird test, to see if you're essentially like can comprehend fifth grade level information.

And if you can, you move on to the next phase of ADX referral. And so that one is they have to put together a packet of you. And it's a packet that has every single write-up, every single report, every single document that they did and you never saw. And then they have to type up the exact reason. Why do we think this? And so they submit that to Region. And then after about three weeks, I get a document saying,

okay, Region approved, you now have to have an interview. And so I have to have an interview with some dude from Region where he says, here's the charges against you. How do you feel? Do you wish to recant? And you already know if you get to that stage, you're going. Everyone knows that. And so I didn't.

I was like, fuck you guys. I'm super happy. I hate the government, go to hell, eat shit. And they, like, paraphrase. They made it paraphrase, like, really weird. Like, I'm so happy to resist. Like, what did you? I never said that.

But so then you get a piece of paper and it says, here's all this stuff, all the reasons, and I regional so-and-so either approve or don't approve. And he marked approved. So then it goes to the regional director, who at that time, I think was Andre Madavuisi. just cold bitch. It looks like a thumb. Um, and he now gets the final say. He's got the report. He's got the psych review and he's got the recommendation from region. And so about a week after getting the,

the, I recommend from region the, I get a piece of paper under my door and it says, it just has a box and it says, regional director and it says approve or disapprove. And they just mark the approved box. and so that process, once you get that, it's just a matter of time. And I sat back in that shoe for another week before it was travel day. And on travel day, they do COVID swaps because if you have COVID, you don't get to go.

And they skip my cell. That's usually how you know who's transferring. Like they'll COVID them. And they didn't COVID me. And so I was like, well, goddamn. And then at midnight, they come and they grab everyone out of their cell. transfer time. Get up, boys, get up.

Wait the fuck up. Pack up. Pack up. Back up. Back up your shit. And they skip myself. I'm like, well, I guess I'm waiting another month. And then at 3 a.m. King, pack up now. You're going. Okay. So they go and they put you on a bus and they drive you from fucking Virginia to Atlanta.

It's like a six-hour bus ride. You're all shackled. Yeah, that's painful and exhausting. Exhausting. I got the black box and you can't like turn your wrist. Yeah. And then you spend a week in that shoe in the Atlanta shoe and you're on ADX status now. So you have the big sign of your door. All the guards have to walk up to you with three different guards.

You get your food with three guards there handing it to you. If I went to recreation, two guards, a lieutenant with a baton. And then I got flown to Oklahoma City Transfer Center. And that's just another transfer center. But same thing. In the shoe, three-man hold, all this wild shit. and then a week after that, King, pack up. You're going.

We hop on another plane from Oklahoma City to Colorado, and we land in Denver, and then I have that two-hour drive to ADX. And you think this was kind of an obvious reprisal? This was kind of an obvious collusion amongst the authorities to get payback. Yeah, 110%. To get qualified for ADX, there's like big things that you need to qualify for. Did you murder someone?

That will get you there 100%. In prison in the system already. Right. They don't care what you did in the free world. Right. So did you murder someone inside? Yes, you're going. Did you have multiple, multiple stabbing that caused serious injury?

Like four or five of them. You're going, potentially. Did you, like stuff like that? Are you a serious gang leader? Like the leader of the brand, the leader of the ACs, the leader of SAC, GDs, like all the gangs. the MA, the mafia, Nueiastro Familia, those leaders are there.

So they, to justify it, they gave me leadership status of the left wing. They said I was a left wing leader. So I guess you were kind of taking the lead in these protests.

But you have an outside influence on the community. Your leadership status has an outside impact. Oh, interesting. So it doesn't apply necessarily to just prison and running like a prison gang. It can, but it did it online. It's two different things. And so people a year before or two years before when I was fighting that case and the

shoe at Englewood had done a protest for me outside. I didn't know about it. I had no communication with anyone in the world and they did it. I never asked for it, but they did it. And the captain, they live streamed it. So Regional was watching. the captain was watching, they're getting humiliated by this protest for me. And this is when Trump had started like bashing the left,

calling anarchist terrorists, calling Antifa terrorists, all this bullshit. And so they labeled me a leader of the left, anarchist leader, antifa leader, which is just the stupidest dog shit I've ever heard of my life. But that was the reason. Yeah. And I have a document saying, it's crazy. Just inventing it.

Yeah. Are you amazing? member of Antifa? Antifa is not a group that you've not have members. Right. That's a hard note. Okay.

Which I guess you wouldn't tell me even if you were. That's a secret organization. Fair enough. But Trump has our membership, so is Cash Patel. They have the list, so we'll see. Stupid motherfuckers. So you're going, man.

I'm going. You're like the least criminal guy to ever be at ADX Florence. There was like a couple of sex offenders who everywhere they went had attacked people or attack staff to check in. And after a while, they literally run out of prisons. So we have to put you somewhere. There's like three or four of those dudes. They're really weird.

Well, again, I said you're the least criminal. Those guys are criminals. Oh, yeah, fair enough. But so, yeah, and I only had two years left, and that is unheard of. People didn't believe me. They were like, no, they're just going to send you that penitentiary. There's a program in the penitentiary, a step-down program. They're just going to send you to that.

And I could have got killed there because that's the leaders of all these gangs. And if they didn't like what I stood for, they would fuck me up. Yeah. And so even on the bus to ADX, there's his native dude, he's going to the mental health ADX. It's a different unit in Florence penitentiaries for people that deeply, deeply try to kill themselves, like over and over. So it's like a mental, it's a, I mean, I just said it mental health ADX. And so he's sitting on the bus with me. It's me and a white GD from the state prison, South Carolina State.

He had killed someone in that prison. was like running the prison with like stolen cell phones. And so the prison there was just like, no, we can't, we can't handle this kid. So it was me and him and the native bro. And the chief kept like getting in my ear. Like you're not going. You know you're not going. They're going to see me to drop out.

Trust me. Who knows what those boys would do there? You never know. They might set you up to get killed. And so I'm nervous. Like this is the first time probably I've ever felt nervous in my life. Feels like my heart's going to explode. Feel like my arms are all cold.

because I'm thinking, I'll never have a chance to tell my wife. She won't know what happened. She will get a phone call saying, your husband's been killed, pick up his body. You got 24 hours. And that I never got to talk to her. I never got to say goodbye, say I love her. So I'm just praying to like my goddesses to all the energy in the world. Like, just please, I'll let me get killed to this prison.

Please. Because at that point, that overtook the fear of ADX. Like, are you guys going to get me blitchered? But what is, how is that even? possible in a prison where everybody, there is literally zero contact, zero physical contact. And that unit in the penitentiary, because it's a step down unit, those dudes have contact. Okay, so explain that for people because there's a lot of misconceptions I had them myself about ADX. There actually is a wing. It's not just like...

It's one wing, one unit, yeah. Right, it's one unit, but there's different sections of it. There's different security levels even at ADX. So it's important for people to know that the entire prison, no matter what unit you're in is 24-hour lockdown. Always. You get your 30 minutes or an hour for recreation, but you are, whether you're an elderly prisoner or a step-down prisoner, you're 24-hour lockdown. But if you've been there for a couple years and they think you're no longer a threat, you go to this step-down unit, and that's J-unit.

And while you're there, you get rec time with your group. And your group is, it's just a room. So whoever's on this side of the room is your group. And it's usually two or three other people. And that's supposed to accolmise you to being around people, being around these two or three. And if you don't fuck up there, they send you to the USP. You have a few six months there. They send you to the USP step down program. And so you're still locked in yourselves. But after three or four months of that, you get group time. So now you're out with people. And if you coexist with those people, you get to go to another penitentiary.

Okay, so you were worried that they would send you to like a step down program where you actually do have physical contact. Yeah. And then they would send in a plant or it could be a gang leader that would take care of you. Yeah. And that's not a, that's not a crazy thing to think. Like, after what I'd been through, like, of course not. Yeah. Like, that is a rational thought.

Yeah. Like, I'm getting set up to get killed by these dudes. And so we roll up to the penitentiary in that bus. And they start, they start opening the door. and then they close it and back out and drive like they're going to ADX again, and then back up and drive back to the penitentiary. So there's USB prisoners on the front of the bus and the ADX ones in the back of the bus. And when they come to the penitentiary, like when they finally pull up there,

they start reading off names. And I am terrified they're going to say king. They're going in alphabetical order with last names. So it's like, Burnett, Donald, Francisco, Lamar. and they skip Kate. I'm like, oh, fuck. Like, do I just make it? Like, am I going to survive?

And then they close the door and start leaving, and they pull back up again. Like, these motherfuckers! And then they just closed the door and back up and start driving to ADX. So you wanted to go to ADX over the USP? Over the fear. I didn't want to go until it became,

you might get killed. Right. So, and then it went back to like, oh shit, like, we're about to see what this place really is. Right. Because ADX has a, like, a mythical status amongst prisoners. Not many people have ever been there.

Only holds 400 at most or 450. It's never filled. So it's always like 300 people. Right. And everyone that's big in the Fed said has been there. The Unabar, El Chapo, the brand leaders, rabble, rabble. So it's a surreal place. And there's crazy rumors that, like, they wheel the shower up to your cell.

And, like, crazy shit like that. It moves underground. It rotates. Yeah. It's like the greatest engineering feat of all time. Right. Yeah, I thought all of those things. Right.

And we're not giving information to tell us otherwise. They want this misinformation out there. So we pull up to it and it's just got the fences and fences of razor wire. Like big fences, people come out and open the fences. The bus moves forward. They do the standard. They have a mirror and they're looking for bombs underneath the bus. And then there's two.

Two people in the front, two people outside the bus, and then two people behind the bus, and they got their big guns. And so the bus is just driving slowly, and they're walking beside it. And keep in mind that this is a prison within a massive compound that you cannot get into. So it's all fake. It's all for show.

No one's going to get that bus. Of course not. Yes, literally impossible. But they do it for show, and then you drive around, and ADX is like this tiny red building. Like red bricks, it's just a tiny thing. and you pull into this massive garage, like a big-ass garage

when the bus pulls in, and then they have you come off and you start that process. Yeah. Yeah, so it really is just like a small prison. It's like one-fourth the size of like a big USP. And so yeah, and then you just go in, tell us about what it's like.

Yeah, sure. So they walk you off the bus and you go into R&D, which is like receiving and discharge. and they put you in a holding cell and then they come and have you strip out show us your dick, show us your asshole, all that stuff, and then different people from different

like medical comes, dental comes, psychology comes, the unit team comes, and they're all like doing a little small intake interview with you. You have to sign for your TV because we get little laptop-sized TVs by law. Like we have to do it. And after that, they give you your prison clothes. They handcuff you behind your back and two guards grab you.

One has the baton. One has your arms. And they start walking you to your unit. And I'm still thinking this isn't real. Like that is a different ADX. They're taking me to like, there's that misconception too. People think that there's different ADXs within ADX even. But I don't know.

I'm just, my head's spinning. And they walk you down this long. ass checkered tile floor because the prison is not underground but it's built into the ground. So the bus is up here. We're walking down this slope and the units are on the left. So I got a unit on walking past and then commissary room where the campers do your commissary. And then B unit, which is a control unit. That's where you have a set amount of time.

And then finally a C unit, which is the discipline unit. It used to be the shoot and the guards walk me down or walk me up to the bubble, gates open, gates close, walk me down four or five steps, that gate open, that gate closes, and it's just one, one range, and it's got eight cells in it. Might have ten. It's got a very small amount of cells. And I go into A1, A1 lower, that's my first cell. C, A lower.

And that's my, that's my house. Wow. And, okay, so it's, but the misconception is like, yeah, the shower swings around. none of that. None of that is true. Now, you got a metal ash shower, stainless steel in your cell. Yeah.

And you press a bind and it blows either super hot or super cold water for a minute and then turns off. Yeah. And you have to press the button again. It's just a real pain in the ass. I mean, how did it compare to like being in the shoe?

Yeah. So one of the big comparisons was the sound, the noise. Because there's not noise. And the shoe, everything's metal. So you can bang on the wall. You can wrap with each other. ADX is concrete.

So you're hearing the loud. wall. There's two doors. So if you want to talk to someone, you have to yell through the two doors. And that's just a pain in the ass. And so you're, you're alone. You're, you're alone in a way where, like, you know it's not going to, it can't get worse like psychologically.

No one's going to come help you. No one's going to hear you. No one gives a shit if you die. No one gives a shit if you have a bad day or if you're sad or if you're suicidal. No one can hear you. And you're going to have your one phone call a month. Maybe people get three now. I don't know.

When I was there, it was one a month. But that only applies to certain inmates, right? Because I don't think Chapo guys like that who are the highest level of security. I don't think he's ever had a phone call. Yeah. He's an H unit, Sam's unit. That's special administrative measures. That's for people where they feel like any communication is too dangerous.

So like Ramsey Yusip was there. All the jihadis were there. Right. Some of the brand dudes like Barry Mills was in that range. Right. But that's where Chapo is. And he can make one phone call a month. There has to be an FBI agent listening the entire time. And it has to be pre-approved blood family member from the FBI.

So like, let's say your daughter, they think she was affiliated with the cartel. You're not calling her. So he's been able to make phone calls and he gets legal visits. We got to remember Chapo is just a prisoner there. Like he's not, they don't, he's not important. because there's so many big big name people there. Well, I think right now he's the biggest name. He is a big name.

He's still in the news. But he's still treated like you're just a fucking Pisa now. You're a cartel guy. Right. And there's a lot of cartel guys there. So they're not, those guards in the prison staffs, they're not impressed. They might want to get clout by telling their family like, yeah, I talked to Chapo today. Yeah.

That stupid shit. But. Yeah. How did you know? Because you don't have other contact with the inmates. How do you know what people are even in there for? So there's two ways where you can have contact. Okay.

And one of them is there's an inmate orderly. He's an orderly for the range. So twice a week, they electronically open his two doors. He comes out on the range. The guards would have already set a bucket there with like a mop. And so he gets the mop the range for an hour. And so if you want to send a kite down to another cell, you try to slide the envelope under two doors,

and then he'll lock it to the other cell. and so you get to chat with that dude and so I got to talk to like three or four just super interesting people very dangerous like they're all dangerous as shit right but um so that's how I got to talk to people and you can also like I yelled like sometimes you just yell down the range like yeah you hope everyone else is quiet

Johnny what are you watching or I got five stamps on the chiefs shit like that like for the Super Bowl I won five steps. Fuck the Eagles. So that's how you communicate. And then when I was in the pre-release unit, that's the same as a step down.

So I came out with my group. So I got to talk to my group, three people. I see. Okay. So first of all, that orderly job must be pretty coveted. I think, so you get $15 a month too. So that's 15. There's no other jobs that you can have.

Right. There's no way to make money in ADX like a normal prisons. Right. So that 15 is two bags of coffee, some deodorant and toothpaste. And you got to, they're going to starve you. You got to have canteen. You're going to be hungry all the time. Yeah.

ADX used to have the best food in the prison too, like the prison system when they still had the local menus because they were so scared of those dudes. Like it was, that's when Silverstein was there. That's when it was just the height of prison violence. Right. And but when they switch to the national menu where every prison gets the same food on the same day, just the quality. So, and I was on the no meat tray, I was just getting black beans and three beans salad and wet tofu every day of my life.

So I needed that, I needed that compensary bad. Yeah. And I was restricted the first month. I could only spend $15 the first month. And I have to write my wife. So it was just, I just bought stamps. I didn't get the extra food until. It's brutal.

It sucked. It's brutal. Now, you get out of your cell, I believe you were saying they do have like a workout area. It's like a dog kennel, right? Yeah. So inside rec is just another, it's just a cell. It's just sell with a push-up bar or a dip bar in it. Right.

And you're by yourself the entire time, of course. And the inside wreck, those two inside wreck cages are right across from the unit. So you can see into them. So people that are good sign language are like, what's a say one of your homies is in that, he can stand at his window and you're at yours behind the bars and you're signaling like through, like telling each other stuff. So that's good. And then depending on what unit you're in.

outdoor wreck, you'll be in a dog kennel in a bigger cage. And so it'll be like three or four dog kennels. And so then you can chat to people on your unit that way. Right, because just on the other side of the fence, any other kennel is somebody is another inmate. And C unit, you don't have that. Your outside wreck is just a big ass concrete box. So how do they determine what unit the inmate is in?

If you fuck up in the prison, you go to C unit, Diswinter unit. I don't know why I was there. if there's something called GP, people think that means you're not locked down, but if you're just in ADX for a normal reason, you are on your range or unit. So like, let's say there's seven brand dudes in that prison, they're probably all going to be in that same unit.

And they're probably going to be with people that they associate with like Mexican Mafia. And then your race for familiar guys will be with like the ABTs. And I don't know if it's entirely that way, but I know it, they definitely try to make that house. They keep people together and they can listen through the intercoms in your room. And so they want to hear you gossiping. They want to hear you yelling to collect Intel. Right.

So yeah, that you were saying that like the FBI wants inmates to communicate. They want you to write letters. Please. Right. Please. Because that's doing their job for them. Yeah. And when you're the biggest dudes in prison still controlling empires, like they want that, they want that.

Yeah. That's crazy that those guys are still calling shots from behind that much isolation. Most of them aren't. Like, realistically, they aren't. Like, there might be someone leaving, like, out in J unit that they can get word to, like, hey, tell people something. Like, Larry Hoover, the leader of the GDs, or founder of it, he's been in ADX for 20 years. He's not, he's just trying to live.

So shit like that, they, it's not like the old days where the brand was like riding with their piss and, like, sending out letters that way. They're not doing that shit anymore. Yeah. because now they watch for it. Yeah. So I don't know if people are still running the, running the gangs from there. I don't want to say yes or no, but they're not doing it much. They probably just exist as figureheads, right?

They can talk about on the yards like, hey, you know, so-and-so's still alive. He's our guy. It's like idolatry. Like that's the idol that we look up to. And if they're good at talking code, they can tell their visitors like, hey, tell my wife that I won't be home for. Christmas and then that's tell Joey that stab the shit out of this guy. Right. Some crazy shit like that. Yeah. Um, but yeah, there's like it's not happening. How many people are actually in ADX that have outdates like you that actually have dates? I say the majority.

Really? Well, let me rephrase. I'd say the majority of people there, um, don't have official life in prison. so they potentially have out days. One of my friends sliced this shit out of an officer, smiles. So he's at ADX, and he'll probably be there for the next 11 years, but he'll leave that prison with 15 years ADX time. And so he's going to come to the free world. Parole right out of ADX?

Probation, but yeah. Wow. And so, like, I was in the pre-release unit for the last three months I was in that prison. And there you get, I got one phone call a month. and they had to live monitor it. But people were making one phone call a week.

You get a certain amount of email as a week when you're in that unit. When you come out for your one hour a day, you can do that. And so at any point in time, there was eight to ten people in that unit. And that's eight to ten people going to the free world. And some of them have been in that prison for 10, 15, 20 years. That's shocking. See, I think people would have no idea. I think they would assume once you will go in there, you don't come out unless it's in a body bag.

But that's not the case. So then why send these people to ADX? And that's a great question. And it's a conundrum. Let's say you're a big gang leader and they want to isolate you. They could make a unit in any prison where you're, even ADX, but have it be open. Right. And that way you can still associate with people, even if you're on restrictive communication,

you're still around people. But they do this stupid ass shit where they're like, we don't like you, you did whatever. And so we're going to bury you for two decades. And then good luck. Good luck in the free world. All people talk shit to me on the internet. Being like, you weren't actually there. No one leaves.

I said, motherfucker, I wrote a book about it. Like, what do you mean? This is pretty documented, guys. You can look this up. I have pictures from there of me. Have you heard of Google, sir? Just one time, please Google. But, yeah, people don't realize that there is a continuation of folks going to other prisons

and then also going home. And that's scary. That's unbelievable. People are going home from ADX Florence. Yeah. So it's punitive. It's strictly punitive meaning just, we are punishing you for the sake of doing it. Yeah.

It's the most evil form of human cruelty. I'm doing this because I can. No more. They say it's for the safety and security of the institution, but like, we know that's bullshit. People are going to butcher it every day in person. It's not, these ones aren't preventing safety from happening. And you could put them all together. on the wrong, like I said, like, let's say all the jihadis, all the terrorists.

You could put them in a unit with just themselves. They all have life. They, none of them were getting out and that would be, at least they could be around people. Same with like the big gang leaders. Right. With their gangs together. Yeah. You can associate. Yeah. But they want to hurt us. They want to hurt you. And so they do. And ADX is not a joke mentally. Like it is a very serious prison. That level of isolation has a deep impact on people and motherfuckers lose their minds. Yeah. And it's serious, not a sarcastic way.

In a very serious way, people break. Yeah, okay. And you tell us about that. Like, you would hear people screaming and... Yeah, so you'll go out to wreck or medical and you'll walk by someone's cell and you'll see them just sitting staring at the wall. They don't get up for food often and they don't bathe themselves.

Or they're just sitting staring at their TV. That TV becomes their entire world because they've given up. and so you'll just see them drooling or just laying in bed 24-7 and no one's going to come help you and no one cares if you're sad. There are people that will that will bug out and start smear the walls with shit

start cutting themselves cutting out their testicles, stuff like that because their brain loses hope like there's nothing, there's no way out so I have to feel something and it's tragic they used to have an entire mental health wing but the government or someone

said you can't do that anymore, so they just moved it to a different prison. They just moved it to USP Florence. You can't help these people anymore? I don't get, is that what I'm going to do? The government said you can't isolate them like this. It's making them too crazy. So get them out of ADX. And so then they just put them in another prison 24-hour lockdown.

Right. And then no one is allowed to leave officially from that prison. So what they do is when you're about to leave, when you got like a week or a month left, they ship you to whatever town you're going to release from and put you in that shoe. So like, let's say you're leaving, you're going to LA. They will ship you from ADX to some LA prison or California prison and then release you from there. I got you. So like the day before I got released, they drove me to the penitentiary in Florence,

because USP Florence right back in that shoe again. And I stayed the night, one night, and then they let me go. So they have to officially, no one gets released from ADX. It's too dangerous. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, what a load of shit. Yeah. Well, it's got to be based around money, too, right?

Because, and you saw this firsthand, you said something really interesting on an interview I watched with you. You said, like the administration, you know, the wardens, they would be real moneymakers. Yeah. And that's how they got to climb the ladder, you know, the bureaucratic ladder. Explain what you mean by that. Yeah, sure. So, firstly, the goal of every prison is to get more money from Congress. And the more dangerous your prison is, the more you can say, like, we need more cards.

We need more weapons. We need more safety. And now Congress is giving you that extra money. And that extra money is supposed to be resources to buy food and programming and stuff like that. But instead, you get the money and administrators get bonuses. So let's say recreation has a budget of $100. But they only spend $40, that administrator gets that money. The 60?

Yeah. That he saved? Yeah. So the reason food is so bad now because that food administrator has a $300,000 quarterly budget. If he only spends 50,000 of it, he's pocketing that cash. Imagine that incentive system. Yeah. That's so barbaric.

Yeah. It's literally theft. You're setting the warden up or the administrator up to steal from the taxpayer. Bingo. Like if you don't care about the cruelty to human beings, the inmates, just care at least that your tax dollars are being stolen, plus a million other ways. people like, I'll read shit online and I'll hear it. It makes me really frustrating because people are like, my tax dollar, I don't want to support this scum.

My tax dollars are already being used to prison them. My dog, your tax dollars being used to found the pockets of these administrators. Yeah. We're not getting that. It's not like a privilege to get this shitty food and sleep in the worst bed of all time. That's not, we're not taking that from you. The prison system is. Right.

Right. They're not rehabilitating us so that we can go back and be good people and benefits of the community. They are taking your money, it in their pockets. And so, yeah, I think about that all the time. Every time I had bad food, it's like, you motherfuckers. Every time, like when they overpriced commissary, they get those kickbacks. They overpriced the commissary.

Yeah, like they buy a bag of coffee from the Keefei company for a dollar, sell to us for $4. Who gets that three? Who's getting that three? The CEO of Keefe, they'll get their kickback and then the administrators. Yeah. It's a money-making operation. And that's probably why they,

They need to send people like you to ADX. They also have a quota. They have a quota. They have like a minimum. So they have a quota of what groups they need in there. So they need a certain amount of white gang leaders. They need a certain amount of black gang leaders. They need a certain amount of Mexican gang leaders.

And so I was the left wing quota because they had gone from like Tom Manning to Dr. Mitu Shikor to Ray Luke to Oscar Lopez on and on and on. And then they counted Ted, the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski. And when he died or got transferred to the medical facility before he died, they need a left-wing prisoner. So they already hate me. They already want to isolate me. They already have the restrictions.

Fill that quota. So it's almost like a DEI. We need as much diversity as we can. That's insane. Because there's people there that are gang members that have never done shit in prison. Like they're just gang members. And they get put in there for leadership status. because they need more of that gang.

You should have, like, failed that first test. It doesn't matter. There are people that literally answered, duh, do, do. Your ass is going. They're not giving, they're not wasting their time just to have you, like, trick your way out.

Right. No one's, no one's escaping that. Right. Yeah, it was really interesting hearing you, like, talk about how you had to, you couldn't let the TV overtake you. Yeah, it's very serious. Because that TV is a chain.

Anything that they give you that helps you that they can take away is a weapon. It's a threat to you. Because what they're saying is, we're giving this to you, but if you fuck up, we're taking it. And so if you didn't program, like if you're someone that needed programming

and you weren't watching the programming channels and doing the packets, they would threaten you and then take the TV until you did it right. Or if you got a disciplinary write-up, they'll take the TV. So if you start letting your world revolve around programs, and then you lose those programs,

you will crumble. it's just like losing mental health medicine so I made sure to have a very disciplined routine with TV I'm going to watch it from this time to this time

this time and I'm not going to sit down and stare at it I'm going to walk around while I'm watching it I'm going to do squats I'm going to do abs I mean obviously sometimes

I would sit and just watch TV but it's a metaphor for our society now everybody's lost in the screen for real and I thought about that too and I think about that now when I'm free like if someone took

Some people's phones, they have no other source of dopamine. Totally. And I recognize that in prison to where you can break me right now if you take this. Because I went 14 days with nothing without it. And I felt how hard that was, 14 days, no books, magazine, newspapers, letters, talking, or TV. Well, that's why you have to read because you need to keep your mind. You're reading literally, they show brain scans, like it strengthens the neurons, the neuropathways. So you have to do that in a place where you're already, you're already being tortured just by isolation.

Your brain is already being intact. I would do exercises like naming all the countries in the world. Naming them in order. All the A's, all the Bs, Austria, Azerbaijan, Armenia. Yeah. And then going backwards. Wow. So it's like a, or I'd make up songs in my head to the rhythm.

Because you can't remember song lyrics. So like, let's say I love this song by Defiance, Ohio. I would know the rhythm, so I would make up songs to it. That way I could feel like some sort of dopamine, some sort of accomplishment. Yeah. And then that's when I created the star system because that helped a lot. What was that? So the star system, I did this thing where I would give value to the days.

So a five-star day would be Chiefs One. I got a letter from Michelle. I didn't get in trouble with staff. The food was edible. I cleaned. And the goal was get as many five-star days as possible. And if you got a one-star day, what could you do tomorrow to fix it? So every night I would count in my head, all the things I was grateful for, all the things I accomplished.

It was perfect. And then at nighttime or at morning time, I will list every single thing I wanted to accomplish that day. And then when you're accomplishing things, even as cleaning your toilet, dopamine. That's right. Purpose. If I walk 2,000 laps, I get that dopamine and then I accomplish something more dopamine. So the whole thing is giving your life meaning and finding happiness, even if it's in the small things. Because that shit, they can't take away.

Totally. So it's building your own world, which I also think would help people out here. Has that helped you now that you're in the free world, those skills, that discipline, and that gratitude that you learned while you were in there? Intentional gratitude is something I still do today. I still, every night, whisked off all the beautiful things that happen that day. I thank my religious people, my goddesses. And it does.

It makes me like, I'm kinder, I'm more loving, I'm more empathetic. And it's a big thing. Like, I never want to be watching TV and go like, I'm, bored because I've seen boredom. Like, I've seen real boredom. And you do seven and a half years sitting on box by yourself. That's boredom. So I'm very mindful to be grateful of the small things.

I have a pillow. I'm sitting, I get a turn on and off my life. I got air condition. Yeah. So that sort of shit, it helps a lot. And I recommend it.

Yeah. Don't lose that, man. With the passage of time, obviously, you forget certain things, but you've been through such trauma. Gratitude's a habit. Like, freedom's a habit.

You can relearn it and you can lose it. And so I practice the habit of freedom all the time, and that includes the gratitude. Yeah. They're not going to beat me outside of prison. Like, I survived you inside. You're not going to get this fucking victory out here two and a half years later. Yeah. No, I won.

So you're only two and a half years out. I'm two years and four months out. Wow. Yeah. Wow. And so that's been, that's been some little roller coaster. For sure. How has that been?

So when you first released from prison, people might not always know this. You don't go home. You go to a halfway house, which is another prison. They get to decide where you work, you're allowed to call, what church you go to. So, like, me and my wife had to fate go into a Catholic church just to see each other. Because you have the ankle monitor. And they monitor, like, why did you stop at a gas station? You didn't tell us.

Stuff like that. And so it's a micro prison. And then once you do go home, you're still in house arrest. So if I want to go to work, hi, this Eric King, I'm going to work. When I get at work, hi, this Eric King, I'm at work. Hi, this Eric King, I'm driving home from work. Hi, this Eric King, I'm back in the halfway house. BumbleBum is a, and if you fuck up, they can put you back in prison.

If you're gonna fight at the halfway house, they put you back in prison. How long is your parole, your tail? I'm off. Great. So how- Half month. Did you get off early or? Yeah. Okay.

I got off early because I have a job, I have a house, I have a car, I have a family, and I had no bad urine tests. Okay. So I'm doing everything. I did everything. needed. Yep. Um, and now I just chew people and do fennel every day. Hell it off. Fuck, dude. That's what that's what we do it for. That's true freedom. That's what you want. That's what this is all about. Wow. But freedom besides that like, it's scary. Like it was, it took me a long time to be able to have my kids sit next to me because of all that time alone. It took me a hard time to like learn electronic stuff. Even the stuff that was available when I was

free after 10 years, you don't, you don't know it. So like QR code. self-checkout lanes, typed you on your phone and it goes on your TV, Bluetooth. These are things I didn't know how to do. Downloading apps, I never download an app in my life. So you have to relearn those things and you have to relearn the way society works.

People will be rude to you out here. People are not nice. People will cut you off. They'll say shit to you. That's wild. They will bump into you in the grocery store. They'll do all this crazy shit and you cannot react

the way that you've been conditioned to react. You can't do it. No. You will go back to prison and fuck up everything. And also, you have to work on your mental health. Otherwise, you are going to give your prison to your family. You're going to be there a warden. You have to get up at 5.30 a.m.

You're going to clean the toilet every day. You've got to make sure this is and this is done. When you're shit, you've got to flush as soon as it crowns. Yeah, do that courtesy punch. Your daughter's like, I'm seven. Yeah. Also, why are you listening to me shit? You better thought about.

You better hit that water. Never thought about that. Yeah. Put some water on that. Yeah. I had like time limits when people were allowed to shower when they, when they couldn't because I didn't want them to fuck with the water. Really?

Yeah, it's just, and that last, that was no last long. Like, my wife is so patient and she worked with me. It's like, how is this coming from you? And how is it coming from the prison? Because if it's coming from the prison, we need to work that out. And if it's coming from you, I need to understand why. So that we can grow as a family. And then I got, I get tons of mental health care.

I'm on medicine. I see a psychiatrist. or it's like whatever. I have support systems. Sorry, I've got it better than 99% of prisoners. I still struggle. Yeah. I still have the physical pain from the forepointing.

I still have the emotional pain, the mental pain. Because it's hard. It's hard to take off the mental chains as easy as it is to walk out. It's real easy to walk out that door and be like, everything's perfect. But you're lying to yourself. See, I think it's easier to walk out and be like, fuck everybody. This is what they did to me. You know, you're going to make me worse.

Watch. You're like, dude, you're just hurting yourself. I think that's equally, I think that's equally reasonable almost and also stupid. When I got, when I was about to get released, everyone's doing the, what's the first thing you're going to eat? How much you got, fuck, all this stuff. Big Mac, a lot. Big Mac, none at all because I don't want her touching me. Wow, is that?

Keep your fucking hands off me. Okay, I was going to ask you that. So, like, physical touch. I remember, like, no homo, but I remember just how much, even like the basketball court when I was in prison, like, you would see way more like, and these are like super masculine dudes, black dudes, touching them, touching each other. And I interpreted that as like, we need, we need to touch each other. Like, as human beings, we need literally physical contact. What did that feel like for you? well first of all everywhere you go in ADX

you have guards touching you did you at least appreciate the touch of a human being or with these guys like monsters like it doesn't sound like you felt like that no you lost your mind no I don't want these motherfuckers touch me every time they're touching me it's by force right so but even your wife okay you explain that

so and I like I was I was being hyperbolic entirely it's wife stuff but like sitting next to her sometimes was like really scary and it burned my skin holding hands, that was, that's what made me feel safe as like, okay, we're holding on to each other, we're connected without it being, like threatening seven and a half years and saying, like,

obviously people have done drastically longer, but that's a quarter of my life at that point. Right. Now it's one fifth my life. And you grow accustomed to being alone, especially when anytime you're not in that cell, you're getting attacked. So physical contact, your brain associates it with violence now. and you have to uncondition yourself of that.

That makes sense. So it was oatmeal cream pie, a cup of coffee, holding hands and kiss. Wow. I was also in the halfway house for a month. So you're not, where am I going to? Yeah. We can't leave. Yeah.

We're not going to be intimate at a church as much as it would be cool. Yeah, I'd be rock and roll, dude. But like you have a time limit also. Mass is from seven to eight, you're going to be back by 830. And you're leaving at 6.30. Plus, you know, the. Catholic Church, gay sex only. Yeah.

With an underage boy. Child rape only, yeah. And even if you said no homo earlier, but even if it was homo, good. Feel intimacy. Feel close to somebody. Like, don't let the prison break you. Like, feel that closeness in love if you're able. There's no good or bad consensual touching.

So what do you? Yeah, I'm just from the streets, bro. This is just how we talk. Oh, hell yeah. What do you think you could have done differently? Like, looking back, you know, what do you regret? Or let's not talk about regrets, but because your path is your path. But and clearly, like, you've, you've grown from this situation.

Like, you're a success, right? But what could you have done differently? And maybe how of your beliefs on rebellion? And, yeah, I think rebellion is the word. How is that changed? So things that would have been differently is like the fight to win motto, I would have been more conscious. Am I hurting them or myself?

Because no matter what I do to a guard, they're going home. I'm still in here. So am I making things worse for myself because I'm angry? Because if so, that's impulse. That's not even a rebellion. That's acting on impulse. That's reactionary stuff. And I did that a lot.

And I would have changed that. I would have changed a lot of that because I got attacked by that lieutenant. for nothing, but I made things worse for myself immediately after. I gave them a free target to do what they wanted. I made it so easy for them. And I would have changed that probably. What would you have changed on the streets before you went in, you know, after Ferguson?

Because they could have used you. You know, the struggle could have used you on the streets. You really know good when you're locked up like that. At that point, I don't think I was very useful. Everything was destruction. Like, let's tear down this building. Let's tear down these cops as opposed to let's grow this community. Because I was even doing cool shit, like free daycare for single moms so they go to work, stuff like that.

But everything was centered around, like breaking stuff. And I understand that you have to tear down the old system to build up a new one, but you can also build up the new one and make the old one obsolete. And nothing I was doing was helping my community. Nothing I was doing was helping Ferguson. I wasn't helping nobody. It was almost all egotism. Right. And I can see that now.

I reflect back on younger Eric. And so now my politics, like the way I view the world, is with more empathy. And some people, you present as the opposite, like you said. For me, it's like I have seen how much bitterness there is in the world. I don't want to pass that on. And I was given so much love from friends and supporters. I felt that kindness. So what can I do now to help?

That's the, that's Eric right now. Anarchism is open arms instead of like closed fingers. There you go. Creation. It's easy to destroy, but to create is, you know. That's the reality of it. And that's why when I was younger, I did it. And I think that's why I do still believe in direct action.

Don't get me wrong. Like, I think revolutionary action is still important. But I'm at a stage to where consequence awareness and how my brain views the world to where it's just not for me. It's not like if someone did something. in some ice detention center or some whatever, some crazy shit. But cool. But I'm not, I'm not going to do it. And I don't see the value of me doing it and becoming another strain on society and destroying my family.

I'd rather build up a safe place for them because they deserve it. Yeah. They deserve it. You're not going to be with someone for 10 years. Been together 12 years now. My wife doesn't have to do nothing. She doesn't have to work. If she doesn't want to, she doesn't have to do shit.

every dollar I make goes towards making her life as easy as possible. I work two jobs. I got two full-time jobs. Just so she can have that peace of mind that the water will always be on. The car will always be available. The bills will always be paid. You don't have to do anything. That's my love language to her, my love letter to her, because she kept me alive.

That's kind of where you start. You want to change the world, start with yourself and your family. It's very easy. and love and kindness and understanding and gratitude, intentional gratitude. People leave prisons sometimes and immediately start exploiting people because they learn that's the only way to get something. They've been taught that as kids or as adults.

But I understood that I was giving that out of love and sacrifice. My wife's on disability. Like she was working hard to keep afloat, two kids and me. That's hard and that's a sacrifice. And we should never forget the families that put in all that work and are also tortured by the prison system. She's having to drive four hours round trip to see me for an hour. That's torture on her.

And compared to some people, it's nothing. Like you were telling the last video I watched a view, people have flown from like the Middle East to come see their jihadi loved ones. Yeah. And they would just get denied to even go see him. Oh my God. The saddest thing I ever saw is this woman or her son's from Canada and he got entrapped. He was like a mentally ill kid.

He had no friends. The FBI meets him on a message board, like a Muslim message board. acts like they're his best friend, buys him clothes, sends him money, like, we're best friends. And then eventually, like, radicalize, radicalize, and talk him into carrying a bomb to Times Square or some shit. He was 17. So now he's in ADX, has this big-time terrorist.

His mom tries flying down from Canada to see him, like, once a month. And I'd say half of those, half of those times she gets turned away and says, they just say no. No reason. But it's just Florence Colorado is in the middle of nowhere also. So that is a hard, expensive. Yeah. And you see that happen all the time.

From New York to Denver or wherever. People's families are getting extorted because of their love for anyone. Yeah. Yeah, it's heartbreaking. But I'm glad you are speaking about it. I'm glad you came on. I'm super glad. I mean, this was killer.

I like you. You're a good dude. And you wrote a book. I did. So plug away, please. Yeah. So I was really blessed that people. PM Press said, like, you've got a story that can be beneficial to people.

We like to put it out. No one wins at trial. No one goes to ADX, especially no one does both. So it could have happened to anyone. It just happened to happen to me. And so I need to tell that story to let people know that here's this world you might not be aware of. So PM Press gave me that opportunity and the book came out. It's called a clean hell, anarchy, and abolition in America's Most Centorious Dungeon.

There's no books out about ADX. you're not going to find one that's like mass published. Yeah. So I want people to know the reality. I want them to know about the different ways they can hurt us, commissary, medical. I want people to know who's in there, the reality of who's in there.

What the units are like, what the day-to-day is like, what we do to survive, how we resist, how we get hurt. I need people to know this so that they can humanize the people inside there, not see them as the worst of the worst, see them as someone that did something that you might find heinous,

but they are still, human being. They still have hope, dreams, loves, passions, just like you. They just made a mistake. They just made a mistake according to the government or the world or whatever. So, this book is beautiful. Like, that's not just me talking, hyping myself up, like sucking my own ass or nothing. And what it has that other prison books don't have are pictures. They have pictures of the mop closet, of the lieutenant after we fought, the four-pointing, the striker chair, the email I sent my wife, we got it. The communication restriction forms that says you are

no longer allowed to send mail, we got it in there. Pictures with me being released. Pictures from the halfway house. You don't see that shit in books. No. Especially not in something that fortress like. Yeah. That's secretive, that draconian. That oppressive. It's got pictures of me from ADX in there.

Because we're allowed to take pictures of recreation once. I was going to ask you how you got those. They put you in an outgoer rec cage and the recreation officer stands with the lens against one of the chain links. and you can take a picture and then SIS has to approve it and then if they approve it

it goes out to your family Okay So we have pictures of me Inside this prison People don't see that shit Over my left shoulder In one of the pictures Is Richard Reed's cell

Richard Reeve Richard Reed The shoe bomber Yeah So I got to be yelled at him sometimes Richard Hello Mike He's British

He's from Birmingham So Did you ever meet Choppel? No he's in Sam's unit He didn't get to, I meant his lawyer. My old lawyer met his lawyer. Okay. Yeah, his lawyer is hot.

I'm in love with his lawyer. Oh, not like the really good looking lady. Got some old fat man. He's not too. Somebody. Yeah. I wouldn't say no. Not after being in isolation for seven and a half.

Come on. Now do, because people are going to want to know this, is the cameras inside the cell? Because there's been footage in like the main. mainstream press of Chapo in his cell. So do some of the cells actually have cameras in there? The pictures of Chapo and his cell aren't from ADX. They're from MDC, New York. He was in 10 South, which is a notorious pretrial thing for big jihadis, big drug lords, people that attack the president. So he was in that unit, 10 South, and they had cell, they had video cameras in there. Okay, so there's no video cameras in any of the cells at ADX. And ADX on a range 13, which

is a disciplinary, disciplinary unit. There's only four of them on that range. It was built for Silverstein and Ramsey Yusuf. But they've got cameras in those cells. I see. And they still let someone get killed in there. What? Oh, I can share that real quick.

A couple years ago, there was a dude back there, and the recreation cages for those cells go, there's like a back door, and it takes you into a wreckyard. And it's a tiny little thing. But some dude was able to convince some other guy, the only other person on that unit to tie a rope around his neck and it looked like he was holding him hostage

they can get the guards and escape obviously that's not real so this guy out of desperation or stupidity or whatever tied a rope around his neck slid the rope through for that guy strangle him

and remember there are four cameras in each cell four cameras outside wrecked they watched it happen they don't care and they let it happen yeah they let that do get strangled but those are the only cells that have cameras. Okay. So Choppos not on that unit.

He's just living, programming. Well, not programming. He's... Eight units wildly restrictive, so he is surviving his best. Is he have any letters? He's allowed to write his lawyer and then whatever blood family... Right. You were saying that.

Whoever they approved. Right. It's not guaranteed to be who you want. Yeah. Zarnayev, his big thing, like his family is like all his family. Who's Zarnayev? Oh, sorry, the Marathon Baller, the Boston one? Oh, gotcha.

You mean, the CIA guy? I mean, he's not CIA, though. That dude is real. I mean, I bet he's real, but he was probably, you know, could be a Manchurian candidate, right? They got somebody to, you know, like whoever popped Charlie Kirk. Come on. Anyways. That'll be for the CIA.

That'll be for the Patreon. Yeah. Zarnayev is, him and his brother were very serious people that got radicalized by Palestine. And because I met people. people that are on the range with them. So we have, like, conversation about him. Oh, wow. But that kid, his cousins, because his brother got killed during all that.

Right. So he can't talk to his brother. He can talk to his cousins, but they ban them. So he has to talk to, like, his brother's wife's kid and, like, weird shit like that. Right. And if someone else gets on the phone while you're on it, like, if you're calling your mom, but then your dad gets on the phone, they cut it off and you lose your phone privileges. They cut that call immediately.

So that's the unit that Chapo is on. Now, did those kind of guys, do they have any hope of scaling down? Yeah. So Sam's guys, that is put on by the, like, some of them have like Janet Reno do at or Bill Barr. I forget that position in the government. Oh, yeah. District attorney or something. Like this is the district attorney for the whole.

Yeah. For the district's attorney. Yeah. The United States attorney. Yeah. And so. Attorney general. There we go.

He or she are the ones. that have to approve that. And it has a two years. And every two years, you're supposed to have a review. They say six months, but it's two years. And so if you're a good boy

and you've lost some of your notoriety, you can come off of it. Or if you have a good enough lawyer and you file a good enough lawsuit, like Richard Reed, he did seven and a half. And so after that, his lawyer, his lawsuits, whatever, he then got put in the elderly unit.

Okay. And so that's seven and a half years where he didn't know if he had kids, if his wife died, if his family were dead. you don't know nothing. And so people like Ramsey Youssef, he's been on that ship for 20 years. There's very serious, dangerous people that have been in that unit and will always be there.

But then there's like badass mob guys. Like Vinnie Basiano, I think he was a banana guy. He was in the Sam's unit, I think, for three to five years. And he's just at a normal USP now. Right. So apparently you're only dangerous for a set period of time. Or yeah, I guess if you get old enough. and hopefully like if the politics it's a lot of a lot of us to do with politics all of the all of the big jihadis

were on sam's unit every single one of them no matter how well known they were all of them even dudes there was people that were a part of the first nine 11 or first world trade center bombing in 1994 that just got put in normal prisons mnit usp 11 worth etc etc and then when september 11th happened they grabbed them despite being on normal yards for five six years yeah and put on I'm on Sam shooting at ADX. So it's, it's not real. No. There's no real reason to it.

No. But they find, like, Barry Mills is, he's dead now, but he was in that unit for like 12 years. Come on. Like, he can be a normal ADX at this point. Like, just be cool. Right. But, yeah. Wow.

Well, that was amazing. By the book. Go by the book. Link will be in the description. We're going to put your pictures of all of this stuff that we're talking about all over the episode. If you buy one book that we've promoted on this show, go check out Eric King's book. What's the name of it one more time? A clean hell, anarchy, and abolition, and America's most notorious dungeon. Boom. You heard it first. All right, ma'am. We'll switch over. We'll do a little bonus chat.

We've got a lot to talk about. Head over to patreon.com slash the Connect show with more of the great Eric King. What a journey, my man. Thanks so much. That was cool. Yeah, hell yeah. She's out.