The Connect- with Johnny Mitchell - WHITE CRIP Gang Member Reveals How He Survived Most VIOLENT California Prisons, BEAT A Life Sentence

Episode Date: April 13, 2025

From the streets of Lancaster to the heart of South Central LA, Tyler Corcoran made the unthinkable choice at 14- he ran away from home and joined the 120 Raymond Crips — as a white gang member in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in America. By 17, he was sentenced to 80 years to life under California's Three Strikes Law. What followed was a harrowing journey through Level 4 maximum-security prisons, prison riots, near-death experiences, and intense racial politics. But in the darkest place imaginable, Tyler found light. He dropped out of the gang, transformed his mindset, and became a voice of empathy, growth, and redemption from within the system. Now free, Tyler shares his powerful story of survival, change, and hope — and what it really takes to make it out alive. WATCH UNTIL THE END to hear: -What it’s like being a white Crip in prison -How prison politics nearly cost him his life -Why he chose to drop out and pursue inner peace -How he beat a life sentence and rebuilt his life -The emotional reunion with his family and his mission now Go Support Tyler! IG: https://www.instagram.com/tycorcoran/ This Episode Is #Sponsored By The Following: POLICYGENIUS! Secure your family’s tomorrow so you have peace of mind today. Head to https://policygenius.com/mitchell to get your free life insurance quotes and see how much you could save! PrizePicks! Download the app today and use code CONNECT to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup! https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/CONNECT Join The Patreon For Bonus Content! https://www.patreon.com/theconnectshow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I decided I was going to run away from home. I got jumped in, Helen Keller Park, robin, burglarizing, selling dough. I tried it all. I was on a track to either killing somebody or killing myself. He says, fuck over, white boy. I said, all right, man, I scoot over. He sits down.

As soon as he sits down, I jump up and boom, I rack him, drop him off of the thing, and now I'm on him. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Tyler Corcoran is one of the most remarkable individuals I've ever spoken with. He grew up in a working class family in Lancaster, California. But at the age of 14, Tyler ran away from home and joined the Crips Street Gang in South Central Los Angeles. Seriously, he was a fully fledged white Crip gang member with the 120 Raymond Crips. He got jumped in and everything.

Wild. Then, at the age of 17, he caught an attempted robbery case in Lancaster, got tried as an adult, and was sentenced to 80 years to life, one of the harshest sentences in the history of California. He served time on level four yards all over the state, gang-banging alongside his Raymond brothers. He was involved in numerous prison riots, went to the shoe a bunch of times, and was nearly killed during a brawl on the yard when a skinhead sliced him across the neck. But a few years into his stretch, Tyler began to change. He'd outgrown the gang life.

He decided to drop out and then underwent a complete spiritual and mental transformation. He accepted his life sentence, and instead of fighting it, he became the best version of himself, all while living in the hell that is maximum security prison. Years later, after criminal reforms took place in California, Tyler's case went back before a judge for resentencing. And after 19 years of his life inside of some of the worst prisons in America, Tyler was released with time served. And just a few years after getting released,

he's got an amazing life. He has a new family, and he's developing his life story with top Hollywood production companies as we speak. For more with Tyler, including how he survived and thrived after coming home from prison, head over to Patreon, patreon.com slash the Connect show. Ladies and gentlemen, this episode left me speechless. I hope it inspires you as much as it did me. Tyler Corkran, right here on The Connect with Johnny Mitchell.

They shut down the day rooms completely because of the amount of murders that were taking place. I got snatched into a room and beat unconscious by the white boys within. I didn't even make it to myself. Next thing I know, I woke up some blood everywhere. and this cop standing over me. I got sliced from here all the way to here. They're going to eventually kill you. If you tell me right now that you want to fucking change your life

and that you want to stop this shit, your life will be drastically different. And I looked at it and I said, let's do it. It took radical accountability in my life for me to be able to move forward and grow and continue to expand. So that way I didn't stay that same kind of small-minded mentality that I had when I was a gang member and all of that. How long did it take you to,

kind of grow into that? I mean, it's still growing, right? Like, it's an ongoing process. But for me, it was, it began when I was in my early 20s. Okay. And I was at a place in my life where I couldn't see the future, right? I couldn't continue going on. I was sick of the violence.

I was sick at the politics. I was sick of, like, survival, right? And I was looking more from the perspective. of maturity and saying like, what is my next 10 years? I got life in prison at this point. Pills are done. It's a wrap. And the only way for me to cope was to, you know, try to grow and all of that.

And so I knew that I had to get away from the gangs because it was just consuming all of my attention in order to be able to survive. What year did you go down? January of 2003. Okay. So this is long before California started to liberalize and people that have life without parole, as we're seeing now, are getting out. So you really thought you had all day. Yeah.

So my case was published, right? And it set precedent because it started out as an attempted armed robbery where I was facing 16 months in camp. And when I wouldn't cooperate or anything like that, I rode the case for my entire crew. And when I wouldn't cooperate with the district attorney, they amended the charges. they tried me as an adult and they turned it into kidnapped for robbery because the people removed a certain amount of feet in the building right like I didn't even take the money so it set precedent in two different ways one is is that it established a new standard of what kidnapped for robbery could be in the state of California and then the other thing that it did and this was through

much advocacy and all of that and I'll tell you about how I came home and all of those different things right is that I was the only juvenile that they could find in the history of American law who had been sentenced to the equivalent of life without where nobody had been physically harmed. No firearm had been discharged. I had no past criminal record. And they gave me the equivalent of life without in prison. It's so egregious. And for anybody who thinks that California is this kind of lawless haven for criminals, perhaps it swung too far. the other way in recent years since COVID and, you know, with the smash and grabs and stuff like that.

But it was ground zero for the three strikes law. Tons of cases a lot where you hear, you know, a guy had a nonviolent third strike and, you know, he stole something and now he's doing 25 with an L. They've since repealed that. But, I mean, it was militaristic and draconian and brutal for a lot of years. And you were part of that drag net. Absolutely. Yeah.

So tell us where. you're from and this the crew that you had coming up okay so I'm from Lancaster California right the Antelope Valley it's the last town northeast in LA County right before you hit Kern County and my childhood was much different because it was very rural right like my parents had moved from San Luis Obispo when I was a little kid down there and my dad worked for waste management for the dump out there right and so we lived in an area called Anelope acres which was all dirt roads and but it was very impoverished in a lot of ways

because it was all agriculture and they had kind of like overworked the aquiferate the aquifer out there and so they sold a lot of their land to the government for development nothing got developed and it's just this little place right and it's exploded since then in population because they started to do things like housing incentives section 8 they built the prison in order to boost the economy right so it wasn't all dependent on the base and all that. And, but when I first was out there, it was still very small and very rural.

It was outlawish because it was a lot of bikers and, like, skinheads and trailer parks and things like that. It was more considered like white trash. But it was, but I didn't really grow up in that. You know, my parents weren't, my dad wasn't like, he was a hardworking guy. And he was the responsible one. And my mother was the one who was like gone. She would leave us for, you know.

days at a time or whatever, right, in order to be able to go and party or be out and all of that. She was on dope? She wasn't on dope. She just, I think she had a mental illness, you know, and it led to a bitter custody battle between my parents, which started around, you know, I don't know, my brothers and sister and I were very young. And so we kind of grew up with them always battling back and forth for custody. And by the time I was about 14 years old, she had lost all.

parental rights and couldn't be around us. And it was around that time that I decided I was going to run away from home. I just was like I was getting into trouble. I was very angry. I was resentful towards my parents and really adults and authority figure in general. And so I took off and I went into the streets and Lancaster has a pretty rough scene out there. And I fell in with one of the locals, but his family had moved out from L.A. from South Central. And his older brother had come home from Nippin. And when I was hanging out

with his little brother all the time, he kind of like took interest in me in a way and started to groom me as his little homie. And then that's how I ended up going down to Los Angeles and becoming a crib. Yeah, this is almost unprecedented as a white crip. I mean, I've heard of a few of them now since the internet's been coming out. Yeah, I see a lot of them on the internet. You always see the one Chinese Crip who's like making TikToks? I mean, you'd be surprised. It's a pretty diverse, even when I came in, it was pretty diverse, right? I was the only white dude from my neighborhood, though, meaning the Crip, you know,

gang that I was from. What sect of the Crip? I was from a gang called Raymond Avenue. And there's really like three chapters, I guess you would call, Pasadena, Engel Watts, and South Central, 1-2010, and I was from 120. The other thing that was also kind of unusual was a lot of. I wasn't put on in juvenile hall. I wasn't like put on in Lancaster, right?

I was, I got jumped in, Helen Keller Park. It was a big thing. Tendu stay, right? And the Raymond's had a lot of love for me for sure. I got nothing bad to say about the Raymond's. Imagine how funny it is to say I got jumped into the Crips as a white guy in Helen Keller Park. I know what's funny is like I don't even think about who that is until later on, right? Exactly.

Look her up. you don't know who she is. American hero, like folk hero. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Okay, so are you down in Compton on the 120th? No, it's not Compton. It's on the borderline of, yeah, it's on the borderline of South Central and Gardena.

You get down, if you're taking, say, for example, Vermont, right? And what is it, Vermont goes east and west, and then, you know, whatever goes north and south, I think. I can't remember. But if you're on Vermont and you're taking it all the way down towards. guards guardina you're going to hit el segundo right and uh the the gang's territories in between imperial and el sagundo um at least when i was out things change you know streets shift and power struggles shift and but it's still it's still rough down there oh yeah it's the rolling hunters it's those guys are that's one of that's an that's an that's a old very respected neighborhood

yeah yeah when i went to the pin it saved me in a lot of ways from the naivety right of my situation because they were on the higher levels, level fours and 180s and things like that, they were a very well-respected serious guys, you know. And so when I landed on the yard, I had a lot of support from not just them, also from surrounding crimp gangs, you know, even all types of different guys. When you're 14, and that's such a wild move to leave this dusty little town of land. Lancaster and be way south, deep in the heart of gang territory in south central LA, especially in the early 2000s, the late 90s, when it's still really, really just gangbanging.

It was real. As we see it now, you know, like the people are still flag in, I assume, and, you know, stuff that you don't see anymore. Yeah. But like, you know, people probably like, you know, images that we would associate with like the 80s and 90s of L.A. Yeah. You probably witnessed.

Yeah. Exactly, like the dress code was you wore, you know, it was like Chucks and Dickies and, you know, you're, you, you proudly had your blue flag in your left pocket, right? And like all of these different types of nuances. Yeah. And that I don't know what it's like really anymore because in coming home, one is, is I was away for so long. But in coming home, I really exploded into a completely different socioeconomic status. So I didn't have to parole back to those types of places. I was first in Compton.

I'm like my parole office was in Compton, but I quickly transferred out to, you know, like the Woodland Hills and all that area. I think it's changed from who I've talked to that used to be involved and actually going down there. I mean, they take you to jail so quick. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They really had to go indoors, you know, and being camouflaged within the- social media.

I think a lot of his gang-banging on social media. It's very real because they're still very very, very real murders that are being committed. There's crimes are definitely being committed. People, young guys are still coming in, which I was a big part of mentoring when they would come into the institutions.

You know, I, but, and it changed, you know, like as far as hair, styles, tattoo, when I came in,

you didn't see a lot of dudes, especially black dudes that had tattoos all over their faces and their arms. Like, they weren't really sleeved down. They would have their neighborhood blasted across the chest or like the numbers on your back arm

and that type of thing. It was mainly, like the essays and the white boys that had that were tatted like that. Yeah. But that changed, right? And that was another big thing, too. I would see these young guys come in and they would have, with a shirt on, they would have their necks completely wrapped, their faces blasted back,

their hands all done. They would take their shirt off and have no tattoos. And in the pen, it was like the reverse, right? That was like the spaces you did last. Right. You know, those were like the things that. I've run out of room. Yeah, you just go to that, you know.

So it's, but, you know, it's changed. Okay. So what value at 14 does a white kid have to the Crips on, you know, the 120 Crips? Well, I mean, there's a few different things. One is, is that you also have just very real young guys that are going through the same thing and then just want to feel accepted too. So say as an example, when it was my crew, right, because you have crews within gangs and all that type of thing.

But my main guys, they were all like me. They were like runaways, right? We would all sleep in like the, we would put the dryer on in the wintertime, right, to stay warm and smoke weed, hot box, the laundry room and some shot out apartment complex, you know. And they just really wanted to feel the same thing as I did, which was the kind of sense of purpose. And like, so the value was me wanting it as bad as they did, right? And wanting this acceptance as much as they did. That's some of the value.

The other thing is, is for the older guys, it doesn't matter as one more person to do the crime for them, right? Because they're, you know, when you graduate and you get a little bit older, if you survive that long, then usually you groom a little homie to do that shit for you. You don't hold the pistol anymore, right? Lo-hum, it holds the pistol or the dog gets out the car and runs and you skirt off with the, you know, kind of thing. So, so it's hard to say what it's, like, it's kind of like a whole combination of those things of the value that I had. Memorial Day weekend is almost here, and it's time to kick off summer right. When I'm getting ready for the first big weekend of summer, Total Wine and More is my go-to, especially when I'm firing up the grill with family.

I'll grab refreshing beers, easy drinking wines, and some hard seltzers for the cooler. And with everything that goes into summer, it's nice knowing you're getting the lowest prices. Total Wine and More, your Memorial Day, made easy. Shop total wine and more In store or online. Spirits not sold in Virginia and North Carolina. Drink responsibly must be 21. What was the structure of the Crips?

What is the structure of the Crips in terms of their hierarchy and the way they make money? Yeah. How organized is it? Not very organized. You know, it's not as organized as some of the other cultures

and stuff like that. it's very tribal in that way usually it's like an older duty usually has like three or four little homies and those guys got friends you know type of thing the organization's not it's just loose it's usually petty my experience anyways right it was like petty crime graduating to something maybe being like a strong arm robbery then armed robbery knocking over a bank if you get a you know a part of somebody that's a little more sophisticated in that way but the gang as a whole isn't like that there's not necessarily a structure When you go to prison, it's different, you know, and the structure changed.

The gang that I was from was a more militant gang on the inside. And so they were, you know, it was like you don't mess with prison punks. You don't gamble. You don't get in debt, right? You don't use dope. You smoke a little bit of weed, drink a little bit of wine, but you don't fuck around with the other stuff. And so there was, you work out, roll your mat up, you know, like clean your cell. There's like standards in that way.

But as far as like a sophisticated criminal enterprise, it doesn't fall underneath one structure like that. So you don't, you didn't have to like kick up mafia style to the hierarchy to the older homies when you hit a score, you sold some dope or whatever. Okay. You do like maybe at a funeral guys come around, pass a hat around and stuff like that, you know.

So what were you guys doing as teenagers to make money? Yeah. I mean, with robbing burglarizing selling dope, you know, I tried at all. I, and eventually that's what I ended up getting busted for was for the robberies, you know. And I think that's another reason why I didn't feel this sense of like, like I was a victim, right? And it really helped me get past that was because even though I was sentenced to life, right, it was such an extreme sentence for the crime that I committed.

I was now looking back at it, I'm happy because I was on a track to either killing somebody or killing myself. And I just see what that does to people and what it would have done to me. and it's like, I'm so happy that that just never happened, you know. Are you selling crack? No, it was Crystal, right? Because crack was like, nobody was really like doing crack like that. Crack was on its way out.

It was phasing out. And Crystal was taking over, especially as more and more people from the inner city were going out to the outskirts of L.A. County. So, like, I tried selling crystal. I tried selling weed. I wasn't good at either one. You know, I was the weed I would smoke and the crystal, I would, like, give away because I felt bad.

So are black people who were into crystal? Yeah, yeah, the drugs are non-discriminate, you know. Yeah, that crystal meth really took over. That was another thing that changed with a lot of young dudes that were coming in, was from my era, you were looked at like a basehead for that. Like, you were looked at like kind of down on if you did any types of powders or harder drugs. The only thing that people gave a pass on was sometimes powder cocaine, but they would only really let the dues from the projects get that pass,

like bounty hunters from Jordan Downs and grape and that type of thing. Or up north, you know, the Coomys and the 415s. But the only really thing that was accepted was shirm, weed, and alcohol. Yeah. You know, you could smoke some angel dust or dip, you know, whatever you want to call. Everything else is for sale. It's for resale to the dope things. Everything else is for sell.

Yeah. Yeah. Everything is like you get it, you sell it and that type of stuff. and you're doing like petty robberies you have a gun on you like you carry a gun like a gang member yeah yeah yeah and you're flagging yeah i was very serious i was a very i was an active you know gang member and you're not just going to be from you're not going to be from raymond like hanging out down there and not doing anything you know and you're not going to take it back out to lancaster and and not do anything and i think a big part of me was that i always wanted to be considered real

and everything that i did so i always put myself into it i think that's why my change really like stuck in that type of way was the moment that I started to feel like kind of like a hypocrite in a lot of different ways or even appropriating right another culture's identity in a lot of different ways right even like a street culture identity it's not like I came from the streets in that way and I started to feel like in some ways like a method actor right who was just performing because I didn't feel good about any of I loved the camaraderie and I loved having like my boys who we were like fuck the world to, right? But I didn't feel good about having to DP this person or that person got stabbed.

I was so sick of the gossip. Gang members are really gossipy in a lot of ways, right? It's always about who did this and who did that and who's no good and all this. When you do enough time, you realize that's like everybody has something to say about everybody else. You know, even the dudes that are good, you got somebody saying is no good. you know, until they get found out or whatever. That's really interesting. You felt like you were culturally appropriating.

Before people used that kind of terminology, you kind of felt like an imposter. Yeah, I did because my thing was like I never, I didn't go around. I never used the N-word because I felt like it was disrespect, right? And you missed a golden opportunity. I would have been, that's the only reason I would join the Crips. I never did. It was never my thing. And I knew guys that were, that, that did.

There was other... You knew white guys. Yeah, there was white guys. There was other white crips that I ended up getting around. We were very few and far between at this time in the system. You know, it was Snow Rock from 40s down in San Diego. It was diehard from South Side Pomona Village. It was old man from Fortray, who knows where he was at, right?

Some of the older guys, they had kind of like phased out on the streets. It was, I was in a full-blown riot over me. and I had one of my best guys that was right there next to me, man, helped protecting me. And we were just back to back with it was Gary Boland from West Side Modesto, right? And he was this white dude, you know, from Modesto that was a crit. And, you know, but it was a fucking G. And so we would land very, very rarely would we land on yards together. Because usually what happens is as soon as you land on that year, when you're on a higher level,

three, two, and one, there's like ways that people get around it. But when you're on a four yard and you're on a 180 yard, there's no politic and out of that shit, you know, it's going to fucking happen. And it doesn't matter how much, even my homies, they used to tell me, I don't know, Trey, we're going to go talk to these dudes and get this shit settled in this. Man, they would just put in a fake medical slip for me to get called. I'd get a ducat go out and fucking get smashed on, you know,

because they're trying to ambush me and all types of shit. So there's no talking it out on a level four. There's no talking it out. Talking it out just means delaying the process so everybody can get armed. I see. That's it. Okay. Before we get to the pen at one, when you're still on the streets, obviously you have to get jumped in.

Yeah. Tell us about getting jumped in. Yeah. So 10-duce day is, you know, it's a major day in the neighborhood where all the three factions get together and they celebrate the birth of Raven Crip, right? And it's a time for everybody to, you know, the point. Park is full, man. You just see hundreds of cribs. When I first saw it, I was like, oh, this is my dream.

This is the real of shit, you know, in this type of way. But they're shooting their dice and those are getting into fist fights. Forties everywhere. Oldies. 40s smoking weed and like low riders and, you know, all these different things. Yeah, it was, it was. And so Helen Keller Park is the hub of the Raymond's, right, at that time. And where is it?

It's off 120th and Vermont. It's like, it's kind of, yeah. Yeah, you got to go down a little bit further, maybe to 123rd, but it's in that general area right there. And it's just a park right off the side of Vermont, right? It's like, and everybody gets put on there who's going to get, who's going to be from the neighborhood. And so I remember the night that it was going to be me and everybody's there.

And this dude who was the, I don't want to name too many names and all that type of shit because, you know, it's not about that. But this dude that was kind of like my sponsor, right, the dude that I looked up to tells me, he goes, yo, we're going to put him on, right? And you ready? And I remember I looked at everybody and I felt like this was like a, this is why I say kind of like an actor in a sense,

is I felt like I was on a stage, you know, everybody was looking at me. And I remember I just like started to unbutton my penulton, right? I didn't even say anything. I just was like, I'm going to be cool. There was a motherfucker. right unbutton this shit and I hung it over the fence and uh and I say it's going to be right over here and there's this there's like this waist high chain lead fence where the light pulls at and the

light pole comes down and I remember the light being beaming down onto the grass and so I grabbed fence and I jump over into the clear space and one dude jumps over behind me boom right crazy part is three months later that dude got killed so he jumps over behind me and as soon as he lands I turn around and he rushes me. Boom, boom, boom, boom. So we started getting him up. And one thing is, is that I was always like really athletic

and I was always tough and I grew up with brothers and like all this different. And people think that Lancaster was soft but it wasn't, you know? The white boys out there, they get busy and I was one of them. And so I put this dude down, right?

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I box him down. He gets dropped. And so another guy jumps over. Boom. And when another guy jumps over, the other one gets up The two rush me now.

Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Now I'm getting them up with both of them. And I'm holding my own. And so a third one jumps over. And when a third one jumped over, right, we really start getting it. And so we go for a certain amount of time. And it wasn't that bad. I wasn't even as busted up as probably a couple of dudes that were there with me, right?

And afterwards, man, it was this huge celebration, right? Everybody was like, oh, and they came up and they were hugging me and all this stuff. And I just remember I felt so fucking good. And I was like really proud of myself for like going through this thing that I felt like scared to do and like all this different stuff. Mad respect. Yeah. And so we go to and I'm still like reeling with being down in L.A. You know?

Because it wasn't much longer after I had been down there that I got jumped in. And so we go to this club and everybody's inside and they're crib walking and there's, you know, there's chicks that are dancing, all this different type of stuff. and I'm out front. And as I'm out front, I see these two guys starting to walk up to the street. So we bang on them, right? And when we bang on them, this car comes skirting out around this alleyway and drives up and runs these two dudes over. Bo boom, boom. And then skirts off around the corner, stops.

Side doors open up. Two dudes jump out of the car, run, jump. jump onto a public bus and the bus takes off. And I'm looking at it like, what the fuck just happened? Right? Because then it felt, you know, so real in that moment. Yeah. So you went from like, oh, I'm like a triumphant moment to like a holy shit.

To like, oh shit. Yeah. This is what you signed up for. Yeah. Yeah. And it's what I signed up for. And, and, um, but, you know, I was like, it was just another moment of me seeing the reality of it and feeling like I was like, you know, okay, this is the real deal.

And this is what I was asking for and all this different type of thing. Did you yourself? have to put in work after you got jumped in? I mean, I was already putting in work in the sense of like the, with the guy that my sponsor guy that kind of took me down there and all this type of thing. But this is what I mean by there's no like, it's not like, okay, now all of a sudden you need to go put in work,

go across this way, find an enemy, shoot an enemy. I didn't experience that. You know, instead I just experienced now you're allowed to be in this area. And then it was like every now and a moment. again, we would come up with an idea for a crime, but so much of the in-between was also just us spent young dudes smoking weed hanging out in the park all day. Maybe some enemies would come through bust on us, bah, pa, pa, right? And then we'd like scurry off or whatever. Some dudes would shoot back, pa, pa, pa, and then the whole neighborhood would be talking about it. Everybody

would get away because the cops are coming. And then you're kind of just back out there hanging out again. So I didn't really live that life of where it was like I needed to necessarily go put in all this word. Today's episode is sponsored by Policy Genius. Do you guys know that most people with life insurance policies wish they had gotten them at a younger age? I don't even have a family of my own yet, but I still got a life insurance policy using Policy Genius. They hooked me up with a policy under $300 a year that pays out a million dollars in life insurance coverage. That's really good for something so cheap. PolicyGenius combines digital tools with the expertise of real licensed agents. So basically, it aggregates your needs and pairs you with the best life insurance policy.

It allows you to compare quotes from America's top insurers side by side for free with no hidden fees. They answer questions, handle paperwork, and advocate for you throughout the process. This is so much easier than actually having to find a life insurance agent. They just put you on their website. you can get it all done in a matter of minutes. And it's so important, especially if you have family, especially if you have some wealth, a home. You want that to get passed on to your loved ones appropriately and timely upon your passing.

Hopefully that's not for a long time. But feel secure. And that's the point. That's why I got this thing. It was so easy. I wish I had got it younger. Remember, life insurance is a form of financial planning and policy genius is the country's leading online insurance marketplace.

Secure your families tomorrow so you have peace of mind today. Head to policygenius.com or click the link in the description of this episode to get your free life insurance quotes and see how much you can save. Again, under 300 bucks a year got me over a million dollars worth of coverage. That's policy genius. PolicyGenius.com. Today's episode is sponsored by my favorite prize picks. If you guys like firing on action, I mean, you know what it is by now.

You're a fan of the show. These are not professionals. All you got to do is bet more or less on two to six players stat projections. That's it. A dummy like me, a casual sports fan can do it. You damn sure can do it. All right? Check it out.

Baseball season is here. Thank God. Don't miss your chance to add your favorite players from the diamond in your prize picks lineup, whether it's strikeouts, RBI's first inning outs. There are so many different plays to 1000X your cash today. And what's so dope. about prize picks is you can mix and match player projections from different sports. What? I didn't even know about that. Combine your favorite baseball players with players from basketball, hockey,

e-sports, and much, much more. You guys know what it is. You're rabid. You guys are rabid. You're on this. You're making your living off of this, dude. You guys are sharks. Now prize picks offers Venmo, Apple Pay, MasterCard, and more for quick and easy deposits into your account this sports season. And let me hit you with the big cahuna. Sign up today. get $50 instantly when you play just $5. You don't even need to win to receive the $50 bonus. It's guaranteed. They're giving you money to get in the game, guys, okay?

They're like, you're like the corner boy and Marlowe hit you off with a pack, and now you're slanging red tops, okay? You didn't even need to do anything. He just puts you on. You didn't even have to come with your own bread. Just $5. Price Picks also offers weekly promotions that can lead to big payouts like Taco Tuesday. Each Tuesday, prize picks discounts, select player projections up to $25.

to provide even more value for your lineups. Download the app today and use Code Connect to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup. Once again, that's promo code Connect to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup. Prize picks run yo, motherfucking game. It sounds a lot like prison gang banging like that.

Like most of 80% of the time, nothing is happening. 85% of the time. Yeah, because 80% of time you're in the cell. Right. You know, so it's like there's really nothing except talk being happening. The thing that really submitted me was I had saved a guy's life, right, that was from the neighborhood on another day that we have called 120 Day and it was in front of everybody. And I won't go through all of the specifics, you know, because it was a real situation and I don't

want to like, I just don't want to do that, right? But at the same time, what did happen and everybody from Raymond knows it is that I saved this dude's life. And that was the thing that then made it so that way they were like, this dude is really from the neighborhood. Doesn't matter who his sponsor had done none of these types of things. And then I got real love from the guys that were right there that had witnessed it. And that was the thing that made it. So that way, when I went to prison, when I went to jail, when I went to juvenile hall,

they claimed me. You know, I landed on the yard and dudes weren't like, who fuck is this dude? I landed on the yard and they were like, man, the little homies here and we're going to like try to sort this shit. it out and do this. So you got a stripe? I got stripes because of it. And then I got busted, not too much longer after that. And so when I went to juvenile hall, I was very active, you know. And then when I went to county, I was mainline GP through all these different things. And, and I was in, I was at, man, I was,

I wasn't turning down fades. I was going into any tank that the cops put me in. I was just doing the full-blown thing. And, and so I continued to earn more and more stripes while I was in, while I was on the inside. Okay, so the crime that changes your whole life, it was barely a crime, really? Yeah. It was kind of just premeditated. Yeah.

Tell us about it. Where, what was it down in the neighborhood? Was it down? No, so it was in Lancaster. So what we used to do was we would go out to the city, hit some licks, right, or do a couple robberies type of thing, and then we would go back out to Lancaster, lay low, right? Or we would do hit a couple licks in Lancaster,

and then we would go out to the city and lay low, Rice was and so anyways um when the idea came up about this bingo hall right and it was this united desert charities it's so embarrassing right you know what we say in the pen bro no no nobody got away with it we're all embarrassed i mean it's embarrassed in the sense of like god damn man you had to go try to rob a bunch of old people right what the fuck that is wild yeah but anyways it wasn't like that it was this it's it was this hall that you can rent out of for all types of things and bingo was one of them and uh so what we decided to do was we were going to go into the building at like 9 10 a.m the day the day after the bingo but the night before

they were going to run the next one because they were going to have the most cash and we were estimating to have like 50 Gs in there or something like that right and um yeah it was way less and we didn't get any right but it was it was like 20 i think actually but um yeah that So it was me and two of the other homies, right? And my role, I was going to hold the gun and point it and make sure that everybody was cooperating in that way. And then the dude that was coming in with me, he was going to be the one I was going to grab the money and do all this different type of stuff. And so 10 o'clock in the morning, man, we pull up, right, and get dropped off. And our getaway guy is around the corner.

And we had walkie-talkie. So that way, if we need to get out of there, we hit him. and he comes and we jump in and drive off. And so you were prepared, you knew there was going to be people in there. Yeah, we knew there was going to be people, but it wasn't like a, they weren't, it was just going to be the workers. Okay. So it was just like the skeleton crew of the workers, right?

I didn't know how many people, but there was going to be people in there. And so we walk in and there was this guy, this older guy, that was towards the front, right? His name was Patrick Lawrence. And I know all the victims of names because all the years of having to kind of like, you know, get to that place of where you actually empathize and understand the ripple effect of what the fuck you did, you know, and it's important to put a name to somebody's face, you know, so it makes it a little more human.

But this guy, Patrick Lawrence was right there, and I pull the gun out and I tell him, you know, don't fucking move, get to the back. And he looks at me and he grabs the gun, right? So automatically shit was going fucking wrong. So he grabs the barrel of the gun. and I like freeze, not knowing what to do. And my crimee comes up behind him and puts his, acts like he has,

but he didn't have a gun, but he acted like he did. And he jabs his finger against his side. And he goes, let it go. Don't be stupid, you know, da-da-da-da-da. So the dude lets it go. So we get him and there's two like women that are cleaning tables. And so I point the gun at them and I'm telling everybody to go to this desk that's at towards the back of the hall, kind of like where you would probably go in.

and whatever. It's like an administrative desk. And while we get everybody there, we hear the toilet flush in this bathroom. And so my crime, he goes, go see who that is. And so I go walking up towards the bathroom and this janitor comes out.

And I point the gun at him. And he's like, he can't even register it at first. I remember he stopped and looked down. He couldn't see, couldn't believe what he was seeing. What the fuck, you know? And so then he registered. stirred it and so I go get over there and so he starts walking over and when I walk over to where everybody else is at I look around and my crime is gone and I'm like where the fuck is this dude at

and next thing I know he comes through this sliding glass door that you can't tell is open with these blinds that are like floor to ceiling and he's panicked he goes we got to get out of here man somebody just ran out this side door and so this woman ran out and uh she was like it was like 10 in the morning so she's like running down the street yelling right help help help yeah and uh so i tell everybody go into the office and we turn around and run out and jump into the getaway car you know we radio so we jump into the getaway car and we drive off and uh oh no no no no i'm sorry before that happened while me and my crime me are talking about it this older woman And we're a Kirkbray.

She comes out and she has a small pistol and she pulls it out and she points it at us. And Mike Krami grabs the gun and he goes, what are you doing? And she just lets it go. Wow. And so like it's just to me is mind-boggling as now I'm like a parent and I'm all these different things. Right. And I just think about how wrong all of that could have happened. Yeah.

Someone easily could have got killed. This is why I say like I don't feel bitter about. what happened to me in any type of way. It was such a blessing because it just, and it just made me, I just, I just am so thankful for the experience, you know, that, that I was able to go through after that. But anyways, she lets it go. And then I tell everybody go in the office.

They go in the office, him and I run, jump out. We get into the, to the getaway car. We drive only a few blocks away to where his house was at. And then I was staying like three, four houses up, right? And so when we get there, I'm like upset and like relieved, right? Because, you know, like at least we're away and we got away and all this different shit. But I'm upset because I had these dreams. I was going to already had this cutlass lined up that I was going to buy.

And I was going to go to the swabbing and get a bunch of clothes. I was going to go buy a bunch of weed. And then I was going to get the fuck out of Lancaster. I don't know where I was like at this stage in my life where I was like, I just want to get this shit and then go somewhere. I don't know where. and it just seemed like I was going to get a lot of money. A few grand seemed like bought to me at that time. So we get there and I'm like, what the fuck happened?

And my crime was like, man, this lady ran out the side door. And like, you know, who's the fuck we going to do? Man, we had to get out of there. And so I'm like, whatever, I'm going back home, right? So home was only three houses up from there. Okay, so you, did you go back to live with your dad? No. No, my biological mother's house was a few houses up, right?

But I was only there off and on. I would be gone for like months at a time and then I would pop up, crash for like a week. She didn't care, you know. Did your folks know that you were gangbanging? Did they know what was going on? Yeah. Yeah, my folks knew.

My dad was always looking for me trying to intervene, you know, in some type of way. If I felt like I saw his truck or something like that, I'd hit a couple fences or something and try to get out of there and like, you know, not have him get his hands on me and stuff, you know. Yeah, you know, they were in the streets looking for me. Yeah. Wow.

Okay, so. My poor dad. Yeah, right? Yeah. I'm going to show this episode to my father who used to get mad when I would fucking break curfew by half an hour. I'm like, I could have been a white crypt. Seriously.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He was like super responsible, man. He was, he's such, and still, like such a good, just, he also helped save my life. When I, when I decided to leave the gang, drop out and pursue this unknown fucking, you know, path in life. I don't know where I was going.

I never thought I was going to drop out ever. I hear all these guys all the fucking time on the internet, always talking about they would never do this, they would never drop it, they would never do that. When you start getting up in the double digits and then pass the double digits, a lot of you think differently. And it's not that there's not guys that never do, right?

You got guys there in 40 years, mainland. You got guys 30 years in Pelican Bay shoe alone, right, in the shoe. But they look at things differently too, because they see when people leave and stuff. And anyways, my point was that I never thought that was going to happen. And I remember when I did and I just finally was like, fuck it, I'm done with this shit. I'm going to go, I'm going to go see what else is there for. But you were really entrenched though, psychologically and culturally by that point.

It was a really hard thing for me to do. It was like it was, it was very difficult. I wanted to live in peace, though, very quickly right after. I think the entire time I just wanted to live. live in peace my entire life. Even as a kid, I was so sick of what my parents were doing and all this shit and everything. I was just trying to get the fuck away. But

you know, I just messed it all up. But the thing is, is like, when I was in prison, I was never like a really violent dude, you know? I was just the dude that I didn't put up with no shit when motherfuckers tried to bring it to me. And so

I never really cared for the violence in that way. and um um you know i was so entrenched that my ego is what really kind of like kept me for a little bit longer than i should i wouldn't even say should have and all that because i'll get into how that was an actual benefit for me to go through what i went through also when i stepped away and went to the dropout yards where there's no structure right ever dropout yards or even actually wilder now they are they are there's I mean, I got to Calapat was the first dropout yard that I went to. And it was an old yard of all the old regs, AB, BGF, NF, MA.

And they're still fucking killers. I mean, as soon as I got there, these two dudes Cub and Casper, man, fucking blasted this dude Gator, man, like stabbed his eye out, fucking like just in the middle of the yard. It's just that over there, I wasn't targeted because I had the pass of being a white crib. Yeah. Only a few the ex-skin has that try to get started and shit like that in the

beginning tried to give me some shit. But I quickly fucking, you know, bulldozed past that bullshit. I wonder if the dropout yards will now become the main line and the main line will become the dropout yards. In the state of California, the dropout yards, there's a higher population than there is. You have more S and Y yards than you do general population yards, right? And it's really probably. smart of the system because the system made it easier for people to drop out. So at first,

you couldn't just like go to a drop out yard. Yeah. Right? You could just go to them and be like, hey, I want to drop out of a gang. Can you just send me over here? You know, they're going to be like, what fuck you're talking about, you know? And then you had to go through this debriefing process. The higher you were, the more you had to, you know, you had to give people up and all this type of shit. Yeah. For me, it was a little bit different because being a white crib, they were trying to always get me to go over to the gener to the they knew that my life was constantly in jeopardy so administration was always like you need to fucking go over to these yards otherwise you're going to get killed over here type of thing i just used to tell them in committee fuck off you know so so how did uh how did the crime

i mean yeah how'd you get popped how did how did so we get to the house uh i decide um you know i'm to go back up to my place. And I walk out the front door. My other homeboy that was my sponsored guy, right, all this type of shit. He was my big home from the hood. He was, he comes with me. And we're walking out. As we're walking up the street, we're like talking about it, right? And and when we get to my front door, I'm putting the key into unlock it. And a squad car comes pulling out of the side alley. And when the squad car comes pulling out of the side alley, the office sees us notice us our description immediately jumps out draws down and um i put my hands up and uh and then and then uh and then my home boy through the walkie-tucky he ran off and got away and so he they

zip me up and cuffed me put me in the back of the cop car did you guys have ski masks on when you went in there no it's reckless yeah because there was no yeah it was cowboy stuff and then we figured there's no cameras like that type of thing you're just going to go in you know and strong arming can get the fuck out. So coming to find out, it was this, this detective Torres, right? He was a part of the gang task force. And I was already on file. The crew I was a part of was already on file.

And they really wanted the guys that I was with. They were under investigation for a lot of different shit. And so when they get me, they have the witnesses come ID me. The witnesses, of course, just looked at me. They were like, yeah, that's that little motherfucker right there, you know. and then they take me down to the station. They take me down to the station and they start to grill me

and I'm denying everything, right? I don't know what you guys talking about. I'm just walking to the street with my homeboy. We're coming from the liquor store around the corner, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, they're like, no, we're not paying attention to that shit. And so they take me to Challenger, which is the juvenile camp in Lancaster. And because it was on a weekend,

I had to wait until Monday to then catch the Grey Goose down to Silmar in the Valley, in the San Fernando Valley, which is like the main institution for everybody out in that region of Los Angeles County for Juvenile Hall. And so I remember they take me to Challenger and you spend like two days in the box while you're waiting to go down like a disciplinary spot just because you're not yet sentenced to camp so they can't put you like in a general population. And so anyways, the day that I'm getting ready to transfer,

and it was super weird, you know, like I went to school on Friday and tempted the robbery on fucking Saturday. You were still going to school? Yeah, I was trying to, you know. Yeah, I tried. I had re-enrolled my, they had this new thing called,

it was some runaway law that had been passed where if you were a runaway, you could enroll yourself in school without your parents' permission to try to incentivize kids to try to get back into school. And so when I had come back out from L.A. and like I was already kind of transitioning away from that life, I think. There's a lot of things that I look back at and I see that I really wanted to. I just was still so immersed in everything that was going on.

Yeah. Mentally, you were maturing a little bit. A little bit. Yeah. I enrolled myself in school, even though like I got kicked out like two months later. I didn't even make it through the first day. The first day I was like, I don't need to be here. I just got up randomly in the middle of the class, literally walked out and never went back.

And then the truancy officer, Jolin Shreeves, love her to death. She fucking gets me because I got busted at this college, this community college down the street from the high school. And she comes and gets me. And she's like, dude, like every, the staff had all been advised about me and like things like that because I was a runaway.

It was like special circumstances in a lot of ways. And so she was like, what's it going to take for you to stay in school? And I'm like, I don't, you know, I don't know. She goes, well, I notice you get to this point. And so how about from that point on you just become my TA? You come over here and you help me. And so I was like, cool. And I did that for like a good month or so.

And then I got in some fight with some kid over a girl and then got kicked out and went to this continuation. And that's where I was going when that weekend I committed. But you're 17 now and you've never been arrested. before, right? No, I had been arrested. Yeah, I'd been arrested before. Okay. But I had never, like, been through any type of process, like arrested, released, right, uh, to my parents, you know, type of thing or, but with the gang, since you've been a Crip, had you been arrested for anything? Yeah, I got arrested and, and for a, uh, grand theft auto and was taken down to Silmar, but the, it was a DA reject. And so the district attorney didn't pick it up. And I was just released

back out and, you know, whatever back out into Lancaster. Like, a day later or something like that, two days later. Okay, but your fingerprints and everything are in the system now. My fingerprints are in the system. Yeah. I just have no, I just have no, like, convictions in any type of way. Are you aware of the, the harshness of, like, gang banging criminal penalties at this point? I had no idea that you can be tried as an adult as a juvenile.

Even with, you know, by two, what year is this? 2002? 2003? This is 2002 at the time. Okay. Yeah. You didn't hear from the big homies, like. No, you don't get, I didn't have big homies like that.

There are people that are that way. Like, it's kind of like, remember I was telling you about Gary Bowlin, right? And G from Modesto. When he went into prison, he did a really smart thing, right, for his survival anyways. It's a white crib. His older homies told him when you hit reception, they're going to ask you what your race is, right? And you just tell him black. That's it.

And they're just going to mark it down. Swear to God, this dude looks just like you, right? tall fucking same thing now you get to councilor council's going to go where you're going to go on black and they just put it there and what that does is that makes your paperwork say that you are black your bed card is black right so what it does is it gives the it gives the whites on the yard a way out if they want it it it's not always that they want it but if they want it right what they can do is they can say well what we talking about this news for his bed card is black his paperwork is black He says he's black.

I don't have to stab him. I don't got to do it. There's no, he's not, what are you talking about? This dude's paperwork does not say that he's white, you know? Wow. So you have guys that get laced like that sometimes, but I wasn't one of them. You know, I didn't have an older homie that did any of that for me. I didn't tell me any of that.

The only thing my older homie taught me was like, here's the gun, hold this, do that, you know, like, it was all in the criminal way. It wasn't like how to protect yourself through the criminal process. Isn't it funny that California is like, like known now for its identity politics. Yeah. Like anybody I can identify as a woman. Yeah. Whatever.

Even back in the criminal justice system, you're like, yeah, I can be whatever I want, dude. Yeah, I think maybe that's why I didn't like freak out when I got out. And I was like, oh, we've been dealing with dudes that are, you know, like, we already had, I don't know what to say and what not to say. Because I don't want to say anything that's going to fit. No, no, no, no, no, no. You know what I mean? But these animals, no, come on.

Yeah. You say whatever you want. Yeah. I mean, it just is, it's, you know, I don't know, but I wasn't, I wasn't shocked in coming home because I was already around prison punks. I was already around news that identified as women. I was already around like, you know, white guys that say they're black, black guys that say they're Mexican, you know, the whole, the whole works. Yeah. Yeah. But you weren't aware of what was about to come down on you. Certainly. It doesn't sound like that. No, I didn't understand.

understand at all, you know. How long did it take you before the DA charged you after you got bagged? Oh, right away. So as soon as I hit Challenger, the district attorney had already filed charges. And it started out as the attempted armed robbery. And so I was looking at 16 months in camp at that time. And the day that I'm getting ready to transfer down to Silmar, I remember I'm sitting where you get these sack lunches and it's peanut butter and jelly sandwich and probably like

a hard boiled egg or whatever. And I'm getting shackled up and getting shackled all these camp kids that are all going back down to the juvenile hall for whatever reason. And I remember I had, when I got busted, I got busted in black converse with fat blue laces in them, right? And so I'm sitting there and you know how I look, right? I don't look and imagine me when I didn't even have any tattoos or anything like this. I never looked like kind of like what I was actually doing.

And I remember this dude from Englewood. He was from Inglewood families, which is like a really, really hardcore rival of the Raymond's, right? So this dude looks at me and he goes, hey, hey, white boy. He's like, you know, what you got those blue laces in your chucks for? And so I look at him and I'm like, I'm from Raymond Crip. And he, like, I remember his face got all screwed. Like he couldn't compute what it was. He goes, Raymond, I go, yeah, he was, fuck Raymond.

It's Englewood families, right? So I was like, damn, I don't really know what to do with this. I'm like all cuffed up and shit. And like, I don't know what the jail. old shit is and this and that. I just know that I'm going to fuck this motherfucker up if I can, right? So they put us on the bus and this dude from schoolyard leans back at me and he goes, yo, man, why you let him talk to you like that?

I go, what I'm going to do? We got me in cuffs. So he's like, all right, I'm just saying. So we get down to Silmar, boom. And we get off the bus and that dude stays on. He's supposed to be going to Central, which is like for everybody from the inner city part, right? and I'm sitting in this holding tank and they take the cuffs off

and there's these wood kind of like benches and stuff while you're waiting to get intake into the juvenile hall and next thing you know here comes this dude right he had told him he had to use the restroom but the whole time he's just trying to come get at me

you know and so I'm sitting there and I see him and I'm like this motherfucker right here and he comes up and he says fuck over white boy right like that it's like all right man I scoot over and he sits down

And as soon as he sits down, I jump up and boom, I rack him, drop him off of the thing. And now I'm on him, boom, boom, boom, boom, they pepper spray us, all types of shit. And that kind of was like the way that I started in juvenile hall, you know. And, yeah, so. Just fading immediately. Right away. And it was definitely live. When you're from Raymond, you have so many fucking enemies, man.

There's like, you've got Crip enemies, you got blood in and everybody's your fucking enemy when you're from Raymond. But anyways, though. Had it 16 months. 16 months is what you were facing. Yeah, so I'm facing 16 months. They send me up up the hill in Silmar. And about a month and a half later maybe, you know, they're like visiting me.

The district attorney comes to visit me. She's like, you need to talk about who you were with and like all these different things. And I'm telling her, I don't know what you're talking about. Because you have two Codys, right? The guy who did the driver and the homie that had the gun. Yeah, yeah. Well, the homie that I had.

the guy, but the dude that came in with you. Right. Okay. And so, so, and they were all, you know, like the dude that was with me was like 40, probably like 43, 44 at the time. And then my older homie that, the one that was kind of like initiated me into everything, he was like, I don't know, what was he at the time? 30, early 30s, maybe late 20s. So they probably had lengthy criminal records by that. Yeah, they've been in and out of PIN, Y, A, all that type of stuff. They were, they were guys like that. And so about a month and a half then is when all of a sudden they tell me to roll my property up. They're sending me to the Y unit in Silmar. And the Y unit was for everybody that is either being, is going to or coming from YA or you're being tried as you're going through what's

called a fitness hearing, which is, are you going to be fit to be tried as a juvenile or are you going to be found unfit and bound over to adult court? And so that's when they broke the news to me, that I was now fighting a fitness hearing. And that I wasn't, it wasn't about, any of my court hearings weren't about guilty, not guilty at this point. It was now about whether or not I was going to be tried as an adult or as a juvenile. I didn't have any idea. And my poor dad, man, didn't even find out I was in juvenile hall until like probably two

months to me being in there. Wow. Yeah. Why? Because I didn't give him his information. The juvenile halls don't ever follow up on that type of stuff. You know, I gave him my mom's information, but she was off, you know, marrying some other guy or whatever you know she was off doing her thing so the DA wants blood now

so the DA wants blood and do you think you would have caught such a a harsh sentence if you had if this had happened in the city like if this had happened in LA would have never been in CCB I would have never been tried like this right because it's kind of a small crime compared I think the thing that really motivated it was that it was the guys that I was with and that each each. time everything was being amped up to get me to cooperate and scare me in some type of way. I just wasn't doing it. And so it was like, well, then we'll do this to you, you know? And now they're like backing up what the fuck it is that they're saying that they're going to do in order to be able to kind of like try to get me to crack. And I don't think they expected me

not to. I think they expected me to crack. I don't think they expected me not to do that. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, I couldn't even comprehend what it was, what it meant, though, like facing a life sentence. Yeah. I was like, no fucking way. And I was calling people that I knew and all this type of shit. And my older homie that was on this, he was on the streets, you know?

So I was calling him and he's like, oh, bro, you chill, man. You're not going to, they're not going to give you live. You never even, but he genuinely was like, they're not going to give you live, bro. You've never been to jail. They're going to send you to juvenile or Y, A or something like that, you know. How, I guess we'll get to it. But, yeah, this is an. example of how the system, despite all its checks and balances and rules, it's made up of individuals.

And individuals are flawed. They're vindictive. They, you know, are unhappy a lot of the times, especially prosecutors working in the Los Angeles County judicial system. And so they're like, this punk motherfucker. Like they take it personally. Oh, yeah. And so, yeah.

And this is how they ramp up. And this is where the injustice of it comes in. didn't, even though it was a real crime and you deserve to do time for it, I would say. Yeah, absolutely. You know, considering the circumstances, you scared a lot of people. Yeah. There was a gun involved. And should I have been doing before too?

You just get this dude off the streets. Yeah. Sit him down for a little bit and see if maybe there's like some potential for change to take place. Right. Because, and I guess let's, let's save that as well. But how does this, you take it to trial. Yeah, I took it all the way to trial.

took it all the way to the box. I had this wide. I mean, the whole experience was all a, like a bunch of, the whole experience was also like how I kind of fell through every crack. And then how I kind of helped myself also fall through all these different cracks. You know, they offered me like, I think the lowest that they got was like 19 years with no life, right?

And I would have done probably, off of that like 13 years or something like that like kind of a reasonable sentence in a lot of different ways for the severity of what I was involved in right not necessarily that crime but at least like what they knew that I was involved with the people that I was involved did they know you're a gang banger by now they know you're with the Crips yeah they knew I went in there and then I hit the especially once I got bound over to adult court I hit the county in a time when the violence but the gang violence was at an all-time high. I think in the first six months

that I was in Men Central, maybe not even six months, it might have been three months. There were six people killed just in my module alone. Beating in dead with their bodies drugged to the fucking, you know, for the day,

they shut down the day rooms completely because of the amount of murders that were taking place. Were they beat, these are like shankings or... That beat. Some of them are not even shanked. Some guys just getting beat to death

in a day room, you know? And yeah, sheriffs were killing people. You know, you had that whole thing. Lee Baca was still very much, you know, very much doing his thing. The culture of the sheriff's department was very much doing its thing inside there. Super corrupt scandalous. Yeah, that shit's real when you hear about them talking about, like, you got to face that, this mural of John Wayne, right?

And they would go through and smack dudes nuts with these big old mag lights. I was there when they got the mag lights and the batons taken from them because there was such an amount of abuse that was going on behind it. So. That's when I like County, yeah, it got put on the map. Yeah, I was in the 2000 floor, which was like one of the most violent floors at that time, 26, 28. My first, I mean, I got, I got snatched into a room and beat unconscious by the white boys within, I didn't even make it to my cell. Wow. I didn't even make it to my cell yet before they, before they, they snatched me up in this hallway, you know, and drug me into this fucking room.

And next thing I know, I woke up some blood everywhere and this cop standing over me. Wow. Why? Because you were a Crip? Yeah, they asked. The dude, this dude comes in and they see this, you know, a white boy that's in the tank. And so this guy leans into the bars and he's like, hey, hey, little brother, little brother, let me talk to you for a second.

So I come on me and goes, what's up, Wood? And one thing I had always been told because I had been writing with the adults as a juvenile when I was being tried was when I call you a Wood, say I'm not a wood. I'm a Crip, right? And so that's what I said I go, I'm not a wood, I'm a Crip And the dude was like, what the fuck? And he goes, you're a Crip, man.

He was, where? I said, I'm Raymond, Raymond Crip. And he was like, that's what you're rolling with. And I go, yeah, and he goes, all right, cool. And he dipped out. And I remember this dude from 20 Bloods, older guy was on the phone. And he hung the phone up, and I was going to go use it.

And he tells me, he goes, hey, little Raymond, he goes, keep your eyes out. I just heard what happened right there. And he goes, and I've noticed over here that they're starting to like gather up so keep your eyes out man because they're going to come for you and so i was like all right and i looked over there and i could see like a white dude from a like a porter come in from the from the outside of the module and they're like all having a little conversation and they're looking at me and then they're back on their thing and i'm like

oh fuck man this just going to go down it always starts with the porter yeah it always does The lookout, yeah, he used to lookout, motherfucker, man. And so next thing that happened was I got called for a visit by my mom. And they give you this pass. And at this time, you could roam to. I used to roam all over the fucking county off of one pass. It was a different time. But they gave me this pass.

And I walk out into the hallway and they tell everybody face the wall. And it's by this mailbox. And so the officers leave. They go face the wall and then they leave, and it's just an empty all the way at this point. You're just waiting for some other officers to work their way up to escalators. You know, the county's huge. Huge. It's got an escalator.

Yeah. It's a humongous facility. And it's a labyrinth of different floors and floors and, oh, no. It's, and dorms and medical. And then twin towers, two towers, I mean, is across the fucking way and all that shit. So I'm facing the wall in this, this porter, this. dude he'd come down from the pen he's all older dudes and slung back and shit you know and and uh he runs up on me and he like puts his face like right next to my where i'm facing the bottom

and he goes fuck you looking at like that right and so i turned around and i remember i cracked him bam right with everything i had and he just fucking chewed it like a little kid with a grown man you know right and he just was like bop and then he picked me up put me on his shoulder and so i was like trying to struggle and elbow him and his buddy runs out and grabs my legs so that way I can't kick my feet and then they start dragging me down the tier and as they're dragging me down the tier uh I remember there was like these three black dudes and I remember I looked at him and I was like what the fuck yeah and words help out where are you it's like I looked at them all like really you guys aren't going to do anything and I didn't say anything I just was silent you know and um

And so they dragged me down to 2,900 and they pull the door open. And I remember I grabbed onto the door handle. And when I grabbed onto the door handle, the dude of my legs, let's go. And he comes over and he starts like punching my arms hard, boom, boom, until I just can't hold the door handle anymore. And I let go of it. And I remember this had to have been a wild scene for everybody to see because in 2,900 at that time, everybody was on the tier.

They used to rack all the cells and let everybody be out. Right. Right. In this like kind of day room type thing. And so all of a sudden, they see this door. open up with these two fucking, you know, woods with this little dude and they're, you know, beating on them. And then they dragged me into this room. And I just remember going unconscious. And, uh, and then I wake up to an officer with his flashlight. And it hadn't, it had

probably only been like 30 seconds, right? In reality. Uh, and I like, bleary, I'd look up and I just registered the officer and the officer looks over at the two dudes. The two dudes are now like, this, right? They're just like, whoa, whoa, whoa. And the officer goes, what the fuck you guys doing, man? That's another white dude. That's what the officer says. Wow. And I remember my first thought was like, damn, I'm fucked, man, because like this dude thinks I'm like, you know, should be stalled out because I'm, you know, another white guy, you know, not that I'm a crib. And the officer looks at me and he goes, are you okay? Are you okay? And I went, yeah, I'm okay. and he goes, you sure?

And I go, yeah, and he goes, what happened to your face? Because my face is bloody. Yeah. And I told him I had slipped and hit the mailbox. And he saw everything. You know, I'm sure, drug in, probably some dudes, you know, whoever was, tell him what the fuck's going on.

But he goes, is that what you want to go with? And I go, yeah, and he goes, where are you going? And I pulled out my old crinkled up past. You know, I go, I'm going to see my mom. I'm going for a visit. And he goes, you still want to go? And I go, yeah. And he goes, all right, go ahead then, like that.

Well, you kept a G the whole time at least. You kept it solid. I did. And this is one thing about it is that it's such a benefit to be able to leave the situation, to leave gangs to drop out. And there's all these people that have to talk about it, whatever, right? You know, did you stay solid? Because eventually if you drop out, you're not, you know?

But I really don't give a fuck because one thing is, is my life became exponentially better from the moment that I left gangs. right and the other thing is is that i was able to walk over to those yards and and see the influx of young guys coming in now that we're going right to that because the institutions were trying to break up the power of the gangs and so they're like wanting people to go s and why they're creating these new titles right you know of like programming yards and non-programming yards and all this type of stuff and the language is very there's a reason why they have this type of language you know but I was able to go over there and fully in my heart be like I am moving on

from this because I really went out onto those fucking yards yeah I never one time rolled it up off of a yard when I left I left from the back right I fucking I was on my way up to Pelican bay the the and and a homie from San Diego who had been put in myself because he was beaten up on his home from West Covina neighborhood and the fellas got at me and were like, yo, can you mind taking so and so? And I was like, yeah, throw him in here with me. It's all good. So he comes in with me, becomes one of my best friends, right, this crib from San Diego 40s. And he was the one really that was like, what the fuck are you doing? You got life in prison, dude. Like, you need to think about that. A lot of these dudes, they're going on. They're talking about politics and this and that,

but it doesn't affect them the same way. You know, like, you want to go through this shit for the rest of your life? Why? It gives a fuck about you personally, you know? And, and I remember the day before I was going to transfer this counselor from Kern Valley where I was at at the time, because I'd went and opened it up, and we were all shoe kickouts. I was coming out of Tehachapi shoe, and it was Corcoran and Pelican Bay, and we were going to open up this institution that Arnie had built, because this is when Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor. Wow. Yeah, and he had built this place, It was called a mega prison, right? Mega institution.

I forget what he called it. It was Kern Valley, right? Kern Valley is really bad, I think, even to this day. Yeah, it's a bad institution. It's a hardcore institution. Even those S&Ys are all fucking lots of murders. It's a highly political power struggle institution. But that's where you ended up dropping out?

Yeah, I did. Yeah. So what happened was, was I was on my way to transfer. And the counselor, CC2 White, she calls me into her office one last time. before I was getting on the bus and she pleads with me and she says if you tell me right now she's like you're going up to pelican bay you've been all these places you're lucky that you're not dead right now already because at this point too had already been stopped this this incident right here was a full-blown race riot where I got sliced from here all the way to here right and so she was like

you're just lucky to be alive and they're going to eventually kill you if you tell me right now that you want to fucking change your life and that you want to stop this shit right I will send you over to a dropout yard and you'll be out of the hole within 30 days and your life will be drastically different. And I looked at it and I said, let's do it. Off of a fucking whim. I had no idea that I was going to her anything.

I just said, let's fucking do it. And she wouldn't, are you serious? And I go, yeah, let's do it. And that, yeah. My dad said that was the first adult decision I ever made. That's what he says. It takes a courageous person within such an awful system like the prison system in America and California,

you like your counselor to do something like that. But let's put a pin in that though. So you're in this mini penitentiary, which is the L.A. County Jail. I mean, it's like a pen. You let people hang out on the tier. That's what's the difference between that in prison. Yeah.

And all these guys are innocent, by the way. That's what's wild. Yeah, everybody's innocent. Not have you been convicted of a crime yet. Yeah, yeah. It's unconstitutional. Yeah. But, you know, a lot of things are.

Yeah. So you're lucky you didn't get stabbed. I mean, because when a guy comes up and grabs your legs and your arms in the pen, usually a third guy's coming up, Getting ready to stick you? Yeah, I got stabbed later. You know, I think that I didn't get stabbed until I got to prison. In the county, I didn't get stabbed at all.

And but I got into, it was always something. But I didn't, but I didn't have to worry about surviving the white boys in the county. Right? Like, even from that institute, even from that, because when that situation happened, I went down and I visited my mom. Yeah. I went back down. After that, when he says, you sure you want, you want.

I still go and I said, yeah, I walked out into the hallway. Those two dudes were right behind me. And when I walked out into the hallway, I spun around and I put my hands up and I was ready to go round two. And the dude that the first guy that had run up on me and grabbed me goes, no, no, I'm sorry, this white dude comes out of the hole because the hole was across the hallway and he comes out and he starts bulldozing right towards me. And the dude that had grabbed me grabs him and stops him. And he goes, no, no, no, he's good. He's. but he's okay. He's a good motherfucker.

He goes, he goes, he could have got us all cracked. Yeah. Leave him alone. Yeah. So you had your stripes with the whites. Like you would prove that you weren't.

Just from that situation with those guys. Right. But when I went to Wayside, I had to do it again and when I went to here. But fast forward three months and I'm fucking, you know, carrying a green bag with all my property. I'd already,

I'd been catching phase with enemies. I had been fucking. So now I didn't really wait for it in that way. I would go into a dorm and I would immediately be like, okay, look, if these, first I'd ask all four white guys that are in that dorm, right? Because they're so outnumbered, man. But I would ask these four white guys, any motherfuckers got a fucking issue. Let's get this shit out of the way right now.

Some of them would be like, let's do this and we would handle it, you know? Yeah. And so on one hand, you have your enemies from the streets from the black gangs. That was in the county. But then you also have the whites that don't like that you're a crib. Yeah. The county was. I remember when we got jumped by the East Coast over our homeboy,

Bardog, rest in peace. Bardog had been up on the 4,000 floor. He got into it with this dude from East Coast, which is our allies, right, the Raymond's anyways. He had got into it with this guy over being drunk on the tier, and Bardog was like the one running that tier. And so he got the cell door racked, and another trip ran in there and beat on the dude from him.

from East Coast basically as like a discipline, right? And Bardog had called that shot. So fast forward, Bardog goes to the hole. He hears I'm on the 2000 floor. At that time, I was the only Raymond. Everybody else had been transferring to the pin. And I was down there holding it down, right? As the only Raymond in 26, 28.

And when he heard that I was down there and he got out of the hole, Bardock had so much pull in this county jail. You'd been in the county for almost 10 years fighting the death penalty. Yeah. And so he had like major pull in this place. So he gets transferred to where I'm at into the cell that I'm at because, you know, it's like six-man cells and all of that.

And so he transfers into the cell and he's like, yo, it's a word meeting for the first time, but he had heard about me and all this stuff. And so, you know, I'm just happy to have an older homie with me right here and all this different things. And then my crimee me on this case comes in on another case. And he hits the tear. And he's some porters come walking. walking them to the cell with me and Bardog and they're like, yo, my name was Y from Raymond, right? And so they're like, yo, is a young Y? I'm like, yeah. And he's like, your brother, so-and-so is out here. And so I'm like, my brother. And I was thinking my real brothers, right?

My two real ones. And I'm like, oh, my God, I got to fucking take care of you. Right. What are we going to do? You know, this place is a jungle down here. So anyways, they're like, yeah, so-and-so from Raymond. I'm like, oh, okay, cool. So I get him pulled in the sell now it's the three of us and we get moved over to like whatever it was able row or whatever the fuck right what is he in for your crime he was in on domestic violence now okay yeah he was always in and out of domestic violence and shit like that right so he's in there on a domestic violence which he got oar and released right which there's a whole thing with my case in general that it just seems suss all the way around but anyways we're in there and we we all set and we all set you and we all set

up and one day when we're in there hanging out this dude from east coast pops up on the cell and he goes yo man uh bar dog and he goes yeah he goes you got to come out to the day room get dp right because of that shit that we heard about on the 4 000 floor what happened is is in the 2000 the east coast have made a move on these dudes from 60s and took the power right of the 2000 floor in 2628 it was all being run by these dudes from 6 oh and all this type of shit but they got moved on in this crazy little you know uh skirmish and the east coast had come out on top and now they were the ones who were all like the porters they were the ones who were running the dope they were the ones who were like getting bed moves done so they had control of the module and now

bar dog had been placed into an east coast module after having fucking had that shit happen so they come up and they tell them uh you know you got to come out and get d ped and for those of us that are of thinking double penetration. What does DP actually mean in prison? Discipline. You're right. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The double penetration is. That's something else. Yeah, that's also not as common as you think. You're right. If I've had to tell so many people that on podcast, I'm like, it's, if you want to fuck, you can find somebody consensually that will do it. Yeah, yeah. And there's dudes that do and all of that. And there are guys that do the raping and shit like that. But it's not like, you know, this thing, well, like you just go in and there's just

a bunch of butt fucking. No, no, no. No, no. I think that the, the, the, the, I think the, the percentage of gay sex in prison, would you say it's like 95% consensual? I mean, yeah, yeah, in a way, I mean, a lot of the gay dudes live in fear, though, you know, like the out gay guys because they get like, there's a lot of dudes that do that shit on the down low. There was this guy at Calipat, his name was Pumpkin, right? And he had been in Penn for like 30 years. He was an old reg.

A lot of, all the old guys all respected this dude, you know? He was just an old prison punk. And he got transferred up to Kern. Valley and on I mean he was got transferred up to a medical facility laid over in Kern Valley and this dude killed him in the cell and I think what ended up happening everybody was like talking about it and stuff but what what we really think meaning the guys that like have just known all of this type of shit is is pumpkin's not going to go into a cell with a motherfucker that he pumpkin is 30 year vet of being a homosexual in prison right like that guy instincts are pretty fucking good

And what happens a lot is these guys fool around with these dudes in the cell don't want it to get out and then do something like that. Right. So consensual, I don't know. You know, it's like all of that. Damn, that's wild. I don't know what consensual really means sometimes inside of prison. Well, I meant like straight men that are never coming home that maybe even are married or have families. Oh, totally. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And on the S and Y side, really because you don't have any openly gay guys on the main line. The main line they're not allowed on to. They stopped that back in like the 90s. I heard that in these really, really crazy days of the LA County Jail, they put the homosexuals in pink. No, they were in, not when I was down there. When I was down there, you had, you had guys that were there's, if they weren't in blue, so you had orange for high power, you had the clown suit, which was like blue and white checkered for the gang unit up on the 3,000 floor, specifically for validated games.

members like NLR. Wow. Like you're not just going to be a Crip in there because Crip isn't necessarily like a prison validated. You would have to be like a blue note or a CCO or like a UBN if you're a blood type of thing. But it's they had these checkered ones right where it was like white and blue and then a white and blue pant leg or something. And then you had Twin Towers which was yellow and blue. But at Twin Towers, you also had a certain way that it was like a yellow top and a blue bottom was the gays or something. I forget, but it fit into like the yellow and blue thing. And what are the institutions?

What is their thinking behind doing that? So that way, as far as what color coordinating like the uniforms and stuff like that? Yeah, for gang members and for for. To try to isolate segry, make it easy to identify. I'm just, you know. Yeah. Because it seems that seems like a wild like Nazi. thing to do. Like, hey, we're going to put these fags in fucking yellow and blue. You know what I mean?

Like, that seems like it's like, they don't go like in the general population in yellow and blue. So it's not, they go to specifically. Oh, I see. A whole gay dorm unit. I see. They're not like you don't have, they're completely separate and segregated from the general population. So that's just an easy way for the, the guards to be like, okay, you go over there. You go over there. Yeah. Yeah. It seems that, I mean, that is, it seems wildly antiquated, just politically in the politically correct era, that's wild to think about.

The gay people are that much of a target. Oh yeah. They have to be isolated and kind of ostracized by the facility. Yeah, but it's also too, like they start a lot of shit, man. You know, they start up

and dudes get jealous over them and they like a lot of the drama. Like they have a whole thing. You know, I remember when I, got to Calapat after that whole thing with with Cub and Casper you had a full blown melee between the gays and their boyfriends like a riot yeah but it's it's a riot is on a bigger scale a melee is like six people like six on six type of thing you know and a lot of them have brolic a lot of these dudes are homosexuals but they they're giant fucking

oh yeah yeah yeah you have a lot of dudes that are they they're just because they're just because a person is gay, you know, it doesn't mean that they're not, they don't have dangerous. They're not dangerous. Right. Right. They're not like soft just because they're gay. Yeah. No, that's a fact. These guys are in the pen. That's a fact. They're going through shit. Okay. I'm sorry. So we, you're, you pulled out to get disciplined. By the way, when you hear that as a gang member, you're like, you got to get deped. Are you just like, do you accept it? Like, are you indoctrinated to be like, okay, this is my duty? Or are you like, fuck, I'm about to get beat up? No, you're indoctrinated to accept it, right? But, but,

But here was the difference in the way that we handled that situation and in the way that I handled that situation and kind of like brought me some stripes and respect was they weren't talking about DP and me and the other homeboy. They were just talking about DP and Bardot. I see. And so the way that we are indoctrinated as a Raymond is, it's like, nobody DP's a Raymond but a Raymond. Right. You're like, you're not going to be from another neighborhood talking about your DP and one of the homeless. you can tell us about it. Right.

And then if we feel like that's that, then we will handle our own business. Right. You know, and so that's exactly what I said. I spoke up to the dudes. And I was like, hold up. Last time I thought he was from Raymond.

Like, tell us about what the fuck's going on. And if he's in the wrong, then we'll DPM in the cell, you know? And they told me basically, just to fuck up, you know. He's like, especially like I was a little kid. I was like 18. Yeah.

And so they were like, You know, I think fucking, this is not like a discussion or a negotiation in this way. Bar dog's going to get fucked up. We're going to take him out here. And so we were like, well, fuck it then, man. How about, this was my idea. How about we all go out to the day room? Me, homeboy, and Bardog.

And what we do is, is we line it up with the East Coast car. Meaning all three of us will get out with every East Coast in this, motherfucker. We'll do one-on-ones, right, all that type of shit. And we'll get it all out of the way. and they were like this is not bar dog is coming out to this day row and bar dog is going to be the one that's getting dp and if you can't accept that then we're going to run in this fucking cell and we're going to handle all you dudes and that's what they said and so we told them we'll fucking come on in here then and they did oh fuck and they did wow yeah they started lining up on the cell and the only thing that we agreed to

was no knives because you know the the east coast and the raymond's are so tight so it was like this is happening these dudes just lined up boom boom boom boom boom you had i don't know six seven dudes right there in front of the cell and your paws just getting invaded yeah so the dude the other dudes that are in the cell right like you had this dude from uh he was from uh village town pyru love this motherfucker to death he was my you know

ace through the rest of the county um you had a dude that was from like some san fernando gang you know edub or something like And, and so what happened was, was, uh, those dudes got up on the top bunks out of the way. You know, we told him, look, you need to clear the space out, just clear it out. And so that way we can handle our thing. And me and Bardog and the other homeboy, we backed up to the back of the cell. And, you know, I had long ass fucking hair at the time. I just braided and put it in a ponytail and shit.

And then, um, and we wrapped our hands up. And then we fucking waited for that cell door to rack. And it racked and those dudes came in there. And we rocked to that fucking cell. Holy shit. worked it, do that entire thing. And the guards let it go till you guys were just exhausted. So we're done, you know, because I'm like, this is, this is their politics right here.

This is their shit that they're handling. That is real gang banging. And we rock it. You know what happened with the homeboy? It was my whole sponsor and older homie and all this type of shit. And this was one of the most pivotal moments for me on what started to break me away from the gang and all that type of thing is, is he was hiding under the bunk. When it was done, this dude comes. rolling out from underneath the bunk and bar dog and i are all lumped up and shit and we fucking

handled our business and we looked and we were like what the fuck man he was like oh man i kicked and he like said a bunch of shit and we were like you know the we were so just jazzed over the fact that that we were going to like that we had survived this and that we showed up right like we were proud of ourselves as dudes from raymond right we were yelling it all on the tear and defiance you know we were right right right right man all on the tier and bar dog at that time he used to record right over the phone with dub C and all this type of stuff yeah he was really big in the music and so he was like going to get out and hopefully he was going to take off with his shit and this and that and blah blah blah so he used to the down road tracks right and called

dub C and dub C's neighborhood was very close stars from 11 and then and the raymans are like the close they're like almost one hood almost no they're so tight uh that whole rolling hundreds so um he's like beating on the bunk and rapping and shit and we're just being just like you know know, belligerent, right? With our in obnoxious, with our celebration over the fact that you don't run us, man. And we're still here. Come back in type of mentality. And so we're like doing that.

And the next morning, peanut was the home boy fucking paroles. Or he gets OARD, meaning his own recognizance. So he gets released on that domestic violence that morning. He went to court. And this is your co-dee, by the way. This was, yeah, he was just on another thing. And he was the one, and he was hiding under a bunk. So he, so he, I, I just remember at that time.

But you know what was weird was like almost in some ways by that point there, I had outranked him in the gang now. A lot of dudes that were from Raymond had their separate love for me. They weren't, it was no longer like, this is so-and-so's little homeboy. And like, if he's good, if so, so is good. I had my own thing going now. And so. So you must have lost respect for him.

I just, you can't get that back. Yeah. You know, not after everything I had been going through and all the different stuff and riding the case and all these different things and down here doing my stuff

and I'm fucking white, you know, I'm like, I was like there's no, there wasn't any coming back from that for me in my eyes. You know, he was forever, just soft to me. And so the next day he paroled, I mean, he gets O-R'd,

and then Bardog gets transferred back up to the 4,000 floor and now I'm the only Raymond again. And while I was down there, man, I had to deal with all that shit on my own after that. The only thing that saved me was that there was this dude from 6th Ducey's Coast that was the one that like ran all them dudes, right? And he had a lot of love for me.

And he was the one that was like, you're going to always, you got to give Y a fair one. Like if you little young dudes, because these little young dudes would always be plopping, right? They're all, they gather up and shit and then they'd come over there and they'd say little slick shit to me in the cell and like all that. type of stuff and uh and so he was like you guys never gonna pack him out you got always give him a fair one and so for a while there man they used to pull me out right and they'd have some dude you know from wherever oh so-and-so from dynver they would come into the cell so-and-so from lanes this here man he says he wants to get out right fuck man all right arraq to sell boy in the ract of the day room either get beat up or beat somebody up go back to the fucking cell right they'd show back up again

yo-yo-so for me with families this year he says he wants to get out the motherfuckers don't even know them there. They're just playing these games to get socked on or like, you know, see how I'm going to deal with it. And until finally, and they hated it because Bardog was up on the 4,000 floor and he was catching all these dudes from East Coast in the holding tanks

and he was beating them up one on one. So that's why they continue to do that to the point where I had to send a kite up to Bardog and tell him like, yo, all these dudes from East Coast out, you're getting me fucked up. Right. But anyways. You're constantly having to just prove yourself.

improve yourself and deal with beefs. It's just everybody. It's just the gang life. You know, it's the gang life of that. How long are you fighting your case for? What did I fight? I fought until I was 19th. About two years, I think.

And then I got sent up. So two years you're doing... It was like a year and a half in the county. Yeah. I was like six months in the halls, year and a half in the county, and then rest of the time in the pen. And your lawyer, was it a...

How was your lawyer? Was it a public defender? And first I had a public defender. And then when I went to trial, I had a paid attorney, right? And my dad was trying to help me out and stuff. You know, he was trying to save me, man. Yes. The only reason why I had a, the whole thing in the beginning was because I was like refusing

his help. And I wasn't like, you know, I was like, I'm not going to cry now that I'm in this situation. And like, I was going through that where my dad was coming from the perspective of just like, dude, you go, fuck all that. We can talk about that another time. Like, let's just get you help. And so I finally was like, all right, cool.

and then I went to trial with a paid attorney. Okay. And then the last offer you had before trial was 19 years, two strikes. I figured that I was going to get struck out. I was like, I'm not going to make it out of here. Look at my life.

I'm liking shit every day. Right. Yeah, you may have caught another stripe with a, you know, easily in prison. I was going down to, yeah, I was going to visiting strap,

you know, like I wasn't going to get caught like that in a cell, like, you know, in the way that it happened to me in the beginning. What kind of shanks do they have in L.A. County? It's all different kinds that you can find and make and all right.

Yeah, like ours was funny that this particular one that I had, I was underneath the bunk cleaning one day, and I like scraped my back on this hang nail of metal, right? And I was like, oh, what the fuck? And so I like flipped over under the bunk and I was looking at it. And I was kind of like messing with it. And I was like, that thing looks like kind of like it can come off. And so I braided a rope and, you know, hooked it on to the thing.

And then we start pulling on this thing, me and other fellas in the cell. and an entire strip, a flat came off the entire bump. Wow. And so we just broke that whole thing down. Everybody's strapped now. Yeah, the whole cell was fucking, you know. And so when I was going to visiting, I would keep it in. And you have to go through a metal detector, but a lot of times they would have it off, you know.

Yeah. And so, yeah. So I was like, I'm going to get struck out. That's how I felt at the time. I didn't know about things. But you don't hear also, too, when you're active and in the county and even active in the pen at that time, S and Y and like dropping out and shit was like you had like two S and Yards in the entire state. Right.

And I wasn't even thinking about it. Yeah, there was very little hope for people. If you have over 15 years in high level California yards, like your odds of getting out are very slim. You're going to OD or you're going to kill somebody. You get a life sentence or you're going to get killed yourself. Yeah. So, you know. And they didn't have at that time.

And a lot of things changed, you know, in the mid-2000s, I remember when, um, when jerry brown came back in and as a governor and he re-implemented a lot of the budget to the cdc r and so what happened was was they whereas arnold had shut down like vocational trades education all of these different things jerry brown came back and then was like and society at that time also was like more receptive to rehabilitation yeah and that's when they changed it from CDC to CDC R. Right. Right. And, uh, and so all these vocational things all started to pop back up. And eventually I got into all of that. Like I went out to college and all these, you know, I went in with like a eighth grade education. Right. But I ended up, you know,

going on to GD and then college and all types of stuff in there. But for the first probably, I don't know, 12 years, those things didn't really exist. You know, they didn't, I didn't, wasn't thinking about college or so we didn't have flag football. No, no, no. The way that you do now, Like fast forward to where I paroled from from a level two. I was 13 years on a level four, overread down to level three. They did a whole point, you know, reshifting, and then just continued to drop from there.

And then paroled from a level two. And, you know, level two was like, you know, dudes, it was like that. It was like flag football. Yeah. Fucking, you know, we're all like making food. And I was an institutional barb. I used to go all around the yard,

some hair. It was just like a, yeah, it was a really, I was in education, I was a full-time student. I was in all the facilitating groups. Yeah. It took a while, though, for the pendulum to swing. Yeah. Especially in California. It's swinging back, too.

That's the thing that's sad is that it swings back and forth. And it's crazy because I get both sides, right? Like, I understand, I see the waste on the inside of the money that goes into CDCR. And myself, I'm like, why isn't that going to, like, public schools or why isn't that going to this or that? Yeah. Or why isn't it being a little bit more closely? monitored so that way it's actually being a lot in an implemented properly you know well and the whole

society is the pendulum is swinging yeah back that way yeah yeah yeah and i don't know if there's ever a way that humans can figure out how to like stop the pendulum from swinging when it's in the middle yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i don't think so i think we're too i think uh humanity is like uh you know very scared it's very scared discontent you know there's like you don't they don't really you know reach a place where they're where they're going to just kind of like let that be i think it'll i think it's going to improve it drastically in the next couple of centuries yeah because it's just technology we're going to come into this time of abundance that's life is going to be so easy the prices of things are going to be so cheap um i think that's what will save us not ourselves though the human's hard to say i

mean like let's say for example right now you know you have like uh pharmaceutical abuse at an all time high drug abuse and an all time high homeless at a whole time high homeless at a whole time high high. We see the advancements of technology and then we see the separation in the socioeconomic status, right? And kind of like the class and things like that. There's a lot of reasons to that, but I don't even, won't even try to attempt to tackle a solution because, you know, how do you deal with something that's so big and so large that I don't even, you know, understand it fully. But it's hard to say, man, you know, but I also feel like it's weird on a individual level, I have a belief that what people truly want is peace and harmony.

People just want to just feel at peace. Yes. And they seek safety and they want to feel, you know, yeah, they want to feel kind of like supported in a certain way, right? But I feel like it's truly peace that people search for. And it's the traumas that we. experience that end up warping that in some type of way. Unfortunately, people are also vengeful when it comes to being victims of crime. That's not the way to be.

It won't make you feel better in the long term. Forgiveness will. That's just, it goes back to the ancients and they teach that. So that being said, when you go to trial and you blow trial, you lose, were there victim statements? Afterwards when it came to sentencing? No, I mean, they felt bad that I got like that's, that was going to be my point. It's like, I bet if you ask all those people that got robbed, like, does this 18 year old kid?

No, they went back to work. Does he, did they deserve, does he deserve a life sentence? Yeah. And they'd be like, absolutely, that's like tyranny. Absolutely not. Yeah, they, they felt really bad. The jury felt really bad. There was this whole thing with the jury where this woman had dropped a nose saying she was being bullied and

to the guilty verdict. I had this guy that was on there and became the foreman of the jury. He was like a 20 year, you know, vet at Lancaster State Prison, right? Like he was heavy in law enforcement. He was telling him I was only going to probably get like 16 months in prison, you know?

Like it might be good for me, you know? Right. They just nobody expected what the judge gave me. And I was essentially, I was sentenced to a, about, I think in total is like 80 to life, and all bow-legged and consecutive. So there was five people in the building. I got convicted of kidnapped for robbery for two of them,

which carries an automatic seven to life in the state of California, plus a 10-year gun enhancement. So that was a 17-to-life for each one of just those two people ran consecutively. I had to do one 17-to-life before I would start on the next. And then the others, it was all lesser crimes of like false imprisonment, attempted armed robbery, and then all of the enhancements with guns. I didn't get any gang enhancements. But they gave me the gun enhancements, which was a 10 year on everything.

And so I had two consecutive 17 of life sentences plus like another 60-something years. Yeah, I make your head spin. You don't even get it at that point. No, I didn't even get it. So, so, and the running them consecutive is very rare. Yeah, it was super, the whole thing that happened to me was very rare. I was, I, when I went into the prison system, I landed on, you know, I went right to the level four, right to a 180.

And, um, I was on the yard with like 90% lifers, right? And I was a lifer as well. But the difference was, was that like, nobody was there for like what I did. what I did, all the guys were on the lower levels. Up there it was all murder, attempted murder, right? Like things like that. And so it really was what sparked years and years of activism from this attorney Joe Pertel, who I love very much, right, and was a huge part of me coming home.

And then Loyola Merrimount, the JIFS, juvenile fair and innocence. sentencing project, but it's like a whole thing. They represented me pro bono and fought for me. My case was talked about throughout attorneys, throughout the entire country. And I was brought up with, um, uh,

guys like, uh, Graham versus state of Florida who, for the Supreme Court, the United States Supreme Court ruled that you can't give a juvenile life without, without a murder because Florida had done this to this kid. Wow. And so that was the first glimpse of hope.

I see. Right? That was going to happen. Okay. And then what ended up happening was the ARC love this whole organization, right, anti-recidivism coalition. What they did was they got a bill passed in the state of California called SB 260, which was if you're a juvenile and you've been sentenced to life,

you fall into a bracket of 20 or 25 years, right, depending on your sentence, you automatically go to a parole board. So let's say you're like me, you have 80 to life. At 20 years, I would have gone to a parole board. I see. Yeah, which I didn't go to a parole board. I got resentenced by a judge and sit home. Okay. But, you know, obviously at this time, your life's over, as far as you know it. Yeah, as far as my, I mean, it was too hard for me to comprehend. I also was just really deal. I didn't really get hit with that reality until I started to get up. into the double digits. When I hit around 10 years is when I started to look around me

and kind of internalize the situation that I was in and the reality that I just might be here for the rest of my life. Before that, it was a lot of it had to do, I mean, when I was active, it was all about the moment. The moment. When I land on a yard, who the fuck do it was going to ride with me? What do I need to do? How am I going to survive this and put that on repeat?

and then when I dropped out, I wasn't really focused on going home. I was just focused on like, how am I going to create a life inside of here of stability? I just wanted to feel stable. I wanted to do what everybody else was doing, which is like just go to your job, come home, watch Jack Bauer in 24, you know?

Like I wasn't, and just read and like feel like I didn't, I wasn't targeted. Yeah. So that was for the next few years. I see. But the first 10, you think about the first 10? of your stretch is gang banging?

No, no, no. I, it was, I don't know, maybe five, five years. Okay, so let's talk about that. And then let's get to your, like, the psychological transformation. What makes the story so remarkable is like, you know, this, yeah, your ability to, like, overcome this mentally. Yeah. Before or long before you even know you're coming home.

The day you were sentenced for your parents at the sentencing? Yeah. Oh. I would have fainted. I mean. Well, my dad put, he, so my dad, you know, when you go to trial, you get trial clothes if you have them, right? If you have somebody that can get them for you. And I had a, it was so sad because I had a, I remember I had some slacks, a button up and a tie. And I didn't even know how to tie a tie.

The office, the bailiff used to put the tie around my neck and tie my tie for me before going in, you know. And, and so my dad took those clothes. and the day that I got sentenced, I mean, my whole family just collapsed into each other. You know, I have two brothers, one sister. I'm close to everybody, right? And, yeah, it was so traumatic for my family. And he took those clothes and he hung them up in his closet

and he said, I'm never taking him down until Tyler comes. Wow. So he believed. He didn't, no, it wasn't, it just was, it just was, we didn't know. I mean, it was, of course in the beginning, you know, we have this hope because you have you have uh you know you have appeals and then you have time and then you have like the just the just the uh delusion yeah like yeah you know this could happen and he wrote a book we got published you know to try to bring awareness called destructive justice

and all these different things you know it took them 10 years to write this book but uh yeah so they were there for my sentencing and and uh it was i was i was is one of the most horrible things. Yeah. Yeah, it's true tyranny. That's true. It's true. It's disturbing.

It's disturbing. I hope people, you know, when people really like, they cheer the rallying cry of Donald Trump when he says, you know, we're going to execute drug dealers. Of course, then he goes and pardons, Ross Ulbric.

Hey, idiot. This guy doesn't mean anything he says. Right. But, you know, you should really think about that. Yeah. It's the reason, go read about slavery. Yeah. The slave owners didn't.

weren't free. Yeah. Like they were, you know, they would, they would die because it's a soul, being an oppressor as a, as destructive to the spirit and ultimately the body as it,

as the, you know, the person being enslaved. But anyway, so. Yeah, I don't know if it's at the same level, but I'll tell you this is that one thing I learned is,

yeah. And I think, I think the other thing too is, is that I, you're right, though, because whenever you treat somebody with cruelty, then you lose a piece of yourself.

You lose a piece of your humanity. And I saw that with a lot of guys. And one of the things for myself that I really, when I was looking into the future, and I got around all the real fucking gangsters, like I was around the dudes that were calling the shots. I was little nobody. I was never of that.

But because of my situation, it got those guys involved. And because I was constantly in the hole, I got around them. And I realized that they suppressed their empathy over and over and over to the place of where it becomes so small. But you can reverse that, right? If you practice empathy, if you practice stepping outside of yourself and doing something that's kind for somebody in some type of way, then it grows. And when it grows is when you realize how much you actually have given a way of yourself through acts of cruelty. Sure. You know, so.

Yeah, those big shot callers are themselves oppressors. Yeah. From the guys that they use to commit violence all over the state of California. Totally. So, you know, those guys aren't innocent either. And I'm not saying that there shouldn't be prisons. Like, those dudes probably deserve to be inside. Just a small percentage of real psychos.

Yeah, for sure. There's dudes that are just full-blown psychos. For sure. But they're such a small percentage of the actual population. I agree. You know? I agree. Okay.

So where do they shoot you off first? Here's this whole long gulag archipelago you're about to embark on. Yeah. Yeah. So to Hatchby I started off at. And you go level four right away. Right away. I mean, it kicked off as soon as I hit reception.

You know, I was in to Hatchby reception. And I was walking back from the chow all one morning. And I noticed these two dudes that were skinned as they hadn't moved on me yet. But I saw as in the months that I was there, they were starting to collect. There was a lot of dudes that were getting on that yard. And when they started to land on that yard, you know, as they get their numbers up, they're going to come for it. Yeah. And you're black.

Yeah, I'm rolling black. You're rolling black. Who are the sets? Can you describe on the streets? It's the Crips. It's the rolling 60s. It's the one 20s. But in the Penn, what are the strong in the California state system, what are the strongest like Crip cars?

Well, the Crip cars are like broken up into regions, right? So you have the San Diego car, you have the Riverside car, you have the, and they all have valid hitters. You know, they're all in their own way established. And then you have certain gangs, I guess, inside of that for the dudes from L.A. that are cribs. It's definitely the Raymonds. It's definitely the East Coast.

It's definitely like hovers. It's definitely grapes, right? You know, those guys are all been around forever and super strong, you know, in what they do. and then you have paperwork guys you know you have cco blue notes things like that which is guys from all different trip organizations that come together and that now form like an alliance and inside of prison and they label themselves something else so then who were you rolling with at tahatchapy i mean well the raymans are all automatically underneath paperwork because they were the founders of that right so the east coast and the and the and the raymond's really founded that but

they but it's just more along the lines of like you're just a crib on the yard you know and there's just a bunch of black dudes that are from all different parts of the region and you're just another dude that's there right and so if you're that's it if you're white but you're rolling black with the crips yeah on the yard of level four highest prison politics oh yeah if these skinheads are plotting on you they're coming out a black guy like that could cause a race riot it goes Well, it does cause a race. But for me, it always caused a race, right? Okay.

The only place it didn't was in the reception. The two skinheads moved on me. And, uh, and, uh, and I had a celly at that time. His name was no name from Swans, right? And he was a white blood. But he was an older dude. Okay. He was an older guy like fucking, he looks like, he looks like, uh, he had a long red ponytail

big ass red mustache, right? Like Irish looking, you know, dude. And he was half Mexican, half, white right and that's how he was in south central really was they were like an older family because you know south central and compton and all that was white at one point right and then when you had a huge uh influx of uh the black population from the south coming into california right and then you had white flight a lot and we're like fuck man they got the fuck out of it and you learn about all that in college you know about what it's happened but but anyways um his family is one the ones that stayed

And so he grew up in the middle of South Central, in the swan's neighborhood, all of that. And he was my celly at the time. And these dudes fucking move on me, man. And I remember I'm getting busy with one of them. And this dude comes up and he grabs me and he slings me out of the way. And he takes his cup. And he goes, wham! And he hits the dude that I was fighting with, right?

The other guy, his comrade ran off. He didn't even want any of it. And then me and no day wear this dude out in the middle of the yard. It's the only reason why I didn't turn into a race race right is because we had it handled. Yeah. Right? You're just beating these guys up. We beat it.

Not even, the other dude ran off. We just beat on the one, right? And then we go to the hole. That was my first shoe term, right? It was a battery on an inmate, right? And, uh, which I think they dropped it down to mutual combat just because it's like reception or whatever. Right.

We go to the hole and shit. And, uh, and then I went on a 4A, which is, you know, the 4 yard to hatchby. Yeah. The 4A kicked off on me. I went back to the shoe. I went to 4B. Before B, I went to Salinas Valley, I think it was. And then opened up Kern Valley because I went back to the shoe.

How long are these shoe terms usually? Months at a time. You know, the longest one that I didn't go that long. The longest one that I did was about a year, almost. And at that point, I had been given what's called an indeterminate shoe program, which is where it's like life in the hole, basically. right so you just keep getting in all new shit right we're going to do is we're going to sit you down and you go up to a committee like every six months i think it is to go to see if they will release you back into the general population crazy so you go before a parole board within the system yeah it's like they just keep putting you in a smaller box but i had dropped out by by before i went to that i had already was like fucking you know yeah i'm i'm out of here type of thing so in the early days you're just going to the shoe basically just for either fighting or assaulting people?

I only had that one that was like, no, I'm sorry, I had two where they weren't in self-defense. Okay. Right? And I used these warm self-defense loosely because I never really considered myself a victim through that. I always looked at it like, you know, this is just another gang that's on the yard

and I'm actively participating in this. So what were those about? There was only two other ones. The one was in the one in Tahitp, and then there was one where I had to DP and remove a dude from Raymond on the yard at Kern Valley. He was my celly at the time. What happened? He violated?

Yeah, he was like he was in debt and stuff like that. And he was, they wanted him gone. And I was always looking for opportunities to be able to garner support, you know. And so it was a good opportunity to be like, I'll handle this motherfucker and put on kind of like a demo for everybody in the day room and on the yard and all of that. And so it ended up happening. Okay. Yeah. What were the, what's the prison politics amongst the blacks in the state pen in terms of like drug use, drug dealing?

Like what are they into? What are the hustles? Do they allow the sex offenders to run with them? Or is that just a stupid question? Yeah. It's not, it's more, it's more complicated than that. I know that a lot of the other races like to say that the black dudes will let anybody, right? That's the rumor.

That's the rumor, right? You see a rumor of a lot of them are like, at least if you're talking to a white dude or you're talking to, you know, a hardcore essay who's hating on them, right? Right. But the blacks are much more, they're like, that's none of my fucking business because that dude's not in my car. but for everybody that's in my car I need to see your paperwork

and your shit's got to be good so the crew that I was a part of when you're from Raymond the Raymond's were like you had to do all of that you had to show your paperwork you couldn't be in there for anything foul right like any of that made there's some exemptions and I think it's because

in the early years of civil rights and everything else right so many black men were having um they were having sex charges and it was like an easy thing to have that put on them yeah they were being falsely accused of rape falsely accused of rape and all of that and so when they went into the institution half them were like man I know this shit's bullshit so it's not it's not the same as when a white dude's in there and it's like a no tolerance policy you have any type of sex charge meaning like even if you were accused of that at some point it's in your paperwork you're getting

smashed on yeah you know those guys are going to smash on you. It's not going to happen like that in the Crips, unless you're a part of a circle that is saying, we don't accept that. But what happens is that they're let that person be on the yard. They're just like, we're not fucking with them. Right.

You know, they're not. That is a very black thing. Like, I'm not fucking with that. That ain't my business. I don't know that dude. And he's not a part of me. And I get it because they're also like, if you're so worried about it, you go do it.

Right. You know, why are you telling me about it? like we got to all turn against this motherfucker, you know, you go do that shit. If you got a problem with it, they're much more like that, which is another big reason why I was, it was easy for me to be like,

I don't want to be a part of the woodpile politics in prison. Because for me, I was, it made sense to me too. Like when I landed on a yard, my first, the way that I thought was, why am I going to listen to some motherfucker from some part of California that I never even heard of

tell me that I got to take half of my fucking canteen and give it to this and do that and do this and do this type of shit. I'm just not, I'm not going to do that. So, you know, that was the difference and that aligned much more, you know, with like the Crip mentality. Because the Crip mentality is the same thing. They're like, man, I don't give a fuck, man, if you're my big homie or this or that or any of those types of things, you know.

Yeah, culturally. It's just different. We're tribal. It is tribal. And the difference is culturally between, you know, how the whites bid or especially how the Mexicans, the essays bid. It's like, you see it. We see it when we go to Mexico and we interview like these narco guys. There's a very accepted hierarchy.

Like, yeah, he's the boss. This is the way things are. Yeah. And black people don't really go for that shit as much. No, no, it's not as organized. And again, it does that make them weaker? No, I don't think so. I think what it is is that, I, oh, I'm not going to say it makes them, yeah, it, it, what it does is it makes their power, the potential of what their power could be weaker for sure.

Yeah. Because there's so much internal drama that there's not a united front, you know, and, and nor is there a desire to have a united front. You know, even the guys that are more militant, like from the gang that I was from, a lot of the dudes aren't fucking with that shit. You know, it's like, and a lot of that was built out of the 80s when they were the, when they were breaking underneath the power structure of the BGF. You know, the BGF were the ones that had black guerrilla family that had the power over the black population when it came to the convicts, you know. And then you started having all these new young dudes coming in that were to Crips and these bloods and it was starting to like break out of. and it was starting to explode in popularity. And now what was happening was all of these crypts

that beefed on the street come in and they're being told what to do by the BGF and they kind of unite to throw some of that power off of them. I see. I see. Same thing with whites went through the same thing with the skinhead with the ride and the skinhead. So the Nazi lowriders,

they had a whole moment in the 90s of FTBing, fuck the brand and all this shit, right? and there was a bloody war, quiet bloody war in Pelican Bay Shoe of where the NLR and the AB were struggling for power, you know? And the difference that happened was the AB started to tip up, meaning take the hierarchy, take the head of the NLR and turn them into the brand, which created this complete struggle between those that were brand sympathizers, is what they called them,

and then those that were what was called F-T-B and fuck the brand. And then they just kind of crumbled and the AAB just continued on. Then the skinheads came. P-9, U.S.A.S., all this type of stuff, right? What they did, they tipped up fucking top dude for P-9. Popeye becomes this, right?

Now he's that. Which all these guys are all in the hat now, too. They're all like S&Y and shit, right? They're over there what? A lot of them dropped out in her S-N-Y and all that type of stuff. Oh yeah, huge population of those guys. It's always like turning over in that way. But they, what they did was they, instead of trying to just like completely smash the whole skinhead, you know, thing, they started to just make them enforcers for the brand, you know,

by making those leaders of the skinheads brand member. Do the brand have a presence in the state of California now, the state system? Not as much as like what it was. Right. You know, Those guys, they really with a short corridor. Yeah, they went to the feds. A lot of them with that. They got busted up and with recode and all of that type of thing. I went on when I was, when I dropped out, I went on to have many sellies that were XNLR.

I had sellies that were both brand or they were, they were associates, right, but guys that were very serious from all of that. And so I got kind of like an extensive history on it in a lot of ways. And they don't have the power that they did before. Drugs fucked it up in a lot of different ways. The feds coming in and re-going and fucked it up in a lot of ways. And then the S&Y program fucked it up in a lot of ways. Because now guys have the ability to like get away from them.

Right. You know. And so and being locked in the back in the short quarter, which they have shut down now. But the short corridor is an aspect of Pelican Bay. where it's like they cut off all form of, they try to isolate those guys as much as possible because of their ability to have, you know,

to call shots throughout the entire state of California. Yeah, this is, if you want an example of the, the harshest, most kind of like Orwellian, you know, dystopian kind of prison and incarceration of human beings in the United States, I think the short quarter of Pelican Bay is, probably it. Can you explain what that was? Tell us like a, like Pelican Bay. Yeah, so I was never in it, right? I never went to Pelican Bay. I never went to the short corridor, a Pelican Bay shoe,

but I had many sellies that had and many people. And if you're anybody that's been in a system on a level four and been in for a while, then you know what the fuck it is. But it is a, it's a shoe within the shoe. It's a aspect of this. And the shoe stands for segregated housing unit. And or a security housing unit, one of those. And it's a, it's just a, like a top tier and a bottom tier of sales where guys spend 24 hours out of the day. They have been given indeterminate amount of time in there. A lot of them have been back in there well into 20 years, 30 years, all of that, right?

And it's a way for the system to isolate them so that way they don't have the same reach that they would before. So the regular shoe, I think you're allowed out like an hour a day, right? They have shoe yards. I mean, they still will in the shore corridor. They still are allowed out to those dog kennels and stuff like that, right? But it's all single cell. They don't have cellies. And their communication is just so limited.

No telephone, no. Visits, obviously. Visits are all behind glass. So they still can have visits, but they can't have any type of contact visit. and their shit is vetted very, very strongly by the institution. Right. And there you have what's called IGI, which is a whole task force inside the institution that's designated to gangs, crime, and they are the ones that bust other officers, too.

So like, they have their whole separate thing going on, and they work directly with law enforcement on the outside and all of that. As we hear, the goon squad, they're all black patches. Right. And so the short corridor, the box within the box, within the box. Yeah. It's a big box, smaller box, smallest box. The box is got smallest, smallest box.

And it's a torturous place. Yeah. Right. I mean, in a lot of ways, those guys are back there for 30 years because it's also one of the safest places. Like a lot of those, so when they, when they shut down, when they closed it, because they now have stopped that indetermined issue program. And they've released a lot of the guys. from the short corridor back onto the population. And I was on, I was obviously not a part of the GP at the time,

but when you're on a yard that's right next to the yard and when you've been a part of everything and you just hear of all of the shit that's going on. And so a lot of those guys were landing on the yard and now you would have on one yard like seven brothers is what it's got. Brothers like, you know, for the essays, it'd be Carnales, right? For the wise they just say brothers. But they're the guys that are running the thing.

So you have seven guys on that yard now that are taxing, right? Everybody on that yard. And believe this, that those guys are not impervious to developing crazy fucking egos, right? In the same way that you see with somebody that is like very wealthy or that is in that way. And so some of them are drunk on their power. I survived 30 years in the short corridor. Like that's, yeah. Well, no, it's not necessarily.

Yeah, there's there's all of that's entirely. But it's also like I'm a brother. I'm a part of the table. I'm at the, I am, I am a shot caller. Yeah. You know,

and you're, they are a, they're the highest you can get in that, you know, right. There's only a certain amount, they don't just let. No,

no, no, yeah, it's, it's a very kind of elite group. It's a very elite group. It's a very elite group. It used to be because it changed as time went by.

Right. You know, and it started to become a little bit more water down as the, short corridor and indeterminate shoes and stuff started to affect things those guys started to probably lessen their standards a little bit you know and shit you know went hey why that's why you have stuff like what happened in the 90s you know where a lot of guys testified went to the feds a lot of guys you know but my point out of the thing is is I remember at calipat when it was all first

happening and they were letting these guys out from the back that were in a mame members, right? And they landed on the yard. And one of them was moving on the other one because there's internal politics. They're not all just like brothers. They're all trying to have the most power and get the biggest piece of the pie. So this one is moving on the other guy and he's having all his soldiers do it. Well, what happened was this guy gets surrounded, right, completely encircled by the other guy's foot soldiers and they fight off their whole thing is is to just fight off any support that's going to come for that brother right there and two guys were in the middle of that ring and they stabbed that dude dead 30 years in the short corridor came out to the GP

yard and within two months you're fucking killed wow you know so it's like it's also it's also so intricate and i don't know it's kind of like the streets like People come out after 30 years and they're like, I want my spot. And they're like, hey, times have changed. We don't give a fuck. Yeah, you had a dude from Raymond like that. You had to do an older dude from Raymond. He'd been down forever.

He was, gee, in the system. He went home. He started like, you know, pushing the young dudes around. He started jacking him for their dough. Taking their money from him. And one of those young dudes popped and killed him. Yeah. And, you know.

So you were at Calapout when that happened when that guy got stabbed to death? Yeah, but it wasn't on my yard because I was on the dropout yard all right. you already on the dropout. It was on one of the other yards. But the thing is, is that this is the thing, too, is before something like that happens, you, there will be an influx on the yard of all these people that are like getting the fuck out. They're dropping out, getting away. And so they're coming over to the yard, you know, or you have the officers from those yards coming over talking about everything that's going on. And so you hear what all took place and how it all happened and all of that. Yeah. So how are you during this time before you drop out? What are you doing in there to hustle? Yeah, okay. So when I first dropped out and I land on the yard at Calapat, I'm there for a couple of months just kind of like working out and getting my bearings and stuff like that.

And I end up getting pulled into the cell with this old guy, right, named Hap, big Hap from Purdue. And he was a, you know, biker guy from back in the day. And he was, he was a golden gloves. boxer, right, like all this different stuff. He was no joke. And one of his main things was he drew caricatures, right? For years and years and years. He'd been down at that time for, you know, probably 20 years at that time.

And he went on to be a big mentor to me. But he drew caricatures and cards and stuff like that. And one day I was up on my bunk and I was watching TV and he goes, yeah, man, let me ask you something. I go, yeah. And he goes, what do you do? You know, and I go, what do you mean? And he goes, what do you do?

What do you do with your time? You know, how do you take care of yourself? And I go, well, I don't like my dad or something will send me some money or, you know, or a friend or whatever. And I get some canteen and I just work out, read and watch TV and stuff. And he goes, oh, that's cool. That's cool. He goes, but don't take this as any disrespect, but you have life in prison.

And it doesn't mean that people don't love you or it doesn't mean that your family doesn't love your anything. But sometimes what happens is the years go by and everybody gets older and life moves on and stuff like that and you probably won't always have somebody there to take care of you. So you have to start thinking about how you're going to take care of yourself. And, you know, I had never had a job or anything at this time. Right. I never.

I was a little stick-up kid when I ran away. So I never fucking, even in the jail in Penn, I still had never been given a job. I was on close-a custody, right? I was like low pecking order. I'm not going to just like, you know, it's not like it was later on where I would land on a yard and and dude's like, yo, man, do you want a job? You want to get this. You know, type of thing.

So he says, if you want, I'll teach you how to draw. And he goes, here's the good thing. He goes, it's good and bad. The good part is, is you'll never go to the hole for it, right? You won't get in trouble for it. And you'll always be able to take care of yourself. The bad part is you won't get rich from it, like if you're selling dope on the yard and stuff like that.

You know, he goes, but you'll always be able to take care of yourself because there's always going to be somebody that wants to send a card home to their loved one. And so I thought about it and it just made sense to me. And at this time, I had no idea of like how far my art was actually going to go. You know, and it went really, really far. So he, I take him up on it and I tell him, yeah, sure, I'll learn how to draw. And so he starts teaching me how to draw cards.

And I start off with like precious moments, Mickey Mouse, stuff like that. And I would draw a little balloon with a happy birthday and then sell it for like eight soups. Yeah, $2, I think it was. And I remember when I did it the first time and like I got the eight soups and I felt like a real sense of accomplishment. It was much different when you kind of like work really hard and then you earn a buck as opposed to you like work a buck or take a buck. It's way different. I feel like it changes you. So and it did for me.

It changed me in the way that I decided. even though I didn't ever have a job, I knew that I was developing in a way that I didn't want to develop. I felt like what is somebody that's my age on the streets that's considered to be a healthy person? What do they do? You either go to school or you get a job. And school wasn't an option.

And so what I did was I took the artwork and I said, I'm going to set eight hours a day with a one hour lunch break and I'm going to turn this into my job. And I did that for years. I fast forward like five years later. And I'm doing beautiful portraits. And I have a curator in Laguna named Suzanne Walsh. And I'm having art shows.

And I'm like- You're having art shows from prison? On the outside from prison. So you would send her the art and they would put on an exhibit? And I was, I was, I was, when half said you couldn't get rich, I really got to the place of where I was having packages sent. I was, I did portraits for everybody in the yard. And then I was like, this is where he was such a great mentor because he was, he was, he was, you also wouldn't let me trace anything, right?

Like you could get a photocopy and you can trace an outline of that picture. And now there's a portion, there's one step out of the way that you need to do to create a beautiful, life-like, realistic portrait, right? But you skip a lot of important steps on learning how to sketch that, right?

From what you look at. And then there's another step that I learned about when I started to go to college and take art courses and stuff, which is still life drawing, right? Like looking at you, not at a photo, but you sitting across from me and learning how to start to sketch you

from perspective and lighting and light source and all these different things and so I started to dive deep into that and I took it as a job man and it exploded seriously and I went into tattooing I became the guy on the yard

I've done wrapped full heads next my main thing was coverups anybody that like you know me swast because I covered up man with beautiful fucking artwork right yeah ex skinheads that were like dude I don't want this shit on me anymore and I just blast him back with a full chest plate dude beautiful.

Now, you know, obviously you're on a level four. They got, administration's got a lot of other things to worry about, but is tattooing illegal still technically? Yeah, it's still illegal and all that. But it's also like if you're a reg and you're around guys and stuff, you know when to do it and not do it. And then there's officers that allow it. Happy was a tattoo artist to do that taught me.

And so, you know, he had literally had officers sometimes from other yards coming over and being like, yo, I don't, fuck, I'll come in this motherfucker tattoos from you and shit. You tatted up the officers? No, I never did. I never did, but I was just saying I was witnessing them talking to have. Now, imagine here's this guy. I mean, he's done it before.

Yeah. You know, he's been as, he's an old fulsome tattooing fucking officers at times, you know? And they knew you were a lifer too. I imagine the guards treat lifers that are behaving themselves with a little more deference, right? Yeah, but I went through a hard phase of when I was young of where they were just fucking bullies, you know? And he just treated me like shit.

Yeah, they treated me like shit, you know, and they just, they, they're demeaning and abusive towards young guys because they don't see you as somebody that they should respect, you know? And so that was a hard part. But at the same time, there was also officers, few of them, that treated me, like there was this old guy, right, who was a, he was working on a second pension,

He was an ex-military police officer. And now he was a correctional officer. And he was, his name was Bishop, Jimmy Bishop. And he was like an older guy in here, reminded me of kind of like a grandpa, you know? And that's how he treated me. He treated me like I was like a grand kid to him, meaning like there was a time when I snuck into the, from the yard,

and I jumped on the phone when it wasn't my phone time. And he let me finish my phone call, and then I hung it up. And right when I thought I got away with him, He was like, oh, yo, go take a seat over there. I had to sit there. And then he's going to go do his rounds and all that. And this and then you just got to sit there and think about what you did.

And then he comes over and he's like, you know, why you're sitting right here. And then, you know, for me, I was like, because I jumped on the phone when I wasn't supposed to. And he's like, yeah, that's right. Why don't you just fucking ask? So, like, how you talk to him and how he talks to you was a dynamic that was more, that made me feel like I was on the streets. It made me feel like I wasn't just like some piece of shit, you know, that this. officer was reprimanding to just be an asshole too. And he went on to just like really, it's things like that and moments like that, they collected as time went by. And I started to feel

sometimes even a responsibility towards them. Like I didn't want to let Bishop down sometimes. Right. That's it. I didn't want to. And so it made me feel a little more accountable in a lot of ways. And so the officers were as important to my change. Yeah. As happy was, you know, or as I was for myself, you know, they were as equally as important. It took that too in order for me to, you know, kind of like understand that they're not my enemy. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like for a long time, I was always like authority, cops, this type of shit, like, you just don't even, they're not real people. They don't know your life. They don't know you, you know, type of thing.

They're doing time too. Doing time, but the lot of them. Yeah, they're just people. Yeah. You know, they're just people. And you've got good ones, you got bad ones, and, you know, all of that. And I used to find clever ways in order to be able to bump against the bad ones, you know, of like ones that would still try to do that to me. I remember one time there was this sergeant who, for no reason, I was in the gym, I was cleaning the gym.

I was a porter at the time. and he was bored sitting in here at the cop shop with all the other officers and out of the blue he calls me he's just, Corcoran, come here a second. And so I like drag the mop over him like, I know what's up? And he goes, let me ask you something.

I set the mop down and I could tell that he's getting ready to fuck with me. I already been in so long. I just was like, I know he's getting ready to fuck with me. And so he goes, does it bother you to have to like live on this yard, you know, around all these, you know, child molesters and rapists and stuff?

like, is it bother you that you gotta be around all of them? And he was being an asshole about it, like, trying to be judgmental, you know, about why, how come I'm on this, you are? You know, why aren't I fucking, you know, like the hardcore mother fucker smashing on these dudes, you know? And so I looked at him and I said, oh, no, sorry, that's a good question. I said, let me ask you something. He was what?

I said, does it, does it bother you that you have to protect them? Nice. Yeah. And the other officers, they went, whoa, like that. And he was like, whoa. It's my fucking job, you know, this, that, this and that. You got all upset. And I said, well, look, let me tell you what my job is.

My job is, is not fucking sit here and try to write any wrong of anybody. I'm trying to figure my own fucking life out. I'm trying to write what I got going on in my life. I don't have time to be worrying about what somebody else fucking did and what they got going on. And da-da-da-da-da. And I felt like it was a win, you know. Like it was one of those ones where I was able to articulate a quirk. quick response. That's great. Yeah. I could never have done that. I would have just been steaming for the next

month. Yeah. And the hardest thing, the thing, like you really, the hardest thing to do when you're in a powerless situation, like being an inmate, is to control what comes at you. Because ultimately, that's the only control you have is how you react. You always have a choice. It's like, you know, the Victor Frankel. Everybody reads, yeah, man search for meaning. That's it when they go into the joint. So, and he was in the, he was in the Holocaust. He was part of that he was in a Nazi concentration camp. And he, that's where he developed that. He was like, oh, it doesn't matter.

I'm in the most oppressive situation on earth, but I still get to choose how I react to things. So that's the hardest. I mean, that really takes a powerful, mature person who's done, who's done a lot of time too, you know. Yeah, but I think it was, it was less about the time because you have a lot of dues that are in there for 30 years who never like emotionally grow or in any way progress right they just become paralyzed in their development yeah and uh and i think like

you know you're talking about victor frankl and like existentialism and things like that and this theory and it was a what i gathered from him was the necessity for purpose and for meaning in order for us to feel that harmony and that piece that we're looking for. Yeah. And I remember I was talking to my dad one day and I was telling him like, you know, when the appeals were all done and I'd been in for some years now and I was like, dad, like, I don't fucking, what is this? You know, like, what kind of life is this, man? You know, and my dad said, you know, wherever you're at, he goes, may not be the place that you choose or where you want to be or whatever, but that's where you are and that's where your life is and your life has meaning and it has purpose, you know? And so at first I started to dive because I was so heavily

into art at the time, I was like, well, maybe my purpose is art. Maybe I'm an artist and that's my purpose. And so I was like, I held on to that for a while, but I started to like see documentaries and stuff about people that like all of a sudden lose their sight, you know, or they lose a limb and art gets taken away from them in some type of way. And so I was like, my purpose has to be. has to be deeper than that. It can't be something that can be taken in that way. And I think that's when I started to identify my belief system and my principles, right, as my purpose. And I started to kind of talk about it like that where it was, I called it my purpose through my principles.

And I got heavily into what were my principles. if somebody asked me, Tyler, what do you believe in? Where are your principles? Or who are you? You know, are those types of things? And I realized that, like, the thing that I value above everything else is, is empathy, is kindness, is compassion, is understanding, right? Communication, strength, right?

But not strength in the sense of being able to dominate. Strength in the sense of, like, it's this spectrum of what's my capacity to hold. You know, how much can I hold? what kind of anxiety, how much stress, how much hopelessness, like what is my capacity to hold? And if I can hold more, I can be stronger. And then reframe what all that is, right? You know, and all of that.

But anyways, these principles, I started to realize, like, you know what, I'm not going to make any excuse on why it is that I can't be kind to motherfuckers, just because I'm in prison. Just because I'm an environment that says that this is not a place for that and that I need to navigate this space with like suspicion and feeling unsafe.

What if I flip that? What if I say, you know what, I've been through so much fucking shit and survived it? What if I just trust the fact that if something dangerous or unsafe is around me, I'm going to identify it and know how to remove myself from the situation, right? And that then allowed me to fall into that space

of being able to go, you know, I'm going to apply empathy instead of apathy, right? I'm going to like practice being conscious, That turned into being a service, right? It gave me a deeper understanding of remorse, of amends. How do you go about amends, right? So you're working the AA system and you're not even an alcoholic, but you're basically working the 12 steps.

In a lot of different ways. I was taking a lot of that and I was integrating that into the way that I looked at life. And then I was reading, you know, so much on all these different things, Victor Franco, Carl Rogers, right? I identified with him saying that you're not really going to heal unless you're like coming from a safe space. So how do I create a safe space? So that way I can focus on healing, you know?

Wow. I mean, you know, unfortunately not every inmate is as smart as you because you just like you had the, it was almost like you were growing your brain. Well, you were. You were a fucking 18. Your brain's not even fully formed when you went into prison. But you certainly got your education there.

Yeah, it was intentional. Yeah, that's right. And I was intentional with my development. And you're also talented. So through these years of developing, you're exhausting your appeals. How many appeals do you have? Yes. Well, I mean, you go through your direct appeal, which is, and then if your direct appeal gets denied,

then you get sent to some circuit. And if the circuit gets denied, then you go to like this fucking other circuit. There's a lot of different steps. The Supreme Court. I think it's the Ninth Circuit at the Supreme Court is the last level. And you're appealing your sentence or the conviction? No, I was appealing the conviction at first. And but that ended up, through all the gangbanging and shit,

I ended up just doing so much time away from that, that I got time barred, right? So like if you don't file in a certain amount of time, I think it's a one-year deadline that you have to file in the Supreme Court after your direct appeal has been denied. But it's all up to you to know these things. So you've got to go to the law library,

You have to educate yourself. You have to, and I was too busy gangbanging, so I missed that year deadline. So I was time barred and couldn't object my guilt, right? Right. And then later on, when all of the Graham and like juveniles being given life and all of that type of stuff, we refiled an appeal that had to do with my sentence. Right.

Because you couldn't be given life without, you couldn't be, you couldn't be, you couldn't be sentenced to Elwap at the time if you didn't have a murder. But that left this gray area of litigation for all of those that had like 300 of life. Right. You still have life without. You're still life, yeah. But now you had to talk about that. So then that went through a lot of litigation. My case was a part of that. Wow. And. So are you writing your own appeals? Are you writing your own arguments? No, I had a lawyer. Joe Patel came into my life. Right. Okay, gotcha. Joe Patel comes into my life, man, and he's a stud of an attorney. He does big things. stuff all through even now he's all you know just so heavily involved um and uh but it got denied right

like all of that got denied and then when it got denied it was because the california senate bill got passed sp260 which then allowed me to go to the parole board at 20 years so what that did was now is saying there's your meaningful opportunity right to go to the parole board there's no reason to resentence you because now the senate bill has happened and now you're going to be able to go to the parole board in 20 years anyways. How long had you been in when that happened, when the Senate bill happened? I don't know, 15 years maybe, like 13 years, 13, 14 years. Right, so this is pretty recently, relatively recently, the last 10 years.

Yeah, no, I mean, yeah, it's all very recent. And was that the, was that the, that real moment where you were like, oh, I can get out of here? No. By that time right there, it was like, I mean, I always, it was so far away still that I just thought, different. I thought like this. I thought like, you know what, I live my life the way that I live, how can I articulate it? The way that I live my life is going to put me in the best position if the opportunity ever comes for me to be able to come home, right? I believe in being able to not cause any type of conflict. I don't want to have a negative impact in anybody's life, right? I understand that

my choices have a ripple effect and what kind of ripple effect do I want that to be, all of those different things. And so I really didn't think about coming home in the sense because it was too painful to constantly kind of chase that carrot. Instead, I was like, you know what, I'm just going to live my life that's conducive to that ever happening and then not really think about that happening. You understand what I'm saying? Yeah. And then what that did for me was it allowed it to be really authentic, you know, where I wasn't chasing coming home wasn't my motivation for my life. lifestyle and for my belief system. And then what it ended up happening was I got as I started to get closer to the parole board, then I started to prepare in the way that you need to prepare,

which is like you got to put a parole board packet together, impact statement, all of these different things. There's a whole thing on that. And I started to be a part of groups where we would do mock hearings and practice and all this different stuff that was, you know, it was amazing. There was amazing guys that I was doing this with. But that's not how I went home. Right. That's not even how I went So, okay, tell us. Okay, and this whole time, are you still selling art? Yeah, so this whole time, I'm still selling art. But I had moved past the art.

I was, I was, I was, I was, uh, I was barbering. I was still, I was still full blown doing portraits, but I, I seriously had a six-month waiting list. So, when guys, like, you were really making money. How much would you sell, how much could you sell a good painting on the outside for to Laguna fucking housewives? Yeah, so like on the outside, it would be like, let's say, I think on the outside, it's like, Maybe the most I ever got was like $5,000 or something.

Maybe. I don't know. I can't even remember. It's an incredible amount of money. In there it is. Yeah. Because my pay number was 32 cents an hour to cut hair. So I was like, and that was the top pay number.

I remember I was on the Rast crews, this recycling crew. I've been in the kitchens. I've been in a library. I was in all this different shit. And because I was always in a job and I would go, man, I just fucking doesn't, I don't, why do I want to be in this fucking kitchen? I love books. I want to be in the library.

And then I would work for a year of like, making sure that I'd be in the library, I'd be helping out, I'd do shit to let this, you know, and I'd get into things. So my point is, is that, you know, like I had eight cents an hour at one point where you were lucky to buy a jar of Folgers coffee at the end of the month. It's like 1912 in prison. Like how much you get in pay? But what is that? He still had the same prices out here. The coffee was the, so all the, yeah. It's crazy, bro. A jar coffee was like $9 in there, you know, and that was your whole paycheck for the month. So it was so you had to hustle yeah you got to find a hustle in there you can't just depend on

the state or on on a pay number to do it for you you got to need to have that it's brutal which helped me when I came home by the way you know just kind of like because I don't I didn't like look for a handout in any in any type of way I worked super hard you got and I knew what hard work was and so I was able to like fall easily into that because it was my life before we wrap up and what you tell us how you got resentenced, like how you actually got before the judge to get resentenced. What?

Because we kind of glossed over it. The riot where you almost got killed, where you got sliced, what was that over? Because people are going to want to know. Yeah, that was only being a white crypt. I landed on the yard. Who kicked out yard?

Kern Valley, right? And they've, it had already been a lead up to that. Like I had been snatched up by IGI and taken to the whole, three or four times there was even a part in there where the skinheads had got caught in r andr these two guys with scalples from the outside hospital that they had smuggled back to the institution and they had a kite with my name on it right because that's then they were going to my yard so iGI

had been coming back and forth and what they did was they locked everything down they searched everything trying to clear out as much weapons as possible and then they let us up right and they were like boom let's see what happens so so just for people to just to clarify, the shoe kickout yard, it's everybody who's leaving the shoe. Everybody's leaving the shoe to go to a 180 yard, right, and open up this new yard. That's a dangerous place.

It's a very dangerous place. Fuck. Yeah. So, you know, mini 14, live rounds, all that shit. Right. They're not fucking around. And, um, dudes' hands were getting blown off, shot off, all types of shit over there.

Oh, shit. Yeah. So, um, so I, I walk out to the yard. We get word that it's going to happen. It's going to go down. And we come up off of lockdown and I walk out to the yard and I'm walking laps with the fellas, you know, because they wouldn't let me go anywhere by myself. I was never going anywhere by myself.

Even if I showered, you'd have like two crips outside of the shower to make sure that I didn't get attacked while I was in the shower. Wow. Yeah. So you were a target by the white gangs. Yeah, I was green light. It could not be. If they don't move on me, oh, those dudes are getting moved on.

Right. And there was a slew of white guys that are on the S&Y because of me. You know, every institution I went through, there would be a fallout of guys before finally the ones that are left or the motherfuckers that are going to do it, you know? And some of them I learned later on too are the dudes that are going to do it, but they didn't want to do it. Right. They fucking fell bad for me. Some dudes looked at me and they were like, that dude's a little kid, literally. You know, they were like, I don't feel right going over there and fucking handling that.

man and they're like if I'm tired of all this shit and get out of there you know So you were split in the yard Do you have a shake on you? Do you have like a scalpel? No, so I don't have anything on me. Everything is, everything's been cleared out, right? There's really no weapons on as far as any of the homeboys or anything.

I go out to the yard. I'm walking laps. As I'm walking laps. I decide I'm tired of waiting on this shit. I'm just going to initiate it. And so, yeah, because I was like, man, every time I wait, I get hurt. When I don't wait and I just kick that shit off,

then it tumbles and I get beat up a little bit, but at least I go to the hole and I'm like not all fucked up. But so I walk out to the yard and we were on, I was an A yard, I think, at Kern Valley at the time. And it was brand new. It was just opened up. And as I'm walking laps, the woodpile, their whole, their handball wall,

was over by the water fountain at the time. And so I go over to the water fountain to try to get as close as possible, right? Try to be as sneaky and get as close as possible. And I go and I drink from the water. And as I'm drinking from the water, this dude that was with me from Great, nudges me and he goes,

yo, they're looking at you, man, and they're plotting on you. And so I remember as I'm drinking the water, I look over and they're like huddled up, right? probably it's not many bro you know they're not very many white guys on the yard so they're uh maybe 15 20 dudes maybe right and um i look over at them and they're like kneeling down and doing this and doing that they just pissed me the fuck off right and so i stood up and i remember i wiped my mouth and i went fuck you guys looking at like that and they stood up and they went what and i rushed into the pile wow boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom and all the crips and everything

everybody, all the blacks flooded from the basketball court, and that shit exploded. And in the process of that happening, I don't even remember when it happened when the dude sliced my neck, right? I remember feeling the guy from behind grab my hair and like tug my head back, and then I felt like a tug on my skin. But I was fighting so much that I didn't even realize it until everything had been quelled. And they shoot the tear gas? Yeah, tear gas.

they were busing block guns, tear gas, everything. They're spraying, but they weren't coming on to the yard. The way that Kern Valley is is that the yard is fenced off. You have two yards on one yard, right? So you have a huge wall down the middle, and you have a full track on one side, which is the lower and a full track on the other side, which is the upper.

And then between the administrative buildings, you have another fence with a catwalk and barbed wire and shit. So that way you can't like rush into the program off. They had already dealt with that before. So they, they, like, built up all of that.

And... So they're shooting live rounds down? So they're busting. I don't know if, I can't remember if that one, if they shot any live rounds or not. I don't know. It all sounds fucking crazy,

you know, but they're, they're responding, but they're not coming onto the yard. They're waiting for us to tire ourselves out for us. It was the whole yard, you know, the entire thing.

Essays too? No, essays were out of it and all that type of shit. Yeah, they weren't. They, um, And so anyways, I felt the guy,

but I didn't know what happened. I was still fighting and then when it was, this is the one that Gary was in with me with G. Right. And so when the dust settles, I'm prone out and I look over at me, probably over to the corner of the room here and G's right there. He's looking at me, he's got a look at eyes all swollen shut and shit.

And I remember he's like smiling. He was a fucking crazy motherfucker fuck. I love his ass though. He's like smiling, which made me smile, right? So I'm like, because we're like, yeah, we survive this shit. Right, you know, that's how I'm feeling. So anyways, and there's a sea of fucking white dudes around us, right? And then all the, all the other fellas are all in the back, right? And it was just me and G, right? Holding it down, man, at that last moment. And, uh, and the nurse comes running out. And when the nurse

comes running out, she's like, you know, alarms are going off and sirens and shit. And here comes medical and medical's running out and there's this nurse that has this bag and she's like boom boom and then she looks over at me as she's running onto the yard and she goes oh my god and she runs and i'm like what like i can't believe i'm like wondering what the fuck's going on and she runs to me and then she starts holding my neck together right and i look down and blood is like just flooding right boom and so she's like holding it together and she starts doing gauze and all this type of shit and they're like we got to get this dude to medical blah blah blah so they zip tie me all up zes and then they like get me up and then escort me off and throw me in a van and drive me to the fucking, you know, uh, uh, triage spot in the middle of the institution.

And then they get me in there and they like glue it and fucking do all their type of stuff. And then that's when I kind of like knew that I was, you know, that I got sliced up. Hmm. How deep was it? It was only, it was like, I think they said like a millimeter, two millimeters from the, from hitting the main artery. Yeah, it was so, it's probably because I was fighting with another guy. that stopped him from being able to get the full depth that he needed. Wow. So they got the weapons through, evidently.

Yeah, it was, I mean, you know, there's always something, man. Didn't know. Following that, did they find out who it was? Did the IG guys? Nobody ever got tried. I mean, you had dudes that were, you had a few, you had a handful of white dudes that went back to the hole with me, right? And then all the Crips went back with me.

And then in a week, they all got released back out, though. They get released back to the yard. and then only me and like a few guys stay that were like directly identified you know as participants and stuff did they try to get you to identify who you yeah of course i mean when you're like in medical and all of that that's why you have to be careful when you're in that lifestyle too because you'll also have a nurse come in right and the nurse will start to talk to you about like so anyway there's just going on and you don't feel like it's a guard you know and so you've got to kind of like be they'll they'll sometimes put shit in your incident report and stuff like that but um

Um, but yeah. Do you know who did it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I knew who did it. And what's funny is is, is, um, I never ran into him later on.

I ran into him later, but not where we were like on a yard together. We were like in the hole and shit like that. And did you bring it up? Uh, yeah. Fuck. Yeah. I was like, you almost got me, man. This night.

Cause these dude, you know what's funny is is a lot of these dudes had a lot of respect for me. We went to the hole and these guys just, they gave me coffee, all this type of shit. And it wasn't all because they're trying to set me up. We all knew what time it was. There's no like lolling me into thinking these guys are my friends, right? But they used to say, man, they were like, you're fucking took a lot of balls, man. You going out there, dude, and doing this shit, you know. And so it was almost like it wasn't, it's almost like it wasn't personal.

It wasn't. And this is a funny part. This is why I talk about appropriation and stuff is because one is, is I was putting myself in my life on the line for something that is way, way, deep, historically deep, not just crypts, but gangs and a lot of destruction in the black community and like all of these different things and I'm kind of just playing with it, you know, I'm like people are really growing up in this stuff, man, and they're fucked up by it. Generational trauma is taking place. And then on the other hand of that too is when I went

into the joint, everything is so militarized in a lot of different ways and everything becomes so racially charged that now I'm like reading these books from the older homies on the yard that's like George Jackson, Johnny Spain, all these different like black activists, and they're all talking about how people that look like me are all pieces of shit. And I didn't vibe with that either. I was like, ah, man, I'm like, that's not what I'm not.

So I didn't feel right. And it all kind of like led to the, you know, to that moment of me saying like, what am I doing, you know, with this whole thing here, man? Even the kindness that these dudes that just try to kill me on the yard, right? just the fact that it wasn't personal, even was a thing that I could understand

and be like, you know what? You're right. I'm putting you guys sometimes. I hurt everybody. I land on the yard, all the homies get hurt because they all got a ride with me. You know, that all makes me feel fucked up. All their visits, everything, everything.

I jeopardize all that. And then all these white dudes that half the time they don't want to do this shit, but I'm refusing to go anywhere. So now dudes are getting stabbed behind me. these officers who are just wanting to come in and do their eight and go home. And now all of a sudden they're like, I mean,

I can imagine a dude as I am now being at home and being like, babe, I don't know how it works going to go tomorrow. Shit's crazy in the institution. This dude rolled up. He's a cripp. He won't fucking lock it up. He's like,

it's going to go down and like, I don't know what's going on. Right. And so it just made me feel so terrible all the way around. That makes so much sense. You being a white crip is causing chaos all around you. affecting all these people. Everybody and nobody really.

And I had dudes that were, I remember there was a dude from my neighborhood who was like one of the legends. I was on, I got on the yard and in the cells and sailed up with dudes that were legends from Raymond, right? Who on the streets, they're like folklore, you know? And, uh,

and I remember I was in the cell with one of them and IGI came and got me and took me to the hole because they had received information that my life was in jeopardy. and then as time went by and I started to realize things and stuff I realized, you know, that was the home and the homie dropped that kite

to get me the fuck out of it. Wow. And at first I was like, and this old watered down motherfucker, I'm out here risking my fucking life, you know? And here this dude's, now this dude's been down like 30 years, you know? And as, that's how I felt at that time.

I was like, man, I don't know, fucking do some bullshit. We're supposed to go out here and handle it cowboy up and handle this shit like some fucking geez. flash to years later and me having a little bit of maturity and understanding and like my own time in the system that starts to go up there to get close to even what it might feel like for 30 years, right?

Yeah. And I realized, man, that dude is so over this shit. Yeah. All of it. Mm-hmm. All of us are in here sticking to a way of life at a decision that we made when we were like 15, 14. I was 15 when I got put on, you know, like,

And here this guy is 30 years later, he's an old man. He had like gray fucking fro and shit, you know, and like, and I started to realize like, that's really a fucked up position to put this dude in. Here I just show up. Some dude that wasn't even born yet when he was out, you know, a white dude who's taking on a whole struggle and an identity that is like not his. And he's got to risk his life for me. me after 30 fucking years, man, he's got bigger fish and fry. Totally. And so what he was doing

was he wasn't ranking out. He wasn't being soft. That dude was showing true compassion to me because he was like, you know what? It's thinking about himself. But the way that he did it, he could have politiced his way out of it to where I got somehow left out to dry. But instead, that dude tried to get me somewhere safe and out the fucking way. Wow. And I'm like, that's a powerful thing. Totally. Yeah. Totally. So. And that's why these long sentences also. don't make sense unless they need to. Yeah. Because you're such a different, I mean, your cells regenerate every seven years, right?

Yeah. So it's like you take a guy who murdered somebody at 17. He's a different person by the time he's 40. Yeah. You know? And I think it's all situational, right? Like we try to add, we try to make dealing with humans bureaucratic. Right.

Right. And you can't do that when it comes to the system because you're really, you know impacting people's lives yeah all of this different stuff you know and but that goes back into the whole point of you know people that that big are like angry and resentful and petty and small-minded in their own way right i had to when i came home you know i went through a deep grieving process at first right and it wasn't because i was institutionalized in the way of like oh i'm like wearing my shower shoes in this in the in the shower and shit you know and all that bullshit that you hear a lot of fucking short timers talk about.

Right. Dude from three years, it's like, yeah, so anyway they saw me, you know, I was like, I saw this knife for hair, I was putting my, I realized what the fuck was I doing? You know, I'm like, that's not, in my opinion, that shit's not real. I was this, I was a short timer. I was three years. Well, I had less than three years. The only thing I still do to this day is I immediately, when I'm taking a shit,

I immediately start flushing. That's true. You know what I mean? That's true. I do that too. And then I wrap my, when I go to bed at night, I wrap a shirt over my eyes. You know what I mean? Yeah, I didn't know you were a short timer in that way.

Yeah, yeah. But that's all. But yeah, there's not that much residual PTSD. Because I do remember when I ate my first meal, the first, the thing that I did, I ate it with a spoon. And then I wiped off my spoon afterwards. And I went to put in my back pocket. And I was like, what am I doing? You know, I don't even do this anymore. But I just meant it in like the intense gangster way that you were talking about. Of course, of course. But I went through a grieving process because I had got to a place where I had built a life that I was really like I was happy. Right.

And I had, I was, I had joy in my life and I felt like I had purpose and meaning. My life had purpose and meaning. And I had a whole community of friends that I had. And this is the other reason why you got to get away from gangs in this way is, is that you don't build real friendships. You only build bonds out of trauma.

No, motherfuckers that are really there for you and that will die for you, but they're all fucked up. Like I, there's a part, like the saying is, is, you tell a little homie, like you wouldn't do nothing that you, I won't put you through anything that I wouldn't do. But if you're willing to put yourself through fucked up shit, then you know you're going to put me through some fucked up shit. So it's a bunch of people that are bonded through traumatic experiences. Traumabonding. That's it. And makes for a warped relationship, right? That doesn't give that room for growth. when I got away from that

and I started to be authentic in the way that I felt and I started to be honest with myself and therefore live honestly I was able to develop real relationships know people for sure my best friend Ronnie Craigbaum who did 25 years

white dude from Realto right was in for a murder I went and picked him up I went back to the institution that I paroled from pulled up in my car to the guard shack, the guard leaned out and went no fucking way. And I went, what's up, man?

He goes, what are you doing here? I went, I'm here to pick up Craigbomb. He goes, that's right, you guys were road dogs. You guys came down from the higher levels together. I went, yeah, because how long you know? I'm, I go, we've been following each other for almost 15 years. And I go, and then I went, God damn, because it's out in the middle of the fucking low desert.

I went, it's hot as fuck out here. I go, man, it's hard for me to get away from Malibu, because now I was renting a house in Malibu, right? It's me and Steph. You got this hot ass girlfriend. Yeah, I went from fucking O'Brien summer sausages to like Mountain Spring Valley glass bottled water, you know? I'm like, $7 bottle of water.

Yeah, I'm shopping in heroin for raw milk and shit, right? So it's way different. Yeah, yeah. A life that a prison guard doesn't even know about it. No. And now here I was not even, here I was two years later, because I've been home now for three and a half years. In November, it'll be four years.

So you still on paper? No, I discharged my parole after 16 months. Okay, gotcha. Which was wild because my parole officer was like, what is your life? You know, I started training, I started training Jay-Z's whole circle when I came home. Okay, okay, real quick. Yeah, real quick. So let's, we're going to cut over and have a bonus chat on the, would you mind sticking around just for a quick, just Patreon?

Yeah. But we want to figure out how you got to. The judge. Yes. Yes. The resentenced you. Is it the same judge who sentenced you? No. So he he had gone into different districts in different courts. He was still around, but he wasn't, he was no longer, he no longer was in the district that I was in. The way that I got to a resentencing hearing is through a convergence of things. One is, is they had started a new policy in CDCR that is, If the department, if the department sees fit, they'll write a brief that gets sent down to the courts, asking the courts to reconsider you for resentencing.

I mean, asking the courts to consider you for resentencing. And I forget the name of it. But your file has to go to Sacramento and all these different things. And Joe Patel found this out. It's a very quiet thing in the institutions. It wasn't, nobody really knew about it. had been in effect for like five years or something, but nobody knew about it because they didn't really activate it. Do you have to have your lawyer asked the department? No, it can be anybody in the

institute. It can be a free staff. It can be, but it has to come from the, it has to come from somebody in the department of corrections. Right. Yeah. Well, Joe had another person that he was representing at the time who somehow this all came up. And so what he did was he sent my file to the sergeant that was in that was the person in charge of all of that in Sacramento and gave him my file right he said you guys got to check this dude out yeah and um and so uh and so they did and they checked it out and they decided that they were gonna they felt it was fucked up you know they were like this this dude's got like how does he even have life you know this how they how the department felt and then from the moment that i dropped out i never had one, one-15 after.

No tickets. None. So, so the thing was, was that all the way up to the point of that, I had extensive write-ups, all of, I never had one, like, what do they call it again? I can't even remember what they, the, the language behind a serious, oh, I never had a, all of my writers have all been serious write-ups, right? And then all of a sudden when I dropped out, all, from then on, all you saw was progression in my file. And so they were like, there was now way more years of me living a life good behavior of good behavior. And also like quiet, quiet accomplishments. Like I never was the one that tried to like be the, be on the executive body of like a self-help group, right? Instead,

I liked going into them all types of ones. I've been to social. many different and I like to just participating but what it did was it allowed for me to be able to like quietly build a reputation of somebody who's trying to fucking improve yeah right right and trying to do better yeah and break this whatever these cycles and these statistics are that we put ourselves sure you know and uh that we find ourselves in and so uh so they recommended me but this is weird though because when they recommended me COVID hit and so I had had no idea that they had recommended me. The judge, the file got lost throughout COVID.

Because, you know, COVID was a fucking motherfucker. Oh, my God. For people inside and like shit like that. It shut, the courts shut down completely for like two years, you know. And so everybody got put on ice. And then what happened was Gascon got elected into office as the district attorney of L.A., right? That guy that came from San Francisco.

go. A lot of people blame a lot of like what's going on in Los Angeles and the crime and all of that on Gascon. I feel like he gets a bad rap for it because I feel like law enforcement in a lot of ways. I feel like they politic against Gascon in the streets. Like they would not necessarily do what they're supposed to do and then they'd be like, what's the points on Gascon. Whereas Gascon was never saying, I'm just going to let a motherfucker go. Arrest and bring him in and then we'll really go through it. but they were so adamant on being against Gascon, that this isn't just either way that I think that they do it, you know?

But anyways, Gascon got elected in the office and he started combing through all of the, he put together a committee to go through everything because L.A. had such a reputation for being corrupt when it came to all of what was going on. And the first people that he started was juveniles. And then I was one of those first juveniles because I was also somebody that didn't have a violent crime,

meaning somebody didn't get hurt, you know, physically, which put me at the top of the list. And I had such an extensive sentence. So Gascon, uh, said that they weren't going to contest me being resentenced. Mm. Right?

And then what happened was, and all this shit happened separately. And then what happened was Loyola Merrimount, Joe Pertel took my, stuff to Loyola and got with the JIFS and they read my file and were immediately in. And so they then represented me. And they're such a well-respected organization throughout the country and in the state of California that they have deep relationships with district attorney, with courts, with judges,

and all these different things. And so they went on the path before I even went into resentencing for probably about a year, They started placing everything that they possibly could and might, you know, to try to build something to where we went in as a United Front, meaning district attorney, CDCR and Tyler Corkeran, right? Yeah. To say to this judge, hey, this guy, if anybody, deserves a fucking second chance. Yeah. You know, you gave him more time than Charles Manson, literally. Literally.

Yeah. So, so they tried to get out of Lancaster court because Lancaster's not. known as a cowboy court of, of LA County. Dusty, corrupt, petty, impoverished. They also have impoverished. They have one of the highest crime rates.

It's bad. So we couldn't get it out of there. The judge saw it and the judge told everybody, I'm not going to remove the life sentence. I'm going to sentence him to, I'm going to re-sentence him to be immediately eligible for the parole board. I was heart broke. My family was heart broke because we were already eligible for the

board underneath SB 260 and I was going to be going to that in like another maybe like a year I think I was away maybe from that because that was like 20 years right yeah you got to go on your 20th year right so did you feel confident that you if you went to the board that you could get out yeah because I felt like this I felt like I watched a bunch of people go to parole board and I said to myself if that motherfucker right there can get a grant I can yeah because I live with that person on the yard and the difference between me and them is, is yeah, they may be able to articulate all of these things and they may be able to talk to talk, but the difference is is that that motherfucker doesn't walk it. So if that person can get a parole date, I know that I can't eventually. I don't know if it was going to be the first

time or anything, but I definitely felt like I could, if given a chance. So when she said that, this judge, you know, obviously we were heartbroken and she said that she was going to give me an opportunity to speak in court. And so I agreed to address the court and stuff like that when the time came. And I practiced my speech, right? I wrote my speech. I spent months on it. And I was really wanting to touch on a few different things, right? I wasn't wanting to touch on trying to convince her to let me go. I was wanting to touch on gratitude, remorse, amends, and my change. That's it. And I wanted to do one of the things that I regretted later on in my life that I didn't do from the beginning, which was just tell everybody how fucking sorry I was.

Right? Like, you know, as time went by, I wished that I could have told these innocent people that, like, I'm so sorry, man, for just barging into your fucking life and putting everybody in jeopardy, you know, and all this shit happened to me, my family, all this stuff happened, none of it needed to. You know, so like, that's what I saw the opportunity at this court hearing to be. It's cathartic just to be able to say sorry. Yeah, just to say it, right? That's the thing.

That's when like you learn that, you know, as time goes by when you're trying to, when you're reflecting on your, when I'm reflecting on my life, that's what I learned, right? Was that it is cathartic and it's healing to own up and take accountability for yourself and be responsible. So, so I worked on it. And I worked on it to the point of where I practice that fucking thing to where other people miss. arrived. I used to go up to random dudes. I'd be in the dayroom watching boxing, right? Because I was teaching boxing and all this stuff, right? And I'd be watching boxing. And then I'd go, I go, you see that guy, man? I go, you know what? That kind of reminds me of and I would just go into my speech, right? And the reason why was because I wanted to be as comfortable as possible to pull up on it.

And I, and so then we find out that there's no transfers. I'm not going to go down to court. I was so relieved. I did not want to go back down to the county, you know, for this. And it was over, I was going to have a Zoom or a Skype. So I was practicing it on the phone because I was like, they're always talking about how Skype is glitching and like this shit. You know what happens? Fucking Skype glitched. And so I had my whole hearing on the telephone in the program office.

Wow. They called me into the program office. They put me on the phone with the judge. My dad is in the courtroom, right? And she addresses me. She goes into saying everything about how she's not going to remove the life sentence and like this and that and da-da-da-da. What I do is very serious.

and she asked me what I wanted to say and I addressed the court. I spoke for about three minutes. She took a 20 minute recess, came back, reversed everything, removed the life sentences, sent me home and 10 days later I walked out of the institution.

Yeah. A miracle. Not even a lifer anymore. Wow. Yeah. She completely dropped all the life charges and everything. Going in saying, I'm not going to remove the life sentence.

Yeah. Completely. That must have been. Did you save that speech? Do you still have it memorized? I have the speech. Yeah. So I know and I don't.

and I don't. I just remember the key points, right? Right. But my dad said, because he was in the courtroom and he said that, and I remember when I felt when I was in the zone. Yeah. Because I also went, I didn't necessarily practice it so that way I could just memorize the speech. I practice it so that way I would stay on track

when I'm being authentic and going off the rails, right? Like I could always come back knowing where I'm at in my speech, even if I'm gone, right? Yep. So I talked about a lot of other stuff. but my what happened was I remember hearing all of these papers being like I could hear the courtroom right because they're doing all of their types of shit right it's like it's like you can hear like traffic court shit shit and there and stuff right like there's attorneys there's people they're like rustling papers

who's listening on just the judge it's on the speaker in the courtroom but but who else is there the entire court random people it's a public court okay you could even go and pull up what I said probably in transcripts but why are why are why are they're there are other people in the courtroom? Because it's just a courtroom. So like a courtroom is public. It's open, right? Unless they close it for a specific thing. You have to file for that. I see. I see. So you have and you know, it's so overcrowded. They don't have time to close down everything. You've got five other people right there. Right. Dealing with stuff too. And you have attorneys that are waiting that are in the court. I see. You have the clerk. You have all my God. It's chaotic. And you're trying to prove yourself on a prison phone.

But here's the crazy thing is, is that. that as soon as I dropped in within three minutes, it goes dead silent. And I knew in my fucking heart, man, within 30 seconds of this motherfucker, I knew I was in the zone and that something was happening very special. And I finished what I had to say

and she just was like, I need a 20 minute recess and then went dead on the line. And I just looked at the officer that was right there and he was like, what happened? I was like crying or shit. And I was like, I don't fucking know. she said she need 20 minute recess and he told me he goes if i was a judge i'd fucking let you go because this is an amazing just you you that was so amazing what you said you know in this way and uh so i was

chopping over him my dad in the courtroom said that what happened was she was ruffling papers and as soon as when i started to go in at some point all of a sudden her head snapped over to the speaker and she put the papers down and she leaned in and the rest of the the room fell silent and that my dad starts asking the attorneys what's going on and the attorneys turned around to him and they go we don't know and they go I think he's fucking changing her mind like that and and then sure enough man she came back and reversed everything and when she told me she said uh she came back on and she said uh you know it's a very serious thing and this and that and da She goes, there's a lot of people that believe in you in this courtroom today.

And I believe in you as well. And I'm going to use my authority to remove the life sentence. And as soon as she said that, I felt every cell, like my hair follicles even. It was past tingle. It was just like it was numb. I couldn't even hear what she was saying anymore. I held my breath because I was so afraid of like somehow messing up what she was saying, you know. And then all of a sudden she goes, well,

good luck Mr. Corrigan hangs up. Boom. And I'm just back on the yard. Wow. And the officer asked me what happened and I go, she just removed a life sentence and sentenced me to time served. I'm going home and I'm, boom, and it's flooded with tears.

And he was like, wow, man, that was one of the most amazing things. And so I get up and I walk out onto the yard and I had two buddies of mine that were right there waiting. And they see me and I cry even harder when I saw them because, you know, I just known these guys for years. And they were like, what happened? I said, I'm going home and they threw their arms around me and people flooded out from the buildings. People, I didn't even fucking know. Like, I didn't realize

the impact that I had actually had on my community, you know? Yeah. You know, all the times I cut people here and listened and mentored people and like all this different stuff, you know, and just, and a lot of guys really, in my own way of thinking about, the way that I like to think about is they really saw me as their champion. Yeah. Because the moment that I made my change, I stuck to it. And all that. lot of guys relapse and go back and forth. And even inside of a lifestyle, they just go back and forth. But I didn't.

And the other part about it was was I was no fucking punk, you know? Oh, you never told. I was always, I held my mud. Always stayed solid. And even in the place of where I said, man, I'm all about love and kindness and compassion and like saying that on the yard, there was times where people would try to implement their bullshit into my life. and they would see the side of me that doesn't put up with that.

And people would be like, man, Tyler's a real motherfucker, man. And so all these people came out and I had ice creams and sodas and chips and they talked till my voice was hoarse. And then that night I finally like collapsed on the bunk at count time and I fall asleep and then I wake up at like two in the morning wide awake. And tears are flooding down my eyes. I woke up crying. Tears are flooding down my eyes and I looked up at,

the ceiling and my life flashed everything from the very beginning of my life from my earliest memories in the desert all the way up to all my time in prison and i remember i just looked around me and i was just i just started to say thank you thank you thank you inside internally i was just going thank you thank you you think to try to like deal with this fucking you know uh skydiving of emotion yeah that's it you know and it was wild because the clerk fucked up the paperwork. They then set my parole date at like another six months.

I told my dad, I never led me out of this motherfucker. I'm just going to grow my beard and my hair not worry about it anymore, man. And he goes, that doesn't sound right. So he told Loyola, Loyola said that's not supposed to happen. They immediately started making all the calls and they had to do an emergency release and I got released the day before Thanksgiving.

1124 of what was it, 2001, I believe. You know, I got released. Oh no, I was right. after Thanksgiving. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good time to come home. We don't want to get stuck because you get stuck for like those two weeks when

administration shuts down. Right. But they couldn't do that because they had messed up. The clerk went on vacation with fucked up paperwork. And so all this shit happened. And, you know, that's just so wild how something as simple as that. A clerical error.

Clerical error can put you in there. What if something crazy would have happened? You know, what if something had kicked off. Yeah. I mean, thank God I was in fucking, you know, camp at that time. Right. So you already.

All in camp. Okay. So where were you at? So I was. So I was. chuck-a-wall at the time it was a level two out in chuck-a-wallets down by like blithe in the low death right palm springs and all right yeah it was it was easy did your dad pick you up oh yeah they got they had like a mercedes sprint van you know because my so my dad went on to you know he started out

just like driving dozers and shit at a dump and then he became like a site manager but he worked his way all the way up to become like the director of operations for the entire corporation wow yeah so he he while i was in he continued to climb in his work yeah and And so they picked me up, dude, and I still have the same fucking push button phone that they gave me and stuff. You know, I got to get a new one now. It's like busts on the back and stuff. And then I did like, I started off, started to do a little bit of artwork, but I couldn't be inside. Art wasn't going to be a thing.

I do it now again, right? Even while I've been on the road, I do all types of portraits and stuff and, you know, make little side cash with it. But I couldn't take it on in the way that you need to as a career. I was like, I need to be outside. Yeah. I need some sun. No shit. Open the door.

and walk out. I was like, you know what, man, I'm going to, I'm going to go to a gym. And I walked into a gym. And three months, I was there, three months later, I was, I had tripled the membership. I was working for it. Wow. Yeah. Jim in Hollywood, in Hollywood, right?

It was in, well, Woodland Hills. Woodland Hills. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, old Italian guy. And then we got into it because he was like, you know, I was only getting paid like, I was getting paid under the table. I told him, I got to be on the payroll, man.

I'm like, yo, I got to build credit. I have no credit. I had no financial history. I have nothing. I can't. I need to like start building some form of record. Right. So that way, if I want to get a car, I can go in and get a car and like all these different

things. Right. He was learning about all of that. But he was, you know, he was kind of taking advantage of me. It's all good. Yeah. And because, you know, I walked out of it. And, um, but before that happened though, man, one of the clients, this guy,

Kyrie, man, he tells me he's a, uh, he's a, uh, a fireman. And I think he's a lieutenant, fire lieutenant out in LA County. And he says, yo, man, I want to, I want you to go train my brother. Man, he's going to love you, but he'll never come to the gym, dude, you know. And would you do a house call? And I'm like, you know my story. I don't be sure, though. I just don't know what, I've never done a house call.

And he's like, he's going to love you, man, don't even trip. And so I was like, all right. So he gives me the address. And I drive there, the next thing you know, I'm like in Bel Air. And I'm like, oh, shit. You're like fucking, wow. And I get out and this guy, Jay Brown man, he, which was his brother, who's the, you know, he's like CEO of the Rock Nation and all of that.

Oh, wow. Fucking came up with Jesse and all them. Yeah. So I started training Jay. I started training Henry Jones and met Tata and all them. Yeah. Braced by that whole family. Yeah.

I was on parole. They wanted to fly me out fucking after the Hamptons and shit. And I was like, couldn't do it because I was on parole. Yeah. And then they sent me up with Corey Gamble. and with the Kardashians. I started to go up to Hidden Hills and train him. And then it just continued to open up from there, man.

And the next day I was that craft. And then I was doing this and doing that. I started all types of youth programs. I was on the news. One of my students fucking got attacked by some homeless dude, this kid in, in Agora. And so the news comes. And, like, I was the one that, like, he was my student. He comes in crying and he's like, Coach T, coach D, and this and that.

And the fellas get that news, so they all saw me. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I was like, they were like, how do you feel about that? I'm like, what is this community coming to? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Lock these people up. Yeah, but you know what? If you want to do it, come on down to Kraft Boxing Club and learn some real self-defense.

Yeah, right, right. So Kraft was the name of your boxing club? Yeah, Kraft is where I went over to next. George Foreman the third opened it. And he just died. The dad, the dad did rest in peace. Yeah, yeah. No, George is a good friend of mine, man.

And he put me on over at his gym, said, It was the most amazing thing, you know. And so then I start working in that gym. And then it exploded from there. And then that's where I met Steph. You know, everybody was wanting me to podcast and things like that, but I wasn't really doing it. And then that's how I got initially introduced to Steph.

It was through a mutual friend was like, hey, Steph's into podcasting. And if you have questions about her, whatever, she's a good person to be talking to about it. And then I just fell in love with Steph. Yeah. And then you guys have a daughter? pregnant and we have a beautiful son. Of son, yes. He's amazing. He's just the most

cutest best kid. He was born at home. I caught him on the way out just like I was and how my dad did for me. Wow. And it's been a very, very amazing, amazing. It's the best thing ever happened to my life. I mean, and this is like the course of like four years, three and a half years? Three and a half. It'll be four in November. Wow. Yeah. So. What do you What do you contribute that to?

Like, what do you? I feel like the universe loves me. Yeah. And I feel like, no, I don't say that from a place of like arrogance, you know. I feel like it's because I really do my best, man, to try to put myself last and do the right thing. Yeah.

And I feel like when you do that, opportunities happen. But then you have to be the type of person that then can like, you know, accept the opportunity. opportunity, right? So then like that's where all the hard work. That's where everything I've been through. Like it all cycles and it's all it all reinforces each other. Yeah. And it's all in that. And then the other part about it is is like even things like us shutting down everything. Like I was just, I had just made another jump. My first year I made like 14 grand, right? My second year I made like 120 grand. And then this this last year before I shut it down,

I was getting ready to be, I was projecting that just my private business of me going doing house calls and stuff was going to be almost at 200 grand and so this this progression was taking place and at the height of it we decided to shut it all down and drive off across the country put everything in storage close out our lease early and you know what ended up happening that house burns down and now oh in the fires that's right that house bring up we would have lost everything everything the people that rented after us didn't even have time to get their cars out of there man So the other part I feel like that contributes to the way the trajectory of my life is also that that same person that was willing to push through the fear of going out onto the,

and still go out onto the yard is that same person that is willing to push through the fear of what if it all doesn't work out, right? And instead, trust the fact that if it doesn't work out, then I'll be able to handle it and we'll make the right adjustments to then make it work out. Yeah. Right.

And I'm not attached to it in that way. I'm not attached to a dream in that way. Right. I'm open to the experiences. And for me, I don't look at it from this perspective of like, how do I get money to just like quickly be responsible or like stable?

Because what I've realized is, is whether or not you're like barely making money or whether or not you're a millionaire in Bel Air, a lot of people get consumed. by that. Sure. Everything becomes about the money and it becomes about fear around it. You know, is there going to be enough?

Will you make the wrong decision with it? Will you do all these different things? And I'm more about the experience of life. You know, I'm more about like, what can I do in order to enrich in myself through my experiences in life and how can I help facilitate that? And then that's what motivates me to get money as opposed to how do I get money to do these things. Instead, when the opportunity comes to do these things, I'll figure out how to make the money to make it happen when it happens. Wow. Kind of. Your choice to just pack up, close your gym and get a van

and drive across the country with your family, it was like the decision you made to just that one day when the counselor was like, hey, you're sure you want to go to Pelican Bay? And you're like, ah, no, I think I'll drop out. Like, let's just do it. Yeah. Yeah, because there's a certain level of like, you know, I used to try to, I, worked really hard at not being impulsive because impulsivity contributed so much to my chaotic and destructive life as a kid but then as time went by i felt like i i felt like when you quench impulsivity too much you become robotic right and you lose a little bit of the human experience through trying to just be responsible and not impulsive yeah whereas what i wanted to do was i wanted to get to a place where I could trust myself again.

So that way, if I impulsively made a decision, it was never going to be something that resulted in me getting life in prison. Right. Right. There may be a mistake that takes place, but that it's not going to have that level of impact. Right. Right.

And then that gives me the freedom sometimes to be able to then follow the impulse. Sure. Because I got to the place of where I actually trust that. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm still figuring it all out. You know, it's still, it's always an active process. I mean, it's always, you know,

I'm processing it as it goes. Steph's a huge part of that. You know, Steph is another one that was like, you know, she was, she, I remember when we first met and I was working a bunch.

I was like running classes from like 4 a.m. to 9 p.m. type of thing. And that's a hard fucking job. Yeah. You got to always be motivating other people, right? Like all these different things and my voice was hoarse and all this stuff. And I was like,

and she goes, why don't you, why don't you like, won't you like, uh, play with your days off? I'm like, yeah, but I got Saturdays and

Sundays. Like I worked really hard to make sure they got Saturday and Sundays. We know her like prime days off. Yeah. Like everybody thinks you want a job. Who wants like a Tuesday and a Wednesday fucking day off, right? And she was like, well, why don't you do, why don't you, do you feel more active on a Saturday as opposed to like on a Monday? And I'm like, I don't know. And she's like, why don't you just try messing with that? Why don't you just take Sunday and Monday? I can't do that. But I could. I was running my own shit. At any time, I can just start to make those decisions. So I did. did. And really, man, she challenged me in a lot of ways to be creative with the way that I looked at my work and my time off and my hours and what was valuable to me and all those different things.

And she was probably the single-handedly the most influential person in where I've gotten to at this part, right, with everything. She also was the most influential. and making me in in helping me to believe in myself when it comes to my creativity when it comes to my ability as an artist right you know next thing you know i'm having a fucking meeting at the soho house over writing a tv fucking show like where does this come in to fucking play with people that are big that people wait hard they work super hard they try to climb all they can for that to happen now who knows if it'll ever go it doesn't matter though you know it's just is, but she really did that because my family was really hard on me, you know.

Yeah. And everybody, a lot of people live in fear and fear for others and that type of thing. And I had to really push past my family and make them feel uncomfortable in a lot of different ways. And I'm so sorry for doing so, but at the same time, it was necessary. And we're all, you know, everybody's fine now. But it was really difficult. And I've really struggled and continue sometimes with like imposter syndrome. And, you know, because sometimes I'm like, who am I?

I'm just a dude from the joint. you know i'm in a place where i'm like you know uh coaching and teaching or doing this or doing that and you know fuck am i you know that's and then i have to tell myself like no you're a bad motherfucker man you did a lot of shit and you put in a lot of work man and all this different stuff and uh you need to give yourself a little more credit to that you do you do and i'm saying all of that because it reminds me of some i wanted to say earlier where um i also had to admit to myself at some point, I never wanted to be looked at as a victim and I never wanted to think of myself as a victim.

But there was at some point on the outside where I needed to heal from how fucked up all those adults treated me and how they all did me, right, when I was a kid. Yeah. You know, and these judges and these attorneys and these district attorneys and these parents and these fucking, like,

all these people that have been to college and are educated and all this shit and shame on you for getting this fucking lost-ass kid in here because you guys know the difference. You know? Yeah. And shame on you guys for fucking doing this to me and treat me as an example.

And part of my sense of feeling like a badass is, is like, I showed all you motherfuckers and you guys are wrong. And that there's more than one narrative, right? There's a whole community of people that are on the inside that value emotional intelligence, that value change, that want to be empathetic, that have remorse for the things that they've done,

all of that. And you don't see much of that conversation. Usually see it being glorified or like, you know, everybody wants to hear the war stories. And I just feel proud to be a part of that population and to be able to give some voice to it for sure. This has been a remarkable, remarkable interview. And I'm really glad to know you.

And it's helped me a lot, just listening to you. Thanks. Do you want people to, like, follow you? Like, what's next? Like, are you going to do? Yeah, you can follow me, right? I don't even remember what my Instagram is like T underscore Corkeran or something like that. Maybe I don't work on that a little bit.

Yeah, I got like three posts on the thing. Although I post on my story all the time. And if you love Pitt, you like being able to see my son who's hilarious and all the different cool shit that we do. Steph and I and all types of stuff. Do you have a plan for what's next? I mean, I know you're working on a TV show in Hollywood. You're going back to L.A. It sounds like.

This is the first of me implementing. the speaking aspect. Yeah. On the inside, I did a lot of it, right, where I was also part of like this organization

called the Straight Life program. I talked to students. I did a lot of stuff. So I feel like public speaking is going to be a part of it. I definitely want to pursue it. Yeah, man, I'm going to write a book.

And then I'm just going to see what kind of opportunities and collaborations people want to do. I want people to be like, yo, man, I see value in you and let's do this. and like, like, let's come up with shit and do stuff to get. And create.

And create. Yeah. And so, you know, for other people that want to work hard and be creative and like, but at the same time, have a good time through it, you know, that's it. And realize that there's enough for everybody and that we all can get to that place. Those are the people I'm talking to. Tyler Corcoran, white Crip. Tyler Corkran, dude.

That's right. Wow. White Crip. and also a Buddha. Wow. That is so powerful. Thanks, buddy. Well, look, we're going to flip over to the Patreon now

and just try to figure out something else to talk about just for a half an hour or so. But thank you, like, thank you and thank you to Steph for loaning you out for a whole afternoon. Yeah. I really, really, really appreciate it. You're going to do great things. I mean, you already are.

You already have, but you're going to do great things. Thanks, brother. And when anytime I'm back in Austin, please. You know what I mean? We'll hang out. Yeah, for shit. Yeah, yeah.

Thank you guys. We'll see you over at Patreon. All right.