The Eric Metaxas Show - Casey Diaz (Encore)

Episode Date: July 28, 2023

Casey Diaz recounts his story of how leading a violent gang in Los Angeles led to solitary confinement in California’s toughest prison, and the miraculous encounter that led him to renounce everything and lead youth out of gang life.

Folks, welcome to the Eric Mattaxas show, sponsored by Legacy Precious Metals. There's never been a better time to invest in precious metals. Visit legacy p.m.investments.com. That's legacy p.m. Investments.com. Welcome to the Eric Mataxis show. We'll get you from point A to point B. But if you're looking for point C, well, buddy, you're on your own. But if you'll wait right here in just about two minutes, the bus to point C will be coming right by.

And now here's your first. Ralph Cramden of the Airways, Eric Matt, Texas. We have an amazing guest today, an amazing, miraculous story. Don't leave whatever you're doing because this is one of those stories. I'm sitting here in the studio with Casey Diaz. The book is The Shot Caller, A Latino Gangbanger's Miraculous Escape from a Life of Violence to a New Life in Christ. Casey Diaz, welcome. Thank you for having me.

You have an unbelievable. I mean, the life of violence doesn't do justice to your story. I mean, it's worse than a lot. I mean, a lot of people had a life of violence. You're talking a life of extreme violence. So I want to get your story. Where do we start? Where are we like, huh?

Where do you, I mean, when did you tell the story of coming to America? How old were you? I was two years old. Two, all right? So we're not going to get a lot of details. You were two, right? Yeah, exactly. but came here from El Salvador.

Okay, and you came here as an illegal immigrant? No, legally. You came as a legal immigrant from El Salvador when you were two? When I was two, yes. Okay. And we settled in what's called the Rampart District of Los Angeles. Yeah. And my aunt lived in South Central, L.A.

So we moved back and forth in the beginning stage of me coming here. Okay. And you got involved in violence extremely young. Tell us this story. I was 11 years old. You know, it was at a time where kids were still playing outside baseball and football and a lot of outside outdoor activity. But the only element with me was that my folks with my mom, you know, she worked as a seamstress in downtown Los Angeles.

So she'd leave at 4 in the morning and then wouldn't come back until around 10, 11 at night. And then my father, who was never working, he was. always out there and, you know, he'd be selling weed out there. Your father was selling weed. Yeah. Wow. And, you know, the drug epidemic in the 80s in Los Angeles had just started. So here's a young boy being left essentially unsupervised. And that becomes the danger in and of itself.

So your father is pushing drugs to make a buck. and you never see him. A very dramatically different story from your mother who's obviously working too hard. So at what point do you go into gang, to being a part of this gang with a violence? I was introduced to the gang culture at 11 years old. Gang started moving.

You know, you start becoming aware. And I was introduced to this particular gang by one of the guys that we hung out outside. And I started to notice that, you know, cars would come in, pick them up. And then I had some questions, and I asked those questions. And, you know, he gave me a little brief description of what a gang was, what it involved. And it lured me in. It became a false sense of family that I didn't have at home.

You know, you hear this over and over and over, that it's like a family that people are looking for something, they don't have it, and they find it in the gang. So what do you do at 11 or 12? I mean, you know, you're a kid at that point. What happens? Unfortunately, there was a gang leader that took me under his wing for whatever reason. He took a liking to me. And so here you are at 11 years old hanging out with a very popular gang leader of this gang.

and he takes me to my first, you know, stealing on the car. We do some things, you know, and one event is what started to really change everything. We went and what we called jumped a rival gang member. And basically we were in a stolen car. We went and looked for him, found him, and assaulted him, and he ended up stabbing the guy, and then gave me the screwdriver and said, your turn and that was my first stabbing at 11 years old. You were 11. Yeah.

And you didn't do with a knife, you did it with a screw driver. The screwdriver, yeah. What did that do to you? Sometimes at that age, you're so young that you're not sensitive the way you are when you're older. I mean, did it, how did you feel? Well, you know, in my home, there was a lot of violence to start off with. My father was extremely violent. He beat my mom. I mean, there was not one week that my mom was not beat. senselessly and left in a plough of blood by the hands of my father. So I saw that, and at eight years old, I saw a, I witnessed a triple homicide right before my eyes at about 20 feet away.

At eight? Yeah. Three men were gunned down in front of me. All right. So you're 11 years old. You're being initiated into murder, violence. I imagine if you start there, it doesn't get better. It doesn't. You know, little by little, I started to be led by this gang leader. And just the popularity that he had almost came upon me. Here's a, you know, I think it was looked at as, oh, look at, here's this little cute little gang member. He's 11. And so everybody starts to kind of, you know, patch you on the back and validate you. And that's what the streets will do. If you don't have any validation from your father, from a good leader in society, someone is going to validate in places where it's poverty-stricken,

the streets will do that. A gang leader or a drug dealer will do that. So you make it sound like, I mean, this is sort of the typical story, and it's such a horrible story, but you hear this so much that in a way it's either an absent father or a violence, father or a father who's violent and absent. It seems like you were set up. Almost, yeah. Right? I mean, where else are you going to go? That's where those, that's where those kids go. Pretty much, yeah. So how does this develop? I mean, are you, you know, at what point, well, let's get to the point where you're arrested and all this. How do things develop

so that you get arrested so young? Well, you know, I think that once you, start to get used to a certain kind of lifestyle and anything. It becomes normal. And for me, violence became the normal. And so from me partaking and the stabbing in 11, a craving started to happen within me. And I needed to go out there. I wanted to go out there.

I saw what it did in the eyes of other gang members. I saw the fear that it was bringing. and that crave also, you know, jumped over and I just needed to do that. And it became an everyday thing where I went out there and sought after gang rivals and did whatever I needed to do. So you enjoyed the violence. I did. And how long does this go on for? For a period about five years until I get arrested at 16 years old for a gang-related murder.

Okay, so you, now I'm imagining that you were involved in a number of murders before this, but you had not been caught. I had been all over the place. By this time, I've stabbed many other rival gang members, yes. And so you're arrested. What happens now? You're 16? I'm 16. California is about to try a little thing where they want to try to see how young they can convict.

youthful offenders and try them as adults. And so I was in the very early stages of that experiment in law. And so what they initially did was if you were convicted and tried as an adult and found guilty, at first they would send you to what's called the California Youth Authority. They sent you there, and then they would evaluate you. The California Youth Authority couldn't hold you up until 25 years old. and so they could do that. But in my case, I was in there for a 90-day observation

to see if there was any kind of rehabilitation that could still take place in my life. But I was found while in there strangling another rival gang member, I almost killed him. And for that reason, I was found not suitable for that kind of environment. Not suitable. That's very nice to put it that way. I mean, this is amazing.

We're going to be right back, folks. An amazing story. Casey Diaz is my guest. The book is The Shot Caller, a Latino gangbangers, miraculous escape from a life of violence to a new life in Christ. Stick around. Tell me why Relief Factor is so successful at lowering or eliminating pain. I'm often asked that question just the other night. I was asked that question.

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involved in a gang. You were a very violent, very, very scary individual. I mean, the idea that at 16, you had participated in numerous stabbings, you enjoyed it, you were getting encouragement in a way. Your whole identity was that I'm the scariest guy around, and then you go into this confinement, and you practically kill a guy there. So they take you at that point, and what, they send you to New Folsom Prison? Is that where you go? So, no, I was, while I was at a California authority, the guy didn't die. I was caught in the very act of strangling him. So they ended up sending me to Los Angeles County Jail,

Men Central Dail in downtown Los Angeles. And then from there to what's called the gang module. And in the gang module is where every L.A. gang leader is housed. We're a little bit too much for mainline or regular population. So they house us there. And then from there, I get tried. transferred to Wayside to a unit called 2,400. And this is where everyone that's in there from murder is housed.

So I'm housed there, and there is where I get validated as a shot caller inside. Okay, so the title of your book is The Shot Caller. What is a Shot Caller? It's someone who has the ability to push a name in a piece of paper and have you killed up to that just by me signing. A document. So even at age 16, you had that kind of power and authority in the gang world? Yeah. Well, by this time, I'm 18 years old around there.

And I'm already, you know, through the trial. It was an eight-month trial. And so time has gone by. But, yeah, just the measure of violence that came out of me where it was a little bit out of the box, even for that kind of culture. I just didn't have any breaks. If anything needed to be done, I would happily do. it. There was no second, you know, thought or I just went and did it, and it was a normal thing for me.

So what happens at this point? So from there, I'm waiting for what's called the chain to be transferred from L.A. County Jail to a state prison. So I ended up getting sent to Delano State Prison for 120 days. And there, what they do is they evaluate you further to see if you have any gang ties in organized crime within the state of California because of the level of violence that I came in with. The California Department of Corrections has a scoring system of one to 100, and that's how they kind of tell how much security in individual needs. So I went in there with 97 points. That's pretty high security. So for that, I was sent to New Folsom State Prison to directly serve my sentence as in the shoe program, in solitary confinement.

So you're going to serve a sentence? How long is the sentence? Twelve years, eight months. Twelve years in solitary? That's what I was supposed to be in there for, yeah. What are you thinking at this point? I didn't, and honestly, I didn't care. It was almost like, you know, there's three penitentiaries in California that are, I kind of compare them to, you know,

you know, Yale, Harvard, and, you know, that kind of thing. These were the Ivy League prisons of California, and New Folsom was one of them. So to me, it was, you know, I made it to where I needed to make it. And so it was fun and games. I mean, I really didn't care about life or a sentence. It just didn't matter to me. It didn't matter to you. So when does this change?

It changes when a little church comes to, visit one Thursday out of the month. And this little lady, by the name was Francis Proctor, a little black lady, she is there, and there's a conversation happening right outside my gate or my cell. And the conversation is her asking a guard if there's an inmate in that cell. I had no clue that she was pointing at my cell. And the guard actually discourages her multiple times. to don't waste her time. Those words were said, don't waste her time. And she is so ambitious and

courageous and bold. And I remember her saying, Jesus came for everyone, including him. Can I approach a cell? And she does, she's given permission to approach my gate. She comes to my gate and a little conversation happens. I didn't want, initially I wanted nothing to do with her or her religion. I never went to church. I had no biblical knowledge. Didn't care about God. Wasn't looking for God. Jesus to me was, I just, that was, I was in darkness of anything that had to do with the religion in there. And, but you end up talking to this woman. I mean, it's amazing to me to think about this woman. You know, there are all these people out there thinking, what can I do with my life? I'm bored. And this woman on her own time goes into a very,

very, very nasty, dark place to talk to you, one of the most scary, violent offenders in the whole prison system. That's kind of amazing to me. And so what does she say to you? Her first thing that comes out of her mouth is, as she comes to my gate, she says, you know, how are you doing? And I kind of, you know, thought about that. And I said, well, couldn't be doing better. And she laughed. She said, that was a dumb question. I said, it's all right.

But, you know, she does her little presentation, and I kind of shake it off, and I tell her to, you know, I'm not interested. But she says this to me. She says, I'm going to put you in my hit list, which was very colorful for her to say that in a place like that. Yeah. She says, I'm going to put you in my prayer hit list, and Jesus is going to use you. And there was this boldness that came out of her. And I thought this lady's nuts. She has no clue of what she's doing here.

or who she's talking to. So for a year and six months, this lady goes into her intercession for my life. So intercession, she's praying for you for a year and six months. Did she visit you again? So she asked me if she could stop at my gate and myself, you know, to spend two to four minutes with me praying for me. And I told her, I said, you know, you can do whatever you want.

I'm there you know. I don't want nothing to do with your religion or whatever you're trying to sell me here. Yeah. And, but she was, she said, I just want to stop buying. and just pray for you and see how you're doing. That's all. And so she would. So once a month, she would stop in and pray for me and, you know, little conversation. We only had about two to four minutes together. Two to four minutes. Why so little? You know, it's high security. It's not where you could just pull a chair and, you know, have coffee with her. It's a whole different story in there.

And solitary at that time, the shoe program, you, the limit, of spending time with anybody was very small, very small window. Did that affect your mind? I mean, I can't imagine what it would be like to be so isolated for so long. Well, you know, for me, no. For others, yes, I remember, you know, there's nowhere you can hang yourself with in that cell. It was a cell with an 8 by 10, kind of like a size of a parking space. You had a toilet, a concrete slab to sleep on.

A concrete slab to sleep on. A little mattress. A very thin mattress. It's about two inches of mattress. A t-shirt, white boxers, and that's all you had on roll of toilet paper. And what do you do for 24 hours a day? For me, what I did is exercise, run in place, walk in place, jumping jacks, kind of stentics and stuff like that just to try to, you weren't allowed to have absolutely nothing.

No books, no nothing in there. See, that to me is the most dramatic thing that there's nothing to do, to look at, to read, that's heavy. Yeah, yeah, you can't. There's no. I mean, for me, that's a sentence to insanity, basically. I mean, most people, I think, would lose it in there. And can you get out of there for 30 minutes a day or what's the story? California gave you a one-year, a one-hour yard time.

But basically what they did is they came and extracted you from the cell and put you in a bigger cell with a handball, a little basketball hoop, and that was it. I mean, you had nothing else. And then you came back to that 8 by 10. So we saw a lot of, or heard rather, a lot of men that started talking to themselves. Of course. And some that wanted to end their life,

and what they would do is, and we all knew it. You know, there's all of us knew it. There's eight cells on the top, eight cells in the bottom. And we could hear when somebody just lost it. And what they would do is they would run from the end of the cell to the gate to metal, prison metal, head first in hopes to crack their head or their neck and end it there. We heard a lot of that in the shoe program. So this woman comes back every month, spends a few minutes with you. Is anything happening to you during this time?

Nothing until I end up encountering Christ in there on my own. You know, you lose track of time. There is no windows. There's no windows. There's no windows at all. The cell has nothing. You can't see nothing. This is hard, so hard for most people to process.

I'm amazed. We're going to be right back, folks. We have just gotten to that point in the story. Don't leave. We'll be right back. Every day, the parallel economy grows big. and bigger. It's powered by everyday Americans who are sick and tired of all the woke propaganda being jammed into every product they consume. Big mobile companies are no different. For years,

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We're just at that point, Casey, you said now, you're in solitary. I mean, you described solitary to me. There's versions of solitary. I mean, what you just described to me is like, hell, I cannot even believe. There's no window. There's nothing. You can't look at a book. Nothing.

I'm just fascinated that you were able to survive mentally in that situation. And, you know, for the record, everyone that was, in the shoe program belonged in the shoe program. We were guys that, you know, we would kill anybody at any given point. Orders were made that if you got in contact at any point while even in the shoe, any opportunity to go at it with a guard or to take the life of another. With a guard? With whoever.

In other words, the guards realize that you want to kill them? Oh, yeah. If you have the opportunity to go after a guard or after another inmate that is a different race, you were to do that. Those were orders. And what would happen to you if you killed a guard? I mean, let me ask you this. What's the upside? Why do you get an order like that? Well, it's just gang rules and it's prison politics and you've got to abide by them or if you don't, you'll end up getting killed yourself. I mean, that's just how it was. It didn't seem like there's an opportunity for anybody to kill you, though. No, because in the shoe it was very meticulous. Every movement was...

Okay. So you are extremely violent. You're in this situation. At what point does your life somehow change? Well, you know, you lose track of time and everything. And at this particular moment, I'm laying down on my bunk on this concrete slab. And I'm looking against my wall. my hands are behind my head, a normal day in solitary.

And I start to see what looks like a film on my wall. And before I even go there, the cell next to me was occupied by another inmate of a similar gang with me. He had been there for 10 years in solitary when I got there. And he ended up losing his mind from one day to the other and thought that there was actual duts in his cell. he completely lost it. He thought there were ducks in his cell. And I actually talk about that in the book. So here I am, and there's a movie being played on my wall. I see it. I'm awake. I'm not under the influence of any kind of drug.

I'm on my five, and this film is showing me my life being played back from when I was small. The first candy that I stole at a 7-Eleven, and it's an order. All the events are in order. So this is not in your mind. It looks like it's being projected on your wall. On my wall. Yeah, just like that. And then it would stop, and I would see a guy carrying a cross and crowds around him.

And I knew that whoever's carrying this cross, nobody liked them. And the guy carrying this cross kept looking at me. I can't see his face, but I know that whoever's carrying this cross is looking at me. No one had ever explained the Bible to me. I never had picked up a Bible before, never went to church, did not know, I knew zero of Christianity. So this is being played in front of me. Then it would stop and it would go into, you know, people that I stabbed, carjackings, home invasions that I did, that I partook of, all of that.

And it's all in order. And then it will go back to that scene of this guy carrying this cross. What are you thinking while this is happening? I'm thinking at the very moment, and I'm glad that you asked that, Because at that very moment, I'm thinking, you know, Piggy right here next to me thinks he's got ducks in this cell. And I'm watching a movie, so it's my turn. I'm just waiting for some popcorn kind of thing, you know, because this is not normal. No, it's not normal.

This is so crazy. And you're at this point, what? You're 20, 19, how old? Yeah, somewhere on there. And I'm watching this. And you've been sitting in this cell for like a year and a half? No, three years by now. Three years you've been in this cell day in and day out nothing going on suddenly you're watching a movie

In my cell what okay so you are this is so crazy I mean because some people talk about visions or whatever but you're like Somehow it's projected on your wall and you're watching this I mean there many people listening right now Who they have to conclude you're crazy and they're like whatever okay so keep going and so I'm watching it and and I would agree with who I was watching it right now. Because that's how I felt. Yeah. And then I see the nails coming into his hands, his feet, and the cross being raised. And here's what that moment that really changed my heart and my life at that time is that, you know, my birth name is Darwin. Casey is a nickname that I've lived for since childhood. And when the guy that's carrying this cross is hanging there, I could hear, I believe that God, when he wants to get your attention,

He comes eye level to that human being to where you could understand the gospel in however he's going to present the gospel to you. And for me, I knew murder. I knew the sounds of someone's life being taken out. And I see him and he says to me, Darwin, I did this for you. And I see his face just, you know, just drop. And I can hear the sound of his breath audibly in the cell coming out. And that's the moment that I actually got in the center of myself and started to ask for forgiveness. No one had overtilled me how to pray.

Nobody told you you need to ask for forgiveness. No. You just sort of, it just, you knew. It just, I knew it in my spirit, understanding it now. It just bear witness in my spirit that this is what I needed to do. So you came off your bed and you're, are you kneeling? What do you, what happens? I'm on the middle of the floor, cement floor.

And I'm weeping, uncontrinated. And I'm being so honest with God that I'm telling him, you know, God, I'm sorry for stabbing this guy and for stabbing that guy and for ordering the stabbing of this guy. We're going to come right back, folks. I know you won't go away, so I won't even tell you not to. Hey, folks, this here on the Texas show talking to Casey Diaz. Casey, I mean, this part of the story is so amazing. I mean, you know, I've heard a lot of miracle stories. This one kind of takes the cake.

I mean, the idea that you're watching a film of your life. And you don't even know who Jesus is. You don't know about the cross. And yet you're telling me that's what you're watching. Now, it sounds to me like the only way this could happen is that this woman has been praying for you. Because this is just an insane miracle. It is. You know, I had never wept like that.

I never, you know, you grow up in a hard life. there's no room to cry really I mean that's you just take it as it is but when Christ shows up in that and you encounter him and you see that someone has paid the price and I didn't understand all the details at that moment

I do now but at that moment I didn't know but I just knew in my heart something had changed there was a light that had came on and and I needed to do whatever I needed to do and shortly after that that moment I heard his voice again and again audibly.

And he says to me, go knock on your gate, which is my cell door, and ask for the chaplain. I didn't know what a chaplain was. And so I just- So you hear the voice of God saying, go knock on the gate and ask for the chaplain. You didn't know what a chaplain was? I didn't know what a chaplain was. So I walked over to my gate. I knock on it.

And, of course, there's a guard, two cells down walking. And so by the time I get up to go knock on my-exam. my gate, he's there. And I asked him, I said, I'm supposed to ask you for a chaplain in which he kind of looked puzzled. He says, are you pulling some, you know, use some colorful language? I said, I'm just supposed to ask you for a chaplain. And he said, are you serious? I said, yeah. So he comes back to me and opens a little cage there and hands me a little pencil about an inch and a half pencil and a paper to fill out. I fill it out and give it to him. And the next thing I know, later on that week I'm sitting with this chaplain and I explained to him in detail exactly

what happened in that cell. Now, when you say this happened in the cell and then you hear this voice, how many, was it the same day or several days? Several days later is when this happened. And what happened to you between that time? I mean, to have an experience like this, watching something on the wall and your whole life, I mean, it's so miraculous. And at some point, you must realize this was not, I'm not going insane. I mean, so what are you thinking? I have never felt so at peace and so free in a solitary confinement cell. I mean, when I share my story, I've had the opportunity.

I love parks and I love trees and I love waterfalls. And I've gotten my, I've had the chance to go and sit under a waterfall. and that's so peaceful. But nothing compares to the freedom that I experienced in that solitary cell that moment. It was just peace. Peace. And I knew that now I knew that it had to do with the peace that I had with God that I had, you know, come to repentance, even though I didn't understand what was taking place.

Yeah, you didn't understand anything. No. Okay, so then you sit down with this chaplain a few days later. Now, my question is, didn't they fear for the chaplain's life? I mean, you're so violent. How do you... I'm in restraints. You're in restraints. I'm in restraints.

And so he's sitting up probably about the same distance that we are right now. And I share the story of what had just took in place a few days ago. And I noticed that he starts to get really teary-eyed and his bottom lip starts to shake. And he's opening up his Bible. And he starts to read the crucifixion, him walking to Galgotha in the Holland Yards. and when he starts to read that, we both, I mean, we both broke. There was a lot of tears shed right in that moment because I knew that that's what I had seen. And to see it in a book, in a Bible, and I mean, nobody had ever told me that.

You know, Francis Proctor was just coming in there with just, you know, encouragement. I'm praying for you. You mean, this little black woman once a month for a few minutes, she didn't get to share. She didn't get to really tell me. This kind of stuff. Yeah. So this is the first you're hearing it, and you suddenly realize it's real. It's the Bible.

It's the Bible. It's there, you know. So he explains that to me. And I'm given permission to take back a Bible that he gives me. It was a little Gideon Bible. And so if I'm awake in that cell, I'm reading it. I'd read it and read it and read it. So you are allowed to take this into the cell?

They allowed it to. Yeah. Why? I don't know if he talked to the guards. It must have been because. I think so, yeah. But I was given permission to have that Bible. And so I'm reading it for hours.

And it's a King James Bible, by the way. That's not easy. Yeah, it's not easy. But I'm reading it. I don't understand it. I don't understand it at all until. And the thing is that he didn't tell me how to read it either. So I started from Genesis.

And so by the time I get to Acts, it's quite a wow. Wow. And that's when I started to see, while these guys, these ordinary men that God has used, and these are men that have similar stories. Not everybody's clean in this Bible. These are guys that have done horrendous things, and God has forgiven them. And so I have a moment with this Bible over and over again. Wow. So you've been in there three years up to this point, you said?

Yeah. So what happens now? So here comes this voice again. Really? And this voice again, and it's God's voice. And he says to me, and this voice of God is audibly again, and he says, when you get out of here, you're going to grab your home voice, your gang leaders, and you're going to let them know that you want nothing to do with this anymore, that you're now a Christian.

I was told by the gang coordinator and the warden that I would spend. my entire sentence in solitary that I would parole from there. So I thought, okay, well, when I parole, this is what I'm supposed to do. To my surprise, here comes the warden and the gang coordinator, along with other guards. And they're going to put me into mainline, into regular population. Which is a huge step at this point. Wow. And do you know why? I don't know why. To this day, I don't know why.

To this day, you don't know why. know why but I know that it was ordained by God I go out to the yard and I stand on this concrete picnic bench in the yard there's several gang leaders there with me and I tell them work for word what I had heard in the prison in the yard when we come back I want to hear this holy cow Casey Diaz is my guest the shop caller is the book stick around The book is The Shot Caller. And Casey, what you're saying to me now is so crazy. It's amazing.

So you tell me they released you suddenly into the regular prison population. You go out, you stand on a table, and you tell all these gangbangers around you what? I told them exactly what I had heard, that I didn't want any part of this anymore and that I was a Christian. And immediately, there was absolutely no words exchanged. They simply turned around and walked away. which I knew what that meant. You're dead? Yeah.

Really? You don't step down from that kind of status and nothing happened to you. So a hit is placed in my life from that moment on. Now, did you know that what happened before you said this? I knew that, yeah. You knew it. So what gave you the courage to get up there and do that? You know, I don't even look at it as courage.

I just followed instructions. That's how I see it. You hear God's voice and you just do it. it. Because you know it's God's voice. Because you know it's God's voice. And I wasn't thinking, you know, the consequences of anything like that. Yeah. I just didn't have to do it. So I did. And usually hits are done in the morning when the cell racks open. So that was a long night. And I knew that they wanted to get rid of there's a word that we call in there. It's called taking out the trash. That means when somebody goes bad or somebody turns, you take out the trash. They

send somebody to take out the trash. So I'm the trash at this point. So they send one of it. my very own to do the deed. It was a long night. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that, you know, you're going to get stabbed to death. You know that. So I prayed. I remember I had told God that I wouldn't put my hands on anybody anymore and that I was just going to, in my heart, I had decided not to even look at them so that they wouldn't feel guilty or anything like that. I just wanted to get it over with and done with. So I prayed throughout the night. I remember, in the morning, I had my Bible and I had it on my side. I sat in the corner of the bed of my bunk and here they come. I thought the first guy that came in, I thought, you know, there's got to be

more people coming in there with them. Now, wait a second. So you're saying in the morning, in general population, they open your doors? All the gates rack open, yeah. Okay. And you're able to go to Chowhaw. And okay. So at that moment, somebody comes into yourself. Yeah, with Shank and Henan and the Hohen and I remember him telling me, I hope you're right. And I'm thinking this is it, you know, here we go. So you can see the shank. Oh, I can see it, yeah. And I'm facing my wall.

It's so amazing in a way when we think about this stuff because I've never experienced anything like this, obviously. But the idea that you're in prison, but the guy can get a shank that he can, you know, that this stuff goes on. Oh, absolutely. There's no ability to stop it, it seems. So he says to you, I hope you're right. Yeah, and he says to me, because I can't do this.

Because I can't do this. He says this to you? I can't do this, yeah. And he becomes the first guy that I lead to the Lord. You knew this guy. Was he part of your gang? Yeah. He comes in there to kill you, and he says, I hope you're right because I can't do this.

What happens? I leave them to the Lord. You're right there. Yeah. Right there. And shortly after that, we went through some stuff for two years, something that another prison term is called Hard Candy. And that's when they want to just beat you to shreds. They don't want to kill you.

They just want to beat you to shreds almost to death. And little by little, I started to witness to other gang leaders in there. This is the end of our... hour one, we're going to continue our conversation. So anybody listening, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation, stay tuned, or you can go to YouTube, or you can go to metaxis talk.com, or I hope you get hour two, wherever you are. Metaxistalkystalk.com, you can get it there. We'll be right back. Hey there, folks. As you know, every now and again, I'm particularly ignorant of things economic. So we bring in our friend Charles Thorngren. He's the CEO and founder of Legacy

Precious Metals, Legacy Precious Metals, of course, refers to, oh, I don't know, gold and silver. So, Charles, welcome back. Thanks, sir. I'm glad to be back. Of course, whenever I have you on, I want to tell people to go to LegacyPMinvestments.com because the underlying theme of these conversations is if you want to play it safe with your money, you should be invested in some gold and or silver. But with regard to how we're doing in the economy right now,

how are we doing in the economy? I keep, I don't know if I've asked you this before, but I feel like the new normal is very bad. In other words, that we've had in the past a few years ago, we had a booming, amazing economy. And then COVID and the grievous, policies of the Biden administration have taken us to a very, very bad place. But people kind of act like it's the new normal, you know. And so where are we? How do you feel about the U.S. economy at this point?

It's an interesting question. And I think, you know, there's some confusion. We look at it, and those of us with common sense, it doesn't feel right. Doesn't feel like it's as good as it were being told. And then we have the liar and chief coming out and saying, everything's great, just like he said, along. Everything is great about everything. Yeah. So we look at that and we say, where is the truth? We turn to the Fed as one place to look. And, you know, we have massive inflation. That's never a good thing. That always hurts an economy. It hurts you. That's a fact. This is a fact. We have massive inflation. We know that we have massive inflation. We know that that's bad. So that's a huge part of the larger story. It's not like a

minor thing. That's the biggest part of the story. That means, you know, as a government, they're spending more and more money to maintain debt. That's never a good thing. You know, there's projections you see by the year 2030 if this administration keeps going and we know they have a short time left, but the damage is still potentially large that they could do. We could see us being officially bankrupt. We'd have a debt ratio of 130% of what our GDP is. that's never a good thing. You know, it's a scenario to where if you spend more than you make, you and I, we call that bankrupt. The government's doing it in the way now that's bigger than ever.

And we see this continuing as we see the Fed trying to fight inflation knowing they're causing more debt to come up and the management of that debt to be more expensive. Well, this is the kind of thing, you know, when I wrote my book on Bonhofer and I'm talking about Germany, in the 1920s, things can go out of control. Things can, you know, you can, money can become virtually worthless. You print more and more money. Sometimes I have to be honest, it seems to me that those in the current administration who seem to be anti-liberty, anti-America, it seems like they're trying to destroy our economy to make people more dependent on the government, just as happens in all of these socialistic states, that you just,

more and more people become dependent on the government because the free market is, it's not working. They basically are trying to make that happen. And sometimes I think that their policies are so draconian, so anti-everything that's good, that it really feels like they're trying to destroy the American economy and cause people to lean toward the government. Absolutely. Listen, with capitalism, you cannot maintain control of people. When people have the ability to go out and make their own fortune based on the work they put out there, those are people you cannot control. And that's the bottom line.

They need that control because the things they want to do don't make sense. You know, capital is really important. I know this, everyone wants to talk green now. the best way to have a green economy for the United States is to let the companies do it, not tell them how to do it. There's an old adage. Anytime you get the government involves, it's more expensive and less effective. So if green technology, this being that's out there and they have all of these new investment

parameters, it's an all green company, if they truly wanted that to happen, they'd let the corporations do the right thing because they would. they want to be profitable and that would make sense. If it was more profitable for them, these companies would do it. Right. So it's more and more and more government regulation, government regulation, crippling the free market, crippling freedom itself, and ultimately destroying everything.

Okay, well, the good news is that we can still do what we want to do with what money we have. which is one of the reasons you're a sponsor on this program, because you recommend and I recommend that people diversify into precious metals, gold, and silver. Why is that a good idea? It's a good idea under the best of signs, right? When everything is going well, you should be diversified. You hear it all the time.

Be diversified. Don't have all your eggs in one baskets. And that's in the best of time. But we're not in the best of times. This is the important thing to know. I won't say it's the worst of times. That's coming. Right now, we're in a position where we can see,

and if you look at the economics of everything, we will get much worse as an economy. Inflation is not going down. You know, you had the Fed skip a rate raise last month. That wasn't because they thought they had done a good job. That was because there was trouble in the banking sector, and we could not afford more banks to fail. So they gave them a month off.

But interest rates are going up again. Inflation's still going up. The job numbers come out. Jobs are not being cut. There's more jobs added. These are all things that are signifying the downturn is yet to come. So on today's news, where the jobs came out, you had the stock market come down.

This is what we're going to see, because we have a scenario where the Fed has told us for two years now. the interest rates will be elevated for a much longer period of time. If you do not protect your investments and diversify, you will lose money. Yeah, okay. Suppose it's. We're keeping it simple. Please go to legacy p.m.investments.com.

PM is precious metals. Legacy p.m.investments.com. this is something that you can do to prevent disaster. At least that's how I see it. Makes sense to me. LegacyPM investments.com gold and silver hold their value. Charles Thorngren, thank you. My pleasure.

Thank you.