How A Gang Leader Survived America's Worst Prison System

I was 23, man, when I went to prison. And I spent half of my life in prison. Man, when I tell you, it's Department of Corruption. I haven't seen guards open, sell doors to get people stabbed. They are working for the Department of Corrections, but they're actually working for the gangs. My first extortion was a guard. He was vice-lord, and he brought in like 14 duffel bags, a straight contraband. If you do that, bro, you're the business. You are the business. The state of Mississippi has one of the most violent, corrupt prison systems in America. Gang banging is rampant, and prison guards routinely set up inmates to be beaten and killed. Just ask Diaz Aguilar, who served 22 years there for a murder he didn't commit. Diaz is from Compton and grew up in foster care and was quickly jumped into gang life. While visiting relatives in Mississippi, he was involved in an altercation where somebody got killed. And although he wasn't the one who did the killing, he ended up taking the fall for it. This is how we survive the next two decades in the most brutal prison conditions in the country. Working hand in hand with the prison staff, Diaz ran a massive contraband smuggling ring that brought in weed, liquor, tobacco, and cell phones worth hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time. This feels like a story from a prison in Mexico, not the United States, but it's real, every word of it. Make sure to check out Diaz's memoir, Rose Cranz. The link to that will be in the description of this episode. Ladies and gentlemen, this one will make your palm sweat. It's Diaz Aguilar right here on the connect with Johnny Mitchell. What was coming home after 22 years in the worst prison conditions like? So, you know, I've been dying now, so like with PTSD and like, man, crazy. I didn't know how to operate a washing machine, you know, a dryer. I forgot how to drive. It was awkward because I haven't drove in over two decades, you know, and it was just like, it's definitely something you have to, you know, you can't just go ahead first. Man, you got to take one day out of time, like literally. You were diagnosed with PTSD from the stuff that you saw in there? Not only that, but now, you know, I've been stabbed, been shot in the head, you know, stuff like that, things I seen while I was in prison, you know, and it's, yeah, it's crazy, man. When I tell you, man, mental health is real, that's real. You know, as much as, you know, I can pretend to be normal or say, I don't have these certain issues, I'll be lying, you know, because at one point, I was a product of my environment. You know, and it's, man, it's real, man. You have people, like literally, that's really, really institutionalized and cannot bounce back, cannot, can't even function out here. That's what it do stuff, man, to go back because they have to be under those kind of environments to function. They can't make it out here, you know, and I've been around those type of people. Even right now, like at my job, there's people that's so institutionalized, you'd be like, and every day it's a blessing because my mind is not caught up like that. You know, I still have a way to readjust, you know, I have a strong support team, and I think that's what it comes to having that strong foundation. I remember being around cats like that, you know, not, I wouldn't like, was a friend with those dudes because I was short-timing, but I would hear them talk, and it was the scariest thing. Like you're so controlled, your mind is so institutionalized that you're like, I don't even know how I'm going to make it. Like we hear about guys getting out, and then the same day they got released, like just beating up the guard who was walking them to the bus to take them home just so they could go back. And sometimes they wouldn't even prosecute, because they knew what he was doing. So they wouldn't even give them a charge for that. They're like, nope, you got to go. I knew guys that did, man, 50 years for killing the cop, and they wanted to get him parole. He was already like 72 years old, you know what I'm saying, and he was like, man, where am I going? I don't have none to go home, too. All his family's dead, he's like, yeah, and he's already old. He's like, man, this is all I know. You know, and then, just get out and just spend one night with a hooker, dude. You'll be back, and you'll be back in society. So that's the last thing on a mind, because then after that, then what? Reality, man, you know, we live in a reality world, you know, I'm saying, like everything we do in there is reality. It's no way to escape unless you're doing drugs, you know, it was one guy, he was one of my vice-lower people, and his auntie actually was a captain and one in the units. And she used to take advantage of him, abuse him, shake him down, like really, really like mistreat him. And he told her, he said, the day I get out, I'ma kill you. And so the day he got out, they had a homecoming, like, you know, a party form, and she was there. He went upstairs and got a sawed off shot gun, came back and shot her, killed her on the spot. And now he got a life sentence. He said, I told you I was going to kill you. Yeah, it's somebody that's totally mentally ill from the conditions they've been, and just untreated. Why else would they allow themselves to do that? You know? Top of that, like, because then they only gave me like 75 dollars. That was your gate money? Yeah, that was my gate money out of all that time. They didn't give me my social security, my birth certificate, because I wasn't a resident of Mississippi. So he said, I had to get it on my own, and they just go, you free to go now, you know? But good thing about it though, that, you know, God always provided for me, and always gave me a strong support team. You know, I always would have to include him, because if it weren't for him, I'd probably still be in there, you know, or my mind would be gone. You did 22 years in Mississippi state prison. And the reason that is so crazy is because the media doesn't talk about it, but the conditions in the deep South prisons are like something you'd find in a third world country. Man, 2005, they just stopped picking cotton in 2005. They were still doing it while I was there. You had people man in the cotton fields, like we in slavery with the guards on horseback, with the shotguns. And you, you know, they called the long line and you out there, you picking cotton all day, you know, and they didn't ban that until 2005, you know? And the killings, even to this day, I think are rampant, like way higher than the national average. And this, and this, a lot of the gangs, it's the gang stuff, you know, stabbing, you know, like, man, when I tell you this department of corruption, it is that. So you think it's the staff that's allowing this rioting and this crazy, most definitely because you have a lot of the family members, you from this particular area where the prison is at, your family works there, it might be, you might be gangsta disciple. Or your family automatically inherits that, you know what I'm saying, because of you, you know, you have a influence, you know, they involved, you know, man, I haven't seen guards open cell doors to get people stabbed because they, they forget that they are working for the department of corrections, but they're actually working for the gangs. Yeah, I think I read, it was either Alabama or Mississippi, the average annual salary for a prison guard is like $25,000. Yeah. So they're, they're poor, just like the inmates. Man, we used to give a, a lieutenant, it was a lieutenant in my unit, man. I used to pay her, man, like $5,000, just to bring a contraband in, but we can make over $30,000, $40,000, like a 16 hours water bottle, we'll fill it up with liquor. And the liquor itself is bottom shelf for $2, and what charge is $100. All right. You see what I'm saying? I'm gonna have 30 bottles, yeah, I'm gonna have 30 bottles and then here it is, a pound of tobacco, might cost $13, $17 in a tobacco store, but I might treat it just like it's [BLANK_AUDIO] you know I can make quarters right and make over a man a thousand two thousand dollars off of it for someone only costs less than twenty dollars. And how much do you got to pay somebody to bring it in. So it'll be a part of a package deal right because I'm not going to just get that in right so it's like I have the plug I got the guard but you can get the product so how are we going to do this we're going to split everything down the middle. You get ten pounds of tobacco I get five you keep five you you get four pounds of marijuana I might get one I let you keep three you know I'm saying but we're going to go half on paying this guard but I do all the negotiated but he or she don't know nothing about you. One time it was a guard he was he was a vice-lord the guard was he was a vice-lord and he brought in like fourteen duffel bags a straight contraband duffel bags and every day I have to walk by one guard every time I made a trip could we put it in the cylinder in a visitation room right and every time I passed the guard the turn key was five hundred dollars every time. It just to pass him and not get searched by him that's five hundred bucks yeah it's literally like the cartel sending a load of dope through the the border and the guard just the border guard just waves him through and so what we did was because the unit I was in the lieutenant that I had it was only people under the five point store under the people's nation that have full access because we had jobs where we can roam all day all night you know and my job might be to go in and clean up the visitation room for the weekend for visitation. So you had this one particular guard that was part of the plate right I don't go speak to her I don't go you know other than if I'm going to clean up so I have my little broom on my bucket my mop my little cleaning cart and I get only what I'm supposed to be getting right and I put everything inside the cleaning cart and throw the trash bags on top I always will keep trash in it because everything is in the bottom and throw the trash bags on top or I might keep a mop bucket a dirty water where you can't see wrap it up real good and waterproof bags put it in a mop bucket and throw the mop on top and just bring it in you not gonna look and you know I do that she's already aware was going on but I do it because when I come out I don't know who will who might be coming you see what I'm saying a captain lieutenant might be coming in to collect paperwork and I don't want to get caught you know trying to go through and they like let me check the cart you see what I'm saying I'm just cleaning up you know and so for me to go and come and leave is $500 you know but that's well worth it yeah yeah your margins that's better than street money yeah you got people actually paying card notes man paying mortgages and stuff like that well if the average annual salaries 25,000 bucks and you give a guard five G's in one shot to bring in a bunch of liquor I just made a month two months salary but it the so we'll have a system set up to where we might do it once or twice a month right so $5,000 to us in prison is like 50,000 to us you see what I'm saying but we know what we're getting in and man we had like the maintenance workers right on my unit and it was a door that goes into the HVAC the the AC unit right and it's certain tools you need to actually go in the unit that they don't ever go in and we had that the access and we just put everything inside the AC unit but you know stuff that we're gonna keep on the zone we'll put it in there and we have access to the door because we got a key made smooth yeah it was it was so that's just like you guys are operating the way that the Mexican mafia used to have the prisons in California unlock in the 70s this is how you guys are moving in the modern era yeah it's so wild money talks money talks bullshit walks man all day like what I tell you man like all the way from the commissioner he got locked up on federal charges for kickbacks explain that so I don't know if I can mention his name right but the commissioner at this particular time you know we had like these private prisons and whatever they were doing I don't just know the whole entire inside school I just know that he got locked up doing federal time right now for kickbacks maybe it's like part of the Ponzi scheme probably companies companies it like contract contractors vendors in the prison whether it's selling food to the prison or selling all of the things utensils toilet paper soap whatever it is that's all supplied by private companies yeah and they were probably paying him to get the contracts and uh and it might just say if there if it's roofing and they're not actually roofing but doing real real real real real cheap labor and hey look I'm gonna give you this this is a kickback I'm gonna give you so much like if you give me 50,000 I'm gonna give you 25,000 back you know for you know I'm scheming mm-hmm however however that system works yeah right and he got caught up and man he was doing it for years he bought Mercedes-Benz's bought a beach house you know he had millions saved up and they caught up with him and he took the fall and I was the commissioner of prisons in Mississippi yeah and then we had uh the chief of security what she was doing was she'll have inmates right in different units once a month the case managers will send out uh your account notice like how much money you have in your account every month you know if you if you have insufficient funds or if you have funds on your account and it always have your name date of birth and your social security so when it gets close to tax season she'll have these certain individuals getting as many as these envelopes as possible guys who got life sentences they don't care nothing about the the information they ain't gonna never use it guys who doing 30 40 50 years she'll get it from those guys not the ones that's going home soon but the ones who ain't never going home and she'll get that information they text you know they so all you need is your name your social and your date of birth right and she'll get that and she'll fill out these W-2 forms with their name they're already locked up ain't nobody going to be checking and she'll begin money off of and then and she'll give the inmates you know some money right and then she start getting the big head then want to get the money out and one of them told on her why wouldn't you you know so yeah you got nothing to lose and all she had to do was just get just pay them pay them guys so from top to bottom corruption yeah corruption everybody's making money yeah everybody always says that nothing is ever really free and look you're kind of right someone is paying but here's the actual deal with free cash instead of brands throwing millions at annoying ads that you just scroll right past they use that money to pay you directly to try their apps and play their games now let's keep it a hundred this is not a get rich quick scheme this is not about replacing your day job but if you're already sitting on your phone playing games or on the bus or at home you might as well get paid for it the platform is super legit over 70 million users 300 million dollars paid out and they have a 4.6 star rating on trust pilot with over 270,000 reviews all you do is download the app pick an offer for example you can get paid just for reaching new board levels in monopoly go and make sure you enable app tracking that's crucial so free cash contract your progress and send you your rewards once you hit the minimum 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With the throwback typewriters, you know, certain types of stencils you can use to manipulate the money orders, turn 50 dollar money orders into 500 and turn 500 money orders into 50,000 and they were taking the 100 dollar money orders and turning them into a thousand and they were getting cash. And yo, the mattress you sleeping on probably full of money, full of money. That's what made parchment notorious at the time and that's why the government started cracking down on money orders because of them, the money order boards. So you guys are actually trading for cash dollars inside the prison. It's not like people like like you come visit me, you come visit me, bring me a money order or I'll send you a money order in the mail for your commissary, right? And some kind of way they have the money order and they'll change their out of zero or they change it from 100 to a thousand, you know, they were finding ways to beat the system. And then once they got jammed up on that, they went from rush cards to green dots to pay pals, stuff like that. Like, you just go to Walmart, Kroger's and get a green dot card, put 25 dollars on it or you gotta do scratch it off and just give me the numbers. It's just like it's cash and I get it and load it to my rush card, you know, yeah. So those dudes in there are ballin. Oh yeah, most definitely. And it sounds like it's the black gangs in Mississippi that are really got it in a smash. Well, you know, you have the white gangs to some city royals. What are they called? Simon city royals. Okay. It's a gang that's originated from Chicago. And now they stronghold basically is in Mississippi. Like, Baloxie, God, Port, you know, like the Gulf area of Mississippi. And you know, they they they heavy. They are heavy crackers. Yeah, you know, and dudes is crackers. But you know, because there's so much money, right? Yeah, as long as it's supply and demand and man, you can come out man, you know, make it killing, you know, 2013. I had one of my own girls run off from like $35,000. I had it all on rush cards, green dots, you know, it's only so much you could put on each card. And I try to max it out. And I might have 10, 12, 13 cards. And it went pretty good, because the only thing I was doing was like selling commissary, selling that K2. We call it spice. Mm-hmm. Selling weed, selling tobacco. And she ran off. Well, like with $35,000. Yep, 2013. She were ballin. 35G's in a Mississippi prison. That's you might as well have half a million dollars. And then I was in a cell phone program. So a cell phone program is, uh, if you get caught with a cell phone, you go in this program for like a year, but you can't get no type of write-ups. And we had a captain, right, that would bring, he was a gangster disciple. You had a captain that would bring in duffel bags, a contraband for us. We're in a cell phone program. We had more cell phones, man, anybody in a system. That's how we got the, uh, uh, tablets, you know, we faced time. In 2013, my first time face time in where anybody, you know, I never, it was, it was unheard of to me, you know. So were you guys, and when you would get the cell phones in, would you rent them out, or would you just keep them for yourself? Like how did that? You can make a lot of money if you got a cell phone. So if you want to talk to your family, I let you use the phone for free a couple of times, so you can set up a payment. You give me a $25 card or whatever, or just pay the phone bill, and I work something out with you, give you an hour a day, you know, and my bill lasted 30 days. So we'll go to Walmart, we'll get the Walmart phones and pay as you go, right? We would never get a contract phone, because we're not supposed to have. So we'll pay, we'll pay as you go. And when you don't pay the bill out for 30 days, it cuts off compared to a contract. And, uh, man, I might give you a couple of weeks, you know, I might give you 30 days depending on who you are. You know, if you're a good paid person, I'm gonna lock you in, you know, like if you want to hold it that night, I'm not going, your time, I'm not going to hold that time against you, right? I'm like, all right, go ahead, especially if you somebody, you know, that I deal with on a constant basis, and we cool. So you basically become like the cell phone carrier, like you got to pay to keep this line going. But everybody's doing it. It's not, you know, no one particular gang, you know, we all have cell phones. And these are smartphone, I mean, your FaceTime, these are not little burn or phones. So you can't keyster those in. So you got to have the guards. So I think the first time wherever got cell phones in was in 2004. And that's technology changed with the phones. It changed in the system. You know, and I mean, we're not going to the stores to get them. The guards are, you know, and now right now in the US, you can't go to Walmart and buy a bundle of phones. You can't, we're the reasons why you can't do that. You know, I'm saying not the brag about it, but you know, these are the reasons why for people who don't know, it's the people in prison, you know, I'm saying who made it, who put stipulations on why you can't go buy three or four phones. Because your people were just buying. By the bulk. Yeah. Just buying the whole shelf. Yeah. And then like one phone might cost you a hundred dollars in Walmart. We'll put a five hundred dollar price on it, right? The charger don't come with it. You got to buy the charger separate. And we'll charge your extra two hundred dollars for the charger. So now you paying seven hundred dollars. So yeah, it's more money. I mean, you kind of get why people get comfortable in there where you can make so much money and live way more affluent than you could on the streets where you got to go get a job and you know, go back to the game selling crack, you get caught. So there's just way more money in prison than there is in the streets, especially in Mississippi. Yeah. So then they come out with a law because a lot of people started abusing. They phone privileges, right? So to speak and making gang hits. Well, there was a time we'll be on a conference call with the shot callers from the gangs in Chicago. Like literally with the with the chiefs on the phone, you know, that's why we were so plugged in with Chicago. You know, like we making we making calls, you know, I will go pay them a visit this and that, you know, and people started abusing that, right? It wasn't just in Mississippi. It started with the first ones in the system of all department of corrections to start having cell phones, then South Carolina. I don't know probably between Texas and California. But with Mississippi, were the first ones to start having cell phones. And guys started abusing them, started having gang fights over these phones. People started taking people phones. People started getting stabbed in the head. I would I wouldn't this a guy in 2008 get stabbed in the head, damn their losses life because he's texting another man's wife, sending her new pictures and this and that like she's not going to tell her husband. Yeah. And went up there and stabbed them in the head. You know, so they come out with a law law, think it was like maybe 2012 maybe or it might have been 15. And if you get caught with any type of cell phone device or any accessories, well, there's blue tooth, SIM card charger, the block of the charger or anything like that that's connect you to a phone. It'll carry anywhere between three to 15 years. And that's in Mississippi. Yeah. And the worst thing you do is catch a charge in the prison system. Because now in 10 times, you're already two strikes. So by catching another charge in the system is a felony. So that would be your third strike. So automatically you'll, you'll, if not get a life sentence, but you'll get the max on whatever that charge is. So if getting caught with a cell phone is the 15 years is the max, you'll get that 15 years. And I know a guy who got 15 years. And 2018, I actually, I took a gamble with my own freedom knowing that within a couple more years I was getting out and uh because I knew about the law I went and got my uh my associate's degree online with a cell phone even though they told me that I lied to the school and told them that my laptop because I had to signed it electronically and we're not you know uh computer savvy or phone savvy or smart savvy to the point where we knew certain thing we were learning that we went right so I had to sign off on it as long as I didn't have a drug charge I can get financial aid so I was getting my uh my uh associate's degree in business and management right and I had to sign off on it and I was like man it's not working it's not working I'm like they said well what kind of computer you have the only thing I can remember is a Dell you know say I said I have a Dell computer and it's not working you know and they were like well what kind of process or something like a man I don't know I just bought it I don't know anything about any of that and somebody said man poli's coming and I dropped my phone and when I dropped it it turned to the side the long like the long way and my thumb hit it and when my thumb hit it it left a black mark like a dot and I look and I signed my name I pushed the screen up and it says submit and I submitted right and they say uh congratulations uh mr. Aguilar you know you've been uh accepted into the school you know blah blah blah school starts such a such a date I was like you kidding me and so I did my my research but along as the phone is compatible for chrome or Firefox you can do online classes on your cell phone on your smartphone so you got a legal associate's degree in business illegally yes off a phone see imagine if they just had programs for inmates that could you could take a degree online from prison instead of having to risk 15 years on a phone and in the time the guards were coming in you know I had to throw my phone and a couple times you know I lost my phone I had to pay you know but so happens one of my vice-little brothers the one with the 14 duffel bags it was one of his homeboys from his neighborhood that was a correction officer bringing a stuff in and he was just like huh you go he just throw me a phone so even with these laws to try to crack down all this stuff if you got enough juice in there it's not going to affect you because the guards are working with you yeah yeah because that's the only way we'll be able to get it in because one thing about it you know as long as you got bills right money will move you the only way money won't move you is if you already born into money you know and and some people say man everyone's has a price and they do and some type of shape form of fashion you have a price of course you know uh so your name's Diaz Aguilar Aguilar yeah you Spanish I'm Puerto Rican so you're Puerto Rican but yeah but you can't fool an LA motherfucker I hear the Compton in your voice yeah so you're a Puerto Rican who grew up in Compton bang vice-lord which is a Chicago gang and did two decades in Mississippi how I have so many questions how tell us about Compton growing up and how you ended up in Mississippi growing up I mean I've always been in the streets right because I didn't really have no guidance I didn't have a father figure it was just my mother she was so strong out at times you know to the point where I'm like I'm in the streets uh being in group homes foster care uh the typical stuff growing up in LA under those type of circumstances you know uh always been around gangs always had a lot of respect from gangs you know uh not saying I'm the toughest or the baddest person I always looked at a man because I respect people you know I respect your mind I respect you know what you believe in that what you believe in that what you believe in who am I to say anything different all right oh but I always leaned to the red side to the red bandana because you know I guess one of my best friends got killed by some crips and he was he was in a banger he was one of those types of people he was blessed with a talent to play any sport he perfected and we was like we was young like maybe 16 you know and they killed them shot him in the head you know and so I wanted to be a part of something because it's the story never now it never differs from anyone in else's story just want to be accepted yeah just want to claim something you know because you're not getting it from home that was the story back then that's what everyone would would say you know why did you join a game to be accepted you know I'm saying to uh have brothers around me you know support not getting that at home you know it's just the mentality and uh so I always got love from from even when I moved over on uh green leaf from one more time over the body by the crips like uh park village which is a Samoan game they hate essays a lot of the uh the crib gangs don't like essays but because I look his spanish they're like man what's what's up with you you know I'm saying but when they start being around me you know I got accepted right but I never like I couldn't tell them guys man on vise lord they're like man what the hell is that they didn't know anything about that they only knew man pa rule com the crib you know I'm saying they feel like man you trying to bring something new you know so of course they'll try to like like do some harm to you so I always kept it on the low you know what I'm saying but I never banged it in my in the neighborhoods now if I go to the pa rule side because every time I ditch school from Compton High right or when I was going to middle school I go over to the uh pa rule neighborhoods uh camp another park looters park Gonzalez park you know I go there man when my people wet that while I feel comfortable with you know because of my heart you know I'm not in Chicago so I look at these people like we in Chicago tactically in my mind you know so I always rep the rare bandana and you have family in Chicago yeah and that's how you're connected to vise lords I see you got the five point star yeah playboy bunny and then you got the what does that folk nation what on your neck? oh no now if I'm bicep it won't be no folk nation all right so they're they're at odds yeah so that's the op so I'm not gonna say op right because for one to understand what opposition means and that's what the word derives from opposition that means you opposing me right how am I how are you opposing me and we still going through the same struggles we have the same type of uh adversary which is the police and the government you know things like that I will always correct people when they use that type of terminology even in prison you know I was just trying to sound cool oh yeah no I'm just saying I mean you know because a lot of people don't know why they saying it you know even in prison people would be like uh or my opposition how am I opposing you from growing am I stopping you from growing no I'm not I'm in the same situation as you it's the police you know that's opposing us that is our opposition right you see what I'm saying well you your best friend got killed by a rival gang so okay even though he wasn't in the lifestyle right and I mean yeah in a sense yes you right okay but that comes with the territory though you know you're always gonna have casualties award you see what I'm saying uh this certain things that come with the lifestyle you know anybody you know if you come from a crib neighborhood and here it is you walking through a blood neighborhood but you just came from that way they're not going to sit down and ask you 21 questions they go you guilty by association and some of the time that's what it is you know it's a lot of people that grow up in the neighborhoods and they guilty by association get caught up in gang culture simply because of the areas they live in not because they are gang members sure you know in and sometimes those be the reasons, you know, but you have to understand and decipher what the process and what to accept for what it is, 'cause you're always gonna have casualties award because a lot of people are guilty by association. - So how do you go from South Central or Compton to Mississippi by way of the vice lords? - Okay, so the family that adopted me when I was living in Compton, they were from Mississippi. And every summer, they would go to Mississippi and to Meridian, Mississippi. And the last time we went, you know, I didn't come back. You know, they say you go on vacation and you leave on probation. And yeah, and that's how it really happened. - How old were you? - Oh, like 23. - Okay. - Had you done time back in Cali before that? - No, no. - Okay. - I mean, I've been in the system for as group homes. Stuff like that, you know, if anyone's like familiar, like with McClaren Hall, McClaren Hall was one big, like youth authority, but not for lockup, but it's a waiting place for you, you know, until you can get accepted into different group homes or to foster care. It's a waiting, it's a processing place, into the system. - Okay. - But not like being locked up in the system. - But you never done real time? - No, I never. - Were you in the streets, you know, hustling, gang banging before you got to Mississippi? - Yeah, yeah. - Is that when you got shot? - Yeah, well, so this after I left California, when I got shot in the head, I was like, it was on my 21st birthday, February 5th, 1996. Yeah, like what happened? - The bullet like grazed the back of my head? - Where were you? - In Virginia, trying to buy some drugs, hit a lick, trying to use the money off the lick to buy this, to try to flick my money, and one of the guys that I knew, he was the only one that knew, 'cause I was trying to go through him to get what I needed. You know, it was some drugs that I was trying to flip, you know, and shot me and took the money. And when I woke up, you know, here it is, I got detectives asking me questions, and I'm like, man, now it was a car jacket, try to take my car. You know, when the money was never brought up, either they had it, or he took it. And if the police had the money, then while they never said anything, you know, so it just gave me one conclusion, okay, you got it. All right, that was up. - Yeah, that's, it kept it solid though. - Who? - You? - Oh yeah, I mean, because, see, one thing I realized, when you, or in that type of lifestyle, these are the things that come with it, right? So you have to understand and know what you're signing up for. When you join a gang, you taking the risk of losing your life or going to prison, 'cause it's gonna be somebody, man, that don't like you because this is what you all, you know? And once you understand that, you know, then you'd be like, okay, it is what it is, you know? And some people can't handle the pressure. That's why they tell stuff, you know, because they haven't truly accepted the stuff that comes with it. Have you out there hustling, you high sign, and you showing off, somebody's gonna rob you because you say, hey, I'm a target, look at me, you know? And when somebody rob you, you can't go to the police. You already doing something you ain't got no business doing. So what you're gonna do, you're gonna accept it for what it is or you're gonna get some revenge, you know? - So it should be, I was locked up with a lot of cats who were like, I robbed a drug dealer and they called the cops on me. I didn't even know you could do that. - Yeah, so, you know, once you understand the stuff that comes with being in that lifestyle, then that's when you got some that could, that would keep it solid, keep it real, 'cause they know just, it comes with it. So just accept it when it comes to you, you know? Because you still follow under that spectrum because you live in that life. So when I bring it to you, just like you brought it to the next person, it comes with it, you know? - So you were selling drugs. It's trying to, I got in, God, I was fast, you know? I wasn't always a drug dealer, you know? I'm not going to even say that I was a drug dealer. I was trying to get my feet in it, but that didn't work. 'Cause I presented an opportunity for someone that I knew, that wasn't expecting, he saw a way, 'cause that's part of the game. - So when you got to Mississippi, you're 23, why did you stay? - I don't know, I guess because the girls at the time, you know, they were fascinated. They haven't seen no one like me. - The LA. - Yeah, the LA mentality, you know what I'm saying? It's different, you know? The whole conversation, you know, we talk fly. You know, people from LA, you know, we say what we mean and we mean what we say. And I was just like, well, the people that I moved out here with, live here already. So, you know, what else is out there in LA for me? - It's wide open there too for a guy from LA. It's easy to go to a small town in Mississippi and open up shop or get busy, whatever you do. - Yeah, I kinda like, and then come to find out that there were vice-lords. - Yeah, so explain the connection between Chicago and the deep south Mississippi and the gang diaspora that goes back and forth between those two places. This is really interesting. So, I guess it goes back to slavery, you know, when the slaves were actually became free, they all migrated to the north. And the north at that time would be like places like Chicago, Illinois, St. Louis, Missouri, Detroit, Detroit, you know, places like that. And then later on, when you find out, then a lot of your family is from those places. Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, and then the people that founded these street organizations, you know, actually came from the south. You know, they may not was born in the south, but their parents moved and they were born in Illinois, right? But they still had strong ties to the south. That's why in places like Mississippi, you know, it's a real strong center for these street organizations because they, during the summer, they'll migrate down to the south, you know, for the summer. And here it is, they passing it on. Just like the Crips and Bloods did, man, throughout the country, you know, it was a pandemic, you know, and they brought some new, it stayed, it spread. But you say the leaders of the vice-lords, the headquarters is still Chicago. - Yeah, most definitely. - But they're just controlling and getting money out of places like Mississippi. - Oh, well, because of the infrastructure, because it's based on the structure, right? And you have people that were migrate, you know, just like even if it was drug traffic, you know, you drop a stuff off here, over there, you know, you got people with that orchestrating, they're running it for you, you know, just no different than the gangs. You know, Mississippi is definitely a stronghold for places like for the vice-lords, for the gangs of the cypals, black disciples. You know, like, you name it, I practically met every gang from Chicago in Mississippi. - Wow, that's wild. - Yep. Today's episode is brought to you by Shopify. Shopify is the world's number one e-commerce platform. It's what we at the Connect use when we have merch to sell and it's what most businesses prefer. If you've just started a business, the last thing you need to think about is all of the tiny little logistics. Shopify can do it all for you on one convenient platform. Shopify is the platform for record breaking, reliable holiday season at every stage. 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He happened to just get out of jail for domestic violence, abuse and hurt. So we all over there, we chillin', even the chief of police son was with me. And he's vice-lord, right? But the guy that was dating the girl, he was in vice-lord, but he was a wanna be. You know, he was claiming vice-lord, but he wasn't officially vice-lord. We just tolerated because there was somebody we was hanging with. And her ex-husband was a part of another gang set and his friends were part of another gang set. So he was feeling some type of weight of the fact that I knew these guys, right? So I go outside to go get some cigarettes. I used to smoke cigarettes then at this time. And this happened in '99. I stopped smoking cigarettes in 2001, right? And I go outside to get some new ports as I was getting in the car to get the new ports to come back out of the car from the driver's side. Two guys jumped on me, like, I wasn't expecting that because I knew them, right? So it went from whatever that guy told them, but they knew I was vice-lord and they knew the other guy that was in there was vice-lord. The other partner, he'll only claim vice-lord around us, but he'll never like showcase it, you know, to other people 'cause he knew he wasn't vice-lord. We let him kick his hat a song way, wear some colors, whatever. And next I know, I know from maybe good 10, 15 minutes strong, we fighting, you know, and the elements of prize is real. When you're not expecting that, you know, somebody snatch you out the car and then here it is, you know, you get a feet and hands put on you, you know. And next time I know somebody in the house gets stabbed. Even in my discovery, it was witnesses that made statements telling the detectives that was a me. - The person that ended up dying? - Yeah. - The witnesses from across the street that can look in the house, see the whole entire thing take place. Even the guys that I was fighting got on the witness stand and testified that it wasn't him, 'cause we were fighting him outside. How can he be here and there at the same time, right? So, no fingerprints was on the murder weapon. They found it in the sink, right? The eyewitnesses from across the street saying that it wasn't me, right? That they saw the girl running the house, stabbed him, right? 'Cause her boyfriend and her ex-husband were fighting, so I guess he was getting the best of the boyfriend, right? And the eyewitnesses said that she ran in the house, stabbed him. The guys I was fighting, testified and said that it wasn't me, 'cause we was outside fighting. Later on, even the kids testified and said that it wasn't me. - And they still tried to still convict me. They had the head prosecutor and it wasn't even a high profile case. So everyone was trying to figure out why was the head DA doing my case? And then the chief of police, his son told his dad everything that happened and I called to talk to him, they were supposed to help me. And I think it was like some weeks later, before he even went to trial, he resigned. - He stepped down. - So what was the charge? Was manslaughter? - Manslaughter. - Well, at the time, because they really didn't know, the stipulations on everything. Firstly, they tried to hit me with murder, right? Like murder. They hit me with murder on my side. Like my fingerprints, how y'all gonna say is me? You know, plus I didn't have a good lawyer out of public defender. - What town in Mississippi? - Meridian. - Meridian, Mississippi. Yeah, that's a place where you can get lynched. - So it goes back to, when I earlier, when I was explaining to you about the three civil right workers, right? Meridian has a cleaner, called Imperial cleaners, right? I don't know if it's still there now. I don't know, but the sheriff that was involved in those three civil right workers was a clans member. And he was the sheriff in Meridian. So Meridian had deep, deep ties in clan history. - Right. - You know, the clan was very active in Meridian. - Right. - You were talking about the three civil rights workers back in the '60s that were murdered for trying to. - Yeah, established voting rights. You know, freedom, the freedom writers, yeah. And where they got killed, that was like 15, 20 minutes of the role for Meridian. - And that was organized, that hit was ordered by the then sheriff. - Well, he helped in it, because I was actually in the cell next to the guy, Sam Bowers, that actually green lighted the hit on the three civil right workers. He was the Imperial Grand Wizard, yeah. - So this is clan racism, all the worst parts about what we think about the deep south, that's Meridian. That's the culture. - Yeah, and certain nights around the reservoir, don't get caught at nighttime in the reservoir in Meridian. - Why? - Because the clans have their meetings. - And even to this day. - I don't know to this day, right? I know back then, right? The canning pay me to step foot in Meridian right now. I can't, you know. So nobody else was charged. The woman wasn't? - No. - No one got on the witness stand and testified that said it was me, nobody. - So what evidence, what did they have? What was the DA saying? - Police. - Police. - Saying what, that they saw you. - The police said it was me, that the evidence was me. - But how, if they don't have a murder weapon, they don't have a print on a murder weapon. - They said they're outside. They asked me what I had on, right? And I told them what I had on. So they found a hoodie, appear to be blood, but even red paint when it dries up, it can look like blood. So they never, and then they said that I was standing in the pool of blood, right? So if I stand, stab somebody, and I remember, I had some all white Reebok classics on my feet, and the all white Reebok classics, they are white, no blood and anything on my sneakers. I had those sneakers on, from the time I got arrested, until I went to processing, and ranking county into the system of MDOC, and there was no drops of blood and anything on my sneakers. They didn't receive no type of clothing from me, off of me, my fingerprints, or anything like that. - So there was no DNA evidence. - No. - None. - So they said there was a hoodie inside by the knife, by the body? - No, it was in the car or something like that, and they said it belonged to me. One of the guys that was with me said that it was mine. - And they said, okay, if there's blood on it. - There's blood on the hoodie that that must be related to the guy who stabbed the deceased person. - Yeah. - And they said, let's say if it was my hoodie, and I stabbed somebody, and there's blood on the hoodie, why there's no one on my sneakers? I got all white sneakers on. - Yeah, it's not a good defense, no offense. Like, you could kill people in prison and don't get any blood on their shoes, but-- - But if I'm standing in a pool of blood, why there's no footprints leaving, or anything like that, like there was no blood on me. - Were there any bloody footprints leaving the house, or at all? - At all. - Huh. - And they found a knife in the sink. - Did your lawyer call up the woman to the stand? - Man, like, I remember this, like it was yesterday. Nobody. - The DA did, but none of them even said that it was me. And why would you disclose my gang affiliation? What my gang affiliation have to do with anything? - He's just trying to get a conviction. He's trying to say, hey, look, he's a gang banger. Must have been him. He's just playing off prejudice at the end and then here it is The chief of police he resigned. He stepped down after that your case. Oh, no, I'm sorry. No prior prior to your case. Yeah And it was a active white chief of police Did you was it a jury trial? Yeah? Yeah, one black person Yeah, so I Had federal prosecutors and judges Come to the to the prison to talk to me. I try to do motions to get back in court and They said man, there's no way we were to convict you. You came through our court our courthouse. He said there's no way No way, he said Well, what recourse do you have if you have an unfair trial on a state level? Obviously you appeal it through all the different levels of the state court, but You can appeal it on a federal level. I believe right? Yeah, but only if if if you within the 200 or something days 257 275 there's so many days you have to be within Mm-hmm, and buy the courts prolonging it holding your stuff. Don't want to give a I answer to your motion like they'll just wait wait wait to the deadline Send it back and by the time you even publish it or or try to get it entered in the courts Your time they're running out And they were finding ways to do that and then but if you don't have the money to even give proper representation It's even hard too. Yeah, you know, and that was my case at the time. Yeah, you know, so then I was like man I'm just gonna die here. It is what it is. What was your what was your sentence? 22. I'll see you the day for that. Yeah, day for day mandatory Did you meet other cats in there like you that were sitting there for crimes? They didn't commit? I mean, well you know Everybody everybody say that. Yeah, everybody's innocent. You know what I'm saying, but only your Your evidence was determined that yeah, you know, I'm saying I don't a word of mouth Mm-hmm, and my evidence was saying that you know, and I was just like man and Like everybody turn they back on me everybody Everybody Everybody up and turn they back on me So it was even a time I think it was like Christmas even things give him I Called the house access got a phone. Mm-hmm, and you know, just check on everyone man because it's the time of the year, man You know you were still human at the end of the day, right, and they were like Man, don't nobody live here by that name. We don't know you hung the phone up on me Yeah, so you know like you find out Who your family is find out who your friends are you find out Hope it's a learning process. Mm-hmm, you know, and You become hardened because the only thing around you is kind of creating still now, so you become one You know your your mind set starts starts to change, you know, you start feeling Emotionless, right you start feeling. I don't care about your feelings, you know, shit. I don't buy care about mine You know, so then you start becoming a product of your environment you become savage You know And that's what it was It's the only way to survive and it was like man Yeah, like like my prison jacket my prison file. I was laid where I was combative offender Like I was strike inmates and staff Like I was stab you. We don't go on the yard. We're going on the yard You know, we might may not be going on the yard for the right reason, but we're going Don't tell me because y'all sure the staff. That's not my problem. That's a you problem You see what I'm saying? So in the next 30 minutes, you need to be calling your call all right So 30 minutes while the rain wind going on the yard, you know, we had them little pedophires on the zone I said, hey, what's up, man? We're not going on the yard Nah, man, I'm told you man. We sure the staff. All right Well, you're gonna stay you're gonna stay past your shift now. I'm gonna get you some paperwork And I go over there and stab a pedophile in the neck on the chest and the arm, you know, not grab them. I said, hey What you gonna do? We're gonna go on the yard, man. He going to the infirmary I'm stabbed shit out of man. Go ahead on with that man, and I stab We're going the yard, but it was like my first The earlier parts of 2000, you know when you're really angry you're really bitter. I'm young Yeah, you know, I'm young. I'm still in my early 20s You know, I'm 23. I'm 24, you know, I'm saying like man, I don't care. He just sentenced me to two life sentences because To come up for parole on the life sentence is 10 years. So you just gave me 22 Two decades, but it's not guaranteed. I'm gonna make it. But here I am. You see I'm not never been on those psyched medication I'm not screwed up in the head. You know, God provided for me. You know It was a learning process You know, and I won't be here right now if it wasn't for that not me let in my mind get trapped But then the the creases in the in the cracks of the wall, you know, because it can happen But I never allowed that I use it as strengths, you know To say, you know what I'm gonna pull y'all wrong. I'm gonna make it out of here And I did it was a struggle. Trust me. It's you weren't taking nothing at the beginning And you were telling me that too off camera like dudes in there would just let their minds go Yeah, but like taking their lives like and it's never the ones with the shit load of time It's always the ones that got less than five years less than 10 You know less than three years like they don't know how to cope, but it's always I always admire the guys that already did 15 to 20 years already like they still they cope You know the not Trapped institution like yes, of course because this is all you've been doing, you know, but I spent half of my life I was 23 man when I went to prison and I spent half of my life in prison. I got out when I was 46 You know what I'm saying? So it's like at times You know I I Flip and that in that prison mindset because it'd be something somebody that did something goofy or something stupid And it'd be like man If we was anywhere else, you know, you wouldn't even be acting like this for doing this You know, and I and and this has even been obstacles and challenges. I have faced Even out here and where we would consider as the free world, you know At work dealing with people man just talking the same stuff. You know not knowing man who you talking to You know, you know you're not aware or conscious of The things you saying out of your mouth, you know, and I had to really like check myself and I'm like, hey You're not in there Chill and most people don't understand what you just went through and they don't Like and you can't really expect them to because I don't really try to talk about it right because you know people are quick to like want to stigmatize you you know and When you have those those type of people that think like that I Try to do it for educational purposes because I'm around a lot of young people so I try to educate them like look You know, why are you doing this? You can't do this, you know if you glamorize in this lifestyle right here, you know This is what can happen, you know, and if you get locked up in the system You you're not gonna last long because somebody would take your life from you, you know because for one you play a lot You'll know when you need to sit down and man up Today's episode is sponsored by cloaked my sponsor cloaked dared me to see how exposed my personal information was online So I went to their site. 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So I first landed in a green county. It's a South Mississippi Correctional Institution. That's some CI, area two. I first landed in a building, A1A zone. So when I first made it to the unit, the guys were like, "Man, we don't want a number of gang bangers over here." I said, "I'm going over there." That's why I want to be at. I want to be with that, you know? And that was my mentality, man. You know, and everyone else was like, because it's like, you just let processing, right? So now you're going to, you're going to be at for a while. You know, and at this time, it was more of a transit building. Stay over here for so many, maybe think like 90 days, then it shoots you out, either maybe to another prison. So green county is just like parchment, right? Parchment is the mother of all prisons in Mississippi, 'cause that's the state pen. And so green county was crazy, man. When I tell you, man, that is like a gang capital, green county, man, that is like the gang capital at that particular time, right? Fights A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, those were the buildings, right? Man, look, I would tell him my partner on the way, coming up here, right? I said, I had a CD player that belonged to one of my vice-law brothers, and I sold that CD player three times to three different people, you know what I'm saying? And because I didn't care, you know what I'm saying? Who's going to contest it? You know what I'm saying? You know, like, man, I'm young. I'm doing 22 years. You want a problem? I'm going to give it to you. I don't care what they're going to do. Lock me up. I'm already locked up. They're going to lock me down, put me in the hole. I don't care. It is what it is. So I would try to do a lot of the administration CID, which is like a criminal investigation division, right, where they try to investigate, you committing different types of charges in the system, like, I was bad about extortion and racketeering. So they would try to bring up charges on me, try to catch me doing it, but they could never prove it. And then I was-- So it was broken off in the sections, right? So it was like A1, A2 over here, B1, B2 over there, C1 and C2, right? So we had a committee of everyone under the people nation sits on this committee that governs the whole entire prison, right? So because I was always active, my name is out there. I didn't go by Diaz in a prison system. I went by another name. It's a street name that I had, right? It was Jay Sain. Jay, hyphen, essay, N-E. And there was some vice-lower brothers of mine gave me that name. Why? I don't know. But it was Jay Sain. So I got the name. My name started ringing. It made me-- I went from a building commander to over the section. So I'm over two buildings. And then after a while, they had a set up to where they had like two spearheads. Spearhead, cold spearhead. You might be over one, two, three, four, five. You might be over five buildings over here. And you might be over five buildings over here, you know? And like, it's different from a shot called from St. Quentin, right, one of them top of shot callers. But if I say move, you move. You know, I can put demonstrations down or concentrate on, you know, I had a voice. So you were managing five different wings, cell blocks, if you will? And when I went back down in 2007, I was actually the spearhead over the whole, all 10 buildings. That's insane how organized they have it. Yeah. That's crazy. And but after a while, over as the years went by, I kind of like, I started thinking more about life, man. I actually might have a chance to go home, right? You know, so my mindset started changing. I started thinking more like, damn, if I do this, what does the chance is to me getting more time? And then in 2005, I get into a wood awarding and try to stab a wound in the neck with his own ink pen in 2005, because he put his hands on me. Tell us that story. So I was sent to a minimum security prison, right? Where the Sheriff Department runs the prison. It's like a jail. Took a jail, right? Like a jail. And I didn't like it. I'd rather be in a state penitentiary than that's what I'm used to being around. I wasn't trying to make a name. I was just trying to lay low in place low. I won't try and get caught up with the vice lawyers or anything like that. And some kind of way, they started finding out. They say I was having gang meetings, 'cause I had rank. It got leaked out, right? With the administration, I never was a type that wanted shake hands to show my affiliation. I should be like, just give you some depth. But I was guilty by association. So, and how they do it is, if you hang with them, you'll part of them. I'm not going to be against the disciple. I'm not going to be hanging with gang to the disciples if I'm not against the disciple. And some kind of shape for him, fashion. So then, you know, they found out I was on STG, which is-- I'm labeled as an active core member, which, at the 9/11, you can be labeled as potential terrorists in the US. STG Security Thread Group. I also was labeled as a STS, which is Security Thread Status as an individual, not as part of a group. So I had two of those titles on me. They wanted to lock me down within 24 hours for nothing, just because they read my prison jacket. Man, you are a problem. And they try to put me in a cell in the blind spot, 'cause they were from the jump on me. The guards were. Does that happen a lot? Yeah, you must, right? Yeah, yeah, most definitely. Like in the bigger prisons, like parchment, green county, it most definitely. Most of that happens in Texas. We hear stories where inmates get thrown off the tear. Man, when I tell you, man, they would knock your teeth out. They would get other gangs, right? If you have a problem, come kill you. They'll cover it up. Green county, lieutenants in the captains, murdered somebody, and they cover it up. All they did was just-- they made them retire. Yeah. So, you know, and it was a disclosure claim. Can't talk about it. It didn't happen. But you had an eye witness and he saw the whole thing. They actually killed a guy themselves, and inmate? Yeah, yeah. They beat him to death or what happened? Yeah, they beat him to death with radios. With radios. I have a scar right here above my eye. Lift up your head a little bit. What they hit me, what a radio. Yeah. And the blessed end, I have to get stitches. They have to take me-- to handcuff me, body shackle me, take me to the hospital, to the free world hospital, get stitches. Because I was being defiant. I wasn't listening to him, but doing what I was supposed to been doing. So they hit me. So when he hit me, this is the warden, you know. - So they were trying to put you in a blind spot where the weren't on cameras and just had the way. - Yeah, and why I don't even know. I wouldn't even cause no problems. I wouldn't even do anything stirring no problems up or anything. I'm trying to stay out of the way, become my time can be a little bit more comfortable for me in these kind of conditions and these kind of environments than being in the state prison. But then I'm like, nah, yeah, nah, I can't do this. It's the wrong kind of atmosphere. You're not who you say you are, you snitching. You know, you messing with what homosexuals. - Pedophiles. - Pedophiles, you know what I'm saying? Oh, hey, I don't wanna be around this. Nah, man, and I tell them, man, send me back the green county of parchment. I didn't ask to come here. Y'all sent me here. I don't wanna be here. They told me to pack up. I said, for what? They said, man, the warden said, man, you're going to the hope. I said, nah, I ain't packing up. Nah, I ain't packing up. I said, I ain't having done anything, you know? So they try to put me in a blind spot, try to get two guards and him to jump on me, had put me in handcuffs and jump me, right? So when the warden hit me with the radio right here, and I was like, when I saw that blood, I tore into him. He had a canary yellow dress shirt, right? And what a seam is that on his shirt? Well, you can see it. He tried to run, and I grabbed him by the shirt, and they ripped it off the sleeve. You would have thought it was made like that, and he dropped his gold play the ink pen. And by the time I could stab him in the neck with it, his 12 guards came from the side door with block guns and hit me with the block gun right here, knocked the wind out of me. He was like, right here on me, and I didn't see him. I didn't see any of them cause I was too zoned in on him. Cause I was finna kill him. They try to give me five more years on that. Did you hit him with the pen? Nah, you weren't able to, 'cause they-- Yeah, 'cause they hit me with the block gun. So then they took me to medical, handcuffed me to a gurney. Three deputy sheriffs come in, right? They put them little like baseball gloves. They put them on. They finna whip me. It was two, two, two big white dudes, right? And a black dude. So this happened in one of the jails like close to Meridian. And I used to go on the Navy base in Meridian to play basketball and that black sheriff that was with them, remember me. He said, "Agula?" I said, "Yeah, what's up?" He said, "Man, what's up?" No, always late, let me talk to him. Let me talk to him. Yup, God is my witness, bro. That's the only reason why a man named, they ain't beating me senseless, bro. Yeah, maybe he killed you. He was like, "Man, what's going on?" And I told him, he's like, "Man, man, we always been getting complaints about this warden, always getting complaints about him." He was like, "Look," he said, "Man, we gotta transfer you, man, to Ragnar County." I said, "I, it wasn't over the radio, right?" So I even got into Warren's face afterwards before they handcuffed me to the gurney, I told him. So the other two guards that wanted to jump, he asked him in front of me, he said, "Y'all wanna take turns on?" "Y'all wanna woo them?" They're like, "No, man, he's like, "Man, they ain't what we signed up for." We ain't signed up for that. And I told that Warren, he called me all kind of bitches, holes in this and that. I said, "I won't know all that a few seconds ago." I said, "That was you doing all that screaming?" I said, "I should have killed your bitch ass." That's what I should have did. And he was like, he would talk the screaming in my face, spinning in my face and stuff. So I said, "Take the hand, 'cause all me and you, you want somebody to jump me?" "Take the hand, 'cause all, let it be fair, me and you." Come on. "Take me to the medical." I said, "I know it." It's the man I killed you in here, man. So prior to that hand company to the gurney, the deputy sheriff's came in and the only thing that stopped them from doing any harm to me was that black deputy sheriff, 'cause he remembered me from playing basketball on the Navy base in Meridian. And he helped me pack all my stuff and transported me back to rank in the county. He was like, "Man, you know they're gonna press charge on there, they're gonna give you five years for assault." So man, I don't care about that. He said, "Look, man." He said, "You know we were from the coming there, you know we were from the coming bitch or ass, right?" With no questions asked. He said, "Yeah, I know." He said, "If it weren't for me knowing you." He said, "You wouldn't even be recognized right now." He said, "That was our job was to come in there." They were from the coming there and mace me. They were from the mace me first and then with me. - When you're handcuffed? - I'm handcuffed to the gurney, right? And one of the guys, as soon as he come through, he already had his gloves on. As soon as he come through, he comes shaking the mace can. They were from the spray domestic and I couldn't cover up. There's nothing I can do 'cause I was kind of bent low. Not standing up, bent real low, right? The gurney was tied to the wall. So, nothing I can do, and then I was handcuffed to the gurney real tight to where it's cut. Now, I got man scars on my wrist for when they did that, you know? - And nobody believes you. That's called torture, by the way. That's like a human rights abuse. They don't even let you do that with prisoners of war. - Man, look, you're not allowed to do that with somebody that's cuffed. - They were from the do that, man. If it weren't for that dude knowing me. Did any guards ever get killed? Well, you were down, it seems like that's a dangerous thing to do around guys that have nothing to lose. I'm sure beat up. - I ain't gonna say kill to my knowledge. A lot of the stuff we know because of the cell phones, 'cause we stay in touch where everybody in the different - Right. - Facilities, right? But prior to the cell phones, our way of communicating was only within that institution alone. Not a broad, but to my recollection, maybe beat up stabbed. Yeah, like beat up, beat up, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, only because, you know, they don't know how to talk to nobody. They come in there, you know, maybe you got picked on when you was in school in elementary. It wasn't me, I didn't do it. So they take that out on us. They talk to us crazy, they mistreat us. And, you know, the only thing we know how to do is react to it with aggression. - Do you think that the violence that the staff commits against inmates in a place like Mississippi? Do you think that creates a culture of violence within the inmates themselves? - Most definitely, yeah, I think that, not only that, but you know, I don't this is the devil's playground. Like when you don't, when you just cram us up, 'cause at one point, it was only 60 main unit. 62 is on. Two or three years then go by, it become 60 to 120 now. And I don't know if this was true or not, you know, but I heard talks about it that because I'm the majority, right, 'cause the majority, you know, within the system at this particular time was gangster disciples. I was on a zone one time where we were just nine of us and 79 gangster disciples. - Yes, wow. - And they'll try to flex, go up there, turn the TV while you watching it, you know. Man, it's gangsta house, you know. And man, it's crazy. If you allow that stuff, man, then you know, they'll keep pushing and pushing 'til you just, you push that door, you know, but everybody ain't going like that. It don't matter, you know, what our numbers are as long as you stay together. - To them, who were you with them? - I suppose. - Okay, right, and you got the gangster disciples. - Yeah, they, so in the prison system, the Mississippi, the gangsta disciples was always the majority. - Okay. - Vigeloid was always outnumbered. You know, you might fall on his own where it's 23 gangster disciples on seven Vigeloids, you know. And we was never the type, like even when we was in numbers, we'd never be the type man to like be the aggressor. We always come with understanding. Compared to them, if they the majority, they try to flex. They try to have their chest all stuck out. Everybody, they all kill us now. And that's how they were moving. Did you ever have to go to war with them? Every day. Every day, sometime we'll have what we'll call bangings, right? Which is huge like gang riots, but they gang fights. So they have to come in. Sometimes they have to come in with state troopers, right? To get control of the prison. You know, guards can't even come on his own. Can we fight them? That's how I know. Stabbing each other. And it was one incident one time with the gangsta, the cybers and the vise lords. One of the guys run upstairs. He was a Latin king and I told him to come back downstairs. So don't go up there. He's going up there and get his shank, his knife and the whole top tear against the cybers. The pions or the guys that's neutral, that's not affiliated. They downstairs with us because it's not pions or it's not that many of us. But you can't be in a cell with me unless you're blood, fork on a hustler, black piece on Latin king, something under the five, five point star. So as soon as the count time ended, it was on. So when he, uh, the Latin king go upstairs and go get his knife, you got the gangsta disciples in his other cell, they get in a knife. They want to stab the shit out of him. They don't like him. I go up there to get him. They literally push me out of the way, almost down the stairs just so they can stab him. They said, man, we're going to let you make it. We don't have no beef with you. We got beef with him. But it's they, it's they responsibility to ride and they literally like, push me out of the way. They, they ain't put their hands on me. And stab him up. So when he got down stairs, right, his, some kind of way, his leg was behind the door and they had the door up against his leg and they was constantly stabbed in his calf muscle. You know, with them homes, them, uh, some, uh, homemade knives and stuff, you know, you break off the fence, turn into a ice pit, stuff like that. And there was another guy, another vice lord that was in the cell, should have been with us. He was only seven of us going to sell and you had a crib. He, one of his homeboys, uh, unjamed the door. They ran in on him, took his night from him and he was his night and stabbed him 30 times in the eye and he lost his eye and when none, we can do about it. Fuck, cause we was outnumbered. There was nothing we can do, but just watch him keep getting stabbed. Do you remember a really crazy riot where you were just like, I can't believe this is my environment? You know, did you end up getting stabbed ever? No. So I got stabbed one time before I went to prison. Yeah, I didn't get, I never got stabbed in prison. I got stabbed one time before I ever went to prison in my hand right here, right here. I never got stabbed in prison. So, um, I don't know, man, cause, you know, my character, because I was always more of, uh, of an educator, right, like, man, like what are we doing, man? You know, why are we doing this? You know, cause I didn't got older in my years now, I'm not as young and wild like them. Now if I was still in my 20s, right, I've been on the same stuff they don't, it wasn't even care, but see a lot of them, they don't have a whole lot of time. It's the one who got three years. It's the short time. It's right. It's never the ones that have a lot of time, right, because you might be in the hole in segregation, man, for the remainder of your sentence, and just think if you've got a life, you're going to be in there forever, and so you, you know, you do what you do to make it, you know what I'm saying? But the ones, man, who initiates or provoke these, uh, riots are the ones that short time it. That's crazy. For real, and that's basically how the system is, right. It's never the ones that's, it's home for them for a while, it's never them. Sometimes, yes, at times, but 95% of the time, it's the short time, man, that once it's going home three years, five years, anything less than 10, they don't want it, man, who initiates a lot of the BS that goes on, you know, then sometimes, you know, they be chemically unbalanced, no coffee, no caffeine, no nicotine. So it throws them off, you know, and they can't function without it. So the only thing they know how to do is, is, you know, with aggression. So and the older guys are probably either hustling or figuring out how to, you know, get out. Yeah. You know, the other cases. Yeah, after so long, maybe the first part, but they sentenced, they might have been wild like me, but as you, like, man, I did 12, 13 years now, like, man, fuck this. I'm tired of this, man, I can't keep doing this. How you did, did you do some time in the hole? Yeah. I did almost four years in a hole, you know, consecutively or different stretch days. Like three years, I was in the hole, right, because of my behavior, you know, for disciplinary reasons, and then they let me out for maybe 12 hours. So I can like make commentary, get hygiene products, stuff like that, you know, get stuff, and then right after those 12 hours, they locked me right back up for a whole year again. After three years, they gave you 12 hours just to breathe. Yep. Did they, did you know they were going to throw you back in? No, I didn't. Nah, because, you know, everything's based on, man, your behavior. How you at? They don't want you to be the cause of a riot or they figure you might trigger something, you know, just because of your status or because this is what they know for you to do. So they'll let you stay out in GP, you know, just so you can make commentary or, you know, do some soap and deodorant and toothpaste and no book paper and stamps and then they scoop you up, lock you right back down again. That's why I sat there almost, I did like four years. I don't even count the 12 hours. What are they, what are they first throw you in there for? Uh, fighting, stabbing, uh, trying to fight the staff, uh, they are telling me to come in off the yard and I wouldn't, I make y'all come get me, I'm not coming in, you know what I'm saying? Yo, y'all only gave me an hour, I don't want no hour. Basically trying to tell them what I'm gonna do, you know, and they'll write me up, get caught with knives, stuff like that and then just becoming a problem. So they locked me down. So after getting so many tickets, so many write ups, that's when they give you the whole shot. Yeah. Um, that's the process because they'll say, all right, well, you're doing six months in a whole or you're doing a year and there's a, uh, a time when you're, and I'm going to the whole, it might be 30 days after the disciplinary area and still I'm going to be right then. And unless there's a stabbing, you got to be removed or just cause you get caught with a knife or some contraband, you know, like drugs, nah, you just go through the regular process of a disciplinary, but a few staff, somebody who got into a fight or any type of, uh, physical confrontation, automatic, you go to the home. Did you actually get caught for stabbing or just suspected? Uh, nah, sometimes they know I did it because I tell them, you know, like, hey, we going on a yard or what, you know, like, man, what are we doing? All right. I'll be back in 30 minutes and then, you know, at 30 minutes, when I ain't going on a yard, then I go stab somebody, not to the point where I'm killing them, but I'll stab them. I'm like, man, you'll be all right, you take one for the team, take one for the team. I'm sure that made them feel better. Yeah. I mean, but, you know, they already have that scared, you know what I'm saying? Because, you know, one thing about, like, I was telling my partner on the way up here. You're not going to do a real person like that, you know what I'm saying? Because it's a lot come with it. Yeah. They going to stand a ground, not at ten times, man, a lot of them are juiced up, affiliated, or they got homeboys that's affiliated. That's a whole 'nother. Now they're coming back at you. Yeah. I'm saying, when you got pedophires, we already know, they know what's up. Ain't nobody going for that. You touching little kids and this and that ice, well, this one comes with it. 'Cause you got praise and the predators. And, hey. - So you would take a shank just to poke 'em, just to force the guards to let you guys out. - Yeah. - Tell me about that. - Like, not to-- - Do you know where to hit 'em? - Just to-- - Like it just being an honor, discipline? - Yeah, like in the arm, nothing like where you just juggin' and really tryin' to hurt 'em. 'Cause if you don't, like, with those homemade ice picks, it can cause internal bleeding and they can die, right? So if you just make something out of fiberglass or something like that, then, you know, to wear a brake skin or whatever, not to the point where you just, you know, you tryin' to jugg, you tryin' to kill something. - Did you ever see somebody getting jugg like, you know? - Yeah. - Yeah. - Oh. - Over the bitch word. - Yup. - Got his whole head hanging. Had to use, you know, them wood staples, they're using it for carpenter. Had to staple his whole head back for calling somebody a bitch and they were on the yard. Yup. It was a Latin King. His name was Killer Cake. He went in with three years and now he got a life sentence. - And that dude died? - Nah, he didn't die. They staples head back together, though. But he ain't gonna use that word no more. Fuck. Yup. And thought, you know, when nobody's gonna do none about it. And he was, you know, man, the example out of him. - So they got pieces, they got shanks on the yard. - You guys are going straps. - Yeah. - Wow. - Yeah, God's who, fuck. - Sometimes we take it on the yard with us, you know? Yeah, 'cause one of the guards was his girlfriend. - What? - Yeah. The guy that stabbed the other enemy, his girlfriend was one of the guards. - Oh, shit. - Yeah. - So he needed to look tough. Or he felt like he needed to look. - Nah, it just, you know, she provided the opportunity for him to get stabbed. She ain't no none about it. We was on the tier. And we talking, we, we in lockdown. So when we go on the tier, it's like, it's cages, we go in, you know? Like bullpen, one by one. You know, we shackle from head to toe. We got base chains on it. Anchor bracelets, handcuffs, you know, we maximum security. You know, we're like high-risk inmates. And the guy called the Lank King a bitch. He like, man, we do whatever we're going to y'all blah, the Lank King didn't say nothing. He didn't say nothing. He's like, "Hey, man, you slide that over here to me." I said, "Bet, slim the knife. Going to y'all, he over there talking to his homeboys. Like, been unhappened. Like, he ain't got a care in the world." So while he running around handcuffed, or girl taking the handcuffs off of him, like putting them in the bullpen, but she's not closing it. For him, stick his wrist out through the hole. Stick the handcuffs off. She just took them off while the gate was still open. And run past her. And he was like, "Now, who the bitch now?" And stabbed them in the head and all this just came down. Y'all damn, you got serious. Yeah, and then they rushed them in to their infirmary. And he had to use like one of them staple guns, with the real heavy-duty staples, to put all that back. What year, how deep into your strats did you make those connections with the guards to have those routes? In prison, the main object is to learn fast. Or you'll get lost, fast. Man, probably because I have to learn the game. I don't understand the politics. And every day, you know, our number one thing, our way of surviving is through observation. You observe, you know, you move as they move. You know, either a predator or you a prey, right? Either you're gonna be in the way, or you're gonna stay out the way, which can't be due both. Can't be in the way when it's all good, then when it's heat, you out of the way. Now, either you end, you all the way in, or you out. And that's even for the gang members. Everybody's not in the way. You know, saying everybody ain't trying to hustle. Everyone's just trying to do their time, but I'm just having to be affiliated. Everybody is not trying to hustle. 'Cause some people hustle because they have to. 'Cause they don't have no other means. They don't have nobody from the outside, you know, providing, so they gotta find a way. And your family and all your friends turn their back on you, so you really had to make something happen. I extorted a guard. Well, actually, it started in the county jail, 'cause we couldn't have cigarettes. And I had a guard in the county jail, and I had this friend girl of mine every Tuesday. She'll leave two packs of Newport 100s and a $20 bill in the brown paper bag on his front seat. So when ship chains around 11 o'clock, he'll bring me new jump suits with the cigarettes and the $20 for him. And that was my first, my first, you know, taste in it. Then when I got to prison, it was a guard. I got him to bring up. So our thing is to make you feel comfortable, relax. Right, start talking, kicking in with you. You know, it ain't gonna happen right then. You know, make you feel like, man, you know, you accepted. You know, let you hang out with us. You know, make you feel like you want us, right? And then I'm like, "Hey, man, you smoke weed, man?" Like, we might have him watch catch us smoking weed. Let him know this is what we doing. But it's all an illusion. We just, we painted this picture to you, right? That we, this is what we doing. I mean, we actually doing it, you know what I'm saying? But it's a mind thing. Like, "Hey, man, are you, are you smoke weed, man?" Yeah, it's sometimes like, "Shit, man, smoke with it, bro." Make you feel comfortable while you're around us, you know what I'm saying? So, he said, "No, I can't do it on a job." You know, just like 2000, 2001. And that's like, man, bring some weed, man. Bring some weed. He saw me one time stab somebody, right? He was there when it happened. He didn't say nothing, right? So I'm like, "I'll tell you." Yeah, I'm gonna go, yeah. This guy's cool. Yeah, yeah, I like, I'm like, "Hey, man, appreciate that, man." I'm like, "Man, damn, bro, I could have been going to the hole." You know what I'm saying? So I asked him, I was like, "Hey, man, bring some weed in." So I told him how to do it. Like, at this time, they weren't checking food. They weren't checking food at this time. It wasn't them, but years later, they start checking food. You got to bring in a clear backpack so they can see what's in it. Oh, you mean when the guards brought in food? Yeah, when the guards bring in food? Like, they're lunch. Yeah, they lunch and stuff. They weren't checking the food then, you know. But now, they check it now. So I tell him, like, get a foot long subway sandwich. Just roll the weed up in the blunts 'cause I'm gonna need something to smoke out of. Wrap it up real good and surround, wrap, put it in the sandwich. Bring it in. Start to bring it in. This and that. Then I saw, like, okay. But how did you get the subway sandwich? How did you get the subway sandwich to you with the blunts? He worked in my unit in my building. So when he come in, he's not bringing me to sandwich. He'll just take the weed out to sandwich. And then when everybody go eat, he'll give me the weed. Oh, 'cause he's there, he can eat his lunch. Yeah, he can eat his lunch there. On the unit. Yeah, on the unit. 'Cause he'll warm it up in the microwave with some, you know, walk around, everybody don't want to dinner. He'll come give me the weed. Just slip it on your cell. Yeah. Now, so we have open dorms. Okay. Open dorms. And at this time, it was like 60 people. And as the years went by, they added 60 more. So it's 120 people on the, on the zone now. Wow. Compared to it was 60. And so then I told him, I like, man, man, bring me a QP. You know what I'm saying, bring me a quarter pound. That's so much weed. I don't know, I already got him to start violating now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're hoping him in. Yeah. one of my vice-little brothers, man, to where we get to eat in. Now we trying to network. I don't have access to it, but you do. So he already bringing stuff in for me. So we gonna see if he'll bring that in for us, right? So I kinda like talking to him and like, look, man, I'm trying to get this QPM, but I'll pay you, like what you'll charge me. But at the end of the day, whatever his number is, not the number I'm gonna give him, I'm gonna give him what I can give him, right? So I tell him, like, look, check it out. So I try to coach him. So the whole object is to make them feel comfortable of bringing it in. Like the right thing to do is to bring it in. You know, there's no obstacles in your way. It's just all in your head. Don't think that you violate it. Don't, then you gonna get caught. And I said, look, we get the QP. You wouldn't even know, man, that it's a QP. We'll compress it. We'll get it almost man to a size of a knife later. If we can, we'll compress it as small as we can. And all you gotta do is just bring it in. Throw it in your food, right? And bring it in. The only way it's gonna puff out is once you break the seal. But as long as you compress it and tighten it up real good, you know, you're good. So he said, he'll have to think about it. So all of a sudden now they started pulling him somewhere to another unit. I was like, hmm. So when you see me, he's like, he's avoiding me now, right? So I was like, so we going to y'all one evening. I go over there to where he's at. Like, man, what's up, man? Make sure they act funny and stuff, man. Ever since I asked you to bring that QP in. Like, nah, man, just, you know, they don't want us to get comfortable with the inmates so they're moving us around. I said, yeah, you sure that's all it is? You say, yeah, I said, okay. I said, you know, I'm a no if you said something, right? That you don't want to be over here. 'Cause you feel intimidated by it. I said, you know, I'm gonna find out, right? So he was like, yeah. So one day he popped back up in our unit. And I told him, man, what you're gonna do, man? I said, look, I pulled my knife out. That I broke off the fence made into an ice pit. I told him, hey, don't come to work tomorrow, man. If you ain't got that, you need to bring it tomorrow. I don't give a fuck what building you go to. I need my stuff, man. But don't come back here. Don't come back to work. So he tried to get another gang involved, right? They some, uh, some of the city royals, they're a white gang. They from Chicago, you know what I'm saying? So one of the guys that's, uh, when the shot calls for them, man, him was cool, right? And, uh, so he didn't know that. He tried to go to him to work a deal with him to get me out the building. He didn't know that I knew all this. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? So, uh, he said he was gonna bring in a QP to him, right? I said, okay, all right, that's what he doing. So my attempt was when he come in, I was gonna go on and stab him, let him know I won't play him with him. But then, uh, dirty, the shot calling for the Simon City Roy, he was like, nah, man, don't do that. He said, man, we can finesse him. What I do is he give me the dope. I give you two ounces, right? And I keep two. That's not cool, you know what I'm saying, because I know the money I can make. And then we can flip it, you know what I'm saying? But I went to one of my, uh, one of my vice-girl brothers and kind of ran it down to him. He's like, nah, man, you can't do that, bro. He said, you can't do that. And he said, uh, because you are already over the section, and by you being in a position, he said, you can't do that. He said, could they, they'll, they'll, they'll smash you. They'll hurt you for that who, the vice-lords. Even though you're one of them? Yeah, because it, it looked like I'm, I'm catching out, you know what I'm saying, like, I'm catching out. You ain't supposed to catch out, you know, it was like, I'm running from something. But you're just hustling. That don't mean none. They don't care about that. Huh. Because then I had a status. I'm over the section, so I can't just leave like that unless the administration is moving me. Oh, I see, you're trying to get moved to where the guard is at. No, I'm trying to get moved somewhere else out of the building, because the guard will bring dirty, the drugs. If I leave the building, I see. But dirty going to give me half of the drugs if I leave. See the guard don't know that I know this. He thinking that dirty, getting me to leave, but when I talk to one of my, uh, vice-lord brothers, they were like, nah, you can't. You over the section, you got status, brother, it's not a good look. I'm like, damn, yeah, you right. You know, then I talk to some other people and they're like, nah, if you do that, brother, you the business. That's all right. I'm staying. I'm just like, man, uh, two houses a week, I ain't even worth it. Pull my, pull my life in a home's way like that, you know? So if you catch out, you're a target. Yeah. Cause it's like they look at that, like catching out is a coward move. So then how did you, how did you eventually get somebody in pocket to start bringing stuff? When, when that didn't go through prior to that, I got shipped out, right? I got shipped out and stuff, uh, to another, uh, another facility, right? It wasn't until later on in the years that I was actually, man, able to get guards, you know, cause you already have people already in play that's been there, there's getting stuff done. So I just get in with them and it wasn't until like maybe 2016, up until the time it was time for me to go home to actually having a guard doing for me. Oh, all right. So it was late in your stretch is where you kind of ascended to like the man. And, and, and I'm not going to even say 2016, I want to say it was like, uh, 2008, because, you know, we have relationships with guards in there with the women guards, like real relationships, bro. Did you have a relationship with the guard? And uh, she was like, uh, like a lieutenant, like, like, uh, like a three stripe sergeant that might have been like, how about they do they range, but she was ranked. She was ranked. Yeah. So she was like over the shift. Yeah. Right. And another prison and, uh, she, you know, she'll bring me food. Nothing too crazy. Like, you know, depending on who her, uh, superiors are, like the shift commanders, whoever the captain is, like she might bring me a bottle of, uh, tequila or some ever clear, uh, some food, uh, she didn't brought me a phone in one time, you know, stuff like that. But me actually paying to bring stuff in for me once, but like 2016, y'all. What was the best money maker, you think for the product tobacco? What did the tobacco sell for? Like did you guys sell them in sticks? Um, man, we got a little sheet of toilet paper. All right. And just put some on there and sell it for maybe $5. You know, or we'll get a something, maybe that big and sell for 25. So what I used to do when I get tobacco when I have people that can afford it and people who can't, I made small ones for a dollar or if they have chicken, just give me your chicken off your, off your tray. You know, stuff like that, stuff that I, I like eating, just give it to me, huh, here you go. Want something to smoke, huh? Or sometimes just, I have so much, I just go to everyone that smoke, huh, here I go. Just so nobody tell on me, you know, just keep everybody happy. Yeah. Just keep everybody happy, man. That's really it. Because a lot of the BS come from because they don't have no cigarettes. The nicotine, it throws you in the, in the rage, you know, and I know because I used to smoke. And I stopped. A May of 2002 is when I stopped, I was in a hole. So and what's your profit off of a pouch, do you bring in, you have them bringing in like pouches at tobacco? Yeah. It might be like a four pound bag and that cost you what? It depends where you're going, maybe $13, $14, maybe $17. How much are you paying to bring it in? Oh, it won't be just an individual bag, it might be 10 of this, five of this, it might be 10 pounds of tobacco, two pounds of marijuana, 20 bottles of liquor, like the 16 pounds bottles, right? Maybe some food that I can cook in the kitchen, because I worked in the kitchen too. Well, stuff like that, you're like a 7-Eleven dude, yeah, because you're on, yeah, because the that I was paying the lieutenant gave me access to where I worked the yard around clean up around the whole entire unit and I could work in the kitchen. So you have mobility? Yeah. Yeah. That's hot. What does two pounds of weed look like when it's smuggled into a prison? It's small. Like a ball? Yeah. And is it Bammer, like Mexican brickweed or were you guys getting in some good shit? Oh, to my dewey? Yeah. Man, were you getting in some Cali? No. I mean, it was weed that was profitable. It could sell because it's weed. I had guys. I knew guys, man. I still talk to the day that live in Atlanta. First guy, man, I ever smoked a kush with. He was getting kush in and he was going to have the case managers bringing it in a lot of pants. Fuck. And that's the fluffy. Yeah. So if you got two pounds of weed, ten pounds of tobacco, liquor, where are you stashing all that? That wall, right? I could put a trap spot in that wall. You never know what's down there so I'll show it to you. In yourself? Yeah. Right there. In that wall. Wow. All I need is the tools to cut it. It's big enough to why I can put stuff in it and I get a laundry bag that has, it look like a fish net laundry bag, get a strain, get some paper clips, time together, make it look like fish hooks, right, where it's maybe three or four on every end, where hooks up. I tied around real, but it'd be the heavy duty of paper clips and knock a hole in the wall. It's big enough to put your hand in a bottle of a 16 hours bottle in the phone, right? And I get the same color paint as the wall and I get a surround wrap and I paint the surround wrap over the hole. And I just take the surround wrap off, put everything in the laundry bag and drop it all the way to the bottom and just leave it there and I just get my strain with the paper clips, put it down there and fish it back up because it's going to snatch into the, the fish net laundry bag. It's going to hook it and I just pull it up, boom, boom, boom, whatever you need and I just drop it back down, cover it up. I only pull out only what I need or what I'm going to say. And so you got cell search, they never found it? Never. And that's somebody telling it. Wow. So that's the only thing about an open dorm can't really hide because everybody can see. So you have to pacify everyone, you know, you got to, you got to spread the love around. Yeah. Having your own cell is the ticket. Yeah. Or if the, if the floor is more of a tile looking, you just throw water down there and get the tools you need to get the tile up. And the only way to do that is with warm water because it's glue up under there, right? You get that tile up, you put water down there, let the water sit to loosen up that cement. You just beat it, boom, boom, boom, boom, to where you can like put a phone, put a size of a phone right there and put the tile on top. You just want to let the, uh, fit your phone. And you'll be walking over it all day and let me know, you know, so you were comfortable in there at one point. I mean, I did have my life in there. I had to. Right. And it was about survival. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think you made more money hustling in there than you ever did on the streets? Um, nah, nah, because I work husband wasn't like my main forte out here, you know, because I don't mind working. I meant before, before you were probably in there, yeah, yeah, no, and you made the lieutenant a lot of money. Yeah. Cause every time she bring me some is 5,000, fuck, nothing more, nothing less. That was what we agreed on. Yeah. No matter unless my country bound to what I'm asking for is starting to double in size, then she gonna want more, mm-hmm, as long as I stick to, you know, in the only way we knew how to do that, to, to beat them instead of it being like three or four pounds of tobacco whole, we started to compress them, right, and we can get more and it had to time she ain't going to even look. So you had somebody on the streets that would take care of all the compression, get it already, and then he would just pass it off to her. So what it was is like, me and you might get together, like, hey man, I got a plug, somebody that would bring it in, and you know, anybody that sold it, sold it, yeah, I know somebody, I shit, we'll put something together, I'll get it in, and we're negotiate either, I just paid a whole five, right, and then you give me half of whatever, or we just split it down the middle, you know what I'm saying, and we were like, okay, you get 10 pounds of tobacco in, I want five. If you got four pounds of marijuana, I just want one. You got 20 bottles of liquor, give me six, you know what I'm saying? 'Cause you're the most important, you got the route, you got the way to get it in, so you don't even have to put up your own money if you don't want one. And I just be like, look, she want five thousand, what you're gonna do, you know what I'm saying? And then we just go ahead, I'm like, I'll tell you what, while I put up three, you put up two. 'Cause I can make it back right here, off their tobacco. And how long does it take you to run through like a load, like a load of tobacco, marijuana, and liquor? It varies, it varies, 'cause you're not the only one, you're not the only one, sometimes you might have to sit on it, and sometimes there's a chance that they'll find it. You know, you got the K9 unit, they have dogs, they have dogs that sniff the lithium from the batteries of a cell phone, so they can smell that, and not at that time, you keeping your phone with the contraband. So they find the phone, they find everything. So you know, it's really on supply demand though. Yeah, because you may not be able to get it in as fast as I can, or we might get it in around the same time. So basically, you gonna have your customers, I'm gonna have mine. Did you have workers, or were you just going hand-to-hand with it? Um, a little bit of both, a little bit of both, 'cause you might just be like, you know, you, you, you, my people, so you might be like, hey man, something's trying to see, man, if you got this, you got I, huh? And you're like, hey man, let me get something to smoke, man, like, all right, huh? And were people like really smoking blunts in there, like whole ass, swish or sweet blunts? Man, you had a guy name, uh, you had a guy, those wreak of weed, that guy seems so sketchy. You had a guy name, uh, 380, was it 380? That was his nickname. And he actually got a, uh, a PlayStation in, they were playing PlayStation and stuff in there, man. Where was that? Y'all. And where would you smoke a blunt, like, on the yard? Smoking in the unit. I'm just blowing it in the toilet. Hmm. What are they gonna do, come shake us down? That's all they can do. Y'all. And then one night, one night, man, love, I had a cell phone out, I had bottles of liquor out, like crown, like apple crown, like come straight to the liquor store and get it. Apple crown, add, uh, two pounds of tobacco out, right? And messed around, got drunk and passed out. Here come lieutenant slapping me in my face. I said, ooh, man, she like, if you don't put this stuff up, I was like, you know, I was like, man, you're like, get in here, baby. Yeah, like, I can't do them but respect it though, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, so. Damn. That was the lick. Yeah. And tell us about, first of all, the weed, like, how is that sold out? Like, is it sold in sticks or caps, like, and how much did that sell? So, what they'll do, they get a coke bottle top. They put weed in it. That's a quarter. It's $5. Fuck. So just imagine you do a whole panel, like, damn, it's like a fucking 200% markup. Yep. And it's like more than that probably. I think I may maybe think, like right at almost 1500 off of ounce, one ounce, you know. So there's 36 ounces in a pound, do the math. You just made kilo money, cocaine kilo money with one pound a weed. Well, I'm not going to say, you know, all that was the profit because sometimes, you know, you got home, boy, you know what I'm saying, you know, like, huh, sometimes, you know, you front it. Yeah. You know, that was my thing. I'll front it to you because I rather get a portion of my money. money back, then they lose it all. I'm gonna shake down somebody telling on me. Plus you gotta know who you, who you credin' at too. You know, some people might only get a hundred dollars a month before the month get here, that hundred dollars is gone. You know, you can only get into it four ways. Here it is, you might be the sixth person, how you gonna get your money. So I compromise with you. - But you're getting it so cheap and it sells for so much, it doesn't matter. - Yeah, you got a lot of wiggle room. - Yeah, and then, it was even a time I even owed somebody like seven hundred dollars on bottles of liquor. They didn't went home, Perot went home. I didn't, we wasn't even in the same unit. And I found out they made Perot and went home. This so happened, they had the same, I reached out to them on messenger on Facebook. And every time I got money, I was like, "Hey man, what you want me to do with this money, man?" You know, I still owe you seven hundred dollars, right? He's like, "Man, I said nah, I owe you, I'm gonna pay you." 'Cause you out there don't mean nothing. Yup, and I made sure when I left the prison system Brian, oh, nobody. - Your business was good. - Yeah. And I still paid him, even when I was still locked up. He Perot home, I still paid him his seven hundred dollars 'cause I owe that. - Tell us about the liquor racket. How is the liquor sold, and how much did it sell for? - Man, that's crazy because like, you can get to 16 ounce water bottles, right? And fill it up with the bottom shelf. Ever clear. Ever clear is like, 235, right? Just fill it up and take the top up of the water bottle. That's a hundred dollars. Oh my God. And you only paid that even $2,050 for it. And then the lowest it would go is 75. Either way it goes, it's still a profit. - Wow. So there we guys, if you have money in there, you could just stay fucked up if you want it. - Oh man, I know for like, from 2016 to the time I got well, 'cause in 2021, they put me on long term segregation. Yeah, I was in the hole until I got out. I was in Portion and logged down. Yeah, they put me on long term, 'cause I was a high risk inmate and until it was time for me to go home. And so from 16 to parts of 2021, yeah. Man, we would drink a liquor every weekend. We'll always find a reason to celebrate. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - You know, we made our own holidays sometimes, man. You know, yeah, it was crazy. And then we had one way of bringing it in, which somebody told on this right here is, so it don't matter if I talk about it, 'cause it's already been exposed. So when we had a partner of ours named Memphis, he worked on maintenance. And he was 72 years old. He did almost like 52 years, and he died. The second week I was out, I got out, he died. And he was from Memphis, Tennessee. And he got locked up for killing the state trooper. And he already did like 52 years, you know, so it was way back then, you know, and he killed the state trooper. So he had access to a truck. He can drive around, you know what I'm saying? And I don't think he want to do a smokey little ski to lay and hit a little joint. It was more paper than it was weed, but that's what he wanted to do. That's what he chose to do and drink a little liquor. But it was more water than it was liquor, you know what I'm saying? But he enjoyed himself. It ain't like he didn't have it because we gave him access to it. Whenever you wanted, you can have it. Because before we started paying the guards, this is how we actually start getting the money, right? They have the spare tire, they take the tire off the rim and put everything inside the tire and then put the tire back on the rim. And these are the maintenance trucks for the prison. And then all we have to do is just say, hey, we have a leak or a flood with the toilets. He'll come over there, fix the toilet and drop the contraband on. And we'll put it in the AC unit that only we had a key to, right? We'll open the door up 'cause it was a clean room where you put water in the mop bucket to clean the floor of the zone up where we'll put that door open so you can't see it's going in this door 'cause there's a camera right there, right? So the door, when we open it, we just have somebody like they get in water putting in a mop bucket. Like they about to clean up just to shield that camera while we go in the AC unit and we take the screws off the AC unit and we got thoughtful bags right there, garbage bags. We just grab out what we need. You know, we had one of them drill with, turn it real fast. Yup, put it back on. Put it back on, go out, lock the door. And that was the stash spot. That was the stash spot that one our own people man told on. Oh my God. So how did, so this guy's got access, he's driving around the prison in this truck. How do you get the bags into the prison to put them in the tires? So they'll work with the supervisors. The supervisors will take the truck home, right? The supervisors will get paid to look the other way. Why they get the spare tire? The truck stays at the supervisor's house. You just go pick up the spare. So you can have time to do it. You don't wanna do it here, right? Make sure everything is good. Put the tire back on the rim, put it back in the truck. Then when you go to work that morning, they're not looking for it because they don't know about it. They only look for areas that they know about somebody that told, right? You know, and the man, we did this man for a while. We did it for a while. It's unbelievable. And then we were getting bags in, the next she knew, man, K9 started sniffing around. It's a K9 unit. And they started sniffing around one night, around the AC unit. It kept trying to get in, but it was locked. We'll lock it. And we know certain times of the day we'll go in there and get out what we need and put in a cylinder. We can push the cylinder up and we'll put stuff there. So we lose it, we lose it, but we don't lose everything. We just get out what we're gonna have, what we're gonna drink on, smoke on, you know. - Puzzle. - Yeah, you know, give out to everybody on the zone, you know what I'm saying? And K9 come in, walking around, they sniffing, they checking all the rooms, they pat searching us. That was the only other thing I hated about prison, bro. The humiliation, the strip searches, bend over, cough, like, man. - I never got used to it while I was in there. - You never can, that's something you can't get used to, bro. And then they leave, they come back a couple of days later now they wanna get inside the AC unit. Then we even heard them on the phone one day saying, we're out in the AC unit, like they were talking to an inmate. And we were trying to see, man, who was all not on the zone with us. But everybody was on the zone with us and we couldn't figure out who it was. - Who's telling? - Yeah, come to find out was one of our own people. He was putting stuff in there. Then for some reason, he started taking it out, moving it, putting it somewhere else. And we just laid it on, we just kind of put two and two together, like, had to be him, but we couldn't prove it. - Right, bro. - But nobody got knocked. - Yeah, oh, they went in and took everything, got everything. But they didn't get you guys. - Yeah. Oh, no, not us, but they got the contraband. - They got the contraband. - Yeah, right, right, right. They got the contraband, because I put my phone right here in this area. And normally I put the plate with the filters for the AC unit goes. I put my phone, like I lift the filters up and there's a spot. I could put my phone in, right? And normally when I do that, I put the plate, the still plate over it, and tighten the screws up, right? You'll have to take all the filters out to actually see my phone. That night, I didn't do it. I said, "I'm putting my phone here real quick. I'm gonna go jump in the shower and come back out and grab my phone," right? 'Cause at this time, I was still doing my classes, right? - Taking off my classes, yeah. - Man, as soon as I get in the shower and come out, K9. Everybody hit the floor. How like fuck? I should have put it in. and they were going in that AC unit and they found my phone. You know, they took the filters out, everything. - Sent you the oil, huh? - What do they do, they see you the oil. - No, 'cause they don't know who phone it belongs to. They don't know. Lord, they don't catch nobody in that room. I was like, man, they're just so happening how to back up. 'Cause they had like a little chemical room where all the chemicals were stored. And it was a brick wall, like sender blocks and up top. It had a drop down, right? So I used that same method with the fishnet laundry bag and the stream with the hook. I used that same method and I dropped some stuff down there as a backup. - Man, so you were really, you had your run of the zone. You had it all locked for a minute there. - It's amazing what enough time can do to the human mind, like it's ingenious. - It's about survival. - Right. - And it was crazy, 'cause on my way up here, me and my guy, we were listening to Matthew Cox, what the guy named-- - Come on, take that out. We don't like to promote Matthew here on this show. - Oh. - I'm just fucking real, he's a good friend of mine. - Okay, so we were listening to an episode that he was doing with one of the Mexican mafia members, Boxer, right, and how I was saying how-- - No, that's me, bro. - That was you? - Yeah, Matthew doesn't know shit about Boxer, Renee Boxer, that's my dude. - Yeah, okay, okay, okay. - All right, so Luke, so we were listening to the Kinect as you should have been. - Right, 'cause he had the bluer's face on us. - Yeah, that was me. - Okay, Bob Ben. - That's all good, right, so, oh, and I was like telling him I was like, man, like, for a guy that don't have no education, it's been most of his life in prison. A real-life killer, right? I said, man, you listen to how he talks. - Incredible, right? And I'm like, bro, just think if he used that word of thinking, like that man can run a Fortune 500 company, you know what I'm saying? But we so caught up and so deep into the life where ain't no such thing as running a Fortune 500. It's like, you so caught up in this way of life now, man, to this is all you know, you know what I'm saying? And sometimes, and it goes back to even the contraband, like, you'll find ways to survive. But then when you get out here in the free world, you catch yourself struggling. - Right. - You know what I'm saying? And I be like, I can't for some reason, I can't even understand that. - I've talked to so many guys who just were geniuses with their hustle, their drug trafficking in prison, running the units, and you're right. It seems like when they come out in the free world, they can't channel that survival instinct and that optimism to like take that chance, you know? Because what you were doing takes brains and it takes balls and it takes just the will to go do it. - And you know we, I guess could we be so dedicated in ways to manipulate and beat the system, right? That we'd be so gone whole on that. But then when we out here, we like, I just work a nine to five. I just try to survive like that, you know? But then you can use different means to actually not have to struggle. You know, it's like the game changes now. But because you don't know that game, you only know this game and it's kind of hard for you to play. - But it still comes down to your will. Like trust me, I've been around a lot of successful people that are not brilliant at all. And but they're so, their mind is so focused and they're just consistently working at it that they make it happen. It's all about if you want it bad enough. And so yeah, that's really what I think it's adapting. Humans will adapt to everything. So you adapted to this horrible prison environment and made a way for yourself. You can adapt to society. And what's crazy is because when I first got out, man, I didn't know what I was going to do. You know, I was like, man, what am I gonna do with my life? Right? And especially, man, you spent half your life incarcerated. You know, like, man, it was gonna give you a chance. You know, because, man, this thing's, man, I had to learn. And it was sad because it would hurt me knowing the fact that I didn't know how to operate a washing machine because of the technology. I could operate a phone 'cause we had 'em, right? It was hard for me to operate a car, it just felt awkward. Just dealing with people, you know, the ruinous, the mannerisms, and it was like, I didn't know really how to adjust at first, right? And my girl just kept saying, like, no one is after you. You know, you're not in there no more. You know, you're gonna have to figure it out. You know, she was like, talk about it for what? Ain't talk to nobody, you know what I'ma talk about it now, right? And in slope like, man, I missed that on opportunities on blessings, right? 'Cause I still was holding on to a prison mentality, right? Some don't go my way, or you look at me for too long, or I feel like you being slick out the mouth, then I react, I respond, or I say something that would jeopardize my job. Man, I had a good job as a supervisor out of resort, at a hotel resort. - When you got out of prison? - Yes. - And I was given a chance, and I was a supervisor hourly. I was getting paid by the hour as a supervisor. I was still had that prison mentality. And I jacked myself out of it, you know, I got into it. I actually stepped into a meeting with all the big heads at the CEOs, the president, food and beverage directors, stuff like that, and confronted my director, and fronted him, you know, like, on some strong stuff, you know, like, man, you know. - Like you did with the guard. - Yeah, you know. - Like, you better bring that shit in. - You know. - And the next day, I had to go to HR, you know, they fired me, you know what I'm saying? But it was a learning experience, because I did that. And even right now today, you know, I blame myself 'cause I'm like, man, I didn't have to be that way. I was in a good place. I'm in a good place now. I'm in an environment of health and safety. On the 29th, I've been out this job now going on two years. Right? I learned a lot because of my partner, we're dealing with Oshar, and on the 29th, I began in my Oshar 5/11. It's a certification. I paid like $650 for it. They're not cheap, you know? I kind of found my niche. And I have another certification coming up on the 15th I'm going to be taking that one before the one on the 29th. And so I got a lot of stuff lined up, you know, to be certified. I have no doubt that you're going to do great things. I mean, look at you, if you're able to manage a many Mississippi prison empire, dude, you're going to be able to supervise and manage other people. Yeah, and not only that, but it's a working progress, you know, 'cause I have to work on me first. And I came a long way, man. Like, you know, my attitude, you know, just being able to adapt, being able to process, you know, people, you know, 'cause my thing was people, you know, I don't trust people, you know, but at some point in life, you know, you have to learn to, you know, but you'll know, 'cause all the things you've been through in life, you'll know who's for you and who's not. You know, accomplished, published in my book, you know what I'm saying? And it was crazy because my friend, he's a senior vice president at Tyler Perry Studios now. He used to be my school teacher back in high school, right? I graduated in '93. So that's-- Compton High, dude. Yeah, many, many moons have gone out, dude. Yeah, Tar Bays, man. It's not even the same no more, you know, 'cause Dr. Dre donated like $10 million. Yeah, this looks like a college campus now, probably. Yeah, this is nice, man. Yeah. 'Cause then back then it looked like a correctional institution, you know what I'm saying? And he was my school teacher as well as my mentor. I can say because I used to go to him and talk to him. He would give me advice. Even then he will always tell me, man, like, man, write a book. Your life is interesting, man. You can write, you know? I'm sure somebody else's life is way more, you know, interesting than mine. And then so 2003, I was locked up in a hole and I still stayed in touch with him, right? And he sent me this book on how to write movie scripts. I was like, man, I don't know how to write a movie script. I just kept the book and just read it for the 2018. I got to cell phone, smartphone, I go on YouTube and I was looking at how to write movie scripts examples and I saw this guy with the exact same book and I just started looking at it going over it, trying to process it in my head, looked at it, I don't know how many times before I actually started writing. I started writing, wrote a couple pages, I threw it all away. I only know what to write, right? I don't know what to write. So because I grew up on Rosecrans, I said, you know what, I mean, it's going to be inspired by true events, right? All the events that I went on growing up, I'm going to base the fictitious story, have a plot around the events, right? Come up with these characters. Some of the characters are real, but I change names around, you know, some of the main characters, some of them, one of them is me, maybe in one event is me, but all some of the other events it's not me, you know what I'm saying? So I started writing and because of him, you know, he inspired me to write this because of him, I was able to write my book and it's inspired by true events and it's titled Rosecrans. So can people find that, working people find, Amazon, bonds and nobles, books and millions? We'll put a link to that in the description of the episode. Yeah, my social, you know, my social media, Instagram, TikTok, all that. Man. So it is, you know, I got, I actually wrote a part two, I finished part two, two, two, two Rosecrans. It's called a crash unit and this probably be inspired by true events. It's a mixture of the same storyline from part one, but I began into more depth of like the rampart scandal, the crash unit, two-pock murder of stuff like that, you know, kind of lean up to those events, you know, just to, you know, get some to the readers, you know. I think right about what we talked about today, man, the Mississippi prison hell that you survived, I've never heard a story like it, man, so I really appreciate you coming on today, bro. Yeah, I appreciate it. That was something special. I wish you the best. I'm sorry that that happened to you. Like, you were heading down the wrong path. You were probably going to catch a case at some point, but I'm sorry that you had to do time like that for something that you didn't do. I mean, you know, I'm a firm believer in this, you know, that God is the best of planners. You know, whatever it is, that God wanted me to learn, that it was meant for me to learn because you have two types of people in the world. You have two types of lessons, a taught lesson and a bought lesson, you know. I can keep telling you all day, don't do this, don't do that. That's a taught lesson, but then you have a bought lesson where you bump your head a few times, your head is going to start hurting, right? So whatever the reason was, you know, I paid with my freedom, but maybe this second time around would be greater for me because now I'm more mature, you know, I appreciate more in life now than I did then for sure. You know, and even being able to do these type of interviews on these podcast is like, you know, it blows my mind because I'd be like, why me? You know, when this guy, his story is way more, you know, fascinating than mine. But at the end of the day, I'm like, it's God's plan. You know, saying so, you know, I just keep, just leave it at that. That's it, man. And just keep it moving and still try to do great things. You will. And you are. And I appreciate that, man. All right, you guys. Go check him out. Diaz, this was a pleasure. It was a treat. It was an honor. All right, you guys. Hell yeah. We'll see you next time. Take care.