tv The Redemption Project CNN June 2, 2019 6:00pm-7:00pm PDT
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can actually fund election security. they took $350 million and brought it to zero. the best thing we can do is just overwhelm the ballot box. >> our thanks to congressman eric swalwell. our thanks as well to the studio audience. you've been great to be here the whole afternoon asking very thoughtful questions of the presidential candidates tonight. "the redemption project" with my colleague, van jones, starts right now. i think police do a lot of bad things. nobody in the neighborhood trusted the police. >> you respond to calls. you make arrests. and you either survive under any and all conditions or you don't. >> i'm going to talk to him about that night. >> i'm taking a chance. >> i don't know exactly how it's going to go. >> it doesn't seem like either one of you are thinking fully of the other person as a human
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being. you're just two soldiers on a battlefield. >> we got shots fired. >> i saw him slide back. >> and i pulled the trigger. >> i closed on him. >> he was struggling with me. >> i fully intended to stop him. that included taking his life. >> i've spent half my life working with the criminal justice system, and i've seen lives devastated by violence. we like to imagine that after the verdict, the story is over, the victim and the offender are never meant to meet again. but for some, the only way to move forward is to come face to face with the person who shattered their lives. ♪
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>> bakersfield, california, we're only, like, an hour and a half from los angeles. they got altugriculture here, t got oil. a lot of poverty here, though. about 20 pock% of the populati here is under the poverty line. that's much worse than the national average. i'm here to meet a former sheriff's deputy named tom morgan. two decades ago, he got shot by a young gang member. he survived, and the two are going to meet face to face after all this time. relationships between white officers and the black community has been bad for a long time. it's one of the, i think, biggest issues in the country is just this tension. often, you talk to cops, they say they feel very, very vulnerable out here. well, that's exactly how a lot of these young african-americans feel. there should be a bridge there. we almost never see that, but there really could be. how are you, sir? >> i'm well, how are you?
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>> very good to actually finally get a chance to meet you, man. >> indeed. pleasure. >> my name is thomas morgan. i'm a former deputy sheriff. my immediate family is my wife. my wife and i have been married 20-plus years. we've got two golden retrievers. lance and bella. they're sort of like our children. i was hired by the sheriff's department in 1984 as a patrol officer, and after my injury, i retired in 1999 as a senior deputy sheriff. i became interested in the study of law and eventually i was assigned the sheriff d.a.'s office. i like helping people. i like being able to make a difference. >> i come from a law enforcement family. my dad was a cop in the military. my favorite uncle, milton, just retired from the memphis city police force, so this kind of cuts close to home, somebody from law enforcement actually getting shot.
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so i know you got shot in the neck. what are the long-term implications or injuries that you carry as a result of getting shot in the neck? >> well, it's ruined my singing career. not that i had one to begin with. >> so that raspy sound in your voice, it's always that way? >> yes. the gun he shot me with was a .410 darrenger. the barrel of the gun was placed against my neck when the trigger was pulled. all the bullets when in. i still have several that are up against my spine. i spent most of my career in the south and southeast unincorporated areas of bakersfield, which is predominantly black. at the time, i couldn't really tell you what was going on in the community, but i don't know that that particularly matters to any patrol officer.
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it's largely irrelevant because street-level law enforcement is mostly a one-on-one operation. it's like going into another world, and you're stepping into that world at their absolute worst time. >> we got shots fired. shots fired. officer down. get me an ambulance. >> i can remember thinking as i'm laying on the ground after he shot me, i'm not surprised. >> why? is. >> when i said that, i'm speaking more broadly about why, you know, why not being surprised that that happened because that's the nature of the job. you don't just overnight find yourself in a patrol car being faced with violence. it's a process you ygo through n academy. you're instructed you're to go out and take care of these problems, and you become that person, that perception, of what
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an officer is. after i got shot, the next thing i remember was waking up a week or so later in ucla medical center in icu. i apparently underwent five or six surgeries during that period of time. even several months after i got home, i couldn't eat any food by my own. but watching the pain that my wife and my family and friends were going through was by far the worst thing that i had to endure during all of that. >> let's talk about -- about your wife. i know that she has suffered greatly. it's a burden that she's -- she's carrying. >> my wife's an extraordinary
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woman, and i wouldn't be involved in this dialogue if she'd have just said no. i wouldn't have given it a second thought because i didn't want to dredge up any of that pain that she, you know, had managed to kind of set in the background over the intervening 18 or 19 years. up until the point that i was shot, my wife and i, i think we'd been married about a year, and every day when i left for work, she would ask me, be careful, and i always promised that i would be careful. when you love someone, there's a deal there. there's a contract, if you will. you know, one or the other party isn't going to do anything that's going to unnecessarily
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threaten that -- that relationship. when she got that knock on the door, her life, one second, it was one thing, and the next second, it was entirely different, and she's not responsible for any of that. it -- it's not her fault. to me, it's really important to do what i can to erase the pain of that incident. and the victim/offender dialogue, the potential for good out of the hate and pain and anger, is -- it's huge. >> we got shots fired. shots fired. shots fired. >> since the day it happened, my family and friends, including my wife, wanted him killed. >> at the time, it wasn't just
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♪ and when you make me smile meet acqua panna with it's unique journey through the nature of tuscany. ♪ i feel much better acqua panna. meet the smoothest taste on earth. bay area's home to one of california's most famous prisons, its oldest prison, san quentin. i'm going out there to talk to jason samuel. that's the guy that shot tom. to figure out why he shot a cop and what was going through his mind that day in bakersfield. >> count nine. count nine. 1,500. mandatory. . >> hey, how you doing, man? >> thanks for giving me this opportunity to talk to you. >> appreciate the opportunity to talk to you also. >> yeah, yeah, man.
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>> so let's rewind for a second. now, how old are you? >> at that time? i was 17. i just had turned 17. >> just turned 17. >> just turned 17. >> what is the mind state of that person, that person who's in that situation, how it kind of sets you up to make some bad decisions? >> it didn't faze me to even shoot a cop. it was like just shooting another enemy. as a kid, i had no trust for the police. and police come took my mother from me. >> that's a big event in anybody's life. >> yep. yep. exactly. so from the experiences i had with them or seen or heard, it was just, you know, there was no trust there. >> now, that night, when you have the gun in your hand and you're trying to basically execute this officer -- >> uh-huh, my mind stayed with
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just trying to kill him. >> why? >> i just wanted to kill him because he was trying to arrest me and he was a police officer and that was just how my mind was that night. fellas. blessed by the best. i grew up basically in the '80s. at that time, i believe the police was a joke and they didn't care about the black community. so already i had a hatred for police. it wasn't something that the gangs bread me into believing. nobody in the neighborhood trusted the police. like, they just out to get you no matter how much money you got or what you're doing, as long as you're black, you're still a -- you know. i didn't respect them. i never distinguished police as being actual protecters of the community. i seen them as another gang in my eyes. they were just more structured than we were.
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>> i think it's different for most people if they're not black, right? because that's who police basically target is black people. right? and it's been going on way before i was in born, you know, so in my mind, i thought i did something good. i shot a police, that meant something, you know, i'm somebody, right? and was nobody proud of that, you know, nobody was proud. my family wasn't proud. my homeys was mad at me. now because i started a war with the police. >> so the police started taking it out on all your homeboys. >> yep. then when i was sitting in prison, wasn't nobody from my gang saying hey, man, you know, we love you, man, we got your back, you know, it wasn't none of that. >> as a false promise from the gangs in the first place. >> exactly. so it wasn't no honor in what i'd done. right? and i felt the shame instead of the pride. you know, so when you feel that way, you, like, you need to re-evaluate your morals, your core values.
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when i first entered high desert state prison, i was 18 years old. that was maximum security prison. and i was nervous, i was scared. even as a gang member, i still was getting preyed on, you know what i mean? people still challenged me. so i knew i had to be turtle. that was the name the gang gave me. i had to be turtle or i was going to be stabbed or possibly raped or anything. you know, so it was just that type of lifestyle that i was living for the first ten years. i came to san quentin in 2014. and i really exerted myself into learning how to read and write and stuff like that. ♪ right now, i'm a janitorial
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maintenance where working the hospital, learning how to do different things in the hospital. it's a good learning experience, not just the work but actual outside contact with people. i'm about to have this dialogue with a -- with the officer i tried to kill. i'm going to need all the support i can get because it's going to be some very emotional stuff that i'm going to be going through. might be traumatized by the whole experience. >> i know that you're anxious. also you're nervous. but we're down as far as we can go. the next step is death. >> yeah. >> so we can't do anything but go up. you know what i'm saying? i think that this is your time. >> at what point, in your mind, did the officer that you shot go from being an enemy that could be a badge of honor for you, to human being? >> it took a while to get there because i had, like, the hatred
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for price wolice was real, for . even though i felt sorry for what i did, it was kind of hard for me to understand how can i have empathy for somebody that's an officer? >> jason is somebody that has -- is capable of empathy? i don't know. i'd love to say i'm like some super mind reader, you know, that i'm capable of, you know, looking at somebody's soul. none of us can do that. (paul) great. another wireless ad. so many of them are full of this complicated, tricky language about their network and offers and blah blah blah. look. sprint's going to do things differently. and let you decide for yourself. they're offering a new 100% total satisfaction guarantee. try it out and see the savings. if you don't love it, get your money back. see? simple. now sprint's unlimited plan comes with one of the newest
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thank you for having me today. i appreciate your letting me speak to you. just got a few things i'd bring along. after the shooting, i was asked to speak to academy cadets where i'd go over the circumstances that i was involved in. i've given this presentation to a number of groups, but my favorite is always you guys, the dispatchers. i'll go over the incident a little bit and just listen to the dispatch tape playing. on april 14th, 1997, i was on routine patrol with my trainee, and first call that we got, i
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was a report of shots fired. as soon as we pulled up, we noticed a car parked and it appeared there were two occupants. >> control 1, i'll be code 6 on a -- >> i was asleep in the car. police knocked on the car window. i was on the passenger's side. that's what he was doing -- how he was doing the night. told them i was fine. >> my traine, is motioning the passenger to get out of the vehicle. >> put his hands in one of my pocket, pulled out an inhaler. the other pock, et he padded an felt the weapon. >> the deputy yelled to me, a gun. >> i ran. i jumped the fence of the house. it was my friend's daddy's home. i thought the back door was open but it wasn't. the chain was locked on the door so i couldn't get in. >> my impression from my trainee was that he had gotten subject
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of gun because of the way he phrased it, "i've got a gun." so according to the department's deadly force policy, he didn't fall clearly into an area where i would have been justified in firing my weapon. i couldn't see a gun in his hand, but i also couldn't let him get into the house. i closed on him, grabbed him. >> he pepper sprayed me. he was struggling with me. >> i got my baton out and tried to use that. >> i remember that i had the gun on me. >> i remember shouting something like, "don't do it." >> i put it to his police neck, and i pulled the trigger. >> it was a single shot into my neck. there was a blinding flash, and then i couldn't feel anything. >> control 1, we got shots fires. shots fired. >> i turned an. police sitting in front of the door with his gun pointed at me. >> i was suddenly able to move. i pulled out my backup weapon and i fully intended to stop him if that included taking his life.
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>> i hit him a few times in the face. took his gun from him. put it to his head, pulled the trigger. the gun didn't go off. >> he was standing ee ining ove of me and he pointed that direct he at me and then i saw him very distinctly rack the slide back and point it back at me and pull the trigger again. >> gun still didn't work so i tried it one more time. put it to his head, pulled the trigger. >> just simply unfamiliar with the weapon, didn't realize that head to disengage the safety in order to get it to fire. >> so i end up running to the backyard. ramming the front door with my shoulder until i knock down the door. they told me to get out the house with that gun. so i let the gun go and they took me out and i was arrested. >> we have a suspect. i have the guy. unit 33. get me an ambulance. >> ambulance is en route. suspect is in custody. >> in talking to you and talking
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to him, it almost sounds like you're just two soldiers on a battlefield. a war, like rifle armyval armie gangs and doesn't seem like any one of you is thinking fully of the other person as a human being as combative. >> that's almost a requirement of the efficiency needed to be able to do it every day without going crazy or, you know, you know, falling into depression. >> a little bit of dehumanenizidedehumanizing of the people you have to mis. >> yes. >> from his point of view, he's dehumanizing the people that are trying to police him. >> i'd be speaking for him if i said anything in that respect, but that seemed to ring true to me. >> i mean, let's just talk about that, though, because for -- literally it seems sometimes you like turn on a tv and every other day there's some videotape, social media incident, involving a white police officer and a young african-american. from your perspective, what -- how do you make sense of all that? >> i spend a lot of time
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thinking about it. i know the statistics. i know how many more young black men are shot, unfortunately, than white men. so my struggle has been reconciling with who i know to be good people with what's an obvious problem. what's clearly been a history of racial bias in the country. >> what do you think about this idea of unconscious bias, that kind of -- it's not even conscious. >> absolutely. if i'm honest with myself, there are aspects of my perception that have racial overtones, and i'm ashamed of it. but the only thing i can do about them is recognize them, recognize them for what they are and i think that's one of the problems is that people fail to recognize that within themselves
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and then deny so strongly that it exists, it makes it more difficult to come to a solution. ♪ >> when i shot the officer, i didn't see the blood. after i got arrested, it was almost the next day already. and when i got to juvenile hall, that night, they let you shower before you go to the cell, and that's when i seen all the blood that was coming off my body going down the drain. sitting in that cell was when i really started thinking about what i had done and why i had did it and what led up to it. >> in our healing circle, we come to a place where everybody's equal in this space.
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the people in prison are accepted back into their communities once they've done the work. obviously, if you haven't done the work, then you shouldn't be getting out of prison. >> i ended up getting involved in a support group and really exposing myself, being vulnerable in groups because i knew i really needed to change. >> many of us have done some horrible crimes but we're still human beings, we still got to find a way to move through life and we still have to find a way to heal because hurt people hurt people. if we don't heal from the hurt, we continue to be the people that hurt people. >> i learned i was a very emotional person, that i was triggered very easily, that i have trust issues and abandonment issues. want to see some pictures, which is right here.
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there you go. that's a picture of me right there. bakersfield, mainly southeast bakersfield. i was the oldest. at the time, there was three of us. it was cool at first. before my mother started having her own issues. one day i went to the refrigerator and i saw this sweet white rock. i thought it was candy so i put the whole thing in my mouth. my mom came out and saw me. it burnt my tongue so bad, i couldn't eat it. my mom came out, what are you doing with that? >> that was a rock of crack cocaine. >> it was pretty big. eventually, they took us from our mother. at first, my mother was coming to see us and spend a few hours. that happened, like, maybe twice i could remember, and she just stopped coming. i was scared. i was ashamed. like, i wasn't good enough.
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or she didn't love her kids enough to quit doing what she was doing to get us back. i was put in the home with my sister and my auntie, and she ended up taking my other brothers in, but i still felt abandoned and that carried over into me wanting to be involved in the gangs to be accepted. around 14 years old, i started doing bad things. fighting. breaking into houses. at the age of 16, my auntie end up kicking me out her home, so i was living in dope houses, motel rooms, car. i'd sleep anywhere i needed to sleep at to get to the next day. whatever i needed, i sold the drugs to get it and started eventually carrying weapons. i've been incarcerated 21 years. me going through this process, i
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hope that he don't still see me as that 17-year-old kid that shot the police. (airport pa sound) ♪ i see your face looking into my mine ♪ ♪ and all of these doubts run through my head ♪ ♪ can you be with me meet acqua panna a water with a perfect mineral balance for a smooth taste. thanks to a unique journey through the nature of tuscany. ♪ i feel much better acqua panna. meet the smoothest taste on earth. wow. we did it. we built the fastest network for the latest iphones. and the iphone xr, with a retina display that makes everything look incredible... it's like the perfect couple - you know, the ones who look great in every picture. like the ones who always make me feel like a before photo. zoey and chris. hey guys! hey... zoey and chris! ...how fun is that?
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she's a facilitator, she's been working with both men now for about a year and a half. most people, if there's a conflict anywhere, they want to run from it. if there's a conflict in their own lives, they want to avoid it. and, i mean, a know a lot about american law enforcement. there's not that many cops who've been shot who really want to sit down and have a conversation with the person -- >> no. >> -- who almost killed them. >> it's very unusual. a police officer wears a uniform. whenever you put on a uniform, i think there's a part of yourself that yoo yewe kind of relinquisu give up. >> you're a role. >> you're a role. you become a role. >> initially i was angry. i was frustrated. i remember telling people i was angry at him for trying to kill me. but had i been consumed by the need to hate jason, that wouldn't have helped anyone around me.
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you can't maintain that level of emotion, that level of hate, and if you try, it just destroys you. and so i tried to really move on with my life, but my wife, christy, is on a different path. she still, you know, struggles and i think she really is skeptical about all of this. >> a little while ago i stood up in this circle and i spoke on that i was going to have this dialogue with the survivor of my crime. i know how important this is, and people like y'all helped me get through the situation and within myself to be able to do that. >> how did you get to this place where you thought you was ready to have this kind of dialogue with your survivor? >> i'm still not for sure if i'm 100% ready but i don't have no choice but do be. i'm just going in there, presenting who i am today, presenting who i am at that moment and leave it in god's hands.
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>> all right, tom. we always start with a check-in. how are you in this very moment? >> i'm looking forward to meeting jason in person. >> is there anything that would throw you off? >> i look on what happened that night as kind of a almost inevitable. you know, his life up to that point, my life to that point. but i'm a little bit worried and i know that's something i talked to my wife about, and she's concerned. do you think that's kind of letting him off the hook? it almost gives him an excuse not to take responsibility? >> no, i don't think you're letting him off the hook, and i think when you say it's inevitable, it's really looking at, we call it connecting the dots. what were all the life events that happened that then eventually allowed him to do what he did.
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so how are you today? tomorrow's a big day. >> still kind of, like, nervous. >> i think i do want to talk a little bit about his wife. >> uh-huh. >> she's still, you know, really the -- all the trauma is still very present in her body. and she's imagining you 20 years ago. ♪ >> this is my wife's victim impact statement from the trial. "on the night of april 14th, 1997, tom was protecting us, the citizens, of kern county. i had no idea what to expect, but what i saw was far worse than anything i could have imagined. the vile and bloodthirsky kty ak on his life by jason samuel.
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in particular, in support of the lifelong incarceration of jason samuel, since capital punishment unfortunately is not applicable in this circumstance." ♪ i mean, our last physical contact, we were literally and aggressively trying to take each other's life. i can't imagine a more kind of intimate event between human beings. ♪ >> i'll always go with my gut because i really can't control this process. i'm just going to control what i say and what i do and just hope for the best. that's pretty much all i can do.
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♪ take me to your best friend's house ♪ ♪ going around this roundabout ♪ ♪ oh, yeah you know those butterflies aren't actually in the room? hey, that baker lady's on tv again. she's not a baker. she wears that apron to sell insurance. nobody knows why. she's the progressive insurance lady. they cover pets if your owner gets into a car accident. covers us with what? you got me. [ scoffs ] she's an insurance lady. and i suppose this baker sells insurance, too? progressive protects your pets like you do. you can see "the secret life of pets 2" only in theaters.
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ing up for me. couldn't sleep well. just anxiety and everything going on. >> all i could think of was, you know, that i wanted to be able to sit down across from you and, you know, i -- i've never really thought that i needed to forgive you. the way i looked at that incident, it was like i had spent my entire life up to that point training for that, you know, that single moment, and in a way, you'd been doing the same thing. and i knew i didn't know you. you didn't know me. so in many ways, it didn't seem personal. so why did it happen? you know, how did -- how did it get to that point? i think we were like a culmination of our experiences meeting in that, you know, behind that house, in the
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darkness, in that moment of violence. but your, you know, attempts to shoot me after, you know, i think that was a question in my mind and the missing part of that kind of puzzle i think is why were you -- what was your rage coming from? >> the rage came from everywhere. the rage was like he was trying to kill me, so i better kill him first. that's the first thought in my mind. it was, like, impulsive. it wasn't nothing that i thought about. it just happened and let me get him first. because i thought it was supposed to be honor. you know, you shoot the police, you're the man, you know? >> you really thought that? >> yeah. ♪ >> i just -- i'm sitting in juvenile hall and i was, what'd
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i do? ♪ man. i know i got a lot of making up to do for a lot of people i've harmed. there's a lot of people. because i was careless and i only ca didn't care about myself so i couldn't care about others. i don't feel that way. i care about myself. i care about others. it took me a long time to get that way because i was so ashamed and felt abandoned. mother still doing the same thing she's doing when i was coming up. my sisters, my brothers, they're not in my life like they're supposed to be. but i destroyed them, too. i didn't -- other people involved in gangs. i did a lot of bad stuff. i think about that and what i need to do to make it better. so i'm trying to put my best foot forward and hopefully some good come out of this.
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♪ >> take a break. >> yeah. >> okay. let's take a break. >> yep. >> all right. we'll just give the two of you some time. >> what do you think of jason? i was really impressed with him. >> it's too much. far more than anything i ever imagined. when i got my dna results, it opened up so many doors. it's a lifelong adventure finding all of these new connections all the time. new features. greater details. richer stories. get your dna kit today at ancestry.com.
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>> one thing i wanted you to know, that in my heart, i never hated you. and as the years have gone by, the pain, the difficulties that are associated with things like this, they have faded away. time kind of does that. i don't think you were some murderous individual trying to kill cops, indiscriminately. you were a frightened young man confronted by police trying to survive. >> yeah. but i was the one putting myself in that situation. i could have not tried to kill
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you that night. i could have put the gun away and went to juvenile hall for a year or two. i made a choice. i did this to myself and i have to make the changes for myself. and at first, i'm scared to change. i never, ever thought i would change. i thought i would be a crip until i day. i have skills i didn't know i had. i am a good worker. i never had a job before. that is maybe feeling the same i used to file. they feel good about taking advice from me. tell them my story. don't know how to read, do none of this stuff. i ain't perfect, none of thnchs worst part of all of this is watching the people around me what did it to him. i think the life you're leading is going to help the people i think that were really damaged.
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get -- if there is anything out of this that i would want, it would be that you lived your life. that my wife -- there's nothing in that life that i care more about. if you can manage that, i couldn't tell you how much it meant. >> okay. >> it's hard to explain this to people. but your act of violence actually made me a better person. it forced me to be a better person. you have that same power to be a better person. and you've already started down that path. you know, taught yourself to read and write. got your high school diploma. you came here to improve yourself, be involved in the groups. and there would be nobody on this planet more proud of you
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than me. if you were able to take what you have been through and turn it into something positive. >> i just -- i haven't really had too many people that see me for me, who i am. that helps. it's motivation. to keep going. striving to be better. my own family never said nothing like that. so that means a lot. it's still that why me question that comes back up. why is this happening to me? >> can i tell you why? >> huh? >> because you worked for it.
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you really worked for it. >> thank you. >> all right, so i would like to close this circle. thank you for this opportunity of working with you. and i also want to acknowledge christy, your wife, who has done the most remarkable journey. she has come to a place where she could like to meet you. >> wow. >> right now, right here. >> you serious? >> yeah, she could like to meet you. >> okay. >> here she comes.
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prison, he's a monster, to where she got to in just that short period of time. she saw something in that room that changed her life. you know, jason said almost nobody has ever said a kind word to him. that just blew my mind. and then to hear the guy he shot give him kinder words than maybe he's heard from anybody? i mean, that has got to put a rocket fuel under his recovery and growth. you think about the injury between this guy shot this person but the injury is so much bigger than. and the healing was so much bigger than that. i mean, i think on this one, i under estimated both guys. i did.
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