gladto share with as his wonder bandanna got shipment cooper and that this with this holiday funny he'll with in elementary school, the teachers caught me that problem. cheers. so i was labeled early. i ended up getting kicked out of school. i was 1617

and 18 though. she's been my graduation high school years, but instead i'm on the streets selling crap. gang, bang and bacon that i was going to make to see 21. i would get dresden, all ready. ride the bus to the hill just to walk around and wait for a group of blues to approach me 1st, i would try to fight it tagged eisen. i'd walk in the middle and then i'd pull out that day and, and watch up scatter. when i oh, you know, watch it when like roaches. then i got addicted to be and feared.

my mom was here trying to be the disciplinarian and the bread winner. but she didn't have no help. i rebelled against her, but it wasn't her fault. we were in this together and that's why i should have known then ah, my mom was my 1st law. up until the mid eighty's when crack became the reason to be for her. it was okay. but she had an addiction and it grew monstrous. in her addiction to crap. so proceeded everything, her dignity, her ability to reason her desire to be our mother. it was one of the things that broke me. i didn't like the life that i was living,

but somehow i felt helpless to change it. i felt like i was just being carried on this wave of circumstance, not being able to have a job not being able to be the person that i thought that i could be. i just couldn't seem to get to her. i remember a few days before being incarcerated, crying out to god and knowing how trapped i fell, knowing how limited my option to work. and i just wanted out of that life. i didn't stand on the corner. i didn't do drive by, but i had a boyfriend i did. and i had fooled myself with the thinking that if i just stayed on the fringes of that lifestyle, that i couldn't get caught up. that wasn't true when they started rhonda, nothing unusual suspects. and i was on my boyfriend was all my protestations of

innocence. it is fell on deaf ears. there must be no doubt. 5 who side were all people who commit crimes should be caught convicted and punished. their savings will be used to put a 100000 police officers on the street. a 20 percent increase. it will be used to build prisons to keep a 100000 violent criminals off the street. you will be put away and put away for good 3 strikes and you are. 1993 washington state was the 1st state in the nation to implement the 3 strike policy and make it okay to put people in prison, throw away the key. there are many people who have rehabilitated their lives, who could be contributing to our young people to our families, and that door has been slammed shatt in washington state. we are still one of only 16 states that does not have the parole system. what's interesting about washington

state is really reflective of what's interesting about the whole country. this country is based on fear. when you have a country that is based on or that has grown out of colonization and slavery, people all rest easy. that's why everyone needs to be armed in this country to protect what they have. because what they have was stolen may not talk about it may not admit it, but it's there. whether you are on the red or on the blue. whatever side it is, no one fleece easily in this country. there was a drama, georgia, messrs baker. i simply want to say legislators have an inherent conflict of interest. the number one object of the legislature's to get reelected with how do you get reelected? truly easy ponder podium and sam, tough on crock of the children who have been k, o dog victims of bile, the public is fed up, and that means more prison time. we have

a greater percentage of our population in prison right now than any society in the history of western civilization. and we have this high and mighty attitude about ourselves. i want you to imagine that as much as $60.00 to $0.70 out of every tax dollar in my county goes toward criminal justice. it is a horrendous waste of resources. if you don't care about people, it's a horrendous way of resources on a private washing. it's very, very easy to instigate beer. that's what happened with 3 strikes because the face of the threat then became young, black and brown. men. we need to take these people on. they are often connected to big drug cartels. they are not just gangs of kids anymore. they are often the kinds of kids that are called super predatory. no conscience, no empathy. we can talk about why they ended up that way, but 1st we have to bring them to heal. and the president is asked the f

b i to launch a very concerted effort against gang everywhere. john and i were to go to the f. b i task force. they were forming a task force or gangs. we met with the drugs are privately, as you go around the country and see communities everywhere. people who are no longer willing to hide nor houses. this is our hill all we wanted to know. if go by your drugs, all up or lake, we don't come here, you've got to take us there. are willing with leadership and with involvement, lease and direction, least willing to take to the streets. you want to know why we're having success with our federal task force because they set them up all over the country and not all of them are kicking like we were in the wanted to know why john and i knew the gang members from work and the street and so we kind of knew who they should be targeting. oh i

police started doing more sleep saying would just get the kids and round him up for whatever little reason i could if they could get him on a sentence and get milan sense. keep them from ever coming. that is to play doh police, keith play guns, a lease, keith kick indoors and they get the search one later i got she, when i got you down and at dam bay in the take, they got you on the rules all by yourself in it because you by yourself, you're going to jail, may not have them even been a criminal activity. they just because they were out there, they'd get him just unloading. if i was walking to the corner store and i saw a house lo further up and i thought looked nice. so i wanted to walk by in the police army, they would say to me, what you do when here you live around here on

the narrative that we keep hearing is that there are people who are entitled to be here. even though folks know that this is not anybody's, it's not their land. so that narrative of being entitled and really protecting that is really what drives a lot the we, as a country don't wanna uncover that's too painful. given a race based country, such as we are, the people that really are impacted are the poorest and the black is mm . looking back now i'm able to see everything that happy. i wasn't able to see it, the install wasn't able to avoid the trash. now were safe for me, a lot of which weren't i don't wanna excuse any of the crimes at work committee because there were carm's committee, but some people didn't commit crimes and were just caught up in the friends that they chose. and it was even the friends that they chose. difference would, i grew up with, this is the neighborhood you, they knew these kids, you went to school with these people whose auntie house she went to eat sunday

dinner and mm mostly didn't just wake up and say, i want to be a gang member. this is what i'm going to be in life. we just screw went to that because this we were exposed to win, enable the last part of my career, i had the best job always to work. i had ultimate freedom to set my own targets and my own investigations long as i was producing, they left me alone. so i didn't have a lot of supervision by the late ninety's at the hill. top area was pretty much cleaned up. mm hm. i got convicted of aggravated murder. a drama

aggravated murder is the highest crime in washington. they changed some law and a hard time for arm crime in 1094 that says if a murder occurred during the discharge of a firearm from a motor vehicle, then you can be subject to the death penalty or life in prison. if i would have got senses to 1st or be murder, i probably would ahead 27 years since the murder occurred during the discharge of a file from a motor vehicle and that $7770.00 reason that a judge did not have the ability to give them a sentence of less than life without parole is that the legislature made it an aber voting circumstance to do

a drive by shooting. because he shot impulsively without knowing who was in the other car, but out of a car, only one punishment was appropriate. that law was passed because mostly white legislators viewed it as worse for gang members to shoot from a car. it was a clear reaction to the fear of black and hispanic individuals, a weapon in the commission of a crime. the promise of the criminal justice system is that it rises above race will be the title of the when i work in washington state to state, that is overwhelmingly quite true. when i go into a prison criminal justice system remains broken by the influence of race. ah,

when i was wrong, when i just don't need you to fill out the thing because the after an engagement equal the trail when so many find themselves will depart. we choose to look for common ground in the joggers archipelago. homer, the jo, san diego garcia, the largest island in the archipelago is now the location of a very large u. s. military base. you get given med, give out to the u. s. government to make a military base and just deported all of the juggle send people from their country . so they call it returned back on the island. no,

but we are fighting. that's why i'm fight. we'll fighting for the right. so i, we do not consider that the right to self determination actually applies to the trickle. since i don't the question, no self determination, the legal advice we've received is actually the trickle. since we're not and all not a people for me, it's time to move on and see what we can do. a full the tumbler said committee to return back home. there is no support from the united nation. i commission african united michigan. don't care about chug restaurant, people ah

not here said humanity. you said to privacy you're surrounded by middle and green. when you feel like cattle, you feel like something that's not real. they shoot down and search, you know, it's a roller coaster on your emotional well being put in a shell, a by pin cell with people that you don't know you never, you don't know what they're there for. what their balance is. it deprivation to your sanchez to explain. mm. you're away from everything that you know, i could not conceive of my life taking place within the walls that i saw around me

. we're going to give you 3 meals a day. we don't give you a c. mence lab less to go slab sleep on, and that's basically it. there's no rehabilitation, there's no repair. prison as socializing for said total institution, does it work? by and large, now people learn to become anti social. it's not designed to help anybody well, officers to make sure that you understand that you are a prisoner. when you find yourself in contact with them, they tend to look down as a way of not giving you eye contact for a lot of prisoners. it kind of makes them internalize that here nobody i don't think that as prisoners were treated as people ah,

i am able to vehicles on use all over, like modern day slavery. you know me when i get out of that. i had scheduled so when i used to be a young man sitting in his room and i used to be talking about stuff that i didn't have no clue about. you know, i'm saying politics, policies, legislators. i used to hear people speak about these different opportunities a hate not knowing institutional writing. i used to hate watching cnn and see these guys talking about politics and have no clue about what they was talking about. but knowing that these decisions were affecting my life somehow. and i will say that that is kind of one of the things that sent me on my quest. i wanted to learn. i think that the opportunities with the black prisoners caucus, with my interaction with free people, i'm able to really internalize and i'm not an offender. i'm not a prisoner,

i'm just a man who happens to be in prison. one of the things that the black person is coffee says is that they may be absent from community, but they're still a part of community seeing people constantly outside every single week who cared about us. and i'm saying to let us know that we were still part of the community. not always remember, mary. she said, if we planned on returning back to the community, how we came in here, then we might as well stay in there. mm. mm hm. i was the president of the black, was caucus at monroe. i went to the hall for a class a infraction possession of a cell phone. because i was life without. it didn't grant me the opportunity to stay at my room. i shipped a column by ah, well, the black business office was essentially a large part of everything that was going on. but when i got here that was enough,

i basically just reached out to administration, was kind of hesitant on allowing us to be able to have the name like prisoners caucus. it was too radical for them like david for something to have black and ah, i just reinforce that. the black person has a long for duck, this history within the department of corrections. ah and so eventually it was like business process. she's never been able to really get going. and so, you know, as we started to have some of our 1st meetings, the idea was now what is it that we want to see, right. what are the opportunities that we need in order for us to really stay committed on improving self?

you'll begin to meet people who's been down longer than you've been alive. people walk them through the 7. and so you'll realize that know what? they're really not letting people or you probably be 7 years or more than 131 and one does a lot of stuff. a love love. all those from the all been gone. does a lot of miss, that's a lot of the not only do you have to make a commitment, but you have to make a choice. if i still want to continue live in the life that got me here, or i want to try and live in a better life, right?

we can never become somebody different, but we can a better version of who we are. i almost immediately upon antimony cloud bay, i found out that a few guys had just started a program and they call teach. and it's for taken as cation and creating has to me and come on and call it. i've been on it since lucas kids in the same. so you see with on the side i was on the heels. so we was really rivals back. and when, when he came, when he came here, i seen him, he with any of them all the b p. c. and he wanted to start a teen program. it came up with the idea. we was like, ok, let's do it. there were several of us were a column bay who had a lot of time doing present and we weren't being allowed to attend education class . the priority for our education department is

those individuals with 7 years or less on their sentence. so if you have more than 7 years, which a lot of people do, you don't get a chance to get an education. we wanted to get professors to be able to come out here, but we were su 4. so the next thing was do either let his program go to waste or do we figure out a way to make it flow? so later we came up, we would just teach the class work backwards from here. and then we're just gonna move on. when we get teach math where we could teach writing and so it was more about the skill sets that we already had and being able to just really nurture those and provide those in the classroom setting to a y equals negative a negative is positive. we reached out to a lot of prisoners, right guys we had degrees and all that type of stuff. but then we also quickly came to the realization just because you have a degree doesn't mean that you can teach. eventually we begin to find guys who teaching was something that was last what we said about creating all syllabus in

all curriculum and in all classes with a story changing and shaping people's thinking. and from near the worst spray, when i got here and was working on the school floor, i blew by the teach classroom. and it was the 1st time i ever seen a classroom being taught without an officer and it was prisoners, lived enough prisoners. and so when i seen these guys doing the stuff i had to be part of the work, the money $40.00 a half, 2 hours within the day we decided to diversify our board. this way we can attract more students, but also we can understand each other more. so is reaching all corners. it presently with part of me coming on board with this was seeing what you guys were doing and, and wanting to get behind that. i was like, yes, finally,

an opportunity for me to go and do something productive that was provided before that inmates created. we've created a support group for, for positivity in the most unlikely of environment with we've been kidded against one another for so long. it literally allows a prison to run itself as long as they stay separated, we got to worry about them coming together, becoming knowledgeable to fixing the social issue that end up landing them in prison in the 1st place. ah, the more that we begin to educate ourselves, the more empowered we become, the less manipulated we can be. the less oppressed we can be. now while we're beginning to realize that we can get more accomplished together than we can apart, you know, because it can take an assessment at 1st. i really didn't want to leave column by because it had things that we were doing up there and i were so powerful in the

relationship that we have with administration. i didn't think that we're going be able to duplicate some of those things. so i thought to state air in my cup results, i continue to bill. ready no more was coming up for his time a leave also. ready the more set his mind on shone and i went to my review right after that were i spoke to my counselor and they asked me where i want to go. when it came time a transfer, they told me shout. so i was happy. i seen were to do more than i was coming and he sent word to say good, i'm glad because i mean having some problems with trying to get to pbc story here. most of the people that live in this county worked is this is not a diverse community. the most diversity they have is behind these barbed wire fences. some days they have a challenge accepting me. so i can only imagine what the challenges would be around a black christmas. ringback the fear that i hear

is that, oh, you know the name as the black prisoners caucuses. it's a black gang. we should be fearful of god. ah, people who form ignorant shore, cited opinions about things like that. haven't taken the opportunity to participate and learn really what is going on there. welcome to washington correction center. thank you for being here today. i attended the summer and i was speechless. i listen to the stories that were being told, the things they had to say really resonated with me and drew me in the, the things that we have been through the things that we have been around. i would worry what others would thinking would i think i go saw? that was my concern. i used to think that not to gang bang was assigned a week. i only intended to be there for a few minutes to kind of check can do an introduction. see what it was about,

and when i sat down, i did want to get back up to help young people away make some of the say bad decisions that we may also we hope to be able to reach young people themselves. we believe in them and expect them to be fluent and add to the world much. we solidified to be p. c. here we wanted to move on to the next thing and start to teach program because this prison, as far as prison is, is canada, mecca of prisons in our state. this is where every person 1st comes to, and this is where every person, if you're transferred from one prison to another prison, you have to come through here. so i am actually going to be here for a while. we see everybody in the state. they have to cross our pass. i see young guys all the time come to here whose life i've been foolish, negative. that's something that i've had to live with, working towards having a positive influence on those generations. now it gives me a way to undo some of the wrongs that i've done in the past. oh

i i use for this week across a community like oh, i could, i don't been funny you move it and i'm from my that you know to find the reason to pass. good. place them. yeah. get, get you physically more vis. autopay and if it's too long for weapons who is it best in

a perfect day with dick and i'm just kind of a big gladstone minutes is so new bandanna, big shipment cooper. i left this with a funny keel leaf. mm hm. ah ah

ah ah ah, louise top stories russian troops edge closer to taking the strategic city of altima can the don't yet grip hard leg of the things in control of the nearby town of solar dawn following months of intense fighting. dozens of passengers die in a plane crashed in upholds international airport. the countries was a disaster in 3 days. with no country load, people have the right to force african countries in their people to take. so it is africa shouldn't become an arena for competition. and between world powers and china.