Murder And Redemption Volume 3

and we're back here what are we on uh episode 45 of uh the damage done podcast here we're doing a third volume of our murder and redemption crime and redemption uh serious today we're gonna have uh quite an interesting story for you uh incredible human being that lived quite an interesting life put him in a position where he was wrongfully accused of murder census of 33 years in prison spent 25 of it and from what i gather he still felt though he was wrongfully accused that he deserved to be there but somehow someway he found it found a way i guess i'd call it to uh change his life change his way of thinking seeing the world and now he's out in the world changing lives and uh so i want to work on our guest caesar thank you bro welcome bro thank you for coming out thank you absolutely so you know let's let's just rock with it man um how how does one get themselves in a position where they can get sentenced to 33 years in prison and then come out on the other side of such as you have we'll work towards i guess you know how you got to that position to you know change your life and then change other people's lives and have the impact that you have but you know where did where did it start i'm sure you didn't just accidentally get sentenced to 33 years in prison there was a build up to that so let's start there well in 1991 the gang that i was part of we were at a war with another gang right we're at war with them and where's this taking place and watts okay got it right so it was a war where uh it was back and forth you know it wasn't like oh yeah not today like no it was back and forth it was pretty pretty crazy pretty crazy times right and um so on the retaliation from uh they had murdered one of my friends right a few months passed and one of their guys got murdered right that time i lived in the heart of my neighborhood like my houses were like one of the main houses that was there and walt was a bit more wild than obviously than it is today people you know know watts from whether the watts riots during the the la riots yeah and even now people know watts is it's it's not a nice suburban neighborhood so it's it can be rather violent correct yeah and then it's crazy because it's it's it's watch gangs within each other that are fighting each other usually watch gangs are together but at that time everybody was on their own okay and uh anyway so uh the murder happens i get arrested i'm 17. it was me and my co-defendant and uh you know i started off in juvenile hall and you know i'm like well i didn't do this so i was okay like this is jail eventually the truth's gonna come out and i'm gonna go home right and there's also chalked us up as a little war story came in jail i got tried for murder and i get tried as an adult and i get sent to the county jail okay right and i remember i was in juvenile hall and the bus came and picked me up and i'm i've seen buses before but when i seen the la county bus it just looked you're talking about the la county sheriff's bus yes they've been there it just looked humongous right and i'm like a kid and i'm looking at it like wow like whoa this just just got real right now right because i'm in juvenile hall and i'm a bunch of kids and you know my age now i'm going with the big dogs and i get over there and i remember because when we first got arrested it was four of us right and then it was just became two of us the other two were let go for whatever reason they didn't say nothing against us or not they just got let go they say okay we need a driver and a shooter and we got them here got it so you guys they've they've it was like unlucky uh you know yeah draw of the straw yeah i don't believe that they knew exactly who they who they needed to charge and i remember one of my one of my homeboys that was in the tank with me uh he was like man what are they like what are we here for like what are they what are they getting us for oh for this murder and they're like wait a minute when does murder happen and he's like oh it happened on on march 3rd and they're like you know the same day of the rodney king meeting really yeah it was the same the same day i thought it was it was crazy because i was watching that right so you you know exactly where you were at and what you were doing i was having such a monumental so you were home during the murder so you're definitely innocent exactly so um so my homework is like yeah it was the night of the you know and he was like man i was in the county jail so he tells the sheriff in the station hey what are you charging me with oh we have you for the murder for what murder well i'm murdered on such and such date and he says well i was in the county i was going to county lit at that time so how could it beat me they went and looked and then they said okay no you're here for receiving stolen property because he had a big old you know where i was from the gang that i was from he had a big old street sign in his house when he raided his house so they cut him loose they just said just like that yeah and then my other my other homeboy co-defendant he didn't even make it to the courtroom he got cut loose right before he went to court really just like reject status or something yeah and they just cut them loose um so yeah me and my co-defender begin you know fighting these these charges and it's funny because as i was driving over here i passed by the hall of justice right here and that's where i was at for two years fighting this case wow right so i was telling my my girl about it oh man my mom used to be standing out here for hours so she can come and see me for 20 minutes right and then the next day all over again so anyways make a long story short i litigated my case for about 15 months and i lost right okay so when i lost were they offering you deals i mean obviously you litigated your kids when you went to trial but did you did you were you offered deals that you're like no way i'm gonna win this i'm not taking it or like did you just went straight to the box took it they never offered me a deal i believe they thought they had to open and shut case with no evidence um all they had was just one guy saying that he see me driving the car that's all they had they didn't have no gun they didn't have no so the crime was committed march 2 march 3rd i got arrested in may mm-hmm right my coat is spending they raided our houses they take us in and um so they didn't have anything so they had a murderer they had them they had an almighty weapon they had no fingerprints they had a picture of the vehicle that was supposed to have been used and that was parked in front of my house so my argument was always on a murder scene if there was a vehicle parked right there that was was used to commit a crime wouldn't the smart thing would be impound the car fingerprinted look for shell something why would you just leave the car there and just take a picture but back in 1991 all they needed was somebody to say it was shame i've seen them they just wasn't all they needed and you were convicted right so that's what happened with me and you know when i was litigating my case man um you know i i was a i was a i was a spiritual person in my own way and i will pray every night you know if god really sees everything then of course he's gonna see that it wasn't really me and the truth's going to come out but i want to ask you a question you said you're spiritual in your own way which i love were you spiritual in your own way when you were running around in the streets too yes yeah yes yes what is that what does that look like i would justify my behavior even though i was a certain person right and i would do certain things uh i still had a higher power you know according to me you know of course you're a gang member so whatever was best for you this was fitted for you right so i had a spiritual foundation in my own way yeah right i believe you know even though i believe in god i'll still kill you right if you're reminding me i'm still going to kill you so that was my spiritual your own brain is spiritual so while i was litigating this case in the courts and throughout the county jail um every night i would pray to god like come on you see everything like you know it wasn't me you know so so when i got found guilty man i felt like god turned his back on i felt like there is no god i felt like you know what there is no god sure if god right because there is no god because there was a god he's not going to let a 17 year old kid go to prison for life for life no and that's what that's what they hand it down to your family would tell me you know you should go to church to pick up that's like no why just do the if there is a guy yeah now that happened to me after and i didn't even do it so 15 years of my incarceration because i went through i mean i started from scratch juvenile hall county jail y two and a half years in white and then i went to prison oh so after you got sentenced you didn't go straight to prison you went to ya first yes i went to hawaii first i was old i was offered what was called it was a night of the observation the use authority yeah and i went there for two and a half years which was cool because everyone that was there was under 25. so it was you know it wasn't as bad but i remember i was up north my first year that i was there um i was constantly getting in trouble i was in fights i was just i was a mess yeah and you know why it is pretty lawless i mean yeah it's like well especially yeah especially not at that that time that youth authority was open it's called chat and it was freshly open so when it's freshly opened everybody's fighting right especially with people from up north so i was up there i was messing up my first year my counselor tells me look man uh if you don't get it together you know we're gonna ship you to tracy because you're an m number which means you're only supposed to be house here until you're 25 and then boom you're out to the pin right and people that aren't m numbers just get out yeah if they're not an m number that means that they're what they're called the y number which is they get out when they're 23 or 25. got it right regardless of the regardless of the sentence that they have got it so i said okay so i um you know i programmed for the second year that i was there and like i was telling you i i was doing a great program and i loved it and i had all this for for the for the listeners out there what can you define what program is i'm sure we'll use that lingo going through we're just saying when you program this you stay out of trouble yeah you you you get involved in like a lot of activities like sports activities whatever's offered to you okay you embrace it and you run with it um at the same time you get a lot more freedom right you're not on your cell as much so i had that and i had it really good i had a few jobs which just kept me out you know i was a laundry worker and i was in auto shop so it just kept me out all day i didn't feel like i was in jail so i had it so good where when the time came up for them to transfer me down south i was like thinking about it now like national aiding go because i haven't got here should i even go so when i spoke to my mom my mom said you know what you should because i don't want to be seeing you all the way up there five hours or six hours all the way up north i'm you know i'm gonna see you right here so i came down here and when i landed in yts it was just yts was just i don't know man i can't even describe it when i got there uh everybody was on something while now yeah everybody was on something did you do were you a drug addict though no no no never just you were just no it was that was never my thing my thing was the lifestyle i was addicted to this lifestyle i was able to be in the game so that's what i want to touch on so i want to i want to stop at that part of the story and go back because i think it would be interesting for people to know because i only know you as a amazingly good human i'm sure you could probably agree that there's a point in time in your life where i'm trying to be as diplomatic as possible probably weren't a good human yeah how did you get in that position to be in the position you're screwed like we know we we're we've been doing this you know for a few episodes now and one of the common themes that we've had and people have been in similar situations to you is it's things that start at home like their home thing and it's feelings of like fear or disconnection inadequacy stuff like that were you experiencing similar things like how did you get involved in gang start committing crimes what did that look like leading up to where you just left off so i was born here right in l.a born and raised in in the city of watts and when i was really young like around six months old i was sent to mexico okay my sister was sent over there to live with my grandmother because it was difficult for my parents to make ends meet while they had us here so we would travel back and forth whenever it was convenient for them to have us here you know because they wanted to see us obviously but they would send us back so around the age of two or three i started figuring out what those long roads rides to the airport man with all their stuff packed up like they're going back and i didn't want to go back i wanted to be here i want to be like everybody else with their mom and dad right sure so but i didn't have no say-so so it was what it was so when i finally when i finally well my sister and i finally came back when i was seven to live here for good right and not and take it i don't speak the language i've been living in mexico my whole life so you're responsible for speaking any english or no english no english at all okay at all i have no english i was like literally like from mexico so i get enrolled into a predominantly all black school i don't know the language so i can't make any friends i can't relate to anybody right so other stuff i started figuring out as i began doing my transformation while i was in prison right so this is how i came about putting my story together sure suffering from a lot of emotional stuff abandonment issues right self-esteem issues so um it came to the point that throughout the hard work that i was doing in my transformation that i believed and it wasn't true i believe that 12 years old and nobody cared about me right my parents didn't care about me because of the stuff that i was going through they didn't care right and it wasn't true it was the stuff that i was making up in my mind because my parents did care about me right because they had a business and they had you know i had a roof over my head i have food in my stomach i had clothes on my back right uh it's just that um could they have done something differently of course sure but all they wanted to do was provide they did they did the best they could right exactly so i would never sit there and say oh it's their fault no it was just the stuff that i was going through emotionally that i didn't know how to deal with sure i mean at that time you said it was their fault yeah yeah so now so now it's like uh now i go out into the streets and when i'm missing at home i find it in the streets right and i'm already angry because i feel like nobody gives a [ __ ] about me right so if you don't give a [ __ ] about me well mommy's not gonna [ __ ] about you right so i become you know rebellious i become violent i become a gang member because you can't just be a gang member yeah right yeah you have to have something so you become you know that little kid that is running around doing stupid stuff right and you you sort of make a name for yourself so when that gang comes and tells you hey man you know you want to be part of it we see you yeah we see what you're doing you want important for you just touch on this right now because you know growing up how we grew up it was a bit nicer than growing up and watts right yeah there's a lot of i know there's a lot of kids that are younger from nicer areas listening to this right now and they think that they're you know gang members yeah like that so i want you to touch back on it it takes something to be a gang member and that is yeah it takes a it takes for you to really like uh uh become aggressive become violent right because uh you want to walk into something that with the reputation like hold on [ __ ] with this fool yes who's the gunner or this fool's a fighter or this who's this this who's that so everybody comes in with something you just don't get asked off the middle of you know oh yeah you're part of my game because you need the numbers so you want to be part of this game like no you've got it back you got to fit the requirement yeah you have to fit it right but also listening to like rap music and just like carrying a weapon trying to act like you're tough doesn't make you a gang member either no a lot of kids no you know shane and i talked about this like the things that we did i mean for for our area might have been quote-unquote kind of gangster relative to how not gangster people are well i mean it's funny because back in the mean streets of plano texas where i grew up the game that i was actually we were a registered gang because we fought a lot and we sold drugs and parents called and they knew kind of like what we did but i'm sure that there's a big difference between the gang activities that we were doing and and what you guys were doing so remember one thing the definition of a gang if you really look at the definition of a gang is two or more people up to devious behavior that's the definition of a gang right so you don't have to have a nickname you don't have to have a street if it's you know two three of you guys up to devious stuff that you just you just became a gang yeah but fair i guess what i'm trying to say is like i didn't have to worry about crossing the street and getting shot at right we're in a garage rolling blunts listening to rap music and yeah yeah maybe beating all people at parties people at parties listening to loud music with good with good sound systems stuff like that like i got to be home by 9 00 pm on weekdays you know what i mean like that that's the but it's like it's a major thing there's there's like that's how i grew up and that's how kids are going my have younger siblings and like they they think that they're they're doing something and you know it's important to i guess get this message out to you that it's not all glamorous like this is going to be like the beginning middle and end like you're gonna be explaining that lifestyle so i'm gonna be i'm gonna tell you i'm gonna be honest with you straight up like when when i was uh invited to be part of this game yeah uh man i was i was i was looking forward to it i didn't even think about it i was like man i've been waiting for this moment you feel like you're having an online job that's what i want to touch on too is yeah you had that like aha i had arrived moment yeah at that age when they asked you to come you felt like finally accepted yeah because we all see we all wanna we all wanna feel like we belong to something right and that's and because you felt like you didn't belong so much like that's why it meant so much to you at that point in time exactly true exactly you know so because again i felt like i was a nobody i felt like i wasn't even looked at at home but now i'm part of something now it's some now i'm clear so of course it was fun of course the light i loved i loved everything that came with that lifestyle right i fell in love with it bro um but then when i received that life sentence and i got sent up north you know or to the pen um i was like man this is real nice this stuff just got real like it really did just get real like i'm probably gonna die here now probably gonna die in prison because of the sentence you know because you have a life sentence and nobody goes home on the list especially at that point in time what was that feeling like when you got the sentence i know it was kind of we're backtracking a little bit but what was that like at 17 right um 18. i was already well i was litigating for 15 months i was already 18 years old yeah going on 19. um i'm not gonna lie to you bro it was i didn't i didn't care i really didn't you know i i swear i was in norwalk court which is what's one of the worst they call it they call it no walk right i was one of i wasn't there and i used to see these guys come in balling broke crying like oh they just got stretched out and i'm like what's up with this fool like what the [ __ ] come on you know what you signed up for let's do this [ __ ] you know it is what it is you've landed um but it didn't they didn't phase me i remember my when because i got bro my trial land was three days and they deliberated the same day in the morning right they convicted my co-defendant in the afternoon so i remember him going up there and they found him guilty too and i remember him coming home and he i mean coming down from the to the thing to the tank and he's like he was laughing he was like oh i guess we're going to be bunkies food they got us it was like funny wow it really was but in my mind it's like i didn't do this so like i always felt like my conscience was clear because i didn't do this crying but there was part of you that you mentioned that you still felt like you deserved to be there so you know like to be in prison you know i mean not guilty of that crime can you touch on that a bit like what you meant by that so um the first 15 years of my incarceration what i was very angry i was very anti-social i was very you know it was everybody else's fault but mine that's just the way i was living yeah right i was still selfish i was still responsible even though i managed to fly under the radar and i was staying out of trouble uh you know and i was just you know uh living in prison sure um you know i was still i still had those those uh character defects that uh that i was very irresponsible and selfish with my family yeah yeah so i went from a level four prison to a level three to a level two so when i got to a level two which is solid that state prison um i got introduced to self-help therapy right like cga yeah right and um when i got introduced to it they're like oh this is what lifers are supposed to be taking so they can go home and in my mind i'm like well i didn't do my crime so those those groups are people that actually did their crimes like if i ever go home i'm gonna home i'm going home to the courts yeah right through appeal and um and i said so those groups ain't for me right during that time take it the guy that had testified against me in court that said that i was driving the vehicle actually retracted his testimony wow so trip on this so um because even though my family fought for me bro they fought for my mother can she fought for me day and night right whether with lawyers whether we're private investigators and and this is what i mean about me being irresponsible and selfish because instead of me saying you know what my my parents they're spending a lot of money on these these lawyers and maybe i should focus on that right focus on this and start focusing on what's going on in here and focus on this so i can get myself home but my mentality was well i have a lawyer and i have a private lawyer so i don't need to help them yeah they're doing this work and yeah yeah and eventually they're going to call my name and i'm going to go home that's that's the way i was seeing stuff and that's what i mean about me still being selfish yeah right and you felt but you still felt because of just i mean a lot of people are selfish but you think that was enough to make you deserving of a 33 year sentence no not yet we're going to get to that part so in 2004 2003 my my my mother hires this last attorney right and this attorney uh comes up to visit me i was in sentinel state prison he comes up to visit me and he tells me look bro he's like look man just i'm your lawyer i'm your paid lawyer whatever you tell me just tell me the truth and i told them the truth like look man this is what happened this is what went down he's like okay cool where is this guy at do you know where this guy timothy's at do you know where he's at and i'm like i also don't know because can you find him i said well at that time i still had a little connections with my neighborhood in the street and i said well let me see right boom they ended up finding this guy so my parents pick him up and they tell him look man all we need to do is just tell the truth just tell i don't care what happened in 1991 all we care about is my son coming home just tell the truth right he ends up going to the lawyer's office the lawyer was named uh james hodges and uh and and this is where i believe that he went wrong if he would have filmed him he would have had it on film but because he just had a conversation with him and he and he told them this is what happened so when we were living in her case to the courts right this guy gets arrested it's a guy who testified against the obsessive and gets arrested so the day that we're going to court this is how you know so the universe works right yeah so the day we're going to court he's uh we're walking with one of his homeboys and we're going to court and you know he was black so we're like hey bro man what's up you're home but he's he's going to court he's saying that me and oh boy did he's like what's up he's like what he's like yeah man he's going to court like he's literally going to court saying this is why we're here right now and he's like oh man well i'm going to look into it and this and this and that so we get to the county jail he goes his way we go ours next thing you know he tells us hey man this dude you're talking about is on the next tank right here he's like what he's like yeah he's in the next tank yeah so me and my quarter fan and look at each other i'm like oh yeah it's on we're getting this fool you know i'm young i'm naive i'm still in that life so yeah this dude's done right we're gonna catch him right now on the bus or whatever and he's done he's not gonna testify anymore yeah so um he ends up going on the first bus to norwalk court right and we're in the second one so i remember the bus driver going through the street and i'm like why is he going through the street he's usually you take the freeway there and comes out that this the bus that he was on got stuck in the freeway it was a car accident so we get to the court in norwalk and it's already like really late so they take off the cuffs and they tell us hey man you know you got to go to your floor because whatever and now we're like oh man this dude's going to get away he's going to get away and sure enough we go up to our thing and uh when we come back down he's gone he's in the attorney room i don't know if his name came up i don't know if he said something i don't know what happened yeah but they snatched them off the line and they put him in there so that goes that right and all we went to court for was to get postponed tell us come back in three months so we end up seeing as homeboy and we're on the bus and we're having a conversation in the bus just like we are right now and guess who's walking out of the door going into the bus right the dude timothy so we're like oh snap there he is he's coming in the bus he goes hey have a conversation with him see what he tells you so me and my humble are sitting in a chair like this right and i'm over here and again this is after you've gotten sentenced and you're no this is let's do this before later i didn't know okay yeah well we're litigating before trial the charges got it so he says um okay let me have a conversation with him so he gets in the bus they put him in the cage and then he and he sees him hey tim and he turns around he's like what's up man oh hey what's up and then you know i have like a little review mini reunion and then he starts telling me hey man what's this i hear you but you're telling these boys from this gang like what's going on he's like no it's not me he's like are you sure because the word on the street is that you're telling his dues on a murder bro and that's not even cool and he's like hey man that's not me like no that's not me and he goes well do you recognize his face and then my co-defendant pulled his face out like this and the dude is looking back and shackling he's looking back and he just puts his face forward he just puts his head down and he goes hey man you know you got to do the right thing bro you know it wasn't these guys so you like what are you doing damn like why are you testifying against dudes well i'm gonna tell them that i don't know just tell them the truth yeah that is not them that's it you don't have to lie find out why he was lying huh did you ever find out why he lied so okay this is this is how this is how the story is where the story gets juicy right so um so according to him he's like hey man i'm not gonna do it i'm not gonna test i'm gonna do it so we're like oh that's it because that's all they have is this dude right here so we end up go to trial he pops up in the stand i'm like what the flapping with this dude i thought he wasn't gonna tell us and he's like yeah the driver the shooter wow and boom pointing at you right yeah sure so again years past now years past 2004 you know we uh the lawyer they get a hold of this guy he's talks he tells finally tells the truth so what happened was he did tell the he did tell the d.a that he was that it wasn't us yeah that you know that he want to testify he just didn't want no part of this case anymore and they threatened him the cops threatened and i have the affidavit at home where he's saying the cops told me if you don't testify against these guys then we're going to get you for conspiracy to commit murder which means you said this guy because he was walking with the kid that got killed so we're going to get you for conspiracy and then you're going to half-life and we're going to say that you set him up to get him killed and yada yada yada so the guy got scared and he did what he did we didn't know none of this bro we've known this but again because i'm still being irresponsible and selfish i'm not focused on this case and even though the lawyer did the right thing with the affidavit he botched the case at the end of the day he bought the case went on to like 2 000 i don't know a few years finally the the the federal court said man we're not even going to see your case because everything is late everything at your attorney filed was late and anyways that's when i said okay this is it i told my parents you know what no more money no more lawyers no more nothing if if i'm ever going to come home it's going to be me i have to so i remember going to um to one of my first self-help groups my buddy and i remember putting my story together and well i take it back it was a task that was a task for for for you to put your story together to like write your life story yeah to write your story so i get to the point where i'm 16 and my house is getting shot up right by my so-called rival gangs yeah this is part of that glorious gang life that you're part of right yeah yeah so i'm not i'm not telling my parents anything every time they come up to me tell me what are you involved in what's going on like what are you doing because i was literally living a double line yeah you're just like nothing what are you talking about wait so your house is getting shot up and your parents like what's going on like yeah like hey man this is where we live this is the norm right here like what are you talking about right and i will get defensive and i will storm out okay right and all the threats in the world weren't working because at that time already i was so knee-deep into the gang that that was too late for them to try to threaten me with sending me to mexico or send me with your my aunt and like wherever they were trying to send me i was going to come back you know it didn't matter because my neighborhood was everything to me it was everything to me so um they were like uh so the first time right and my house could second time third time so now i'm i'm thinking because now i'm a lot older right and i'm like wait a minute what it made sense to me at 16 not to say nothing to my parents but why is it not making sense to me now that i'm an adult that i'm in my 30s you know and that's when i said you know what man i do belong here like i do belong in prison i says because wait a minute what if at one of those times that that they shot at my house that they would hit my mom or my dad or my sister like what would i be at right now like how can i look at myself in the mirror and call myself a man because i did that it wasn't them i did it you know so what that is that lifestyle that that brought that to your front door yeah that's a revolutionary thought though to have like i would even say from my experiences and the things i i believe in and hold true near near and dear to my heart is that that thought i mean it seems like you were starting to do some of the work but i feel like that thought is from that's a spiritual thought to even see that side of the coin especially when you only saw one side of the coin for so long yeah and well that's when i realized that i knew that something was wrong with me because i i couldn't live my whole life blaming other people for the stuff that and that's where you know that that was actually always yeah i was pointing to pushing the blame on everybody else instead of me accepting myself and that's honestly what got you into that lifestyle that yeah i was nobody cared about me right so i'm sure you thought yeah yeah you know so but it wasn't true it was just stuff that i was making up as a kid you know kids so now i'm like okay well maybe and i started digging and it's like a it's like a like onion you know you peel the layers back yeah you put the layers until you get to the core issues of what was going on inside of me and that's how it came to the realization that i was so angry bro i was so angry at my parents i was so angry at my family you know i remember when i got arrested i wasn't talking to my dad i wasn't talking to my sister and i was barely talking to my mom but when i got arrested they were all there like they were all there i was like hey man i didn't do this you know so so you're in the streets and all you're doing is talking to your homeboys and yeah they're the ones that are there for you and then when [ __ ] got real for you if the script is flipped and now you're just only talking to your family now it's now it's you know you know but now you're in a predicament where now you got to get yourself out of this right so again um i realized that there was something wrong with me that i need to start doing the work and i did and i started really like what what what got me most is the remorse right the the remorse aspect because even i've shared my story a lot of times yeah and every time i share that story about my family like my house getting shot up and what could have happened it still messes me up a little bit it really does you know because i'm blessed you know and then god didn't turn his back on me he actually saved me you know he saved me because i honestly believe if i don't get arrested for this crime i'm dead right now i'm not even here bro yeah because because i was at war like i it wasn't like oh i got beef with this hood if we catch ourselves slipping then they just wait no we're like back and forth back and forth back and forth so um i never made plans for the future because i never believed i was going to pass 20 years old i knew eventually i was going to die you know so nothing mattered to me so when i began doing the work and i seen what was what happened with me all i wanted to do was help other people figure some stuff out within themselves you know um i began to involve myself you know begin being a facilitator being part of groups and just growing and how many years into prison is this is this process right now you said you're 15 years you're in there in the same mentality right i just want to make sure i'm keeping up with it properly it's the same mentality are you putting in work in prison part of any gang life or like what's like it it's it's it's going pretty poorly or like how did you even get to that point where you made the decision to start so when i i wasn't really like yeah when i was in level two it was a lot easier for me to change right um one of the things that i believe that it was it was uh it was a it was a little difficult to let go of was what was the identity that i had created for myself right so i was i had a nickname and the nickname was that's what i was that's why i identified as so now i have to cut ties with that nickname and that whole reputation that you establish with that nickname and go back to being caesar well who is caesar yeah what's your identity yeah you know i only identified this for so long this is all i knew how to do so i had to really learn how to live at caesar now but in order for me to live at caesar i had to figure out what was wrong with me had to figure out what was going on inside of me emotionally right spiritually so that's how those when i use the the the layers with the onion yeah yeah i peeled it all the way down to to to the center of it where i figured out okay this was my core issues abandonment issues self-esteem issues so now i began working on those one before i didn't believe in myself today i do believe in myself of course right when before um i feel like nobody cared about me that wasn't true it was i was just it was just my mind playing tricks on me 100 you know and when you're in a you know so again you were able to have the opportunity to start peeling back the onions so to speak because a level four yard is the highest level then three and then you drop the two so i'm sure it's a little less violent a little less political and they probably offered those programs and you're just like [ __ ] i'm gonna try it out yes absolutely did you believe it was gonna work or did you do it for different reasons like in the beginning so here's here's a here's the thing right so i began doing all this work right but i wasn't really internalizing the work got it does it make sense yes it is like i wasn't really internalizing i was doing everything that they wanted me to do right yeah conceptual you were trying to do it to look good essentially yes not to actually improve so it wasn't really in here it was just uh externally right i have all these certificates all these chronos all these attaboy chronos so when i go to the board i'm going to go home because i'm bringing these people what they want to see right and then in the exchange i'm going to get my freedom back and i'm going to be able to come back home so i go to my first parole board hearing in 2012 and i remember i i thought i was ready i'm like i'm going in there i'm going to get my date and i'm going to go home right and it was a three hour three and a half hour hearing and i get denied you know they hit me with five years right i mean i had just got caught with the cell phone two years prior yeah right so that had a lot to do with it but nothing was internalized so in those meetings i imagine like they know they're they're in there talking to you seeing your mannerisms how you of course i mean i don't know i'm not i'm just imagining right they know that the work that you did was on paper you have the accolades but internally you're not ready to go back out absolutely so so what they see is these commissioners are are ex you know law enforcement right so they they can smell it a mile away right if if if if the change is real they could see it and if you're trying to manipulate your way out of the situation then they can see it also so i honestly believed that by me doing all this work that i was doing college self-help facilitating that was going to get me home but nothing was here i just had it i had this stuff but nothing was in here and it took the commissioner at the end when he gave me that five-year denial to tell me he goes mr zuniga you're on the right track you're doing what you're supposed to be doing but what you're what you're not doing is you're not internalizing the material that you're facilitating and that you're taking and i'm like what what does that mean he's like yeah you're not living it you're supposed to live the 12 steps you're supposed to live avatar you're supposed to live this stuff that you're talking about you're just having a conversation about it's like taking a class and i quiz you and you passed the quiz but it's not really here yeah there's right the spirituality the way that you live it is that it's based in principles right and so we can have this conversation all day right but if you're not if you're not internalizing and i'll give you an example i remember and we lived together for a while um i mean i remember i woke up your roommate one day and he didn't come back because he overdosed off a little something that i gave him and i remember you know and here we are now sitting is has changed recovered man it's it's amazing um thank god that we're both able to be here and that i made it out as well because i was i was wild in my own regards but yeah doing doing the work right so i was three months over i uh i was selling coke at the time and i had like you said conceptually i understand the spirituality right but how how can you be living with spiritual principles if you're off selling bags of coke to people that are struggling and suffering right yeah i remember it was the one time i didn't even want to do it and i loved drugs and i knew shop was onto something at that point something's happening but i remember i called somebody and i said i've never felt so miserable in my life i'm four blocks from the beach i have a brand new car i have a job that i just got hired for um but i'm doing this all the activity and he's like once you start once you really engage in a spiritual way of life and you embody principles doing that stuff won't even be an option anymore and i think that that's what you're what you're saying and yeah the truth is is internalizing it for me is being honest and vulnerable with another man or other people letting people know my deepest and darkest secrets letting people know and putting my fears on paper and seeing why i have them i have the fears because you know it's some way or another i can't accomplish those things or i'm not relying on something bigger than me which i do believe in but if i'm still relinquishing kind of that power and control then i'm not believing in that aspect of my life and that creates the fear and you know what that five year denial was the best that could happen to me because like i said uh that commissioner was able to the commissioner was able to point stuff out in me that i couldn't see because a lot of times you need someone to be really poorly honest with you to tell you right like hey man you have angry issues brother like hey you have road rage issues bro like what's going on here so at that time i believe i had everything figured out but when this when i got slapped with the five years i was like five years and then he so one of my character defects is well i didn't i wasn't hearing what i wanted to hear so i shut down right and i started making up all this stuff in my mind about oh they're not trying to let us go you know these these fools are full of [ __ ] they don't care [ __ ] these people so i started making up all this stuff in my mind about them and 30 days later i gave my transcripts you know and i became the victim right because i started sharing my victim story with all my peers everyone in prison you know people i did everything i did everything and they didn't want to let me go that's [ __ ] [ __ ] yeah yeah so i get my transcripts and my really close friends i was like hey man treat my read my stuff bro and because according to me i had to i had the perfect hearing and i already know why i'm still here yeah i should have been home right yeah so uh they read my transcripts and they're like bro it's right here black and white like you have to internalize this stuff it says right here like you're doing the right thing and i'm like what does that mean like what does internalize me i thought it was just you know call me naive but i thought it was just do the groups share with them that you've done the groups and then you get your data and you go home what do you mean he goes no you have to leave it brother like you have to literally live this stuff that you're that you're taking and i'm like what you know so during that time i get transferred over to fossil i go i end up in old folsom now this is a level two also but it's a high it's a it's a it's a you know it's a high power level two where every other day people were getting molly whopped right uh everybody there was angry and bitter and i was like what the [ __ ] like why do and again right because now i have a spiritual foundation now i'm i'm a believer and now i have you know god in me and i'm back with god and we're good and he's doing all these great things for me and now i'm like questioning like what the [ __ ] like why did you send me here the yard is about as big as this room right and uh the people don't even fit they're like sardines in there and it's hot and it's miserable and everybody's angry and you know um so i'm like man what and every day i'm thinking like why the [ __ ] am i here like what the hell's going on here like how does this work but i have all this all these groups under my belt that i have brought with me that i had acquired and soldered that so i'm like well you know what man well maybe if i started a little something here you know and cga is like my bread and butter right cga for our audiences criminals and gang wars anonymous yeah and um i got i got together with a few friends that were and saw that with me and when they were also making confusion with you yes we became making moves trying to get this group off the ground yeah and uh we did we did and you guys brought the group and like yes nothing there in folsom no like yo this is a good idea to bring this here the only thing that they had in folsom was a a n a and celebrating recovery that's it that's the only self-help groups and people were going to these groups and they just weren't even going for the group they just wanted they're just going to hang out and get a chrono and that was it right so now cga comes along and i get all these people involved and man to this day is it's up and running it's changing lives but the difference between then and now is that when i was told by my peers i needed to internalize it it was different now now i'm living this stuff now whatever group that i'm involved in is here it's not external it's intern it's right here so in 2015 i get the opportunity to go to another hearing um and i walk in there and everything that they're asking me i'm just hitting out of the ballpark i'm just like bam bam bam bam and you know three and a half hour hearing 45 minute deliberation and i remember my lawyer telling me she's like man you're good and i was like are you sure because they're taking forever man like man you're good like she didn't really say nothing and how many years have you been incarcerated at this point in time at that time i was already in my 25th year right so uh sure enough the commission's come back uh they they acknowledge the fact that i was able to get cga off the ground in folsom they gave me a lot of credit for that and i was getting my freedom back bro i was getting my freedom back in 2015 november um you know it was unreal i remember as soon as i heard him i saw i remember he came back in he says you know what we feel like you're no longer a third society so we're going to find you suitable and man the the water the water works just happened i'm sure right and my lawyer's telling me to calm down i don't hear nothing else but that bro yeah i'm crying i got all this snot coming out and you know and then i all they have is like those brown paper towels and just um i'm trying to blow my nose i'm trying to clean my eyes and and every time you just keep getting more real and more real more real so every time i got more real i just kept crying and i remember the commissioners telling me he says look man um because if i was you i would just keep this to myself i wouldn't tell none of these guys out here because you know you never know man i'm like what and then i had so i had made friends and i have made connections with every single race in folsom which is something that it's rare to do but i did it because i really internalized this work and a lot of people were coming to me to help them with this board preparation right so everybody was looking forward to hearing the news that i was going to get because it's like a big deal if this guy is going to go to board and he's going to not going to talk about his crime but it's going to accept responsibility for his actions for the crime and if he goes home that means i can go home so i remember i remember going out to the yard and it was like you know in these prison yards you throw a piece of bread man and all the birds come try to kill each other for one piece of bread right yeah and that's how it felt when i walked out there everybody came to me what happened what happened i was like i'm gone man i'm gone oh so you ended up i got a truck i got the grant and they were like what are you serious i'm like yeah so uh they were every single race and all folsom every from blacks asians whites mexicans they were all super super happy for me um i remember the last day that i was there i was in the phone line to make sure that my folks were going up there to go pick me up um the dude that was running the yard right there you know he was behind me and he comes up to me and tells me hey man you know uh if anybody deserves to go home uh from this yard he goes it's you you know it's you he said i said man you could go home too i'm not the exception to the rule man i i just didn't get lucky bro i did the work i said and you could do the work too and you and he's like no you know it's too late for me i go it's never too late it's never too late well it's because you know i'm right here i got this that doesn't matter yeah i said you can give it back and so you can give it back bro around that time and shane and i were discussing wanted to touch on this it sounds like you went from a life that that lacks quite a bit of purpose and no direction to like finding purpose like what how how was that that moment or after you got released were you did you really just start discovering more purpose like how did that work no the i believe the purpose came when i figured it out right it was like what is that what does that look like people people always say all the time like you know you hear it in society you need to find your purpose you need to find meaning i know what that is for me i know what my my calling and part of my purpose but what what did that feel like and look like to you right so for me i honestly believe that i was brought into the was this world to become a gang member that's what i thought like like when i i was made for it right because i wasn't good at sports and i wasn't good at school but i was really good at being a gang member like that was my [ __ ] right like that was it but when i discovered that i was really good i was doing at this like the self-help and figuring stuff out right and and peeling those layers back man i knew that that wasn't my calling that my calling was for me to be of service my calling was for me to help others right figure some stuff out like i figured it out you know and not by telling them what to do but to to guide them um and when i figured that out i was like oh man this is what i love doing like this is what i really like doing like i put myself on the back burner yeah right and i and i allowed other people to go ahead of me whoever it was um and i humbled myself and i just like you know what um the first thing that i have to let go of that understand is that it's no longer about me it cannot be about me anymore because if it's about me then it's just me being selfish it's about what i can do for you well look look at what got it got where you got from being about you right yeah 100 percent and yeah i mean the work that you do and experiences that i've had in my life to see um first of all other people before i saw because i'm so hard on myself i think a lot of us are but me i'm very very hard on myself other people saw the change in me before i saw it in myself absolutely and that type of internal work that you were talking about like radiates from from us as human beings and then to see people look at you as a source of hope and then like you said to be a guide them right to show them what you did and then to see them having success in getting their life in order for me to even talk about the experiences i've i've had would be really to marginalize it i can't put it into words you know you know i went to the shoe about about a year and a half ago i think maybe about a year ago year and a half ago carrie asked me to go over there and speak and i remember i loved carrie those were throughout the character yeah there was a former lifer there at the shoe right um this guy had just got exonerated um you know he some law helped us call 1437 the felony murder rule helped him come home because he you know he was a lifer so he was in the audience i shared my story and when they were doing a q a i remember him asking me he was hey man that sounds like a board story and i said what do you mean he goes yeah it sounds like you would you took responsibility because of the board because you wanted to come home because you like you weren't really innocent and i said no i said i was a gang member when i was a criminal and i know what i brought to my home that could have had my family killed right and i needed to take responsibility for that i couldn't sit there and just say man i was innocent and now like who i was what i was part of what i was representing is what caused this dude to die so yes i am responsible i have to take responsibility for that and not only that but look what i was bringing to my home my parents had nothing to do with that they were hard working people and i was bringing that to my home right so every chance that i get i could never ever repay fully repaid what my mom did for me my mom gave her her you know she gave up her life for me right so i can never repay all i can do is continue being a better person continue to give back continue to be humble continue to to stay grounded um you know and and continue to to do good because i don't ever want to break her heart again i don't ever want to have her you know oh my son's in jail again oh my son's like i don't ever want to do that all i want to hear is like oh man you know he's doing good he's doing this he's doing that you know he's he's doing it he's making it out here how's your relationship with your family members today it's great man my sister and my mother my biggest supporter uh my girl you know my biggest biggest supporters uh you know i i you know i i'm today i'm just i live bro i live every weekend i find something to do i see you on there man you're out there on the market i'm doing mobbing around hanging out with friends i'm doing stuff i'm doing stuff that i've never done in my life um you know before when i was a gang member and i was living out here i was always looking over my shoulder i was always strapped you know i i was i used to rob myself well i can't go over there because them guys are over there i can't go over here because these guys were so i lived in my own little square yeah and i will never leave that square and every time i actually leave that square i used to take something with me to make sure that i felt protected like a gun or a knife or something you know because my mentality was that you're never going to catch me slipping of course because my homie got caught slipping and looking at him he's six feet under because he got caught that was his bad so that ain't gonna happen to me so um today um i don't look over my shoulder today you do some important work you know we talked we touched on the discovering purpose aspect and shane gave his anecdotes about that and how he presents that to the world as well but you're doing i guess we also talked about this but i want you to bring it back up the organization you work for we've had someone on there we've had joel from arc on here but you do something a bit different and i think it's absolutely wild and so you actually again you discover the purpose but now you've been maintaining that purpose and building upon it just tell everyone what it is exactly you're doing now so in 2017 i joined what at arc is called the hope and redemption team okay so it was a pilot program back then they didn't know if it was going to work okay they didn't know all they knew is they needed some former lifers uh to make that period appear uh make it happen because that's the only make what happened um to figure out a way to get through these guys in prison okay right like no disrespect to either one of you but one of you guys went in there you never lived a life but you try to go in there and teach a a board a board prep class or cga they're gonna be like who the hell is this yeah like where'd you learn this from oh i agree with you like you need and we talked about it on another show that we want to for me like it didn't work to not speak to somebody that had the same experiences yeah i couldn't just get help just from a therapist at first like you know then someone that's like never done drugs never i mean i've only done six months in jail but never never been in trouble with the law never humiliated himself never hurt their family never did any of these terrible things and they're gonna tell me how to change my life but when i see someone like shane who has the exact same story as i do and it caused the same sort of damage and he's like this is how it's done i'm more inclined to listen to what the [ __ ] and i'll tell you why though in my what what i think why is because in the beginning i didn't trust anybody yeah sam so if you don't really do the things i used to get down with there's audi there's immediately a barrier of trust and i just i shut down you know i didn't i didn't have the tools uh i wasn't able to work on myself until i was exactly most of the time like if they're in a therapy set i'm being like forced into therapy like i got to go to treatment to go to therapy or your family's pushing you this and that whatever but like when you have a peer-to-peer type of situation you're more again more inclined to start listening to these people because they've been in your shoes so that goes back to what you're saying some white dude coming in there that's like spent six months and counting they're like don't laugh at me like the [ __ ] do you know dude [ __ ] yourself and the thing is this bro i was put to the ringer you were i was put through the ringer uh when i went to my board hearing yeah you know uh yeah you have to be honest and transparent and i was honest and transparent with them and that's why i got my freedom so the work that i do today is i go back into maximum security prisons you know not know level two it's called the hope and redemption team for the anti-recidivism coalition yes got it right so we go back in there and a lot of these guys have you know some of them have been in prison for 20 30 years um barry's starting to figure some stuff out uh still believe that the lifestyle is is their calling right and one thing that i always tell them first and foremost when i introduced myself to them i always share my story of what happened with me um a lot of times i remember when we first did our very first groups in there and some of the guys were walking in you know you know and the level four everybody has a mask right everybody wears a mask so everybody walks in there with their masks and um and they see me with the tie and they're like who's this dude like who the [ __ ] is this guy right and then you know i introduce myself to the group and that's first and foremost i tell them what i'm here to do i tell them about the organization i says you know and then some of them are still just like laying there just looking at me like who the [ __ ] is this guy right and then i start sharing my story and then they as i share my story and they i tell them and you can see them like oh snap this guy what a lifer he's a lot and he's still on parole and they let you back in here like wait a minute how does that even work yeah you started this work when you were still on parole and then and for people that know you're i mean you can't go into institutions when you're on probation or parole correct yeah you can't i don't think or what the background of being charged with murder yeah right or a background of being a gang member like who does that but um you know the aarc is a very powerful organization that makes a lot of moves and they made it happen and this team has been very successful for the last three years so what did you guys do so you said it's a pilot program this is three years later so it's obviously more than a pilot program now it's an actual legitimate program you guys are traveling prison to prison throughout the state of california and britain no we're only in eight prisons right now okay eight prisons out of 35 it's not that many which i wish we could be in all of them i wish we had a team that set the goal we could send um no the goal is for us to shut some of these prisons down that's the goal the goal is to get as many people home as possible that deserve to be home right because they've changed um because first and foremost what we believe in is is uh uh public safety bottom line i tell them all the time i says look i love you as an individual i says but if you're going to be my neighbor i want you to be rehabilitated i don't need this moniker this where you're from i don't need that next door to me because i don't care for that i'm here to help you to get home to your family they haven't killed that character like you killed that character your nickname that that whole that whole character yeah i always tell him the dude that i was is dead and buried and he's never gonna come back up bro he's on top of 10 tons of concrete right he's never going to come back so with bringing these uh programs into the prisons i mean you're actually helping bring people home correct yes we've brought there's there's been and i tell the guys all the time this is no lie i'm not and i'm trying to make it sound uh you know but we do this much like really really little i think our presence that's it you know i tell the guys all the time man when i was in prison and if i seen a lifer come back in here just by me seeing a lifer come back into that's all i needed to see that's all i needed to see for me to believe that you know what that could be me too that's it yeah tell me what i got it yeah what i need to do we're not doing the work for them they're doing it they deserve all the credit these guys are coming home and they're like oh no because of you no it's not us yeah we could go in there with no material no curriculum no nothing just in the flesh just because and they see us and that's all it takes for some right because they're more apt to listen like he was saying like what the [ __ ] do i have to do that's when people start listening because they want to do something not because they have to do something there's still something to be said though i mean i want to acknowledge you because you were locked up for a long time yeah and you know it sounds like you found your purpose and your passion when you were still in there now you're able to make a living out of it and it's a job and it's more than a job you live for and you love to to see people come back out and be productive members of society but you could have gone and chased money and did things and feel like you you missed out on you know a lot of things and you stuck to really the path that's that's been you're you're really you're your savior i honestly believe that this is where god has me right now it's beautiful right um god has opened up a door for me but i believe that this is where i need to be right now um you know for how long who knows right for right now that's where i'm at and i'm okay with that yeah um you know i believe making those relationships with with the staff like what the warnings and the captains and the lieutenants when they see us walk into the prison and they'll aim and they like they don't even remember that we were arrested for murder or that we were gang members they don't remember none of that all there is like hey man how's your group going how's everything going do you guys anything how's it right yeah and that's a that's a beautiful feeling because they really don't judge you yeah and all those years you're being treated like property and they took but it took us it took about a year for us to gain that trust because we had to prove to them that you know come on bro the the warden is going to sign off on you to come back in the press they're still going to see like wait a minute i'm going to give this guy a shot i come in but i i'm not i don't trust you i don't yeah what's interesting what's your angle yeah like what do you it's only a matter of time before you start smuggling phones in here or dope or anything like no these guys are gang members all they knew is that gamers don't change once a gang member i was a gang member but then when they see us i mean we've had literally uh community resource managers come up to us and tell us man thank you thank you you know because you know what for for years uh i was stuck in my ways that that whoever's in prison deserves to be in prison and if they murder somebody where they deserve to stay here for the rest of their life but i've seen that change in you guys and what you guys do you know you guys come in here and all you do is help all you want to do is help you guys don't come in here with attitude you don't come in here with the mentality of a gang member or criminal you come in here as humble individuals that all you want to do is help and not only are you helping but you're sacrificing because you're driving all the way out here four hour drives and you're staying out here for four days and then you come home to your family for three and then you ride back on the road for four days and then you come back for three so you're literally living out of a suitcase you're living out of a suitcase so if that doesn't say right there that you really care about these guys because i tell them all the time i says we the reason that we are here is not because of a paycheck that's not why we're here we're here because we care when you where you're at right now in your life you don't care about yourself but we do sure we believe in you we believe that because we're not the exception to the world we we're not special our name didn't get picked out of a hat you know yeah and they let us go like we earned this i want to touch on the paycheck thing because we discussed this different types of paychecks so you know i hope a lot of people listening to this can figure out this receiving the same type of paycheck that you're receiving you you mentioned uh it's not about any mention and not chasing the money right i mean money is necessary but there's a certain type of fulfillment that comes from that it was like a i guess a text message that you read me before we started recording i kind of wanted you to touch on that just to give people an idea of like that type of quote unquote paycheck yeah well you know it's always rewarding when you get mail or even when the guys come home yeah you know and they tell you hey man thank you like man you know what uh what what you went in there when you when you guys went in there and we were part of your group and we were in your class like we listened man and i took your advice you know when i'm home and i'm that that's bigger than you know or you walk into a prison and these guys are running across the yard because they're seeing you come in and they're right happy man and they see you and they're like bro i got found suitable i'm going home you know everything that you guys talked about in this board prep class made sense yeah you know and i went in here and i got my date and i'm going to see my family i'm going home bro like just hearing that bro it's like man it gives you chills bro it gives you like like the hairs on the back of your neck stand up because like man they got a second shot at life yeah because i put myself there when i went through that process sure and how i felt and i tell them all the time i says man when you come home bro you're gonna see like you're gonna see like family is everything like you living like live we've had about going maybe on 50 guys that have been home since we started this program now again i don't they did all the work they deserved to come home right we did this much we just did that one little bit to give them over that hump well you literally gave them right the hope to the place of redemption which is why it's called the hope and redemption team yeah you know and and and every time um i hear someone come home it's just like oh man i'm on the right path and just like their family members it's impacted them their family members will reach out to you too and thank you because and it's not because of uh some theories that you had it's more because of the way that you were embodying and like the type of human you were like they knew that you were really about what you were saying you're about so i think to me like when i you know because i work in counseling and like when i'm able to help people it's nice because i'm not having to like lie or put up a facade like you actually feel it at your core that you're actually adding some value and like that's the type of paycheck that i'm talking about yeah that's that you know there's there's no amount of money in the world when you when you hear someone that tells you like man because of you yeah because of you i'm home yeah because if we would because all i'm helping them do seriously all i'm helping them do is connect the dots bro that's all i'm helping and i don't even take credit for that because someone helped me connect the dots in my life so all i'm really doing is paying for it that's all i'm doing that's it bro that's it i want to ask you this because you know the work you do is it's amazing i mean it's it gives me chills and i got goosebumps just hearing it i do it with people that struggle with drug addictions and other things as well and to see them come back into society and get that light in their eyes and that fire under their ass and they're back in with their families and they're helping other people it's a beautiful thing it keeps it keeps the fire alive inside of me when life gets tough because life's still going on you yeah work but life is going on life is always in session what would you what would you tell people that are out there that are you know listening or maybe watching what would you what would you tell them if they're upset or lost or confused or don't have purpose or meaning and full of fear like what would you tell people out there to to do and to look at well first and foremost just just because i'm sharing all this happy stuff right now does not mean that i also have my own issues right that doesn't mean that i still go through stuff myself right um the only difference between then and now is that i'm able to acknowledge it i'm able to to see it for what it is and know that i have to work on it right that's the difference because i still have issues but i still get angry i still there's still stuff that that shows up for me uh but i'm aware of it that's the good thing if i wasn't a worth and i would sit there and say no that's just how it is no it's not that's not how it is right um but but i'm aware of it and i continue to help that continue to to seek okay different avenues of changing and to answer your question for the people that don't have purpose in life because i heard it once if living a life without a purpose is not even living right so finding what you like to do figuring it out you know a lot of times i've seen it happen with athletes right i believe uh napoleon kaufman was a running back for the raiders back in the early 90s and he was a really good all-star running back and he just played for two years and he quit he quit because he found his calling as a as a as a pastor and he quit and he gave up millions of dollars so everybody has a purpose we all brought we're all brought into this world to have a purpose we just have to figure out what that purpose is right and a lot of times if if you don't work on finding your purpose and you're not going to have a purpose you're just going to exist you know uh i one of the things that i tell my guys all the time is is what do you want your legacy to be like what do you want to be remembered for like if you were to pass tomorrow and someone were to come and say some words about you how do you want to be remembered you know yeah how do you want to be remembered and uh i go because i i would want people to remember me as being a good guy being someone that was giving being someone that was um put others before himself when before he wasn't like that i was selfish i was irresponsible you know i was inconsiderate i was hateful yeah when today i'm loving caring and responsible that that's all i know you asked you know what i mean i just i just think it's just an interesting thing for you know other people to look at similar situations in their lives that that the the the main purpose of like the damage done murder and redemption is like people have redeemable qualities it's never too late like would you like what would you say like to like 12 year old 13 year old caesar like he would never believe like this [ __ ] like yo like there's hope for this because his whole life was predicated on like acceptance from a gang anger thinking these are the things because you just said you acknowledge things instead of just being [ __ ] it that's the way they are but that's how you used to operate [ __ ] it that's the way this is whatever like there's people stuck in that like right now like this is the way things are this is how i'm gonna deal with things i know i have all the [ __ ] answers and like that was young i like that question because if if i had an opportunity to tell myself when i was 12 or 13 something i would tell i would i would tell myself to believe in me knowing what i know now yeah i would tell myself to believe in me and have patience and continue to work on myself right but with that being said if i had a push button right now right in front of me to rewind that my life all over again i wouldn't press it you were impressed i would not press it because of because of what i went through and what i was put through and at the end of the day this is what made me absolutely where i am today and today i can honestly tell you that i do love myself today when before i told myself but i didn't love myself i didn't because i put myself in danger i was part of a gang so eventually i can get either killed or shot or wounded or whatever so i would put myself in danger before but i will still tell them oh yeah i love myself no you didn't because you were willing to die for something that don't even belong you kind of like loved the idea of yourself like who that character was like being portrayed as more than actually yeah but it was like it was a false it was a false emotion it was like it wasn't real today it's real like today you know and uh i might not eat well right i might not have a good diet i said but all i want to do is live bro i just want to enjoy my life and and i really do love myself as that's who i am today the person that i am today you know i love why because um before i wasn't you know i was an ugly individual that that didn't care about nobody but himself i was selfish you know i was irresponsible and and i was just i was promoting violence and i was violent myself so i thought i was somebody but i wasn't because it was it was it was just something that i had created that's right uh um i had i had i gave myself this moniker and i became this moniker and i ran with it and even while i was in prison because one thing that i tell the guys in the paint all the time is the punishment it's not you going to prison the punishment is you getting separated from your family that's the punishment right you're going to prison it's just something for you to figure out okay where did i go wrong and what do i need to fix a lot of people don't take that opportunity to do that is that correct yeah because they they just see this oh man i got put in they started playing the victim role and you were quote unquote wrongfully accused of murder and you figured a way not to play the victim world so again it goes back to showing that it's possible to have that different perspective on things yeah absolutely so the transition to a different question then what needs to be done for more people to come home like you what needs to be changed i mean i got i know you're only working within california but california is one of the biggest prison complexes in the world not just the country right like how to i will sit there and tell people to to take a step back and review their life just see the type of person that you were a lot of people still see themselves like oh man but i was i was good you know i helped the lady across the street and i hope that yeah no but you were part of a lifestyle that had no regard for anything at any point you could turn into a monster and you would justify it because of whatever color or whatever street you were from or whatever you were claiming you would turn into yeah you were a good guy for one second but you would turn into a monster in the next i said so you have to realize that and then you put yourself in danger not only yourself but your community you know the people around you you know uh if you had any kids if you had your old lady with you if you had if you were like you're living a lifestyle that people have no disregard of anything right you could be with your mom and they don't care if a dude is is what the business is it's collateral yeah it's like whatever dude i ain't tripping you know sure um and you used to think that way always but again going through the process that you explained like that's that's not how you think anymore and so again what i what i want to know is how one of the things i guess i'll bring this up you brought how like the the governor's thinking of releasing 8 000 inmates but they're not looking at lifers so it's probably fair to say that there's a lot of caesars like yourself you sitting in prison have this potential to have these tremendous amounts of impact on their communities and other lives to carry a message like you're carrying and they're sitting there and they're not being looked at right now like how how do they get looked at other than having conversations like this putting shows out here like this like how do we expand upon your like what's your opinion on like how we fix that so there's the law called 1170d and i believe that the secretary of cdcr spoke about it last week okay where if you've done more than 50 of your sentence and if you've been clean from any rule violation which is a 115 for the last five years and you've been doing all these rehabilitative groups in prison that they can look into it they can look into even if you have life without pearl no no it has to be a number of years yeah if you have a a indeterminate sentence which is a life sentence um uh you will have that what parole got it but if your life without uh no that's a whole different topic uh yeah yeah that's something that's still being worked on today yeah they're trying to end their what wob there's organizations are trying to end it because um like we discussed that my my cellmate who was a you know 17 18 year old 18 years old when he committed his murder i mean look i know him on a personal level what he did was a terrible thing but i don't think he's a terrible person knowing the story of what he did and how he did it and he's a young kid influenced by a lot of older people doesn't excuse murder right but it still can play a factor in you know the circumstances that led to that happening and i believe that kids like him should have the opportunity to rehabilitate themselves and then have a life and then try to add value to other people's lives to kind of i don't know make up for that so for your friend and i believe uh because he's an ironwood and have so much programming in ireland yeah what could happen with him is this he can involve himself and as many groups as possible right uh give it some time you know do a little bit of his time i don't know how long he's been down but i want to say it's just like six years yeah give it about 10 15. i know it sounds crazy but yeah yeah but you know more than 50 yeah give them give that much time stay away from any kind of rule violations right and there's this thing called the commutation that people could do the governor has committed numerous and numerous amounts of sentences people with lwaps you would like 80 years to live people with 100 years to life he has commuted him down to like 25 a life right so what he can do is he can stay disciplinary free get a lot of as much education as much self-help as possible and then once he reaches like his 10th or 15th year put a packet together because those commentation papers it's only four questions you know and one of them is like why do you deserve to be get your sentence committed like you committed a heinous like it doesn't say that this is why you you know you feel like you should be you know and i always tell guys i always i always say stuff like man you don't you feel like you don't deserve anything but you all you can say is that you're no longer the person that you were before this is who you are today this is the transformation show them show them that you've done the work and the governor what would take into consideration and committing that life without sentence and get an opportunity to have like a 25 life and then you do 25 years you go up for a hearing and if you really internalize all these groups that you've done yeah then it will be easy for you and then you have another chance and there goes answering my question how do we get more seizures out and get into your chair to talk like this it's it's exactly that yes and and it's been happening a lot of guys you know because one thing that um you know guys in prison they're very impatient right so everybody wants to file a conversation here the thing is is the the commentators are so important because you only get one every every governor right so newsom's in right now he's a governor right so if you file a commentation if you say your friend files one right now then he's that's it if he says no then he's stuck in the next governor comes in you know and then he'll file another one right um so it's best if it gets all his ducks lined up practice some patience you know we all got to pay for our sins that's just the bottom line i've always said that you know what i got arrested for a crime i didn't commit but i i paid for all the stuff that i got away from that i got away with you know um so we all eventually have to pay for all the stuff that we've done no matter what you know whether it's here or whether it's somewhere else who knows but there's different avenues now you know i'm hoping that the governor does look into releasing some really good lifers that deserve to come home a lot of these guys uh that's why reentry is so important that's why i love doing the re-entry work i love it because there's a lot of stuff that i learned through the shoe yeah i've always given a lot of credit to ben teshuba yeah um you know they helped me get to where i'm at today um they i wanted to hit the ground running when i came home and they were like no no no here's a pass for four hours and you got to come back like what oh yeah and shane's got to go with you because you've only been here like 30 days and what i don't even know chaperone and like but all that stuff helped it really helped you know and that you know at that time and this is what i mean about about not being uh fixed because you could work you have to continue working on those issues because that they pop up sometimes you know the old you wants to come on i always tell the guys like that old you the person that you created it's still there he's just locked up in the little cage right now yeah he can come out you know once you get away from the work and you start going back to all about you then that little key starts to go into a little hole and then it turns out right and then he comes out i said so for a lot of us like for me i would literally have to have cga for the rest of my life because um every time i feel like one of my character defects or one of my shortcomings pops up i want to be able to address it but that's that's how it should be like we're we're always a work in progress right there's always more work to be done as soon as you you know like for me in my life it's like i i've put to bed some things or they're at least at bay and not they're not uh dominating me new things come up and that's fine that's that's that's why there's the work that's why there's practical application that's why there's living with spiritual principles that's why there's checking in with other people being vulnerable honest helping other people like all of this stuff allows me to get outside of myself and when i'm outside of myself then you know that's when when i'm really connecting with another human being i mean that's what i think that we're really here for love connection helping um really gives purpose one thing that i tell the guys when they come home i tell them look man i says i know that you guys are tired of doing these groups in here but when you come home you have to continue these groups like why why i'm already home like why do i have to continue i says man i said because this stuff can come up i remember one thing you guys been away for 20 some years it's almost two decades you know um the world that you left back in the 80s night is not the same one from today that's right i said so you have to really um learn how to live out here again you know there's so much stuff that's new out here that you that you know if you don't seek out help like um the importance of transitional housing right yeah a lot of people are like oh i have my girl or i have my family i'm going over there yeah bro here's a here's why it's important for you to go to transitional housing right because if we're all in the transitional housing in here all four of us right yeah and i just i'm the newest one here but you've been here six months and you've been here six months so you guys know how to wear and i'm start feeling all this anxiety overwhelming i can't reach out to my girl and be like hey why am i feeling like this she's going to tell me hey man man up fool me why are you feeling like this that was wrong with you like the [ __ ] wrong with you like what happened right yeah she's not going to know how to help me but because you probably went through the similar things that i'm going through right now because i'm the one that's fresh out you're going to be able to tell me like food this is this is normal like don't trip like just give it some time this is why you need to decompress that's why you need to continue these groups that's why the the program that you had in there try to you know continue down here because being in prison time management is easy it's really simple you get up in the morning you go to breakfast you go to work you go to the yard you come back your day's over right out here it's like no you got work you got this you got over here you got to go over there and it's hard for you to have a schedule you know so your time management could be thrown off sure all right today like when shane texted me yesterday he said hey are you gonna be at five and i lost track i was at the beach yeah and then i completely forgot and then this morning i'm like oh man and i'm like okay well what are going on today okay we gotta go over here we're gonna okay you know what i'm gonna make just to be because i don't want to be late make it at six because i'm gonna go one things that i do i keep my work so if i'm gonna do something i'm gonna do it you know unless something drastic happens then i'll be like bro i can't i can't i'm not gonna make it but if i give you my word about doing something like this i'm here you know and i'm here early because i don't want to be like oh man i'm ten minutes late i'm like five minutes away like i'd be a few minutes early yeah i understand one of the things that i i learned from from a good friend of mine was you know always be the first one there and be the last one to leave so i always be early for whatever appointments you know what you don't ever want to be looked at in the light of being late or you know not being responsible you know so that's the way that's that's the way i look at life today just be responsible you know if you're going to say something or do it do it plain and simple i love that i think it's uh we're gonna end on that thank you so much for coming out man i'm grateful for our friendship and for the work that you do and to just know somebody that's really i mean you're a miracle man and uh you've always shown love and kindness and to me and my brother and i'm grateful for that thank you man and uh you want to just uh let people know where they can like find your organization so they can donate look more and to educate themselves further about what you what you guys are doing yeah so arc is a non-profit organization that's based right here a lot of us out of los angeles um it's on seventh in alameda um it's a great organization that really helps formerly incarcerated individuals men and women um to get them on their feet you know they provide cohorts for them to get them into the union construction union they have the movie industry manifest works uh man they're just doing so much stuff they're just you know we're called the anti-recidivism for a reason right we we're trying to get all these guys that are coming home in our landing not to commit any more crimes right and not make any more victims and just be productive members of society you know there's five things that that we go by is gang-free drug-free uh willing to give back be of service or go to school those are the things that we always ask for for our members that when they become arc members and you know right now because of cobit obviously our offices are closed but there's still ways to get in touch that's right right whether through the internet through our zoom meetings or whatever we're doing so they can just google anti-recidivism coalition or is it arc.com or org no anti-recidivism coalition yeah and it'll pop up they have a nice web page when it shows all the work that we do i think the best part of being an arc member is the outings uh every year there's like four outings i believe uh for christmas we have um well for christmas we haven't we have it off but right before we get back into work we have like this there's a these are retreats uh this last one this last january was in big bear so that was cool being in the snow you know i have been in the snow since since i was in high desert yeah right um and then they have catalina like they take all the members to catalina island and not the nice side not the little where all the fancy restaurants are the hiking where the buffaloes are at and the foxes and all that stuff back there so it's like a five-mile hike back there and then they have the white water rafting right they take all these the other members to you know whoever whoever uh signs up that wants to go um white water rafting all the way to sacramento it's uh the only way you can get in there is through either the raft or the helicopter drops you off that's the only way um so they're getting ready to put more events together but again this cover is sort of put out it complicates yeah it complicates stuff right now but um it's a great organization if people want to donate to it it's meant you know because it's a non-profit so everything is donations and charities so we're just trying to get people that that come home and that are part of arc to be productive members of society you know and give back be of service you know don't make it about you man make it about try to try to try to make things right you know you you uh you know like i always say i i you know i'm i'm back to where i started from in the city the only difference is that now i'm productive now i want to be able to build that and i'll be able to be you know at one point i was a problem now i'm the solution sure right so that's what i want to do i just want to be able to help and and and build and do whatever i can to make things right to just keep paying back a little bit and that's exactly fine that's what you've done and you're doing and there's no reason you wouldn't continue to do that and anyone listening to this i mean this is uh one of three people that you've already heard us talk that has been part of that organization and so they they do real work and again check them out anti-recipient coalition on google and then as far as our show you know subscribe on youtube or like follow share all that kind of stuff on our social media at the damage done on instagram and we're across all major platforms for podcasts spotify apple music google i heart radio thanks for listening

Channel: The Damage Done Podcast

Views: 17,785

Keywords: murder, redemption, inspiration, motivation, recovery, addiction, prison, prison reform, podcast, podcasts, true crime, true crime podcast, prison stories, serial killer, hope, mental health

Id: 3tBQMh03xr8

Length: 89min 4sec (5344 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 06 2020