ROCK BOTTOM! Redemption After Police Arrest - Helped by the Reality Check Program | 237 |

[Music] hey everybody larry lawton here i got a great show i got kirsten a person went through my program i think eight years ago uh she's doing well and we're gonna get into that in a little bit before i get started check us out on the youtube member program check us out on patreon check out my book gangster redemption still the hottest book out there uh it's a crazy ride as well let me welcome kirsten welcome to the show kirsten hey how's it going i still have a copy of your book sitting on my shelf you got a copy of my book on your the one you gave me eight years ago wow that's right when it came out in 2013 so uh 12 and 13 the book came out uh the reason i wanted to bring you one i think this is a really compelling story i remember you came to one of my events one of my bowling events and you did community service i gave you community service for helping in fact you were pregnant at the time if i remember correctly and uh you did such a good job and you were telling us and telling me about a story which happened to me and people who know that was strapped down i was strapped down naked beaten and tortured by guards even beat on uh spit on you were actually put in a restraint chair uh at the county jail tell the people exactly what that was about what happened all right so um i got arrested for dui um i was very drunk uh very belligerent and i've been through a lot so i didn't respond very well i was walking back and forth when they put me in a cell hitting the walls i was hurting myself and they came and put me in the chair but the way that they did it it's a little fuzzy they brought me from the room and they asked me if i wanted to go into the chair if i was going to stop and i said put me in the chair i was being my normal snippy sarcastic self like do it you won't and so they said great it's training day and they brought all the people that were on the floor it felt like all of them there had to be like eight guards nine guards around me one of them actually got on top of me when i started struggling because i i dealt with like a little bit it felt really claustrophobic it felt really uncomfortable once i started actually doing it and i realized i was gonna get restrained in this chair and it wasn't a joke anymore it wasn't a do it you won't moment anymore um i freaked out and she got on top of me and held me down and um they were laughing they thought it was funny um because it was training day so they they took this moment to have an entertaining moment to to do this to me and at the time i was 100 pounds i mean it wasn't really necessary to have multiple people holding me down and to have one guard literally get on top of me in this chair um it would have been sufficient to just put me in the chair i mean she really could have done it without restraining me at all i don't know it was just it was a moment that i realized that the people in the brevard county lock were really kind of power hungry they got entertainment out of it and it wasn't something that um felt good you're supposed to be able to look up to these people these people are supposed to be able to they're supposed to be exemplary people who are put in this role because they can control themselves and they're in charge of controlling other people who may not be able to control themselves not because they're going to take advantage of that and try to hurt people for fun and that's what it felt like how old were you at the time i was 20. you're 20 year old young kid just out getting drunk you got slammed you're not not saying you weren't drunk or anything like that i remember you yeah no i remember you telling me that you even admitted you were wrong but you ended up having bruises all over you and they beat like they you actually said they beat me in this chair i mean the girl got on top of you i don't get that either uh that just makes no sense at all and like you said nine people training day these restraint chairs and i was in uh we didn't have the restraint chairs they actually put you four point to naked they strip you naked and they put you and they in a hand they take your hands and they put you down spread eagle and you're you're left there for four hours and they could you know that's what they call the strengths in where i was and i i mean forget the humiliating factors that goes out the window you don't even give a about that after some point uh but then i mean obviously they they don't care they'll let you defecate they'll let you piss yourself they'll they'll you know it's just the way it is now the restraint chairs uh you know i don't know if you realize they just had another person in a restraint chair die in the brevard county jail about about a year and a half ago a veteran a a veteran who had a ptsd attack they ended up putting him in a restraint chair and put a spit over his head which he wasn't a spitter but they did it and said 16 minutes late he was unresponsive and he ends up dying they killed him that doesn't surprise me at all um i got in trouble uh i got yelled at actually because i was put in the restraint chair i was i was next to somebody else who was in a restrained chair and um she said she had to go to the bathroom and they kept yelling at me i'm like let her use the bathroom if she needs to use the bathroom like they won't even let you out to use the bathroom they dehumanize you and did she end up peeing on herself and stuff yeah so how how long were you in that chair our time doesn't they don't put you in front of a clock time doesn't pass there the same way either i didn't get out until the morning you stayed in that chair all night i don't know how long i was in it they let me out eventually but it was a couple of hours at least now you you admit you made your mistakes you you partied too much you did all your stuff listen a lot of people do that and everyone changes and everyone goes through ups and downs in life i know you're you're a good mother and i think that's important to me uh that you know you got a daughter and a son i think it is right don't you have a son too and he's six and your daughter beautiful daughter and you know that's what you're doing you're you're showing them i see the way you handle kids you you got a lot of compassion in your heart when you were that age and you went through that county jail is that the first county jail you went through did you have problems before that with the law uh once or twice um but it was unrelated it was domestic disputes with my mother so it was never anything like you know you were attacking a cop or something like that no so you ended up having a dui you ended up how long did you spend in the in the jail for that dui i want to say i got out around 10 o'clock in the morning is when i was released the next day yeah it wasn't long at all but it was a really awful experience for not how long it was i'm frustrated for you because i know what's going on in policing i know what's going on in jails and stuff of that nature and to hear about a young woman that yes you could be belligerent you could be you're a 100 pound girl throw her in a cell you know i mean what the let it be in the cell just you know just because they want you to comply they realize you're either you're high or what even whether it's drugs or alcohol whatever it is and they have to put you through that extra sense of of punishment or power as you said you know i often tell people that oftentimes we have too many people who have power without with unchecked power and as an old saying you know power corrupts absolute power corrupts absolutely so you you get out of jail do you you i remember you had to come to my program i do remember that and that's how you ended up getting and i remember telling you come on because you told me your story then and i was disgusted with the system always been disgusted with systems so you went through the reality check program obviously you learned something you've done you've done well you can make mistakes along the way which everybody does in life but it's that foundation i think that you get with uh stuff now do you do you remember the people who did that to you i don't remember their faces i couldn't pull them out of a crowd now save my life they made no real impact on me other than the event being really terrifying well not only terrifying it wasn't any kind of positivity there nobody came up to you and said hey listen maybe you got an alcohol problem kid maybe you need to do something the next day they just didn't give a right oh yeah they didn't care and that's my problem if we could start trying to help people instead of just throwing them in a cage and processing them and get the hell out of here you better straighten up why don't we help a young kid if you see him that intoxicated or that drugged out or whatever it is i don't care i've done every drug in the book got up more than most people will ever get up and i and i often tell people i said listen i said if somebody would have helped me along the way earlier i probably would have stopped a lot of things instead of just putting their foot on your neck and saying do it my way or do it the highway or or you know you can't do that you think who the you are and it's that power trip so you get and i'm a fighter like you are kirsten you know we're fighters we like we don't quit adversity makes you stronger i really believe that whatever put you down will will build you up to be a better and stronger person afterwards and look at me from being in the hole for three years being strapped down naked beaten and pissed on by guards to uh watching friends commit suicide and everything that's happened to me i look and say wow i had to make it and tell people like like yourself to try to educate people so because i don't look down on anybody not anybody ever i think listen you're our future i love the fact that you're smart and you're you are our future and young people like you are i'm the old i'm done soon in life really i hate to say that i really am uh guys like you are the ones that are going to take the reins and hopefully politically hopefully uh uh uh education or business wise or whatever it's gonna be and educate the younger kids coming up and say look and look what happened to me i was 20 years old and they put me in a restraint chair because i was drunk and obnoxious which every 20 year old is drunk and obnoxious and they had to put me in this restraint chair and sit or you remember it vividly the girl sitting on you i actually just remembered um you know how like sometimes you don't remember things about an event until you start talking about it i i did leave the booking room and i was processed they put me in solitary confinement and put me in one of the turtle suits and um yeah that was a fun experience it was when you said that nobody came and just told me um maybe you have an alcohol problem that really reminded me it reminded me of what the therapist said because they said therapist to talk to me she said you could have killed a puppy when she was talking about my drinking and driving and i remember it today i'm like why would you say something like she said you could have killed a puppy you could have killed a kid i'm like oh i could have so they put you in a straight trip restraint chair in the booking area right yes and then they let me out and they let me have my phone call but it wasn't until the morning that i got my phone call and it was after i was already supposed to be at work so i had i called my friend because i didn't know my work number and told him to call out of work for me because it was already after i was already supposed to open at the market um and i really wanted them to know that i wasn't able to come in and um but i remember i was in there for i was in there all night i was in the booking room all the time well you just showed me something that's responsibility if a person is that conscientious to just make sure they they let them know i can't make it or something that's conscientious i tell people you know we might mess up but that core belief of that having that conscious you know his funny story when i met my first wife she was young she was a lot younger than me she was 19 i was 31 i think at the time so and uh you know she was a hottie and all that kind of stuff stripper did her thing and but what always respected me about her when i had taken her home and i had a big party at my house and i had a party house and all that the next day i said hey you should stay here and she goes no i can't i go come on we're partying with doing coke it was just the crazy times and she says i can't i said what do you mean he goes i go listen if you lose your job i'll give you a job paying double i know it you'll make more don't worry all this i'll pay your days off she says no i can't do that she goes i have to do this because it's my responsibility and that's stuck in with me and that's one of the reasons i married her to be honest with you because she had that kind of she didn't just do it you know we partied had a great life you know and then we only divorced after i went to my uh prison and we're still friends to this day but it was amazing how that stuck in me and it just stuck what you just said really kirsten that you know i had to call someone to tell them i can't come to work and help somebody open and people should notice that not just say some drunk kid in the street you know give a about anybody you still cared then you sobered up obviously and you're gonna get your charges you're gonna do your stuff but there's no reason for them to put you in a straight chair or just totally uh like you said for training i love that one uh for training and just abuse somebody in that that they don't realize you know what i want to do with guards i want to put them in a straight chair and tell them i don't know when i'm taking you out how's that and just leave them there you don't see how quick they go crazy because you will go crazy in one of those things they are not they are cruel and unusual punishment and i get why they use them in rare cases and they should have a nurse there and they could have easily seen i don't know how well they watched you as a drunk person you could have vomited in yourself you could have did so much stuff and choked on your vomit and a lot of things that that you're lucky you're alive i hate to say that and uh and i look back at you and i look at kirsten and say wow look how good you know you you turned out good despite the you went through and obviously we make mistakes i'm not going to get into everybody's mistakes because i still make mistakes every day i mean it's just who i am and who people are but it's that core person in you and you showed me one phone call that i picked up on as a guy who works with young people that makes your quality i would in two seconds hire you i would in two seconds uh support you and something because i know it's that responsibility and i want you to know that and i think that's important did you ever find out what happened to the girl next to you and why was she in a restraint chair i don't know i never asked her so they had to eat two women in restraint chairs at one time right next to each other we were right next to each other what the hell is going on over there she was clearly detoxing on drugs i think it was something that they had against drugs and alcohol which is fine i mean addiction is an awful thing but most often i think people don't realize that it's escaping reality that people become addicted to so you have to ask yourself why is this person want to escape reality and how can i help them with that not f this person for doing drugs and a lot of the times you get the second mentality and that's not a good thing and i think that that's the mentality that they had and she was clearly detoxing from drugs and they didn't care that she had to go to the bathroom they didn't care you know kirsten it reminds me of something with with the people you're talking about and you know i always will emphasize this there's always good and bad on both sides you know obviously it'll be i'm sure there's some good guards but it's a safe it's a shame kirsten that what has happened with these young people uh young guards is that they don't realize it and it's so funny because i can't tell you how many phone calls i get from officers judges uh people of high esteem all of a sudden they say hey hey larry can i talk to you it's private i know right away what that means yeah you know my kid is up i you know caught him with drugs or something happened and this and until that happens they're the mr you no drugs this i'm hard on it and it's those cops and i call them cops you know as an ex-con we used to call them cops in prison guards hey the cops are coming or whatever it was uh those guards that did that to you you know there's no perfect people so how many of them went out got up before how many of them went out did drugs or whatever they did and because they're human and the number is there so i don't say none of my guys or none of these people and they look down or they even you know do things to young people uh obviously thank god nothing worse happened to you because things do happen to people uh i was in prison when it happened to men and and i understand it happens to women and i just did a video in front of tallahassee prison which is a woman's prison up in florida tallahassee florida and it's called fci tallahassee and there's 850 women in there and that's some tough women but some things bad happen to a lot of people and we all have pests i mean i was abused you had you have a pastor that you you have to come wrecking with and you have to i always say and i want you to remember this i want you to become stronger for it and educate people on it you know that was you know when you first met me do you remember when you first met me what did you think well i didn't know what to think because uh i went to one class when i was a teenager it was after everything with my mom i was i was abused for years but my stepdad i was abused for six years and my mom and i had a confrontation and she called the police on me to kind of teach me a lesson after i pushed her out of the chair for calling me a name and a liar and i was neither so um i had to stand up in a room full of everybody in the scared straight program when i was 14 and apologize to my mother who allowed me to be abused for six years and so i walked into the scared straight program of yours and i just i thought it was the same thing the reality check program i thought it was just going to be another scared straight program and i was signing up for some program that was going to try to whatever but um i was actually really impressed by it because it wasn't a bunch of people standing up in a room saying oh i'm better than you it was somebody standing up in a room saying hey i used to rob people you want to listen to me on why not to be that way here's how you can be better look at me now you can be this and so it was good it was refreshing and i think it's a really effective tool to have people who have been there talk to people who are there uh you know i often tell people you know people would say that they'd look at me this big guy and the tattoos and the thing you remember and all that and it's oh it's a scared straight i said don't ever use that word i said i never in my life yell at people i don't i will never demean somebody i will never i try to go down to your level where i was and bring you up to a level of education and you know the stories of when a man got cut with his anus and all that and i remember telling the stories and and uh the people would come up to me years later and say hey yeah larry or mr lawton i will never forget that story and i didn't get in the car with the kids with the drugs or i didn't do this or man i should have listened to you you know the ones that messed up and i said man you you told the truth though i can't knock that but coach i always respected young people uh kirsten i still believe and i will always believe i learn more from young people because they are in a different world obviously i'm not smarter than you but i have more experience than you in a place in certain places you by far are smart i know how educated you are i know how smart you are look at you you're raising two kids you're working you're a counselor you're you're now working for a uh something you were but don't let that hold you back i basically enroll kids in a preschool i'm not a counselor but i do i i do have my social work degree right your social work and and but don't let anybody you know bring that down because you're coming also from a place that you've been there you're coming from a place that you messed up and you need to change your life whether it was with guys and our abuses you know we have that bond that we were abused and it took me many many years until i was in my 30s before i i told anybody about my abuses so what what i what i try to emphasize always is young people gotta try to educate as much as you can and don't hate i i got hate because i i always found that hate was hurting me uh it's it's an emotion that just keeps eating at you and they don't give a the person you hate don't give a they did they're either sociopath or they're got zero empathy or or compassion or anything they're just living their life and you should just live yours because the more positive energy you put in improving yourself and the less negative energy you spend wasting on those fools the more your life improves and you can leave that in the rearview mirror so you went you were on your own quickly you were on your own since you were a young girl yeah i mean i i moved in and out of my mom's house for a long time but the first time i moved in with the boyfriend i was 13. you move in with a guy at 13 years old how old was he he's 14 15. oh he lived with his parents and you moved in that house yeah i was a trailer park we really weren't being raised by anybody or anything it was the first time i tried morphine wow 13 years old 13 14 14. and obviously it helped if you want to call it that because it dulls the pain everybody knows that any kind of drug dulls the pain but you had to find i mean at what point did you start realizing when i met you obviously you made your mistakes you still were going to work and you had that great work ethic obviously i know you know you you went and did various professions and you could say them or not that's up to you it doesn't matter you were good at whatever you did and i always respected that you know i always said to teresa or anybody else i said good for her i mean sex work is real work and i made a lot of money as a stripper i will never be ashamed of that i got to take my kids on vacation i got to buy cars it was good yeah you put yourself through college too didn't you well the pell grant put me through college but i did finish my associate's degree summa laude congratulations after two kids i worked really hard on that and because you know what goes through your mind when you're when you're either a uh ex-con or you've been in trouble with drugs or anything like that you're always thinking of ways to make money i mean that's just the way it was and i'm sure you're the same way and now how do you look it i mean obviously i know you respect people and i know you help people and you even told me what you did today as a as a social worker and you know against the rules so to speak and i'll leave it at that but i respect that so much because it's people like you who gonna make a difference in somebody's life and it's not by the book in this because sometimes the book's not right you got to throw the book out one of the worst things you can say is this is the way that things have always been done so what if it's not effective change it do something different make an impact absolutely you know you're a really smart smart young woman kirsten uh i'm glad you shared your story about this shoe and and the chair and whatever else is there anything else you'd like to talk to my audience about or what parting words would you like to give to young people or people or young women who watch we do have some don't get me wrong when you're 1.2 million people you have some women uh what would you like to tell them uh or people because since you grew up a rough life you were abused as a young girl you made it out you did drugs at young age but then you came out of it and look at you today i would like to say that escaping reality always catches up with you at some point or another and you don't want it to be too late when you find out that you need to confront it because you always have to confront it at some point or you die first if you focus on escaping reality that's what happens you either watch your friends die as addicts and you shape up and um you're or you live on accident like me i could have died so many times i should have died so many times um but all this stuff it really does catch up with you don't be afraid to ask for help um our mental health care system is flawed but it's there for a reason um don't be afraid to reach out and ask people for help pay attention to the people who are around you and people who stay and love and care about you and focus on those people instead of the other people who may be critical and judgmental and may not be there with a hand to help you um focus on the friends who are there for you not just there to drink and have fun and there when you want to throw a party at your house but focus on the friends who add meaning to your life who motivate you to be the better self you are who may criticize you a little bit when you're doing something that's actually wrong and maybe you take the criticism badly because you know you're defensive and you know it's wrong but you want to listen to those people because you want people to tell you when you're wrong and you want to know you want to know how to be better so focus not on escaping reality and what the wrong people think um pay attention to the blessings in your life and really nurture good connections and take care of yourself don't spend time pleasing everybody around you and people pleasing and all of that you have to take care of yourself first because if you don't take care of yourself that always catches up with you too in the wrong way i spent a lot of time not building my reality and it caught up with me and now i mean i've got my art behind me on the wall do art journal get outside go explore nature um look at the beauty around you and and get out of substances and get out of your head and focus on your future but also focus on the present so that's something that i wish somebody had told me and i would have listened years ago um because i would be a lot better off i focused a lot of energy on the things that i had been through and you know even made it a part of my identity oh all this abuse and blah blah blah and i just i ruminated on these things and i never really processed and got over it and nurtured my reality and took care of myself and got out of the substances so that is what i'm leaving to a lot of people if if you take one thing from what i say today take that from what i say because um honestly that is the one thing that is helping me and i'm still working on it really hard every day it's not something that i did and i just have smart up on my wall no it's something that i have to i have to convince myself to do even today like oh i haven't painted in a while or oh i haven't gone hiking in a while i need to do these things for me because i know i feel better when i do them and i treat other people better and i have more success in my life when i do these things and um so yeah and then also women um here's something i'm gonna leave for you do not be ashamed if you resort to stripping it is a very legitimate and lucrative um business and there are a lot of men who will pay thousands of dollars to sit with you in a room and do absolutely nothing with you except look at you and talk to you um do not be ashamed of it it's legitimate and you can make a lot of money doing it and i closet wish that i had started dancing when i was 20. i would have a house i would have a car that is a very good car right now i have a prius that barely runs in the driveway so if you got it don't be ashamed of it do what you have to do and be safe and work on yourself love yourself yourself first the one thing i will add to that and that was so powerful what you just said is try to help another person that has always made me feel better uh whether it's young people or older peers i love to help people and that's my own therapy it helps me by helping them and i think that's you know you're like that in a lot of ways and you're doing a great job with your kids you really are take these words to heart because you live through those life and you know what she's a better person for it and a lot a lot of respect for her have a great day everybody stay strong make one good choice a day and you'll feel a lot better about yourself have a great day everybody take care you

Channel: Larry Lawton

Views: 38,909

Keywords: dui, gangster redemption, larry lawton, reality check program, community service, police tactics DUI arrest, restraining chair, restraints, restraint chair, arrested, helping people, redemption, police custody, ex stripper, stripper, pell grant, motivational story, redemption story, code of ethics, community policing, conflict resolution, police, police reform, police training, policing, policing in america, use of force, use of restraining chair, arrest

Id: Mk0i_xsMqkg

Length: 30min 12sec (1812 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 29 2021