“The Underworld.”
I've served a total of two prison terms. The first time I was arrested, I was 18 years old, but my first stint in prison occurred when I was 22. I received a two-year sentence with half served in county jail—eight months—and the remaining four months at Wasco State Prison. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough time to learn any lessons. In fact, my mentality remained unchanged; I still harbored the same gang-banging mindset when I got out. Serving a little bit of time made me feel like I earned credibility in my activities. I hit the streets even harder.
County jail is referred to as the “Gladiator School.” There is a notorious saying, “If you can survive L.A. County Jail Mainline, you can make it anywhere in California state prisons.” And once you get incarcerated, all incarceration does is teach you how to become a collegiate scholar in The Underworld organization of gang banging. So yeah, that's exactly what it was. It taught me how to go about things in a way to specifically get away with committing crimes, and put me up on more games that I needed to know.
During this prison term, after losing my trial, I had no sense of emotion. I didn’t shed a tear. I thought I was going to feel something, but I felt absolutely nothing. I already knew that life in prison was coming, so I embraced it. My mentality was, “Well, I'm doing life in prison, what’s the point? I'm going to go as hard as I can. All gas, no breaks.” Prison instills or redefines your killer instincts and within three weeks of arrival, on February 15th, 2016—President's Day—I embarked on my first mission. Subsequently, I got charged with an attempted murder of an inmate with an inmate manufactured weapon, and I got sent to the ASU, which is the administration segregation unit for a year and a half. When I was released back to mainline I still had the same mentality, and ended up back in the SHU after a few months for distribution of a controlled substance.
It wasn’t until I turned 28 years old, when I noticed a shift in my mindset. They say the male brain fully matures in the late twenties, and for me, it was the genuine love and unwavering devotion of my then-girlfriend, Briana, that catalyzed that change. The unfeigned loyalty, and the insane love that she showed me is what eventually changed my way of thinking. I had been so used to convincing myself that this is my life, and my goal was to keep putting in work and earn more stripes. And with Briana, I tested her to see how far I could push her to see if she really did love me. I know it wasn’t a healthy mentality, but she passed with flying colors. She never veered off course. She never did anything that would give me any inkling of her doing anything wrong, and she stuck by my side through thick and thin.
It took years before it finally started to kick in, and I'm like, “man, she's still here?” She's writing to me consistently, she's driving to Delano faithfully every weekend to come see me, even while it's through glass. What else can I ask for? I don’t know if I was just getting older and wiser, but I just knew I didn't want to live the rest of my life in prison. So right there and then, I told myself I'm devoting my life to her, and to myself to make sure that I get out of prison. I owe it to myself and I owe it to her to make the best of my life.